The correct answer is B, as an accurate description of the Punic Wars is that Rome became the dominant power in the Mediterranean after defeating Carthage.
The Punic wars refers to the three armed conflicts that faced between the years 264 BC and 146 BC the two main powers of the western Mediterranean of the time: Rome and Carthage.
The outbreak of the conflict was greatly influenced by the annexation by Rome of Magna Grecia, in the south of the Italian peninsula, but the main cause of the conflict between the two was the conflict of interests between the colonies of Carthage and the expansion of the Republic of Rome. The first clash occurred on the island of Sicily, partially under Carthaginian control. At the beginning of the first Punic War, Carthage was the dominant power in the western Mediterranean Sea, controlling an extensive maritime empire, while Rome was the emerging power in the center of the Italic peninsula. At the end of the third Punic war, and after decades of conflict, Rome conquered all the Carthaginian possessions and razed the city of Carthage, its capital, with which the Carthaginian faction disappeared from history.
As a result of these wars, Rome became the most powerful state in the western Mediterranean, which added to the end of the Macedonian wars and the defeat of the Seleucid emperor Antiochus III in the Roman-Syrian war in the eastern Mediterranean, turned the Roman Republic into the dominant power in the Mediterranean.
