Weren't this region supposed to be good for farming? It certaintly doesn't have that reputation now, to my knowledge. And the same goes for North Africa/Carthage. Did that tiny strip of fertile land on the border of the mediterranean compete with the Italian peninsula as a food producer?
While there is much to discuss here, this post has a lot of good information on environmental change in that region. I particularly enjoyed the post by /u/Prufrock451, but there are many good contributions.