READING HALL

THE DOORS OF WISDOM 2025

HISTORY OF ROME.THE WAR FOR SUPREMACY IN THE EAST

CHAPTER V.

THE THIRD WAR WITH CARTHAGE, 149-146 B.C.

The wars by which Rome obtained the dominion over the countries east of the Mediterranean did not last for more than two generations. During the greater part of this period Rome was at peace with Carthage.

But the struggle between the rival republics, which had occupied an equal period and had strained the combatants to the utmost of their resources, could not be looked upon as finally determined by the conclusion of peace in 201 BC. It had been carried on, first, to settle the question of pre-eminence, and finally to secure bare existence. Fear and hatred had worked so deep into the minds of the Romans, that they could not with indifference suffer Carthage to exist by their side as an independent, flourishing, and powerful state. In the long war Carthage had, it is true, become thoroughly weakened and could no longer be formidable to Rome. But memory and imagination often impress men quite as much as real facts. Conquered and humbled Carthage was still to the Romans the same state which with its armies had overrun and harassed Italy for fifteen long years, and which, after the defeat of the first war, had so rapidly recovered its former power. Who could foresee and venture to assert that this same Carthage was for ever fallen from her high rank, that she now belonged to the class of second-rate powers, that she could never resume the struggle, never seek an opportunity for attacking Rome in conjunction with other enemies? Was not the man still living who had sworn eternal enmity to Rome, and who in his fertile mind possessed incalculable resources? Nor was Hannibal alive merely; he was even guiding the policy of Carthage. No one could believe that he would so guide it as to preserve a lasting peace with Rome. It was to be expected that he would be continually on the watch to discover an unprotected part where lie might give the hated rival a mortal blow.

With such feelings and convictions the Romans had concluded the peace of 201 BC, and had watched over the carrying out of its conditions. By this peace Carthage was bound hand and foot, and was placed under the surveillance of Masinissa, the most effective instrument that Roman policy ever made use of to further her interests. It was stipulated in the peace that the Carthaginians should give up to this Numidian prince all the land and the towns that had ever belonged to him or to any of his predecessors. It was further required that Carthage should not wage war with any allies of Rome. These two conditions of peace became in the hands of Masinissa and the senate an instrument with which they could at pleasure annoy, harass, worry, and torture to death their cowed and exhausted enemy. To this power was added a will which knew nothing of magnanimity, pity, or shame, and, moreover, a glowing hatred which could not be extinguished until Carthage sank into a heap of ruins.

The time from the peace of 201 to the breaking out of the war of extermination in 149 was filled with uninterrupted attacks of Masinissa against the integrity of the Carthaginian possessions. In his attempts at spoliation he felt that he was justified by the favour of his friends in Rome, and he was actually urged to make them, whilst on the other side the Carthaginians were precluded by the conditions of peace from offering any direct resistance, and compelled to appeal to the arbitration of Rome. The parts of the Carthaginian dominion most coveted by Masinissa were the so-called Emporia, the rich and fertile districts on the coast of the lesser Syrtis. He maintained that the Carthaginians had unjustly conquered this district from his predecessors, and that he was therefore entitled to reunite it with his kingdom. In truth, there was in the whole of Africa not a square foot of land, with the single exception of the site of Carthage itself, which the original Phoenician colonists had not acquired by force; and if Masinissa acted upon the principle now laid down, he was entitled to claim the whole of the Carthaginian territory. He had, indeed, not only the right but the power to do so. As an ally of Rome, he was safe from the arms of Carthage, and therefore he did not hesitate at once to invade the territories which he coveted, and to occupy the open country and the unfortified towns. The Carthaginians complained in Rome (193 BC). The Romans had not even the shadow of a substantial charge against Carthage. On the contrary, they were obliged to acknowledge that since the peace Carthage had acted loyally. When in Italian Gaul a leader of the name of Hamilcar, left behind by the army of Mago, had continued the war at the head of a troop of Gauls, he had, at the request of Rome, been not only disowned by Carthage, but even proscribed. Carthage had voluntarily sent large supplies of corn to Rome and Greece, to support the Romans in the war with Philip. After Hannibal’s flight from Carthage, the reforms which he had made were probably abolished, and the aristocratic party, which was inclined to be on friendly terms with Rome, regained power. There was thus clearly no danger that Carthage would violate her neutrality, or be swayed in her policy by the instigations which, it was reported, came from Hannibal. Nevertheless, the Romans could not shake off all fear of Punic schemes of revenge. Even a Scipio degraded himself by adopting that perfidious policy which encouraged the continual disputes between Carthage and Masinissa as a security from Carthaginian machinations. When he arrived in Africa to decide the question relating to the Emporia, he purposely left the matter enveloped in doubt. Thus we find in Africa the same policy at work with which the Romans, instead of establishing peace among the contending Greek states, encouraged enmity among them. The glowing embers accordingly from time to time burst forth into new flames. We hear of disputes between Carthage and Masinissa in the year 182 BC. Masinissa had taken possession of another strip of land, probably to the west of Carthage, which, as he said, had been taken from his father, Gala, by Syphax, who ceded it to the Carthaginians. Again, the Carthaginians were prevented by the terms of peace from asserting their right. The dispute was referred to Rome. A senatorial deputation went to Africa, and decided that Masinissa should remain in possession of the land until the senate itself had judged the case. What this judgment was, Livy does not tell us. But, in all probability, the possession of the tract in question as assigned to the Numidian king. Probably the quarrel about the Emporia was also settled at the same time in favour of Masinissa, so that the Numidian chief obtained this district, and the Carthaginians were besides compelled to pay him a compensation of live hundred talents. The claims of Masinissa were now looked upon as satisfied, and thus peace was apparently established between him and Carthage (181 BC).

We hear nothing more from this time of the quarrels in Africa until the beginning of the new complication between Rome and Macedonia, which led to the war with Perseus. But in the year 174 BC Masinissa again brought a complaint against the Carthaginians. A Roman embassy had gone to Africa chiefly, it seems, for the purpose of ascertaining the sentiments and the designs of Carthage. Masiniss. did all that was in his power to calumniate the Carthaginians before these ambassadors, and to draw upon them the suspicion of having carried on negotiations with Perseus. Probably he hoped thus to obtain permission from the Romans quietly to pursue his course of action, which consisted in advancing systematically, and conquering one strip of Carthaginian territory after another. Two years later (172 BC) his plans had been so far carried out that he had again taken more than seventy towns and castles by force of arms. The Carthaginians, in the greatest distress, begged and implored the senate to settle once for all the boundary line between their territory and that of the king of Numidia, or else to allow them to take up arms in this just war. “It would be better”, they said, “to live as slaves of the Romans than to possess a liberty exposed to the insolence of Masinissa. Nay, utter ruin was preferable to a condition in which they were dependent upon the grace of so cruel a tormentor”.

Whether because the senate was now displeased with violence of Masinissa, or because they thought proper to keep him a little within bounds, it was notified to him that he had gone too far. Perhaps he was even compelled to give up his last conquest. This we gather from the fact that, though he sent provisions and auxiliaries at the beginning of the war with Perseus, it is reported that lie nevertheless expected greater advantage from a Roman defeat than from a victory; for whilst in the former case he would have supreme power in Africa, in the latter he would still have the Romans over him as lords, and they might again find it in their interest, as on the present occasion, to protect the Carthaginians from his aggression. It was evidently in the interest of the Romans not to drive Carthage to despair when they were entering on the final struggle with Perseus. They were always wise enough at a critical moment not to despise any enemy; and they often succeeded, by skilful policy, in separating their adversaries, and then overcoming them singly.

The Carthaginians, therefore, now gave up the idea of an alliance with Perseus, and hoped by loyally adhering to the treaty with Rome to be protected from their encroaching and still insatiable neighbour. They showed their gratitude to Rome by sending cargoes of corn to the Roman armies. For a short time, accordingly, they were allowed to remain in peace. They seemed to be sufficiently humbled and weakened, and might now be treated graciously, whilst their oppressor, Masinissa, like king Eumenes of Pergamum, seemed likely to lose the favour of Rome. He had not, indeed, neglected to give proofs of his fidelity in the war against Perseus. His Numidian horse and his elephants had rendered excellent service in Macedonia; but it appears there was no longer the former intimate friendship between him and Rome, from the sole cause, perhaps, that after the defeat of Perseus he was not as indispensable an ally as he had been before. He seemed to feel this, and sent his congratulations and the assurance of his submission to the senate after the battle of Pydna, through his son Masgaba, in a manner which vied with the servility of Prusias. He declared through his messenger that he considered himself fortunate to have been able to be of service to his benefactors. There was only one thing that he regretted—that they had asked him for his assistance instead of simply commanding it. He knew well that he owed his kingdom to the Romans alone. He considered himself not the owner, but the tenant-at-will. That which the Romans did not require was sufficient for his use.

The Romans by that time knew very well what to think of such extravagant professions of attachment, and in no­wise allowed themselves to be misled by them. The senate, therefore, bluntly refused the request of Masinissa to be allowed to come to Rome himself, and sent word to him through his son that this would not be in the interest of the republic. If we could penetrate deeper into the details of the Roman policy of that period, we should probably discover that in these debates two parties were opposed to each other, one of which, in the African affairs as well as in those of Macedonia and Greece, was opposed to the acquisition of new provinces, whereas the other party was eager for fresh conquests and a rapid extension of the Roman dominion. For the present the former party, headed by Scipio Nasica, prevailed. But Rome bad from the very beginning so decidedly followed the other course, and so pertinaciously aimed at the formation of a dominion over the whole world, that a short delay in her career was soon made up by accelerated speed. Nothing showed more plainly that this was the destiny of Rome than the fact that no personal influence, not even that of the most eminent men, had the least power of modifying it. The same Cato who, with all his might and with temporary success, had opposed the establishment of a province in Macedonia and the conquest of Rhodes, became, in obedience to this inevitable destiny of Rome, the most zealous advocate for the destruction of Carthage.

It was hard for Carthage to remain on good terms with a neighbour like Masinissa. In spite of the peace concluded under the auspices of Rome, he continued his attacks upon her territory. The fact that he was useful to the Romans in their wars in Spain may have encouraged him in the belief that he could act as he chose. Indeed, a Roman deputation left in his possession what he had recently conquered, and thus he soon advanced fresh claims upon a tract of land containing fifty towns, and forced the unhappy Carthage once more to have recourse to the arbitration of Rome.

The embassy which on this occasion (157 BC) was despatched by the senate to inquire into the affairs of Africa, contained among its members the most uncompromising enemy of the Punic town, Marcus Porcius Cato. The Carthaginians appealed to their just rights, guaranteed by treaty. Masinissa, on the contrary, declared his readiness to accept unconditionally the decision of the Romans, whatever it might be. The Carthaginian appeal to their rights appeared to Cato in the light of presumptuous defiance, and he determined to humble them to the dust. With astonishment and jealous envy he had observed the flourishing condition of their country. The Carthaginians had, by their indefatigable industry, recovered from the distress which the long war with Rome had brought upon them. It seemed that these energetic Punians could not be totally ruined, even by the greatest calamity. Though they had lost their foreign possessions, though they had suffered from the late war and from the unceasing attacks of Masinissa, though they had been deprived of so many rich and productive dependencies, their capital was still a town full of life and wealth. The port was thronged with shipping, and the streets and market-places were crowded with a busy multitude. The country was cultivated like a garden, and signs were everywhere visible of wealth and prosperity. It no longer seemed to be the same Carthage which, thoroughly exhausted by the calamities of war, had asked for peace fifty years before. The narrow mind of Cato was stirred by old recollections of the sufferings caused to Italy by the Hannibalic war, which the younger generation had almost forgotten, because they had not themselves witnessed them as Cato had. He returned to Rome with the firm conviction that Carthage must be swept from the face of the earth, if Rome was to continue to exist.

The conviction of Cato soon became that of the Roman senate, although some eminent men upheld the principle that the maintenance of the Carthaginian state, far from being dangerous to Rome, would, on the contrary, be of real use to her. One thing, above all, was clear to the Romans—that they should not allow Carthage to be swallowed up by the Numidian kingdom, which would in that case become too powerful a rival. The jealousy existing between the two African states was evidently far more favourable to Roman interests than the sole dominion of one. On the other hand, if Rome, in order to gratify her old animosity or from fear of the new power of Carthage, resolved to crush it, there was no alternative but to take immediate possession of the land, and to make it a Roman province. But the establishment of new provinces was, as the more clear-headed men distinctly perceived, a great danger not only for the preservation of the good old customs, but even for the continuance of republican institutions—in other words, of the existing aristocracy.

These well-founded apprehensions failed to influence  the decision of the senate, when even so cautious a states­man as Cato had suffered reason to yield to passion. Cato was at that time perhaps the most influential member of the senate. With his experience, his honours, his high connexion, his acknowledged eloquence and learning, his indefatigable zeal, he succeeded to a certain extent in forcing upon the senate the one idea which occupied his whole mind. It is related that on every occasion he returned to the same subject, and that every one of his many speeches ended with the words, “Carthage must be destroyed”. He laboured successfully, because he found willing listeners. No passion, we know, is more easily roused than that of hatred, especially when united with lust of gain; and no kind of hatred, with the exception of religious hatred, takes the guise of virtue so readily as that kind of national hatred which likes to call itself patriotism.

Soon after the year 157 BC, in which Cato was sent as ambassador to Africa, a tacit agreement existed among the chief leaders of Roman diplomacy that the Carthaginian state was to be annihilated. It was only the time, the opportunity, and the means which were not yet determined. Nor were the promoters of this policy in the least hurry. They felt that Rome was strong enough to wait quietly till the right hour should come.

Although the war of extermination against Carthage was a settled thing in Rome, the senate nevertheless hesitated to deal the first blow. They thought it better to let loose their devoted servant, the Numidian king Masinissa, upon the doomed town, so that, when their enemy was hunted down, they might easily give him the death-blow. As the Romans had Masinissa entirely in their power, and could urge him on or call him back at pleasure; as, moreover, Carthage had hitherto not taken up arms, even in self-defence, without the permission or sufferance of Rome, we may conclude that the war which now broke out was the result of Roman instigation.

The hostility between Carthage and Masinissa had become permanent, owing to the dishonesty of the Roman umpires. The last dispute between them had not yet been settled. The Roman party in Carthage needed only a hint that Rome would be pleased to see them oppose Masinissa. The democrats were prepared for this at any moment. There were three political parties at Carthage—the aristocratic party, which consisted of partisans of Rome; the democratic or national party; and a Numidian party, the adherents of which were of opinion that, by an alliance with Masinissa, Carthage might free itself from the humiliating dependence on Rome. In an internal struggle this party succumbed and forty of its most influential members were banished. They went to Masinissa, and begged for his mediation. Masinissa sent two of his sons, Gulussa and Micipsa, and demanded of the Carthaginians the recall of the fugitives. As this embassy was not admitted, and was even treated as hostile, war broke out. Masinissa. attacked a Carthaginian town (Oroscopa), and the Carthaginians, instead of humbly appealing to Rome, as was their wont, took up arms, and sent troops against him. How they came to possess the power to do this, we can gather from some indications contained in our very scanty sources. A Numidian chief, named Ariobarzanes, a grandson of Syphax, probably oppressed in the same manner as the Carthaginians by the rapacious Masinissa, had revolted against him, and placed an army of twenty-five thousand men at the disposal of the Carthaginians. The latter seemed now really in earnest. The Romans took no part in the war, although, at least according to Roman reports, several embassies were sent from Rome to dissuade the Carthaginians from it, and though the Roman messengers with difficulty escaped ill-usage when they demanded that the Carthaginians should disarm and destroy their fleet. With great satisfaction they watched the two African states mutually weakening one another, fully resolved to interfere only in case Masinissa should succumb. But this was in the highest degree unlikely. For half a century Carthage had had no army; how could she, then, carry on a successful war with the well­armed and able Numidian chief? But the Carthaginians—that ‘nation of tradesmen’—were not deficient in courage and determination on this as on other occasions. The town had still ample resources left. In all haste an army was formed, and advanced, under the command of a general named Hasdrubal, to meet Masinissa. As soon as hostilities had commenced, it became evident that allies were to be found against the tyrannical Masinissa, even in Numidia, which was continually in a ferment of internal disturbances. Two Numidian chiefs, with six thousand men, joined the Carthaginians. In the year 151 BC a battle took place, which lasted from morning till night. P. Scipio, the son of Aemilius Paullus, happened to be in the camp of Masinissa, on a message to ask for elephants to carry on the war in Spain. He had the satisfaction of watching from an elevated spot the two rivals tear each other to pieces, and of seeing the battle take its course precisely as he desired. The victory was on the side of Masinissa, but it was neither easy nor decisive. The Carthaginians, after the battle, endeavoured to obtain peace through the mediation of Rome, and declared their readiness to make great sacrifices; but the negotiations fell to the ground when Masinissa required that his partisans who had been exiled from Carthage should be allowed to return. The war, accordingly, went on, the Romans even then taking no part in it. Old Masinissa, now bordering on his ninetieth year, but still vigorous in body and mind, managed to detain the Carthaginian army in a desert tract of country, and finally to blockade it completely, until at length, weakened by hunger and sickness, the survivors were obliged to surrender at discretion. Hasdrubal obtained permission to return home with the miserable remnant of his army, on agreeing in the name of Carthage to all Masinissa’s conditions. But even this disgraceful agreement is said to have been violated by the Numidians. The Carthaginians, having been dismissed under the yoke, exhausted and disarmed, were surprised on their way home by Gulussa, the son of Masinissa, and slain almost to the last man.

Masinissa now thought he had gained his end. Carthage was humbled, and he had but to stretch out his hand in order to extend his dominion over the whole of Africa. But at this moment an order from Rome compelled him to stop. Rome had resolved that Carthage should fall, but not that it should be united with Numidia. The time for her interference had now come, and she pushed aside her old ally without the least scruple.

The war which now began between Rome and Carthage was not a war in the true and honourable sense of the word; it was a cruel execution. Carthage, bound hand and foot, exhausted and discouraged, found herself in the grasp of her mortal enemy. For victory she could not hope. Only a fall worthy of her past greatness could be the reward of her last effort of heroism, and this reward she obtained.

After their recent defeat the Carthaginians were indeed in a wretched plight. They knew the Romans well enough to foresee that they would make use of their weakness and helplessness to carry out their long-cherished design of crushing them utterly. They hastened, therefore, to forestall the complaints which, as they well knew. Rome would make as a pretext for war, namely, that, contrary to the terms of the treaty of peace, they had taken up arms against an ally of Rome. They condemned Hasdrubal and Carthalo, the leaders of the war party, to death, and sent ambassadors to Rome to throw the guilt on these men alone, and at the same time to appease the anger of the Romans. They were not mistaken, if they feared the worst. The senate had already decreed a general armament throughout Italy, and, considering the feeling which prevailed in Rome at this time, there could be little doubt against whom these preparations were intended. The Carthaginian ambassadors were not cordially received, and obtained the ambiguous reply that they would have to give Rome satisfaction. A second embassy, which endeavoured to ascertain the meaning of these words, was told that they ought themselves to know it.

Whilst the Carthaginians indulged in the hope of being able to preserve peace by submission and by material sacrifices, the strongly fortified town of Utica, which was second in wealth and power to Carthage alone, gave up their case for lost. Utica, which in the second Punic war had by a brave resistance so long detained the Roman arms, now surrendered to the Romans, and thus furnished them with a useful basis for their military operations. Even if the war had not been decided upon long before, there was now no reason for further delay. The senate accordingly despatched the two consuls for the year 149, Manius Manilius and Lucius Marcius Censorinus, to Sicily, with an unusually powerful army of eighty thousand foot and four thousand horse, on a numerous transport fleet and under the escort of fifty quinqueremes, with orders to cross over from Lilybaeum to Africa. They had received the secret but peremptory order to allow nothing to deter or stop them until Carthage should be destroyed. The same messenger carried the declaration of war and the news that the fleet had sailed.

An unprejudiced statesman might now have known that every prospect of a peaceable arrangement was lost, and it would have been better, as the result proved, to collect the last forces of the nation with a bold resolution and to obtain by arms those concessions which it was vain to expect from Roman magnanimity. But Carthage felt too much weakened to risk a contest with the oppressor. Another embassy with unlimited powers appeared before the senate, and offered the submission of Carthage. It was well known what this submission (deditio) meant according to the Roman interpretation of international law. It handed over the state unconditionally, as if it were conquered in war, to the discretion of the victor. But there was a custom, as universally recognised as the formal law, that this right should not be exercised by the conquerors to its full extent, and it was in the hope of generous treatment that voluntary submission was resorted to before the final appeal to arms. The senate accepted the submission, and ordered the Carthaginians to send three hundred hostages within thirty days and to obey the further commands of the consuls.

Upon these terms they were promised their liberty and independence, their territory and possessions. Who could suspect what was hidden under the deceptive words, “to obey the further commands of the consuls?” Some suspicion was aroused by the fact that the Romans had made no definite promise that the town of Carthage should be spared. Fearful forebodings filled the minds of statesmen who would not be deceived by the hope to which conscious weakness clings. But the state was too much reduced to muster courage for a defiant resistance. The first step to submission had been taken. In their downward course the Carthaginians could not halt without some cause which would rouse the deepest passions. Therefore, though with a heavy heart, they resolved to send the pledges of their obedience demanded by the Romans. But it was useless to hope that hereby the tempest would be warded off which was reproaching the unhappy town. Although the hostages had been given over to the Roman consuls in Sicily within the prescribed date, the latter nevertheless sailed from Lilybaeum, and lauded in the port of Utica, which was now open to them as to allies. Once more Carthaginian deputies appeared to receive further orders from the consuls : and now the Romans accomplished the master-stroke of their treachery—treachery which was in fact more than Punic, for it was truly Roman. The consuls required that the Carthaginians should be disarmed. “How”, they said, “could those want arms who were resolved to live in peace, who were protected from their enemies by the strong arm of Rome, and had their liberty, independence, and possessions guaranteed to them?” The distressed suppliants might well hesitate for a long time before giving up their weapons and delivering themselves, without defence, to the mercy of an enemy who knew no such tiling as mercy. But the counsels of the timid preponderated, and as yet no one suspected what final demand was still kept in the background. The arms were surrendered, the arsenals and wharves were cleared, and two thousand catapults were taken from the walls.

A long line of wagons conveyed two hundred thousand suits of armour and an immense amount of projectiles of all sorts to the Roman camp. A solemn embassy, accompanied by the chief priests, the most noble citizens and members of the senate, surrendered the arms in the Roman camp, hoping that now at length the anger of the enemy would be appeased, and that they would return with the announcement of peace to the defenceless town. For so many years the Carthaginians had now had intercourse with the Romans, and still they did not know the full extent of Roman perfidy. They were destined to have it made known to them in the agony of death. They were informed that they would have to leave their town and settle ten miles from the sea. The decree of the senate was irrevocable. Carthage must be destroyed. With a cry of anguish the deputies heard this terrible sentence. They threw themselves on the ground in despair and begged for mercy. Even the Romans, it is said, were moved and shed tears of pity. But their resolution was firm, and neither the eloquence nor the lamentations of the condemned victims could change the stern decree of the senate. The Carthaginians were even denied leave to send ambassadors once more to Rome; but one request was granted them. A Roman squadron was sent to the mouth of the harbour of Carthage, that the people might see with their own eyes how hopeless it was to defy the orders of the Roman people. The trembling deputies foresaw that an outburst of passion would meet them on their return, and many of them had not the courage to face their countrymen again. The others succeeded with difficulty in forcing their way through the excited crowd to the senate-house; for their downcast looks sufficiently indicated the nature of their message. When the requirements of the Romans became known, a unanimous feeling shot through the whole Carthaginian people. They would rather die than give up the sacred soil of their country. Without an army, without weapons and ships, without allies, betrayed, deceived, surrounded by a powerful hostile army, reduced to the narrow circuit of their bare walls, they nevertheless resolved to resist, were it only that they might fall with the fall of their town.

No man now living has any idea of the feeling which, in the ancient world, bound individual citizens to the homes of their fathers. Our religion differs from that of the ancients inasmuch as it is limited by no geographical boundaries. Our most ardent patriotism is but a human and not a religious feeling. In antiquity the commonwealth engaged every sentiment, human and divine, of every individual citizen. The national deity dwelt within the walls of the town and there alone. The dead lay in the soil of their own home, and required uninterrupted funeral rites to secure their peace in the world unseen. These convictions underlay the wonderful and pertinacious attachment with which men in antiquity clung to the very soil on which their body politic was established. A Carthaginian state or a Carthaginian nation, while Carthage lay in ruins, was as inconceivable as a Roman republic separated from the town which was, as it were, the body of the political soul, where not only every temple and every tomb, but every stone was sacred to the protecting gods of the people. Yet Rome might have been abandoned with less detriment to the material welfare of the nation than Carthage. For what would have become of the Carthaginian people transferred to the interior; separated from that element on which they had from time immemorial founded their greatness, their power, and their wealth? With cruel mockery the senate declared that the Carthaginian state was not the town but the people, who could live free and independent away from the sea, as well as near it. The sophistry with which the Romans insisted that they were keeping their first promises, even in destroying the town, would have been met by the Romans themselves with an outburst of indignation, if any foreign power had presumed to try it on them. The Carthaginians had not less patriotism than the Romans, and, in spite of their hopeless situation, they rejected the worthless offer of bare life in exile.

It is no easy task to defend or even to excuse the course of action which Rome pursued with regard to Carthage. The ancient world, it is true, was unacquainted with that modern spirit of chivalrous honour which disdains to gain an advantage over one’s enemy by falsehood and deception, by perjury and casuistry. But there were men, even at that time, whose moral sense condemned the treachery with which Rome gradually increased her demands, and after having induced Carthage, first to give hostages, and then to surrender her arms, finally dealt the death-blow to the defenceless town. Modern historians, therefore, may be still more outspoken in condemning, from a moral point of view, the most shameless and fiendish perfidy of which any nation was ever the victim.

In the first moment of disappointment, when the Roman demands became known, the fury of the people turned against all those who in any way seemed responsible for the terrible misfortune. The Italians residing in Carthage, the senators who bad advised submission, even the deputies who brought the fatal news, were attacked and savagely ill-treated. The crowd rushed like madmen, weeping with rage, through the despoiled arsenals, the empty harbour, and along the walls cleared of all munitions of war. They entered the temples, not to pray, but to mock the protecting gods of the town, and to reproach them with impotence. Whilst the multitude indulged in these useless bursts of passion, the more sensible men thought of means of defence. In order to repel the first attack, they collected stones on the ramparts and provided themselves with such weapons as they could manufacture in haste. The whole town was turned into a single workshop for arms, where men and women toiled unremittingly day and night. In a large and rich centre of commerce like Carthage there could be no lack of stores of all sorts. Iron, wood, leather, and other materials were of course to be found, and skilful labourers were plentiful.

If, as we are told, the women sacrificed their hair to provide strings for the catapults, this was rather a proof of their zeal than of lack of the materials usually employed. In a short time the most necessary articles were supplied. Every day the factories sent out one hundred shields, three hundred swords, five hundred projectiles, and a number of catapults. The whole people was animated by one sentiment, by courage and enthusiasm to fight to the death. A resolution was passed to set free the slaves and to invite them to take part in the struggle. Hasdrubal, who had been expelled to please the Romans, was recalled. He had, with his own resources, formed an army of twenty thousand men and placed himself with this force at the disposal of his country. He was entrusted with the chief command in the field, whilst another Hasdrubal, though a grandson of Masinissa, was commissioned to conduct the defence of the capital.

It was of the greatest importance to the Carthaginians to obtain a short respite for the purpose of organizing the defence. They begged that the attack might be postponed for thirty days, alleging that they wished once more to send ambassadors to Rome. The consuls, it is true, refused permission to send this embassy, but from other reasons granted the respite to which the Carthaginians attached so much importance. They could not imagine that the disarmed town would after all offer any serious resistance. The passionate excitement of the first moment, they thought, would gradually subside. The Carthaginians would come to their senses, and, seeing the hopelessness of the struggle, would submit to the Roman demands. The consuls therefore allowed some little time to elapse before they started from Utica and advanced to Carthage. When at length they did approach, they found the state of affairs very different from what they had expected. Yet they trusted to be able, without much trouble, to take the town by storm. They assaulted the wails in the west and south; but they soon saw the uselessness of an attack without sufficient preparations. After having been twice repulsed, they were obliged to make up their minds to undertake a siege in due form.

As the events of the last Punic war centre entirely in the siege of Carthage and end with its destruction, the first thing necessary to understand this war is to study the site and the fortifications of that remarkable town. Unfortunately our knowledge of the topography of Carthage is extremely imperfect. Our chief source of information regarding the war is the report of Appian. Appian, it is true, made use of the books of Polybius lost to us; but in abridging and working up the subject he has left much in the dark. The ancients, on the whole, were not skilful in accurate topographical descriptions. It is therefore possible that even Polybius gave no clear picture of Carthage. These deficiencies in our historical record cannot be entirely replaced by the investigations which in our own time have been made on the site of the town. The history of Carthage has always been under the influence of an evil star. All the documents from which we might have learnt what the Carthaginians themselves had to say about themselves and their history were swallowed up in the destruction of their national capital. Not only have the language and the whole literature of the Carthaginians been swept away, but even the mighty edifices which covered the soil have disappeared almost without leaving a trace. What was spared by the destructive fury of Scipio’s army furnished the materials, many years later, for a new Roman Carthage; and even this was obliged to make room for a Vandal, and in later times for a Byzantine town, to be at length transformed by the Arabs into a heap of ruins for all times. But even these ruins have, with few exceptions, disappeared. Tunis was built of the stones of ancient Carthage; nay, the Spaniards, the Genoese, and the Pisans carried off the finest blocks of marble as ballast in their ships to build new palaces at home. Thus it has come to pass that hardly a stone of Punic Carthage is to be seen above ground; only deep under the piled-up rubbish of centuries are still buried the foundations of the gigantic structures of the oldest period; but on the spots where in former times stood temples and halls, six-storied houses and high pinnacled towers, the wretched peasants of Tunis now cultivate the arid soil.

More has perhaps been done by nature in the course of centuries than by the hand of man to change the aspect of the place. The channels of watercourses have been altered, the seashore has advanced, harbours have been filled up with sand, hollows and heights made even. How is it possible under such circumstances to obtain a clear picture of ancient Carthage? It is not to be wondered at that modern investigators have arrived at the most varied and perplexing results in trying to identify the several spots. Even the last two writers to whom we are indebted for excavations differ in important points of their conclusions. We must, therefore, be satisfied if we can succeed in ascertaining with partial correctness the main features of the town, and thus, to a certain extent, understand the last desperate struggle of the inhabitants.

Within the bay which is formed in the northern coast of the African continent by Cape Farina on the west and Cape Bon on the east, a low peninsula extends into the sea between the Gulf of Tunis and that of Sahara. The width of this peninsula does not exceed two miles and a half. At the eastern extremity two groups of hills rise to a height of about four hundred feet. The northern (Jebel Kawi) lies near Cape Camart; the southern, separated from the other by the plain called El Mersa, lies near Cape Cartagena, the most eastern point of the peninsula. Further south a few low hills may be seen scattered about. One of these, about one hundred and eighty- eight feet high, rising between the last-named cape and the Gulf of Tunis, was the site of the Byrsa, or castle of Carthage. The earliest settlement of the Phoenicians, originally confined to the Byrsa, gradually grew into a town, and was fortified by massive walls about thirty feet thick and forty-five feet high, containing in their hollow interior stables for three hundred elephants and four thousand horses, besides buildings for stores and barrack room for twenty-four thousand soldiers (Plan No. 2). But even this gradually-enlarged town became too small for the rapidly-increasing population of the rich ruler of the seas. By degrees the whole surface of the peninsula, as far as the extreme west, became covered by a suburb (Megara or Megalia) filled with houses surrounded by gardens. This suburb was also defended by a wall and ditch, so that at the time of the last war the town covered the entire peninsula, or at least its eastern portion.

Explanation of Map.—1, Byrsa ; 2, Triple interior wall; 3, Outer wall and ditch; 4, Tongue of land; 5, Mouth of ports; G, Mercantile port; 7, Kothon, war port; 8, Weak part of wall; 9, Place attacked by Mancinus ; 10, Dam to block up the mouth of the port; 11, New entrance to war port made during the siege ; 12, Outer quay; 13, Market.

Plan No. 3. Appian, viii. 97, 117. At present no traces can be found of this lino of fortification; but there can be no doubt that it existed at the time of the siege. It is mentioned by Appian, and distinguished from the ‘high walls lying behind,’ i.e., from the triple walls of the old town.

It seems strange that the Phoenician colonists should have chosen a place for their settlement which did not contain a sufficiently large natural harbour. They were obliged to dig an artificial harbour, if they did not—as is rather more probable—enlarge and improve a natural roadstead which they had found. At the south-eastern end of the peninsula, where it was perfectly flat, was the entrance (No. 5) to an artificial basin (No. 6) of a rectangular shape (456 x 325 metres), the harbour for trading vessels. In the continuation of the axis of this harbour, which ran almost due south and north, was a second circular basin (No. 7) (325 metres in diameter), connected with the outer basin by a short and narrow channel. In the centre lay an island, also of a circular shape (106 metres in diameter), joined to the outer quay by a road on a dam. The round basin was the port for ships of war, called Kothon. On the quay, which surrounded it, were two hundred and twenty sheds for vessels, and all the stores and yards necessary for a large fleet. On the island was the dwel­ling of the port-governor, from which he could overlook both harbours, and had a view eastward to the open sea. The Kothon was as strong fortified as the old port of the town. The outer mercantile harbour, however, was defended only by a thinner wall. South of this wall was a flat beach, which extended southwards, in the shape of a long narrow ridge of sand (No. 4), and thus formed a barrier between the sea and the large shallow bay of Tunis.

The first attempts to take the town by a coup-de-main were made, as has already been observed, on the western and southern sides; westwards on the isthmus which connected Carthage with the continent, and southwards on the narrow tongue of land and on the flat beach which extended between the city wall and the bay of Tunis. When these attempts had failed, Manilius erected a camp to the west of the town, on the isthmus, where he could intercept all communications with the interior. The other consul, Marcius Censorinus, who commanded the fleet, encamped on the narrow tongue of land south-west of the entrance to the harbours, and stationed his fleet in the bay of Tunis. The Romans were now compelled to prepare for a regular siege, and, above all, to collect materials for the engines of attack. On the expeditions which they undertook for this purpose into the interior they encountered the troops which Hasdrubal had collected. On one occasion they met with considerable check from a cavalry leader called Himilco Phameas, one of Hasdrubal's officers. Their task was becoming difficult. They succeeded, however, in completing several engines, and resumed the attack for the third time. Once more repulsed, they began again on a larger scale. Marcius filled up a portion of the shallow bay of Tunis, in order to gain more room for his operations near the walls of the town. Two battering towers were built, of the size of which we can form an idea, when we hear that six thousand men were required to move one of them towards the wall. The wall (No. S), which was but weak at this part, was thrown down, and the Romans prepared to storm the breach. During the following night the besieged Carthaginians made a sally, and damaged the engines so much that they became useless. When the Romans, nevertheless, ventured to make an assault, they were driven back with great loss. Nothing was gained. The summer had passed away without result. The crews of the fleet began to suffer from disease in their unhealthy station in the bay of Tunis. The consul therefore left the stagnant bay with his ships, causing his troops to encamp on the sea­shore, and his fleet to take up a position close by. The Carthaginians now advanced from the defence to the attack. When the wind was favourable they sent out fire-ships against the Roman fleet; they made a night attack upon the camp of the consul Manilius, on the west side of the town, and were with difficulty driven back. They thus compelled the Romans to fortify strongly not only their naval camp on the shore, but also that of the army on the isthmus, and for the present to give up all thoughts of further attacks upon the town.

Towards the close of the year the consul Marcius Censorinus returned to Rome to conduct the elections for the campaign. His colleague, Manilius, left his position before Carthage with ten thousand foot and two thousand horse, and started on an expedition into the interior against Hasdrubal. This expedition, it seems, ended in a series of reverses. The scanty report of Appian gives us no particulars. This historian, drawing his information from Polybius, appears to have made it his chief business to extol Scipio. He continually points out to us how the legions were rescued by the military ability of the young officer from dangerous situations into which they had been brought by the foolhardiness or inexperience of the general. Some truth, no doubt, there must be in these stories; but it is not worth while to scrutinise minutely these one-sided and imperfect reports. The final result of the campaign is known. It was a complete failure. Neither in the field nor before the walls of Carthage had the Romans in the first year of the war won laurels enough to cover the horrible treachery of their policy, even in the eyes of those for whom military glory leaves all other glory in the shade.

It now became evident that the senate had in the arrogance of power made a great mistake. They had taken too soon the step which had now become a regular practice in Roman diplomacy, and which consisted in casting aside an ally after he had been made use of for a time. Masinissa had brought the Carthaginians to the ground. Rome had reserved to herself the dealing of the deathblow, in order to be able to despoil the fallen victim herself. Masinissa was naturally not a little exasperated at this. He had, however, promised to send auxiliaries as soon as he should hear that they were wanted. Seeing now that the Roman operations did not advance, he asked, as if in scorn, whether his aid was not yet needed. The consuls, offended by the tone in which he addressed them, and distrusting his intentions, replied that they would send word to him in case of necessity. They had not expected that the fallen enemy would rise once more and deal such powerful blows, and they now came to the conviction that they could not well dispense with the Numidians. Accordingly, the young Scipio, who, through his adoptive grandfather, the elder Scipio Africanus, had an hereditary friendship with Masinissa, and had, moreover, made his personal acquaintance on a former occasion, was selected by the senate as the most suitable man to persuade the old ally to enter the field once more for Rome.

Many circumstances tended to make the task of the young diplomatist very easy. When he arrived in Numidia, Masinissa had just died, at the age of ninety, and had in his will left to him full power to settle the succession in his kingdom. Here the Romans had precisely what they desired. What in Macedonia, Pergamum, and Syria they had striven to attain by the cunning and the intrigues of the most crafty negotiators, namely, a division of the government among rival princes, they received in Numidia without an effort. Masinissa had left behind a host of sons. Three of these—Micipsa, Gulussa, and Mastanabal—were looked upon as legitimate heirs. The rest, being sons of concubines, were not taken into account. Through the mediation of Rome an agreement was made among the three privileged princes more precarious and dangerous for the order and peace of the country than any that could be imagined. Micipsa, recognised as the first and real successor to the royal dignity, obtained Cirta, the capital, with the royal treasures. The chief command over the army was given to Gulussa, who had already been several times in Rome as ambassador, and, it appears, was most intimate with the Romans. The office of judge fell to the share of Mastanabal. All three were to rule in common. By this means a state of things was created such as, at a later period, existed under Jugurtha—a situation which could not fail to aggravate all the infirmities of a decaying kingdom, while it might be admirably turned to profit by a power like Rome without involving the smallest danger to Roman interests.

When the new arrangement had been made in the kingdom of Masinissa, Numidian cavalry, under Gulussa, at once took part in the war against Carthage. The most important event, however, which followed the death of Masinissa was that the able Himilco Phameas was induced by Scipio to join the Romans with two thousand two hundred horse. We do not know whether this desertion was in any way the result of the altered state of affairs in Numidia. But it is possible that the Numidian party in Carthage now grew more determined, and separated itself from the patriotic party, which was resolved to continue the opposition to the last. We cannot otherwise explain the incident that Hasdrubal, the grandson of Masinissa, who commanded in Carthage, and had up to this time performed his duty, was soon afterwards accused of treason, and slain in the senate.

The year 148 BC. was not more favourable for the Romans than the preceding one. The new consuls, it appears, entirely gave up the siege of Carthage, and confined themselves to occupying the Carthaginian territory, and reducing the towns which still held out. They besieged Clupea by land and sea, but without effect. The whole summer passed away in fruitless attempts to take the town of Hippo Diarrhytus. A sally made by the garrison was vigorously supported by the Carthaginians. The Roman engines were destroyed, and the consuls compelled to beat a disgraceful retreat. The prospects of the Carthaginians brightened. In Numidia a dispute had broken out among the three sons of Masinissa. Whilst Gulussa, in the hope of personal advantage, supported the Romans to the best of his ability, Micipsa and Mastanabal remained very lukewarm in their service, so that the Carthaginians began to hope for the possibility of securing their alliance against Gulussa and the Romans. A body of Numidian horse actually joined them. The constant changes in the Numidian kingdom, where everything depended upon the influence of the man who chanced for the time to be uppermost, seemed to show that a complete revolution might possibly sever altogether the alliance with Rome. Moreover, the war against Pseudo-Philippus had just at this time broken out in Macedonia. With this pretender the Carthaginians entered into negotiations, and encouraged him to persevere in his adventurous course. The brave and enterprising people continued the war with unabated vigour and gained fresh hopes, not altogether unfounded, that they might in the end succeed in saving their country from utter destruction.

What we have repeatedly remarked in the second and third Macedonian wars, and even in earlier periods of Roman history, took place once more in the third war with Carthage. After the Romans had carried on the contest for some time in a lax and inglorious manner, they succeeded at last in crushing their opponents by sheer perseverance, and by the overpowering weight of their military resources. It was not the superior strategic talent of Flamininus or Aemilius Paullus which overthrew the Macedonian kings, but the fact that Rome could continually send new legions of brave soldiers into the field. Thus, again, Carthage was vanquished in the end not by the personal ability of the overrated younger Scipio, but by the means which he had at his disposal, and the perseverance with which he made use of them. It was only by shutting out the town from all communication by land and sea that he at length reduced it.

Scipio Aemilianus, as we have seen, had served honourably as legate under the consuls Marcius and Manilius in the year 149 BC. Among the ‘flitting shadows’ he was, as even the severe Cato admitted, the only man. Besides his military virtues, he also possessed political skill, and had therefore been employed on negotiations with Masinissa. After having arranged affairs in Numidia in the interest of Rome, he returned to the army, and, by his personal influence, induced the Carthaginian cavalry leader, Himilco Phameas, to desert his post. Accompanied by him, as a tangible proof of his ability, he went to Rome in the second year of the war, intending to ask for the consulship of the following year. He was, indeed, only thirty-seven years old, and therefore, according to law, too young for this office. But the rumour, which his friends zealously spread, of his valour and prudence, the influence of his powerful family, and also the promising omen which lay in his name, induced the people, in spite of his legal disqualification, to elect him for the consulship in 147 BC, and to give him the command of the war in Africa, without resorting to the customary decision by the drawing of lots. His grandfather, Scipio Africanus, had brought the long and trying war with Hannibal to a victorious end. It might be expected of a Scipio that he would also this time be victorious over Carthage.

Scipio had hardly landed in Utica, in the year 147 BC., when he heard that Mancinus, the commander of the fleet, was in a most perilous situation. This incapable and vainglorious man was anxious, it appears, before the end of his year of command, to make a bold attempt to obtain for himself the glory of conquering Carthage. He landed on a part of the coast (No. 9), where the hills of Cape Cartajena rise abruptly from the sea, and where the suburb of Carthage, extending in this direction, was but weakly fortified. He gained the undefended height with a few hundred soldiers, and was followed by a number of unarmed men from the ships, who probably looked forward to plundering the town without difficulty. But the Romans soon met with resolute resistance, and found it alike impossible to penetrate further into the town, or to retreat safely to the ships. It was then that they were rescued by the unexpected appearance of the vessels with which Scipio had approached in all haste from Utica. It had been proved once more that Carthage was not to be taken by a coup-de-main.

Scipio sent home the incompetent Mancinus, and took the command of the Roman army in the place of his predecessor, Calpurnius Piso. We are not informed how many troops he brought with him from Italy. The legions had suffered much, and were now reinforced. Besides these reinforcements, Scipio had received permission to invite the allies to give him voluntary aid. But the bad results thus far had been caused not so much by the want of troops as by the incapacity of the generals and the defective discipline of the army. It was in Africa as it had been in Greece. The Roman soldiers thought more of plunder and luxury than of real hard fighting. They had imagined that the rich city of Carthage, having been previously disarmed, would become an easy prey. Numerous volunteers had been attracted by this tempting prospect. An immense number of traders, speculators, sutlers, a motley and disreputable crowd, had followed the army, and undermined its discipline. Like his father in Macedon and his grandfather in Spain, Scipio was obliged to begin by bringing back the degenerate soldiers to their duty, by purifying the camp, and by tightening the reins of command. This done, he took in hand the operations of the siege with a steady and persistent energy which brought him step by step nearer to his aim.

He resolved to make his first attack by land on the isthmus which connected Carthage with the continent. When the Carthaginians marked his intention, Hasdrubal established himself in a fortified camp on the same side before the walls of the suburb. But Scipio, by making a feigned assault in one part, and thus deceiving Hasdrubal, succeeded, under the guidance of some deserters, in penetrating unperceived into a remote part of the town, in opening a gate, and admitting his troops. It is true, he was now only in the suburb, and in this large space, intersected by hedges and ditches, his army could neither move forward nor effect a lodgment. It also appears that the nature of the ground would not allow him to make an attack upon the inner town from this side. He therefore resolved voluntarily to evacuate the suburb. But he had effected so much, at least, that Hasdrubal, no longer able to hold his position outside the walls, gave up his camp on the isthmus, and retired into the town.

Scipio followed up his first advantage. He burnt the abandoned camp of Hasdrubal, and then erected a double line of fortifications before the town, right across the isthmus, from shore to shore, within which his troops were safe from a surprise, and cut off all communication between Carthage and the continent. This was the first step towards reducing the town by famine. The population could receive no more supplies by land. It is probable that a large portion of the inhabitants now gave themselves up as prisoners, or fled from the devoted town. The more resolute citizens retired to the old part of Carthage to continue the struggle. If we may trust the scanty words of Appian, a violent quarrel broke out on this occasion between the senate, i.e. the aristocratic party, and Hasdrubal, who stood at the head of the fanatical people; several senators were slain in consequence, and Hasdrubal obtained dictatorial power. In order to make a reconciliation and a peaceable agreement with the Romans quite impossible, Hasdrubal is even said to have resorted to the process of torturing Roman prisoners to death on the walls before the very eyes of the besieging army.

The attack was now directed upon the oldest part of the town, which contained the harbour and the fortress of Byrsa. The defence was continued by a comparatively small portion of the citizens, who replaced by determination what they lacked in natural resources. When it was no longer possible to bring in supplies by land, the remaining population was reduced to importing provisions by sea, and this could only be done under favourable circumstances with a strong wind, which carried the bold sailors and their cargoes past the Roman cruisers. In order to prevent even this, Scipio undertook to construct a colossal barrier in front of the harbour. From the frequently mentioned tongue of land (No. 4) between the bay of Tunis and the open sea, he caused an embankment of stones (No. 10) to be thrown right across the mouth of the harbour (No. 5), a structure which reminds us of the mole which Alexander made from the land to the island town of Tyre. Having at first ridiculed an undertaking which seemed to them vain and hopeless, the Carthaginians next tried to prevent it; but the soldiers, of whom Scipio had an abundance, worked steadily day and night, and at length the embankment reached the opposite side of the entrance to the harbour.

Thus the harbour of Carthage was closed. What the Romans had repeatedly attempted in vain before Lilybaeum in the Sicilian war, now succeeded at Carthage. But while they diligently worked to block up the old entrance to the harbour, the Carthaginians had been busy digging a new one. The rectangular mercantile harbour and the round naval port (Kothon) were separated from the sea on the eastern side only by a narrow strip of land. This strip the Carthaginians now pierced, probably at the part where the circumference of the naval port approached nearest to the sea. Day and night men, women, and children continued to work. At the same time they built a fleet out of old timber, and the work was carried on with such secrecy that the Romans could only ascertain from prisoners that a knock­ing and hammering was heard in the Kothon, the cause of which was unknown. At length it came to light. When the last strip of earth which separated the sea from the basin of the port had been removed, a fleet of fifty triremes and a number of smaller vessels sailed proudly out into the sea, and by their mere appearance inspired the Romans with astonishment and fear. Had they at once proceeded to the attack, the unprepared Roman ships would have been lost. But after a short trial trip, which was probably necessary for the newly built vessels and their new crews, the Carthaginians returned to the harbour, and not till the third day did they sail forth again to offer battle. The enemy meanwhile had made preparations, and a murderous fight took place, which lasted the whole of one day, without any decisive result. When, towards evening, the Carthaginians returned to their harbour, the smaller vessels stopped up the defective entrance, and compelled the larger ones to remain outside. The latter took up their position alongside a quay (No. 12) of considerable breadth, which extended along the outside of the commercial port as far as the south-eastern extremity of the peninsula, very near, therefore, to the old blocked-up entrance to the port. Here they were at once attacked by the Roman fleet, and fought this, the last naval battle of the Carthaginian people, with a degree of courage worthy the former mistress of the seas. The Romans, however, finally remained victorious, and destroyed some of the Carthaginian ships, which, being hurriedly constructed out of old timber, were probably by no means equal to the Roman vessels. During the night the Carthaginians retired into the harbour, nor did they attempt once more to try the fortune of war by sea.

Scipio now directed his attack against the quay (No. 12), near which the Carthaginian ships had last taken up their position. This quay extended, as we have seen, from the south-eastern extremity of the land along the eastern shore, in a line parallel with the commercial harbour, which it separated from the sea. It had been constructed as a landing-place for the merchant vessels at a time when the harbour became too small for the growing traffic. It was not till the outbreak of the last war that the Carthaginians found it necessary to fortify this spot on the sea side by a strong wall, so that the enemy might not be able to make a lodgment upon it. This was precisely what Scipio intended to do. It appears that he prolonged the dam which closed the old mouth of the harbour in this direction, and thus formed a communication by land with the quay. Here, therefore, he erected his engines, and destroyed a portion of the wall. But one night a number of Carthaginians waded and swam through the water, reached the dam, and set the engines on fire. The Roman soldiers were so surprised and alarmed that they fled before the unarmed enemy, nor could they be stopped until they had gained their camp, although Scipio ordered them to be attacked by other troops and driven back. The task had to be begun again. Whilst the Romans erected new siege-works, the Carthaginians restored their wall, and fortified it with wooden towers. At last Scipio succeeded in establishing himself on the quay, but he could neither penetrate further, nor take the walls of the harbour. As the summer was now drawing to a close, and he did not wish to give up the quay which he had conquered with so much difficulty, he fortified it by a wall and ditch, parallel with the wall of the Carthaginian harbour, and left in it for the winter a garrison of four thousand men, which, being the extreme outposts, kept up with the Carthaginians a continued exchange of missiles.

The third year of the war was drawing to a close, and yet the heroic town remained defiant and unconquered. It appears to have been about this time that Hasdrubal made a final attempt to arrange terms of peace. He required nothing but that the town and her defenders should be spared; everything else the Carthaginians were prepared to suffer. Gulussa was the mediator, and advised Scipio to yield, because the result was still uncertain, and at the impending consular election it was possible that another consul might be sent from Rome to continue the war. Perhaps the wily Numidian thought in his own mind that the continued existence of Carthage would be more conducive to his safety than the immediate vicinity of a Roman proconsul. But Scipio, with great decision, rejected this advice. He would only agree to one thing. Hasdrubal was to be allowed unmolested departure for himself, his wife and children, and ten families nearly related to him. The remaining inhabitants were to surrender at discretion. If Hasdrubal had been the miserable coward that Polybius, strangely enough, pictures him to be, he would surely not have hesitated to agree to these conditions. But he disdained the idea of forsaking his brave compatriots in their last death­struggle, and indignantly rejected the offer.

The Carthaginians had still one spot in their territory from which, in spite of the blockade by land and sea, intrepid sailors from time to time brought them supplies. This spot was Nepheris, a town the position of which we are unfortunately unable to determine on account of the contradictory reports of Appian and Strabo, and which, in spite of its evident importance, is not otherwise known. In this place was stationed an officer of the name of Diogenes, who commanded the army collected and formerly so well conducted by Hasdrubal. Scipio sent a part of his army under Caius Laelius and the Numidian prince Gulussa against Nepheris, and conducted the siege himself from his camp before Carthage. The particulars of this siege are not well known. The town and the camp of Diogenes fell into the hands of the besiegers in the course of the winter, and Appian relates that on this occasion seventy thousand people were slain in their flight, and ten thousand made prisoners, an act in which Gulussa, with his elephants and his Numidian horse, seems to have taken the greatest share.

In truth, no hope remained now for the unhappy town of Carthage. The Romans could wait patiently, as they had once done at the siege of Capua, till hunger had completed their task for them. Although the number of defenders had greatly diminished, a famine broke out so terrible that, if we may believe the reports, some committed suicide, others devoured the dead bodies of their fellow-sufferers, or gave themselves up to the Romans, i.e. to slavery. In the beginning of the spring of 146 BC, when exhaustion, disease, and despair had already weakened the nerves and the spirits of the defenders, Scipio advanced to storm the town. It was no longer necessary to set the battering-rams in motion. The Carthaginians themselves evacuated the commercial harbour which they had defended so long, and consigned it to the flames with all that it contained. In the confusion which ensued, a party of Romans, conducted by Caius Laelius, succeeded unperceived in scaling the wall which surrounded the naval port, and in penetrating thence into the town. The legions first occupied the market-place (No. 13), which was not far off. From this place three narrow streets led to the Byrsa, between houses towering six stories high. Here a bloody street-fight took place, which was the more deplorable because it could have no practical purpose, and was merely the result of rage and exasperation. From house to house the Romans were obliged to force their way, penetrating through the division walls, fighting on the flat roofs, and advancing from one to another on boards and beams. When they had reached the foot of the Byrsa, Scipio caused the conquered part of the town to be set on fire, in order to gain space for the attack upon the last refuge of the defeated enemy. But it was unnecessary to storm it. On the seventh day after the Romans had entered the town, the wretched remnant of the Carthaginian people surrendered. Fifty thousand men, women, and children were let out of the citadel through a gate, and carried off as prisoners. The rest of the garrison, a body of nine hundred Roman deserters, occupied the temple of Aesculapius in the citadel, with the intention of burying themselves under its ruins. Among them, with his wife and children, was Hasdrubal, an involuntary participator, it would seem, in the desperate struggle of those who had devoted themselves to death. He at length succeeded in escaping from the furious band, and surrendered to the victor at discretion. His wife, however, it is said, had a prouder spirit than he. She disdained to outlive her country. From the roof of the burning temple into which the surviving deserters had been driven back, she cursed her husband, whom she saw crouching at the feet of Scipio, as a coward and a traitor, and before his very eyes threw first her two sons and then herself into the flames.

The conquered town was now given up to plunder. The booty was immense, even after all the havoc of the war. The gold and silver was reserved for the state treasure of the republic. The works of art, which the Carthaginians, in the time of their power, had carried away from Sicily, were restored to their original owners, as, for instance, the celebrated brazen bull of Phalaris from Agrigentum. The plundered town was then consigned to the flames. As Scipio watched the ocean of fire, which raged in the streets for seventeen days, he was so impressed with the transitoriness of all that is great, that, foreseeing in his mind’s eye the ruin of his own country, he involuntarily pronounced the Homeric words: “The day will come when sacred Ilium will sink into ashes, with Priam and the people of Priam the strong-sceptred”. By his side stood his friend and teacher, Polybius, who heard and marked these words. Perhaps he had a foreboding that about this same time the glorious city of Corinth, the chief town of his own country, was sinking into ashes.

The plough was drawn over the site of destroyed Carthage, and a solemn curse was pronounced against anyone who should ever undertake to build a new town on that spot. Rome was at length delivered from the ever­gnawing fear, from the envy and jealousy which Carthage, even humbled and prostrate, never ceased to inspire. Old Cato had not lived to see the fulfilment of his most ardent desire. He had died at the beginning of the war. But the unbounded joy which the news of the fall of Carthage caused in Rome was a proof that Cato had only given words to what was felt by the majority of the Roman people. A glorious triumph was in store for Scipio, worthy of those which had been celebrated by his father, Aemilius Paullus, over Perseus, and by his grandfather over Carthage. The unparalleled heroism with which the Carthaginians had fought to the last bitter hour had caused the fact to be forgotten that, at the outbreak of the war, they had been defenceless. They had raised themselves to a position all but equal to that of Rome, and had once more inspired the Romans with respect, a respect which unfortunately was expressed only in the joy at Scipio’s victory. The Roman nation was not capable of showing respect for a fallen enemy by magnanimity. The Carthaginian prisoners were partly sold as slaves, but many died in prison from hunger and misery. Only Hasdrubal and a few other eminent men were more mercifully treated, and were not tortured like Perseus. They spent the rest of their days in peace, if they could enjoy peace, with the knowledge that their nation was annihilated, and their native town lay in ruins.

The greater part of the Carthaginian territory was joined to Utica, which now became the capital of the Roman province of Africa. The towns which had remained true to Carthage, like Hippo, Clupea, and others, were punished with loss of land. The germ of Semitic culture, the Phoenician language, art, literature, and religion gave way gradually, though slowly, to Roman influence, and at last quite disappeared. The Numidian kingdom, it seems, was not enlarged. It was left to internal disputes, which rendered it a safe neighbour. Thus peace was established in this quarter for a considerable time.

CHAPTER VI.

THE WARS IN SPAIN UP TO THE FALL OF NUMANTIA, 200-133 B.C.