Scipio landed in Africa in B.C. 147. His first step was to restore discipline to the army. He next took by storm Megara, a suburb of Carthage, and then proceeded to construct a work across the entrance of the harbor to cut off the city from all supplies by sea. But the Carthaginians defended themselves with a courage and an energy rarely paralleled in history. While Scipio was engaged in this laborious task, they built a fleet of fifty ships in their inner port, and cut a new channel communicating with the sea. Hence, when Scipio at length succeeded in blocking up the entrance of the harbor, he found all his labor useless, as the Carthaginians sailed out to sea by the new outlet. But this fleet was destroyed after an obstinate engagement which lasted three days. At length, in the following year (B.C. 146), Scipio had made all his preparations for the final assault. The Carthaginians defended themselves with the courage of despair. They fought from street to street, and from house to house, and the work of destruction and butchery went on for six days. The fate of this once magnificent city moved Scipio to tears; and, anticipating that a similar catastrophe might one day befall Rome, he is said to have repeated the lines of the Iliad over the flames of Carthage: "The day shall come when sacred Troy shall perish, and Priam and his people shall be slain."
Scipio returned to Rome in the same year, and celebrated a splendid triumph on account of his victory. The surname of Africanus, which he had inherited by adoption, had now been acquired by his own exploits.
A portion of the dominions of Carthage was assigned to Utica. The remainder was formed into a Roman province under the name of Africa. Carthage itself was leveled to the ground, and a curse pronounced upon any who should rebuild the city. C. Gracchus, however, only twenty-four years afterward, attempted to found a new city upon the ancient site under the name of Junonia; but evil prodigies at its foundation, and the subsequent death of Gracchus, interrupted this design. The project was revived by Julius Cæsar, and was carried into effect by Augustus; and Roman Carthage, built at a short distance from the former city, became the capital of Africa, and one of the most flourishing cities in the ancient world. In the fifth century it was taken by Genseric, and made the capital of the Vandal kingdom in Africa. It was retaken by Belisarius, but was finally captured and destroyed by the Arabs in A.D. 647. Its site is now desolate, marked only by a few ruins.
CHAPTER XX.
SPANISH WARS, B.C. 153-133. FIRST SERVILE WAR, B.C. 134-132.
The generous policy of Tib. Sempronius Gracchus in B.C. 179[58] had secured for Spain a long period of tranquillity. But in B.C. 153, the inhabitants of Segeda having commenced rebuilding the walls of their town, which was forbidden by one of the articles in the treaty of Gracchus, a new war broke out, which lasted for many years. The Celtiberians in general espoused the cause of Segeda, and the Consul Q. Fabius Nobilior made an unsuccessful campaign against them. His successor, the Consul M. Claudius Marcellus, grandson of the Marcellus who was celebrated in the Second Punic War, carried on the war with vigor, and concluded a peace with the enemy on very fair terms (B.C. 152). The Consul of the following year, L. Lucinius Lucullus, finding the Celtiberians at peace, turned his arms against the Vaccæi, Cantabri, and other nations as yet unknown to the Romans. At the same time the Prætor Ser. Sulpicius Galba invaded Lusitania, but, though he met with some advantage at first, he was subsequently defeated with great loss, and escaped with only a few horsemen. In the following year (B.C. 150) he again invaded the country from the south, while Lucullus attacked it from the north. The Lusitanians therefore sent embassadors to Galba to make their submission. He received them with kindness, lamented the poverty of their country, and promised to assign them more fertile lands, if they would meet him in three bodies, with their wives and children, in three places which he fixed upon. The simple people believed him. But he meditated one of the most atrocious acts of treachery and cruelty recorded in history. He fell upon each body separately, and butchered them, men, women, and children, without distinction. Among the very few who escaped was Viriathus, the future avenger of his nation. Galba was brought to trial on his return to Rome on account of this outrage; and Cato, then in the 85th year of his age, inveighed against his treachery and baseness. But Galba was eloquent and wealthy, and the liberal employment of his money, together with the compassion excited by his weeping children and ward, obtained his acquittal.
Viriathus appears to have been one of those able guerrilla chiefs whom Spain has produced at every period of her history. He is said to have been first a shepherd and afterward a robber, but he soon acquired unbounded influence over the minds of his countrymen. After the massacre of Galba, those Lusitanians who had not left their homes rose as a man against the rule of such treacherous tyrants. Viriathus at first avoided all battles in the plains, and waged an incessant predatory warfare in the mountains; and he met with such continued good fortune, that numbers flocked to his standard. The aspect of affairs seemed at length so threatening that in B.C. 145 the Romans determined to send the Consul Q. Fabius Maximus into the country. In the following year Fabius defeated Viriathus with great loss; but this success was more than counterbalanced by the revolt of the Celtiberians, the bravest and most noble-minded of the Spaniards. The war is usually known by the name of the Numantine, from Numantia, a town on the River Douro, and the capital of the Arevaci, the most powerful of the Celtiberian tribes.