<Prologue> While Alexander III of Macedon died and the Greek Hellenistic world was in conflict, Rome, a new country, was steadily expanding its power by establishing internal affairs. In the early days, there was no conflict with Carthage. Rather, during the Pyrrhus War, they even formed a temporary military alliance against a common enemy. In the beginning, Rome was a typical continental country, so there was no conflict of interest with Carthage, a maritime nation whose territory was limited to the Italian peninsula. However, it started when Mamertini, an Italian mercenary who served Agathocles, king of Syracuse, took over the city of Messina, a Greek colony, after the death of King Agathocles on the island of Sicily, which was a territory of Carthage
