The First Punic War (264 to 241 BC) was the first of three wars fought between Ancient Carthage and the Roman Republic. For 20 years, the two powers struggled for supremacy in the western Mediterranean Sea, primarily on the Mediterranean island of Sicily and its surrounding waters but also to a lesser extent in the Apennine peninsula and North Africa. Carthage, located in what is today Tunisia, was the dominant Western Mediterranean power at the beginning of the conflicts. However, the Roman Republic eventually emerged as the victor, imposing strict treaty conditions and heavy financial penalties against Carthage.

The series of wars between Rome and Carthage were known to the Romans as the "Punic Wars" because of the Latin name for the Carthaginians: Punici, derived from Phoenici, referring to the Carthaginians' Phoenician ancestry.

By the middle of the 3rd century BC, the Romans had secured the whole of the Italian peninsula, except Gallia Cisalpina (Po Valley). Over the course of the preceding one hundred years, Rome had defeated every rival that stood in the way of their domination of the Italian peninsula. First the Latin league was forcibly dissolved during the Latin War, then the power of the Samnites was broken during the three prolonged Samnite wars, and the Greek cities of Magna Graecia who were unified after Pyrrhus of Epirus finally submitted to Roman authority at the conclusion of the Pyrrhic War.