Explanation: After the defeat of the 2nd Punic War (itself a very prolonged conflict which devastated the Roman Republic), Rome saddled Carthage with a number of points in the resulting peace treaty which were… designed to be difficult. One such clause was that Carthage was not allowed to raise armies or wage war without Roman permission. Sounds reasonable enough, right?

Well, the thing is, Rome was ‘close’ with one of Carthage’s neighbors, the Numidians, and whenever the Numidians would raid Carthage, Carthage would have to ask Rome for permission to go to war. And wouldn’t you know it? It never felt like it was quite ‘serious’ enough for Rome to give permission. Eventually the Carthaginians got tired of this shit and raised an army to defend themselves against the Numidian raiders.

Obviously, the Romans had no choice but to start the 3rd Punic War and utterly obliterate the city of Carthage and sell everyone into slavery! That’s what they get for [checks notes] defending themselves without permission.