In 149 BCE the Roman Republic initiated a third and final Punic war against its long-time rival, Carthage, culminating in an event rare in history: the eradication of an entire civilization.  Unlike the First Punic War (264-241 BCE) and Second Punic War (218-201 BCE) between Rome and Carthage which lasted twenty-three years and seventeen years respectively and involved campaigns throughout the Western Mediterranean, the Third Punic War (149-146 BCE) lasted only four years and was fought entirely in North Africa.  The Third Punic War was deliberately provoked by a Roman state expanding its imperium against a twice humiliated enemy. In fact, the first half of the second century BCE witnessed Roman negotiators masterfully exploiting the Carthaginian’s willingness to avoid war with Rome, steadily increasing demands and pressure until the Carthaginians had no choice but to fight. What also makes the Third Punic War interesting is that the outcome was never really in doubt. Essentially a multi-year siege of one of the Mediterranean’s great walled cities, a Roman victory was inevitable as long as the Romans followed through with men and material. Although inevitable in outcome, the Third Punic War illustrated the technical martial skills and tenacity of two ancient rivals and the cruelty of Rome as it transitioned from a regional to a Mediterranean power. 

After Carthage’s defeat at Zama in 202 BCE and the close of the Second Punic War (218-201 BCE), the brilliant Carthaginian general Hannibal Barca (247-182 BCE) was successful in meeting the punitive conditions of the Roman peace, while simultaneously cleaning-up corruption in the Carthaginian government and strengthening the economy.  However, Roman pressure on Hannibal’s political rivals forced him to flee Carthage in 195 BCE for Syria. Four years later in 191 BCE, the Carthaginians offered to pay off their annual reparations in one large payment, but Rome refused, not wanting Carthage to be released from its obligation.  That same year, Carthage even sent half of their tiny reconstituted fleet to Rome’s aid in its battle against the Hellenistic king, Antiochus III of Syria (r.222-187 BCE). Carthage had demonstrated it was a faithful ally of Rome.

Photo at right: “The Capture of Carthage” by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo (1696-1770). Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. This painting imagines Scipio Aemilianus overseeing the sack of Carthage at the conclusion of the Third Punic War.

Rome, on the other hand, kept a wary eye on their North African adversary. To keep Carthage off balance, Rome continued to support their new Numidian ally, King Masinissa (c.240-c.148 BCE), who had defected to the Roman cause and was instrumental in the final Roman victory at Zama. After the war, Rome encouraged Masinissa to seize Punic lands in North Africa and the Numidian monarch complied, launching major campaigns into Punic territory in 193, 182, 172 and 162 BCE. When Carthage sent ambassadors to Rome protesting the Numidian incursions, the Senate ignored their pleas. These invasions increased in the 150s BCE, as did the Punic pleas for Roman aid. Rome was content to use Numidia as a counterbalance to Carthaginian expansion, especially at a time when it had its hands full fighting in Spain, Macedon, and Anatolia. But a pro-war faction in the Roman Senate, led by Cato the Elder (234-149 BCE), continued to press for renewed hostilities against Carthage. In 153 BCE, Cato led a Roman delegation to Carthage to investigate the impact of Masinissa’s depredations.  While touring Carthage and its territories, Cato was awestruck by the wealth of the resurgent Punic civilization. 

When he returned to Rome, Cato’s sophistry was instrumental in the Senate’s decision to resume hostility against Carthage. The second century Roman historian Plutarch (c.45-120 CE) relates how Cato, while making a speech before the Senate, shook the folds of his toga and dropped some large African figs as if by accident. As his fellow Senators admired the size and plumpness of the figs, Cato reminded his colleagues that this produce could be found just three days away by sail in Carthage. This political theater was designed to illustrate the prosperity of Carthage, a prosperity Cato believed would eventually allow the Punic state to rise again and challenge Rome for mastery of the Mediterranean. Cato’s fear of Carthage can best be illustrated in the strange way he ended his speeches or rebuttals in the Forum with his famous proclamation, Carthago delenda est (“Carthage must be destroyed”). Cato continued to spearhead this campaign in Rome until war was declared in 149 BCE.

The situation in Carthage changed dramatically in 151 BCE when the city-state paid off its fifty-year debt with Rome and a Punic government antagonistic to Roman apathy towards Numidian transgressions came to power. No longer bound by the treaty that ended the Second Punic War and unwilling to sit back idly and watch Masinissa raid their territory, the Carthaginians raised an army of 25,000 raw recruits in response to the Numidian king’s investment of an important Punic city called Oroscopa, the location of which remains unknown.  The Numidians easily crushed the inexperience army, but a witness to this defeat, the Roman tribune Publius Cornelius Scipio Aemilianus, reported back to the Roman Senate and his description was construed as a Carthaginian violation of its treaty with Rome. Tensions rose over the next two years as Punic attempts to placate the Romans were refused.  In 149 BCE Rome declared war on Carthage and prepared for a North African campaign.

THE AFRICAN LANDINGS AND THE EARLY CAMPAIGNS

Even before war was declared, the important North African harbor town of Utica defected to the Romans, providing Rome with an ideal base for the attack on Carthage.  As in the Second Punic War campaign of 205-204 BCE, the Romans used the city of Lilybaeum in Sicily as a staging area before crossing the Mediterranean and landing in Utica in 149 BCE.  Because of the importance of this military adventure, the Roman Senate had dispatched both consuls on this campaign.  Manius Manilius was placed in command of the army, while Lucius Marcius Censorinus commanded the fleet.  The Carthaginians sent a final embassy to the consuls’ headquarters at Utica.  Censorinus met the delegation, demanding that Carthage hand over massive amounts of military equipment, including panoplies and siege engines, as well as large numbers of javelins, arrows, and siege ammunition. After Carthage reluctantly agreed. Censorinus upped the ante, demanding that the citizens of Carthage abandon their capital and move to a new settlement of their choice, providing it was ten miles inland from the coast.  The Roman consul told the Carthaginian envoys that their city would then be razed.  After being roughly ejected from the Roman camp, the Carthaginian delegation returned to their city and relayed the Roman demands.  The Carthaginian government rejected these harsh demands, going as far as to kill any Carthaginian sympathetic to the Roman position in their ranks, as well as any Italian merchants unlucky enough to be in the city that night. Recognizing the intractable position of their enemy, the Carthaginians finally declared war on Rome. The third and last Punic war was now on.      

Appian (c.95-c.165 CE), an ethnically Greek historian with Roman citizenship, claims the Roman army which assembled at Scipio Africanus’ old fortress Castra Cornelia was the largest Roman army fielded since the battle of Cannae in 216 BCE, consisting of 80,000 infantry and 4,000 cavalry and supported by fifty quinqueremes and one hundred smaller galleys. Our source tells us that there was no shortage of recruits for the African campaign, with volunteers streaming in from all over the Roman Republic to fill the troop rosters. The possibility of an easy victory over Rome’s greatest adversary no doubt attracted these men, as did the prospect of sacking the only city in the western Mediterranean which rivaled Rome’s opulence. 

Photo at right: The Western Mediterranean on the Eve of the Third Punic War, c.150 BCE. Source: Wikipedia. In the Public Domain.

A large army would be needed to breach the impressive walls of Carthage. The city was protected by twenty-two miles of circuit walls and difficult to siege and blockade because of its unique defensive position and large, well-defended harbors.  A triple-line of defense protected the western approach to the city on its landward side, beginning with a sixty-foot-wide ditch and timber palisade, backed by a wall over fifty feet in height and thirty feet wide, with towers placed at two hundred feet intervals.  This wall was built across the 3,000-yard-wide isthmus and was divided into two stories.  Appian tells us that in the lower space there were stables for 300 elephants, while above there were stables for 4,000 horses.  This wall also contained barracks for 20,000 infantry and 4,000 cavalrymen.  Despite fifty-years of manpower restrictions, the Carthaginians were able to muster enough defenders to man the walls, although the relinquishing of critical armor and siege equipment must have weakened the defenders’ position. 

The Romans attacked Carthage from two directions.  The consul Manius Manilius led his legionaries against the northern wall protecting the isthmus, while the other consul, Lucius Marcius Censorinus, used the Roman fleet to attack a weak stretch of wall near a narrow spit of land edging Lake Tunis to the south of the city.  Here, legionaries using scaling ladders mounted on the prows of warships tried to climb the wall.  Both attacks were met with a hail of missile fire from Carthage’s walls, forcing the attacking Romans to retreat.  Manilius and Censorinus attempted a second assault with the same results.  Unable to quickly storm their objective, the Romans settled in for a longer siege and constructed camps near the city’s long walls. 

The Roman siege was complicated by the existence of a strong Carthaginian presence outside of the walls, an army of 30,000 led by a man named Hasdrubal.  This Punic force harassed the Roman lines, while another under the command of one Himilco Phameas massacred a Roman foraging party gathering wood, killing five hundred soldiers.  Manilius was able to secure enough wood to construct ladders and a third assault against Carthage’s northern walls was tried but failed to breach the span. 

Meanwhile, Censorinus continued his assault against the southern wall, filling in a part of the lake in order to utilize two large battering rams.  Appian tell us that 6,000 men manned these massive machines apiece, the first with a crew made up of legionaries and commanded by tribunes, and the second made up of sailors and officers from the fleet.  Appian believed the consul used the service rivalry to spur a competition to breach the walls.  It worked, as two breaches were made, but the Carthaginians managed to drive the Romans back late in the day, executing repairs on the wall that evening. The Punic defenders even managed to sortie out under cover of darkness and burn both battering rams, making both engines inoperable.  Unfortunately, the Carthaginians were unable complete their repairs, providing the Romans with another opportunity to enter the city.  To defend this gap, The Punic defenders formed a makeshift and poorly armed mob behind the breach and stationed throngs of missile throwers on the walls and on the roofs of nearby homes.  Taunted by the Punic defenders, the Romans hastily organized an assault, but the attack was poorly organized and bogged down after the initial push through the walls.  It is at this moment that one of the military tribunes, Publius Cornelius Scipio Aemilianus (185-129 BCE), the same man whose report back to the Senate in 151 BCE helped escalate tensions between Rome and Carthage, enhanced his military reputation by holding back his men from the initial assault and covering the Roman retreat when the attack began to disintegrate, and the legionaries were expelled from the city. 

Scipio Aemilianus’ actions are significant in that he was the only senior military officer to win distinction during the early phases of the Third Punic War, raising his stock in the eyes of the Roman Senate back home.  No doubt, Scipio’s impressive lineage helped keep the Senate focused on his career.  Already from a very prominent family (his father was Lucius Aemilius Paullus, the architect of Rome’s victory in the Third Macedonian War between 171-168 BCE), Scipio Aemilianus was adopted by Publius Scipio, the son of Scipio Africanus, the victor at Zama.  Roman custom allowed for the adoption of young men between prominent families, and Scipio Aemilianus connection to two of the most prominent families in Rome placed enormous pressure on the young tribune to succeed.  Groomed since birth to be a military leader, Scipio saw his first combat at seventeen years old at the battle of Pydna in 168 BCE during the Third Macedonian War (171-168 BCE) where his enthusiastic pursuit of the enemy nearly had him declared missing in action. Later in 151 BCE, he would take the position of tribune in the Spanish campaign, even personally killing an enemy champion in single combat. It was perhaps his service in Spain that taught Scipio the importance of maintaining a reserve and cautious pursuit, for Spanish tribes were quick to punish careless attackers. 

Photo at right: Map of Carthage during the Third Punic War. Source: Wikipedia. In the Public Domain.

The Roman strategic position eroded further when disease began to spread throughout Censorinus’ camp near the shore of Lake Tunis, forcing the tribune to move his camp closer to the sea.  The Carthaginians also sent fire ships against the Roman fleet, coming, according to Appian, “a little short of destroying the whole fleet.”  Emboldened, the defenders launched a nocturnal attack against Manilius’ camp on the isthmus, crossing the Roman defensive ditches with planks and tearing down the wooden palisades.  As the Romans within the camp panicked at the suddenness of the attack, Scipio Aemilianus led a cavalry detachment out of the rear gate and swung around the camp, striking the attacking Carthaginians in the flank, scattering the Punic troops.  After this near-disaster, Manilius strengthened the defenses of the camp and constructed another fort near the shore to cover Roman supply ships as they unload their cargo.  Unable to quickly take Carthage over the campaigning season, the Roman expedition was settling in for the winter. 

Censorinus returned to Rome to oversee the election of new consuls, leaving his colleague to continue the siege.  Manilius organized a strong contingent of 10,000 Roman infantry and 2,000 cavalry to punish the loyal regions around Carthage and forage for food and wood for the winter.  The Roman’s inexperience precipitated disaster as groups of foragers were attacked by Himilco Phameas and his Numidian and Moorish allies, leading to terrible loss of life.  Once again, Scipio showed his military acumen by keeping his foragers close to his troops and supporting the infantry guards with cavalry.  When Manilius brought his column back to the main Roman camp, the Carthaginians mounted another night attack, this time against the small fortress protecting the Roman fleet.  As the Punic forces threatened the smaller fort, Scipio took 300 Roman cavalry armed with torches into the night to create an impression of a larger force. The ruse worked and the Punic forces withdrew.  

Unable to bring a decisive conclusion to the siege, Manilius decided to seek out Hasdrubal’s main army and destroy it.  Hasdrubal was camped around the city of Nepheris, about twenty miles southeast of Tunis.  The Carthaginian general made his camp on higher ground beyond a small river at the end of a valley, a very defendable position and one that forced the Romans to attack in column and not in line.  Although Scipio Africanus was able to use this very difficult maneuver at the battle of Ilipa in 206 BCE during the Second Punic War, the tactical articulation of the Roman army during the Third Punic War was not nearly as refined as a half century before.  Ignoring this fact and against the protests of Scipio Aemilianus, Manilius ordered a direct assault against the Punic position straight out of the march, not bothering to fortify his own camp and rest.  Perhaps the Roman consul believed surprise would serve him well, and his men did initially make some headway, fording the river and pushing the Carthaginians back up the slope. Hasdrubal waited patiently as the Roman troops tired and began to pull back, then ordered a ferocious counterattack. Bottle-necked at the ford, the legionaries were cut down by the Punic troops.  Once again, Scipio saved the day, taking his contingent of 300 cavalry, and any other Roman horsemen he could gather along the way, and galloping towards the ford.  Once there, Scipio divided his horsemen into two groups and led a series of controlled charges against the pursuing enemy, keeping his lines close and revolving his cavalry attacks in order to keep constant pressure on the enemy lines.  His decisive intervention allowed the majority of the legionaries to cross the river to safety, with his own horsemen barely making it across the ford.  Scipio went on to lead another daring rescue mission, freeing four Roman units (probably maniples) who had taken refuge on a hill at the beginning of the melee.  Scipio even managed to secure the bodies of several fallen tribunes from Hasdrubal, illustrating his penchant for negotiating with the enemy. 

The fact that it was Scipio, and not the consul and commander Manilius, who negotiated for the return of these fallen officers illustrates the young tribune’s understanding of North African culture and the personal relationships forged with Punic and Numidian leaders in the years before the start of the war.  At times, these relationships spurred rumors of collaboration (often spread by the tribune’s jealous rivals in the Roman army), but Scipio’s knowledge of his enemy made him a better commander in the field, while also placing him in a stronger position to take on greater responsibility as the war continued.  Perhaps more interestingly, Scipio’s lineage as the adopted grandson of Africanus presented an unusual opportunity for the Roman cause in North Africa.  When ninety-year-old King Masinissa died in the early months of 148, his will called for Scipio to oversee the division of his assets among the old king’s three legitimate sons.  Scipio completed this task, and persuaded one of these sons, the Numidian prince Gulussa, to join the Roman effort against Carthage.

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Overall, the Roman expedition against Hasdrubal’s camp near Nepheris was a disaster, and the Roman column was even attacked again by Himilco while trying to return to the main Roman camps near Carthage.  The consul would mount a second, better organized, attack against Nepheris in the early spring of 148 BCE, but this campaign also did not destroy Hasdrubal’s army.  The only bright spot in this second campaign was the defection of Himilco Phameas and 2,200 of his cavalry to the Roman cause, an act secretly negotiated by Scipio.  When Scipio was called back to Rome in 148 BCE, Himilco accompanied him to the Senate, where he received, according to Appian, “a purple robe with gold clasps, a horse with gold trappings,” as well as a fully furnished tent and great sums of silver.  Scipio Aemilianus had in Himilco what his grandfather secured in his alliance with Masinissa—a faithful North African ally in his war with Carthage.   

THE SIEGE PERFECTED, 147 BCE

While in the Eternal City, Scipio planned to stand for the office of Curule Aedile, a logical next step for a young, well-connected patrician.  But his name was submitted by the Comitia Centuriata as a candidate for the consulship of Rome for 147-146 BCE.  As a man of thirty-six or thirty-seven, he was still a few years short of the minimum age of forty needed to stand for consul. This technicality was overcome with a Senatorial annulment of the old law, allowing Scipio to stand for election, just as his underage grandfather had done in 205 BCE.  Granted Africa as his command region, Scipio raised a new army from volunteers and returned to the war, sailing first to Sicily, then on to Utica.    

Roman actions during the earlier campaigning year (148 BCE) made little headway in North Africa.  The consul in charge, Lucius Calpurnius Piso Caesoninus, kept a loose blockade around Carthage, but placed more emphasis on subduing cities in the region.  Unfortunately, no strategically important cities were taken, and the campaigning season ended without any significant gains.  Hasdrubal, the leader at Nepheris, assumed command in Carthage and, after disposing of his rivals, continued the defense of the city.  

As the Roman blockade of Carthage continued into early 147 BCE, the Roman commander of the fleet, Lucius Hostilius Mancinus, decided to exploit an apparent weak spot in the city’s defense, a section where the natural defenses were so strong that a strong wall seemed unnecessary.  Mancinus sent men with ladders to scale the cliffs, but their assault was noticed by the Punic defenders, who sallied out of a nearby gate to attack the Romans.  The Romans soon put the Carthaginians to flight, and then pursued the enemy through the portal and into the city.  Mancinus poured all of his available resources into the city.  Unfortunately, of these 3,500 men, only about 500 were fully equipped legionaries, while the rest were poorly armed and armored sailors.  After nearly two years, a small corner of Carthage was now in Roman hands.  Well aware that his men did not have adequate supplies to hold the city, Mancinus sent messengers to the consul Piso (who commanded the field army) and the Roman base at Utica asking for reinforcements.  As luck would have it, Scipio had arrived in Utica that evening and immediately prepared an expedition to relieve Mancinus.  After releasing some Punic prisoners with the hope that his arrival would strike fear in the Carthaginians, Scipio set sail in the early morning for Carthage.  First light brought a renewed attack against Mancinus and his men, an attack which only stalled when Scipio’s fleet came into view, with legionaries crowding the decks to suggest the arrival of a new army from Italy.  There was enough of a pause in the fighting to allow Mancinus and his men to escape the city on the decks of Roman ships.     

Photo at right: Right part of a plaque from the Altar of Domitius Ahenobarbus depicting two mid-Republic era Roman legionaries. Roman marble artwork of the late 2nd century BCE. From the Campo Marzio, Rome.  Source: Wikimedia. In the Public Domain.    

Assuming command of the African campaign, Scipio concentrated his army outside of Carthage, reinvigorating a strategy with the capture of the Punic capital as its centerpiece.  The new consul inspected his troops, dismissing those men who he felt were there to loot and not to fight.  A year of battlefield reverses weighed heavily on the remaining Roman veterans, and the task of integrating raw recruits brought from Italy compounded the problem.  Scipio understood that he did not have sufficient time to fully train his new army, but he also understood the importance of military success in healing the psychological wounds inflicted by the long siege.  Mancinus’ successful capture of a corner of Carthage inspired the young consul, and he ordered two simultaneous Roman assaults against the Megara, one of the largest suburbs surrounding the Byrsa or old citadel. These attacks were launched at night and against two widely separated sections of the wall.  Punic defenders hurling missiles repulsed these two assaults, but the Romans were able to seize an abandoned tower next to the wall.  Using planks as a gangway, the Romans bridged the gap and fought their way onto the rampart, finally seizing a nearby gate and admitting Scipio and 4,000 of his legionaries.  The Punic defenders panicked, fleeing back to the protection of the Byrsa.  Scipio and his men slowly moved through the dark streets and city orchards and gardens but were wary of the many areas suitable for ambush and disturbed by the lack of defendable positions in this area of the city.  Wisely, Scipio ordered a withdrawal from the city back to his main camp.

The success of the Roman assault greatly upset Hasdrubal, who reacted to the incursion by ordering Roman prisoners taken to the walls and tortured to death in full view of their comrades, an act incensing the Italian besiegers.  This was the action of a desperate commander.  Hasdrubal understood his city was now very vulnerable to storm and he wanted to send a message to his own population that the Romans, should they enter the city again, would not show any quarter.  This act angered some members of Carthaginian Council of Elders, but when they protested, Hasdrubal had them arrested and executed. 

Scipio recognized that he now possessed the initiative in the siege, and he pressed his advantage by instituting a tighter blockade of the city.  The consul ordered the abandoned camp by Lake Tunis to be burned, and then moved his own main camp closer to the Carthage’ walls on the isthmus. Scipio fortified this new position in the traditional rectangular manner, taking twenty days and nights to dig ditches (filled with sharp stakes) and erect a rampart twelve-feet high with towers at regular intervals and a tall tower in the middle of the wall facing Carthage to function as an observation post.  Appian states that this tower was tall enough for Scipio to observe what was going on in the streets of Carthage.  Roman commanders had long used engineering projects to impose drill and discipline among their soldiers, and the construction of such a large camp no doubt helped build an esprit de corps among the troops, helping to integrate the new recruits with the veterans.  This new Roman fort dominated access to the city on the landward side. 

With the isthmus under Roman control, Scipio next tackled the porous nature of the naval blockade.  Throughout the Roman siege of Carthage, Punic ships regularly ran the blockade and brought much needed supplies into the city via the seventy-foot-wide harbor entrance.  These supplies were essential in supporting the fighting spirit of Hasdrubal’s 30,000 active defenders, though this was done at the expense of the rest of the population, creating a famine in the city.  Scipio decided to cut off the harbor with the construction of a mole, hoping to seal the fate of the city. The mole was designed to cut across the harbor entrance from the isthmus to an earthen tongue or natural quay which projected outward on the seaward side of the harbor entrance.

As the Romans went about the business of filling the causeway, the Punic defenders began to secretly cut a new channel to the sea, with work being done at night using all available labor, including women and children.  In addition to cutting a new passage, the Carthaginians used the wood within the city to construct a fleet of fifty triremes and lighter support ships from scratch. Appian tells us that the Romans knew nothing of either activity until dawn one morning when the fleet sailed from the mouth of the harbor using the new passage.  The sudden appearance of this sizable fleet unnerved the Romans, but inexplicably, the Carthaginians did not seize the element of surprise and immediately attack the Roman fleet, but instead took the ships out for sea trials before returning to the safety of the harbor.  It was only three days later that the Punic fleet sailed out again, this time with the intent of engaging the Roman flotilla.  The sea battle that took place near the coastline of Carthage was the last naval engagement of the Punic Empire.  Appian tells us that:

Loud were the cheers on both sides as they came together, and rowers, steersmen, and marines exerted themselves to the utmost, this being the last hope of safety for the Carthaginians and of complete victory for the Romans.  The fight raged until midday, many blows and wounds being given and received on both sides.  During the battle the Carthaginian small boats, running against the oarage of the Roman ships, which were taller, stove holes in their sterns and broke off their oars and rudders, and damaged them considerably in other ways, advancing and retreating nimbly. 

Despite the greater maneuverability of the triremes verses the larger Roman quinqueremes, this battle ended in stalemate.  The Punic ships were ordered to withdraw back into the Great Harbor, probably to repair and refit and fight again the next day.  During this retreat, the Carthaginian’s situation began to disintegrate when the smallest vessels tried entered the newly cut passage.  Here, some of the smaller ships collided, blocking the entrance.  Unable to return to the harbor, the remaining Punic ships pulled back and moored against the stretch of the earthen quay previously used to unload merchant ships too large to enter the harbor.  This quay had been fortified over the duration of the siege with a rampart designed to deny the Romans with this landing by which to mount an assault.  The Punic captains adroitly backed their ships up to this landing, bow rams facing outward.  The Roman ships attacked this position but suffered heavy casualties from the defending ships and defenders attacking the vessels from the rampart before finally gaining an advantage.  Appian tells us that “many” of the Carthaginian warships were able to escape back into the harbor, presumably after the removal of the damaged ships. 

Photo at right: Found in a tomb at Ksour-es-Sad in Tunisia, this ornate bronze triple disc cuirass is of southern Italian origin and dates to the time of the Second or Third Punic conflicts. Bardo Museum, Tunis.  Source: Wikimedia. In the Public Domain.

Scipio now recognized that the capturing the earthen quay provided the Romans with their best opportunity to enter the city.  He ordered his legionaries to attack the quay’s rampart across the newly constructed mole.  Huge siege engines and battering rams were pulled into position, and the wall was successfully breached in several places.  But brave Carthaginians swam naked across the harbor with dry torches and set many of these artillery pieces and rams on fire, causing the Roman forces manning the engines to rout.  Fearing the loss of this strategically important position, Scipio led a cavalry charge across the mole in an attempt to restore order.  When the fleeing soldiers refused to stop, Scipio and his horsemen cut them down. 

In the morning, the Carthaginians began to repair the rampart, free from the molestation of Roman arms.  Although new towers were constructed, the Punic fighters were not able to stop the Romans from renewing their efforts.  Scipio ordered the construction of new siege engines and assault ramps, and the Romans were eventually able to force the Carthaginians to abandon the ramparts.  Scipio next commanded the construction of a brick wall on the quay, one facing the main city wall and equal to its height.  It was a large wall, for Appian says it was capable of holding 4,000 Roman attackers.  This massive project took until the autumn of 147 BCE to complete.  Scipio would mount the final assault on the city from this position when the campaigning season began again in the spring of 146 BCE.

THE FALL OF CARTHAGE, 146 BCE

Before Scipio could launch the final attack on Carthage, he needed to destroy the Punic army wintering in the well-defended position outside of Nepheris.  Taking note of Manilius’ botched campaign two years before, Scipio approached the enemy carefully, breaching the encampment’s walls and then feeding his own reserves inside as another party attacked the far side of the camp.  Those Punic defenders which did manage to escape were hunted down by the Numidian prince Gulussa and his cavalry and elephants.  Appian recounts a “great slaughter took place, with as many as 70,000, including women and children, being killed.”  Scipio went on to take the city of Nepheris itself.  Soon, all of the nearby communities yielded to the Romans.  Scipio was now free to complete the reduction of Carthage without fearing an enemy army at his rear.   

When the new Roman year began in March 146 BCE, the Senate rewarded Scipio with a continuation of his imperium in North Africa, allowing the former consul to complete his task of taking the Carthaginian capital.  The main assault on the city was renewed that spring, using the newly fortified quay as the base of operations.  Fearing this, Hasdrubal set the warehouses on fire in the rectangular civilian harbor next to the newly erected Roman wall.  Despite this action, it was near this area that one of Scipio’s lieutenants, a man named Gaius Laelius, led a raiding party at night over the walls and into the innermost and round military harbor.  Punic resistance was light, allowing Laelius to press into the city itself, seizing the Agora (marketplace) next to the square civilian harbor.  In the morning, Scipio personally led a force of 4,000 legionaries into the city to support his lieutenant.  As the Roman soldiers moved through the city streets, the gilded Temple of Apollo caught their eye, and the troops broke rank and stripped the temple of all of its gold, reportedly equivalent to the amount of 10,000 talents.  Scipio and his officers were unable to persuade their men to return to duty until the religious building was thoroughly picked over.  This pillaging stands in stark contrast to the discipline shown by Scipio Africanus’ legionaries when they stormed New Carthage in 209 BCE during the Second Punic War.  Long gone were the days of Roman military restraint and the even distribution of all booty seized by soldiers during the storm of a city. Only after a thorough sacking of the temple did Scipio’s men rejoin their general and continue deeper into the city towards their target, the Byrsa citadel.  

As the Romans began to slowly ascend the hill towards the Byrsa, the Carthaginian defenders made their presence known. Appian describes three boulevards sloping up from the captured Agora to the Byrsa, each flanked by tall buildings, some as high as six stories.  Carthage, as a Hellenistic city, was built on a rectangular grid pattern, with each building often having a central courtyard and garden.  The main streets were twenty-one feet wide, while side streets were narrow, averaging only sixteen feet in width. According to Appian

"The streets leading from the market square to the Byrsa were flanked by houses of six stories from which the defenders poured a shower missiles onto the Romans: when the attackers got inside the buildings the struggle continued on the roofs and on the planks covering the empty spaces; many were hurled to the ground or onto the weapons of those fighting in the streets.  Scipio ordered all of the sector to be burned and the ruins cleared away to give a better passage to his troops, and as this was done there fell with the walls many bodies of those who had hidden in the upper story and been burned to death, and others who were still alive, wounded and badly burnt.  Scipio had squadrons of soldiers ready to keep the streets clear for the rapid movement of his men, and dead or living were thrown together into pits, and it often happened that those who were not dead yet were crushed by the cavalry horses as they passed, not deliberately, but in the heat of battle."

Urban fighting in any era is a grisly business, with soldiers clearing buildings floor by floor and subject to sudden ambush from unfamiliar doors, halls, and stairwells.  After the first buildings were taken, legionaries laid planks from rooftop to rooftop across the alleyways and then cleared adjacent buildings, allowing the soldiers in the street to slowly continue up the hill toward the Byrsa.  Once the citadel was reached, Scipio ordered the buildings running along the streets to be burned behind him.  This was done to create a larger path suitable for the siege engines and reinforcements needed for the reduction of the citadel.  As the buildings fell, Roman working parties filled the holes and leveled the wreckage, creating solid wider paths.  This project took six days to complete.  Scipio was now ready to attack the walls of the Byrsa itself.

The following day, a Carthaginian delegation carrying olive branches walked out of the Byrsa offering to surrender.  Scipio granted the request, and a throng of 50,000 men, women and children appeared from the gates, only to be sold into slavery by their Roman captors.  Only the Roman and Italian deserters, some 900 in number, refused to surrender. These men barricaded themselves into the Temple of Aesculapius, where they eventually burned themselves alive rather than be taken by the Romans.  Hasdrubal, abandoning his wife and children, surrendered to the Romans, while his wife killed their children and then herself.    

Photo at right: The ruins of the Punic Quarter on the Byrsa Hill, Carthage, Tunisia. After the fall of Carthage to the Romans, the city became the provincial capital of Rome’s first North African province and continue to have a vibrant economic life for hundreds of years. Source: Wikimedia. In the Public Domain.

With the Byrsa now in Roman hands, the siege of Carthage was complete.  Scipio allowed, according to Roman custom, his soldiers several days of pillage.  Interestingly, he did place the cities’ temples off limits and denied those men who sacked the Temple of Apollo from sharing in the spoils.  Some of the plunder was placed on a messenger ship and sent to Rome, precipitating rejoicing throughout the city.  Rome sent a commission consisting of ten Senators to Carthage to supervise Scipio’s razing of the city.  Although the complete destruction of Carthage is a myth (archaeologists have found several walls dating back to this period), the days of the Punic Empire were no more.  Those cities which had sided with Carthage were also destroyed, while those which had aided Rome were rewarded with freedom and grants of former Carthaginian lands.  Finally, some 5,000 square miles were annexed to form the new Roman province of “Africa”, eventually giving the continent its namesake.

Scipio Aemilianus returned to Rome and celebrated a triumph fit for a general who had destroyed Carthage. Like his grandfather, he took the sobriquet “Africanus” but would be referred to as “Africanus the Younger” in history.  He even served as consul again in 134 BCE, returning to Spain where he finally subdued the peninsula, ending the Third Celtiberian War (143-133 BCE). Scipio Aemilianus Africanus died in 129 BCE, a celebrated man who stood for the ideal second century aristocrat—an honorable Roman soldier and statesman who appreciated Greek culture. 

The three Punic wars transformed Roman civilization forever. When Roman legions crossed the Strait of Messina in 264 BCE, Rome was an Italian power with limited regional aspirations.  By the conclusion of the Third Punic War in 146 BCE the Roman state had not only become accustomed to frequent and large-scale foreign wars, it was also becoming accustomed to supporting a large army and governing foreign provinces.  Over the course of these wars Rome was flooded with immense amounts of treasure and slave labor from the conquered regions, transforming the Roman social order.  A new class of wealthy Plebeians challenged the primacy of the Patrician class, initiating ferocious political competition and the rise of demagoguery.  The Roman free farmer, once the backbone of the Roman economy and a traditional source of military manpower, was displaced by the rise of the corporate farm or latifundia.  Displaced farmers fled to the cities, swelling the ranks of the urban poor, and creating a new political class that would influence Roman politics for centuries. Conquests continued in the first century BCE, with Rome adding provinces in North Africa, the Levant, Transalpine Gaul, and Egypt to its holdings and greatly expanding the wealth of the Roman elite.  In the end, Rome’s republican system would be unable to manage these problems, starting a century of civil war, dictatorship, triumvirs, and ultimately, the institution of monarchy under Caesar Augustus in 27 BCE.  The future Roman Empire was cast in the crucible of the Punic wars.

SUGGESTED READINGS

Primary Sources

 Appian. Roman History. Translated by Horace White. 4 vols. Loeb Classical Library. Macmillan, 1912-1913.

 Livy. Rome and the Mediterranean. Translated by Henry Bettenson. Penguin Books, 1976.

 Plutarch. Roman Lives. Translated by Robin Waterfield. Oxford World Classics. Oxford University Press, 1999. 

 Polybius. The Rise of the Roman Empire. Translated by Ian Scott-Kilvert. New York: Penguin Books, 1979.

 Secondary Sources

 Bagnell, Nigel. The Punic Wars: Rome, Carthage, and the Struggle for the Mediterranean.  Thomas Dunne Books, 1990.

 Carey, Brian Todd et al Hannibal’s Last Battle: Zama and the Fall of Carthage. Westholme Publishing, 2008.

 Goldsworthy, Adrian Keith. The Punic Wars. Cassell and Company, 2000.

 Lancel, Serge. Carthage. Translated by Antonia Nevill. Blackwell Publishing, 1995.

 Miles, Richard. Carthage Must Be Destroyed: The Rise and Fall of an Ancient Civilization. Penguin, 2011.  

 Santosuosso, Antonio. Soldiers, Citizens and the Symbols of War From Classical Greece to Republican Rome, 500-167 BC.  Westview Press, 1997.