The Third Punic War
Weak as Carthage had been rendered in the aftermath of the second Punic War, there still remained in Rome those who were afraid of a resurrection, and thus advocated utter destruction. In 150 B.C., when Carthage appealed to Rome against the continual harassment of Masinissa (the Numidian chieftain who had been a crucial ally to Rome in the conclusion of the second Punic War), at the head of the Roman delegation sent to inquire into the conflict was Cato the Elder. Cato, who ended all his speeches with an unyielding “Delenda est Carthago!” (literally, “Carthage must be destroyed!”), was first among those in Rome who believed in the necessary annihilation of Carthage. The obvious result was that Masinissa was not reined in, and at the end of its tether, Carthage responded to the Numidians. This retaliation to sheer provocation was enough excuse to set Rome on the warpath.
The third Punic War, beginning in 149 B.C., was different from the second Punic War in that the Romans and Carthaginians were not equally matched at all. The Romans were fighting a much weaker and less threatening force than the Carthage of yore. In 146 B.C., Scipio Aemilianus (who thirteen years later crushed the last of the Spaniard resistance) took Carthage decisively. The fighting, as with the Spanish tribes described earlier, was dogged and intense, albeit a lost cause. In three years, the Romans utterly destroyed Carthage, and had sold any survivors into slavery. The topping indignity was that Carthage, under Scipio’s order, was “razed, cursed, and ploughed over.” Roman conquest had taken Africa as well.
Weak as Carthage had been rendered in the aftermath of the second Punic War, there still remained in Rome those who were afraid of a resurrection, and thus advocated utter destruction. In 150 B.C., when Carthage appealed to Rome against the continual harassment of Masinissa (the Numidian chieftain who had been a crucial ally to Rome in the conclusion of the second Punic War), at the head of the Roman delegation sent to inquire into the conflict was Cato the Elder. Cato, who ended all his speeches with an unyielding “Delenda est Carthago!” (literally, “Carthage must be destroyed!”), was first among those in Rome who believed in the necessary annihilation of Carthage. The obvious result was that Masinissa was not reined in, and at the end of its tether, Carthage responded to the Numidians. This retaliation to sheer provocation was enough excuse to set Rome on the warpath.
The third Punic War, beginning in 149 B.C., was different from the second Punic War in that the Romans and Carthaginians were not equally matched at all. The Romans were fighting a much weaker and less threatening force than the Carthage of yore. In 146 B.C., Scipio Aemilianus (who thirteen years later crushed the last of the Spaniard resistance) took Carthage decisively. The fighting, as with the Spanish tribes described earlier, was dogged and intense, albeit a lost cause. In three years, the Romans utterly destroyed Carthage, and had sold any survivors into slavery. The topping indignity was that Carthage, under Scipio’s order, was “razed, cursed, and ploughed over.” Roman conquest had taken Africa as well.
| Updated >> 21 September 2004 |