Third Punic War: A Visual History

The Third Punic War (149-146 BC) was Rome's deliberate destruction of Carthage. Provoked by Carthage's recovery and Cato's insistence that it must be destroyed, Rome used Carthage's defensive war against Numidia's Masinissa, forbidden by the treaty of 201, as a pretext. The Carthaginians surrendered their weapons and hostages, and were then told to abandon their city; they refused and armed themselves from scratch. Roman armies failed for two years until Scipio Aemilianus took command, sealed the harbour with a mole and stormed the city in spring 146 BC in six days of street fighting. Some 50,000 survivors were enslaved, the city burned for 17 days and its territory became the province of Africa.

When it was fought: the era ribbon

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Population of Carthage

Timeline of the Third Punic War

1. 153 BC
   Cato's embassy to Carthage
2. 150 BC
   Carthage fights Masinissa
3. 149 BC
   Rome declares war; Carthage disarms, then resists
4. 148 BC
   Roman assaults fail
5. 147 BC
   Scipio Aemilianus takes command; harbour sealed
6. 146 BC
   Carthage stormed and destroyedSpring.

Delenda est Carthago

Cato the Elder visited Carthage in 153 and was alarmed by its prosperity; he ended every Senate speech with 'furthermore I consider that Carthage must be destroyed', dropping fresh African figs from his toga to show how close it lay. Masinissa raided Carthaginian land with impunity; when Carthage finally fought back in 150 and lost, Rome declared war. Utica defected to Rome and the consuls landed in 149.

The deception

Carthage sent envoys offering total submission; the consuls demanded 300 noble hostages, then all weapons (200,000 sets of armour and 2,000 catapults were handed over), and only then announced that the city must be abandoned and rebuilt 15 km inland. Carthage shut its gates, freed slaves, melted statues for weapons and had women cut their hair for catapult ropes. Roman assaults on the walls failed through 149 and 148; the Numidian-Carthaginian general Hasdrubal held the field army outside.

Scipio and the fall

Scipio Aemilianus, grandson by adoption of Africanus, was elected consul below the legal age in 147, restored discipline, took the suburb of Megara, built a mole across the harbour mouth and cut the city off by land and sea; famine set in. In spring 146 his troops broke in at the harbour, fought up through six-storey houses to the Byrsa citadel, and after six days accepted the surrender of 50,000; 900 Roman deserters and Hasdrubal's wife burned themselves in the temple of Eshmun. Scipio wept, quoting Homer on the fall of Troy, and the Senate ordered the city razed and cursed. The same year Rome destroyed Corinth.

Related empires and wars

Chosen automatically by overlap in time and geography, plus a few hand picked connections.

Empires of the same era and region

• Ancient Carthage (814 BC to 146 BC)
• Roman Empire (27 BC to 476)
• Ptolemaic Kingdom (305 BC to 30 BC)
• Seleucid Empire (312 BC to 63 BC)

Wars of the same era and region

• First Punic War (264 BC to 241 BC)
• Second Punic War (218 BC to 201 BC)
• Roman-Greek wars (214 BC to 148 BC)
• Roman-Germanic wars (113 BC to 476)

8 surprising things about the Third Punic War

1. The salting of Carthage's soil is a myth invented in the nineteenth century; the site was simply cursed and left empty for a century.
2. The Carthaginians surrendered 200,000 suits of armour and then rearmed within months by turning temples into workshops.
3. Carthaginian women reportedly cut off their hair to make torsion springs for catapults.
4. Scipio, watching the city burn, quoted Homer's line that one day sacred Troy would fall, foreseeing Rome's turn.
5. Hasdrubal's wife cursed him for surrendering, then threw her children and herself into the flames.
6. The historian Polybius, Scipio's friend, watched the destruction and wrote its account.
7. Julius Caesar and Augustus refounded Carthage as a Roman colony; it became the second city of the western empire.
8. The Third Punic War lasted three years; the whole conflict from 264 BC had lasted 118.

Sources

• Third Punic War Encyclopaedia Britannica
• Third Punic War Wikipedia
• Third Punic War World History Encyclopedia
• Richard Miles, Carthage Must Be Destroyed (2010) Allen Lane

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