General History for Colleges and High Schools

by P. V. N. Myers

THE THIRD PUNIC WAR.

"CARTHAGE MUST BE DESTROYED."—The same year that Rome destroyed Corinth (146 B.C.), she also blotted her great rival Carthage from the face of the earth. It will be recalled that one of the conditions imposed upon the last-named city at the close of the Second Punic War was that she should, under no circumstances, engage in any war without the permission of the Roman Senate. Taking advantage of the helpless condition of Carthage, Masinissa, King of Numidia, began to make depredations upon her territories. She appealed to Rome for protection. The envoys sent to Africa by the Senate to settle the dispute, unfairly adjudged every case in favor of the robber Masinissa. In this way Carthage was deprived of her lands and towns.

Chief of one of the embassies sent out was Marcus Cato the Censor. When he saw the prosperity of Carthage,—her immense trade, which crowded her harbor with ships, and the country for miles back of the city a beautiful landscape of gardens and villas,—he was amazed at the growing power and wealth of the city, and returned home convinced that the safety of Rome demanded the destruction of her rival. Never afterwards did he address the Romans, no matter upon what subject, but he always ended with the words, "Carthage must be destroyed" (delenda est Carthago).

ROMAN PERFIDY.—A pretext for the accomplishment of the hateful work was not long wanting. In 150 B.C. the Carthaginians, when Masinissa made another attack upon their territory, instead of calling upon Rome, from which source the past had convinced them they could hope for neither aid nor justice, gathered an army, and resolved to defend themselves. Their forces, however, were defeated by the Numidians, and sent beneath the yoke.

In entering upon this war without the consent of Rome, Carthage had broken the conditions of the last treaty. The Carthaginian Senate, in great anxiety, now sent an embassy to Italy to offer any reparation the Romans might demand. They were told that if they would give three hundred hostages, members of the noblest Carthaginian families, the independence of their city should be respected. They eagerly complied with this demand. But no sooner were these in the hands of the Romans than the consular armies, numbering eighty thousand men, secured against attack by the hostages so perfidiously drawn from the Carthaginians, crossed from Sicily into Africa, and disembarked at Utica, only ten miles from Carthage.

The Carthaginians were now commanded to give up all their arms; still hoping to win their enemy to clemency, they complied with this demand also. Then the consuls made known the final decree of the Roman Senate— "That Carthage must be destroyed, but that the inhabitants might build a new city, provided it were located ten miles from the coast."

When this resolution of the Senate was announced to the Carthaginians, and they realized the baseness and perfidy of their enemy, a cry of indignation and despair burst from the betrayed city.

THE CARTHAGINIANS PREPARE TO DEFEND THEIR CITY.—It was resolved to resist to the bitter end the execution of the cruel decree. The gates of the city were closed. Men, women, and children set to work and labored day and night manufacturing arms. The entire city was converted into one great workshop. The utensils of the home and the sacred vessels of the temples, statues, and vases were melted down for weapons. Material was torn from the buildings of the city for the construction of military engines. The women cut off their hair and braided it into strings for the catapults. By such labor, and through such means, the city was soon put in a state to withstand a siege.

When the Romans advanced to take possession of the place, they were astonished to find the people they had just treacherously disarmed, with weapons in their hands, manning the walls of their capital, and ready to bid them defiance.

THE DESTRUCTION OF CARTHAGE.—It is impossible for us here to give the circumstances of the siege of Carthage. For four years the city held out against the Roman army. At length the consul Scipio Æmilianus succeeded in taking it by storm. When resistance ceased, only 50,000 men, women, and children, out of a population of 700,000, remained to be made prisoners. The city was fired, and for seventeen days the space within the walls was a sea of flames. Every trace of building which the fire could not destroy was levelled, a plough was driven over the site, and a dreadful curse invoked upon any one who should dare attempt to rebuild the city.

Such was the hard fate of Carthage. It is said that Scipio, as he gazed upon the smouldering ruins, seemed to read in them the fate of Rome, and, bursting into tears, sadly repeated the lines of Homer:

"The day shall come in which our sacred Troy,
And Priam, and the people over whom
Spear-bearing Priam rules, shall perish all."

The Carthaginian territory in Africa was made into a Roman province, with Utica as the leading city; and Roman civilization was spread rapidly, by means of traders and settlers, throughout the regions that lie between the ranges of the Atlas and the sea.