11/8/2017 Third Punic War - Ancient History Encyclopedia

Third Punic War

De nition
by Mark Cartwright
published on 31 May 2016

The Third Punic War was fought between Carthage and

Rome between 149 and 146 BCE. Carthage had already lost
two wars against Rome, but their assault on their
Numidian neighbours gave the Romans the perfect excuse
to crush this troublesome enemy once and for all. As Cato
declared in the Senate, ‘Carthage must be destroyed’. A er
a lengthy siege, the city was nally sacked and the
Carthaginians were sold into slavery. One of the greatest
powers in the ancient Mediterranean had been wiped o the map.

CAUSES OF THE WAR

Carthage had lost the First Punic War (264-241 BCE) and control of Sicily, then again it had been defeated in the
Second Punic War (218-201 BCE) and so lost its Spanish empire, its eet, and independence of military action. In
both wars, the Carthaginians had also been made to pay Rome massive reparations. Nevertheless, Carthage recovered
from the Second Punic War relatively quickly and coins and trade goods from this period have been found across the
Mediterranean (even in the Balkans) which attest to the city’s prosperity based on trade. Carthage kept on friendly
terms with Rome too, declaring their great general Hannibal - Roman enemy No. 1 - an exile when he ed to the
court of Antiochus III. The city became an important source of grain and barley for Rome too; they managed to
regularly pay the reparations from the Second Punic War, and even gave military assistance to Rome’s campaigns
elsewhere.

As the second century BCE wore on, though, the Carthaginians gradually became more aggressive in their demands
for control of their own destiny. Carthage sorely resented the loss of its territory to Numidia under the rule of
Masinissa. The Numidians had been steadily expanding their territorial control so that ultimately they acquired
around half of Carthage’s territory as it had stood in 200 BCE. The Carthaginians responded to an attack on
Oroscopa by sending an army of 31,000 men to ght the Numidian king in 150 BCE. Carthage’s campaign was a
disaster and their army was annihilated, but Rome now had the perfect excuse to nally crush its old enemy once and
for all, sack Carthage, and take some easy war booty. Such gures as Marcus Porcius Cato (Cato the Elder), who had
seen for himself Carthage’s resurgence during a diplomatic visit in 153 BCE, persistently demanded in the Roman
Senate that as the Carthaginians had waged war without Roman permission, and worse, had done so against an ally of
Rome, ‘Carthage must be destroyed’. The Third Punic War was about to begin.

ROME DECLARES WAR

The Carthaginians sent envoys to Rome to explain their actions and ‘CARTHAGE MUST BE
grievances against Masinissa, but they were rebu ed. Many senators had DESTROYED’
been pushing for military action against Carthage for the last two or three CATO THE ELDER TO THE
years, and now seemed the nal straw. Then, an important development ROMAN SENATE.
may have persuaded the more cautious members of the Senate. Seeing

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the writing on the wall, Utica, perhaps wisely, defected to the Roman
cause. A long-time ally of Carthage, the city would provide a good harbour for a Roman invasion force just one day’s
sail from Carthage. In 149 BCE the Senate continued a charade of diplomacy by asking for 300 Carthaginian noble
children as hostages but then revealed its true intentions by nally declaring war for a third time on Carthage. An
army of up to 80,000 infantry and 4,000 cavalry was dispatched to North Africa.

The Romans rst demanded of Carthage an unconditional surrender under which terms they were to disband their
army, hand over all arms, and release all prisoners. On top of that and perhaps indicating Rome’s intentions to
destroy Carthage no matter what happened, the Carthaginians were told to leave Carthage completely and resettle in
another place not closer than 16 kilometres to the coast. Carthage, now with nothing much to lose, decided to make a
stand. Slaves were released from the city and a Carthaginian army of 30,000 recalled from the Numidian border.
The city and its population of 200,000 prepared for what would be a three-year siege.

Carthage and its Harbour

CARTHAGE BESIEGED
The Roman force was led by the consuls Marcius Censorinus and Manius Manilius but the rst engagements did not
go well, and Carthage, with its massive forti cations, resisted the Roman siege on the city. Carthage had some 34
kilometres of defensive walls to shelter behind, parts were built in a triple defensive line while other sections were
protected by palisades, ditches, and the sea. They resisted everything the Romans could throw at them. More
importantly, the Romans were unable to completely blockade the port where merchant vessels still managed to
resupply the city. On top of that, the Carthaginians sent out sorties to counter-attack, including re-ships which set
the Roman eet ablaze. They managed in another raid to destroy some of the Roman siege engines, and then an
epidemic hit the besiegers in the long hot summer of 148 BCE.

Meanwhile, the Carthaginian army was remaining a stubborn resistance in the countryside. The city of Hippacra
refused to surrender against sustained Roman attacks led by the consul Piso, and even the Numidians, under a new
king Bithyas, sent 800 cavalry to join the Carthaginian land army. The Romans had hoped for a quick and easy
capitulation, but it was beginning to look like the Third Punic War might grow to the epic proportions of the previous
wars.

More drastic measures were needed and taken in 147 BCE when the Romans, now commanded by the young and able
consul Publius Cornelius Scipio Aemilianus, built a better siege wall around Carthage and its harbour, including a
mole on the south side of the city. This latter structure would block the single access to Carthage’s mercantile harbour
which led in turn to the large circular inner naval harbour. At last, Carthage could no longer be supplied by sea. In
desperation, a small Carthaginian eet twice tried to break the blockade by sailing through a newly made second exit
to the harbour but both times they were forced to retreat.

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Siege of Carthage

Scipio then systematically attacked the walls near the harbour using the mole as a base. The Carthaginians responded
by attacking and burning some of the Roman siege engines, but Scipio persisted and managed to take control of the
new entrance dug by the Carthaginians. Once more the city was totally cut-o , and Scipio was making the siege seem
a whole lot easier than his predecessors had done. The Carthaginian army was hemmed in at Nepheris, 25 kilometres
south of Carthage, and unable to aid the city. In the winter of 147/146 BCE Scipio felt con dent enough to leave
Carthage choking from his stranglehold and defeated the army at Nepheris a er a three-week siege. 

CARTHAGE DESTROYED
The nal Roman hammer blow came in the spring of 146 BCE when they launched an all-out attack on Carthage.
Again, the harbour area was selected as the point of entry, and this time, the Romans broke through the defences and
slowly advanced through the city. A er seven days of brutal street- ghting and much time-wasting looting by ill-
disciplined legionaries, only the citadel remained to be taken. Here the Carthaginian commander Hasdrubal and 900
desperate Roman deserters held out in the temple of Eshmun. They could expect no mercy, and Hasdrubal’s
torturing of Roman prisoners on the battlements earlier in the battle, even if done to steel the resolve of the
Carthaginians, must now have been regretted. As the Roman assault gained ground, Hasdrubal gave himself up but,
in shame and outrage, his wife threw herself and her two children onto the massive funeral pyre onto which the last
remaining soldiers also committed themselves. Carthage had nally fallen.

Carthage Under Siege

All of the inhabitants were enslaved and the city utterly destroyed (the myth that the land was then spread with salt to
prevent resettlement is a later invention). A curse was then set on any person who attempted to resettle the area.
North Africa was then made a Roman province while those cities who had been loyal to Rome, such as the new
capital Utica, were given the privilege of freedom from tax. For his exploits, Scipio became Cornelius Scipio
Aemilianus Africanus (known later as Scipio Africanus the Younger to distinguish him from his namesake
grandfather, Scipio Africanus the Elder) and was awarded a triumph in Rome.

Carthage would remain uninhabited until the city was re-founded by Julius Caesar and further encouraged by
Augustus a century later. As history is written by the victors, the Punic culture was persistently bashed and maligned
by generations of Roman writers, but it remained remarkably resilient, as did the Punic language, in the countryside
and smaller settlements of North Africa long a er the Punic Wars had robbed it of its gurehead city.         

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

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Mark Cartwright
Mark holds an M.A. in Greek philosophy and his special interests include ceramics, the ancient Americas, and world
mythology. He loves visiting and reading about historic sites and transforming that experience into free articles
accessible to all.

Bibliography
Bagnall, N., The Punic Wars (Thomas Dunne Books, 2005).

Bagnall, R. et al, The Encyclopedia of Ancient History (Wiley-Blackwell, 2012)

Hornblower, S., The Oxford Classical Dictionary (Oxford University Press, 2012).

Hoyos, D. et al, A Companion to the Punic Wars (Wiley-Blackwell, 2011).

Hoyos, D., The Carthaginians (Routledge, 2016).

Miles, R., Carthage Must Be Destroyed (Penguin, 2016).

Steinby, C., Rome Versus Carthage (Pen and Sword, 2014).

License
Written by Mark Cartwright, published on 31 May 2016 under the following license: Creative Commons: Attribution-
NonCommercial-ShareAlike . This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon this content non-commercially, as long as
they credit the author and license their new creations under the identical terms.

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