CLST 319 (Roman Army) Handout: War with Carthage III Fall 2015
The Third Punic War (149-146 BCE)
The Third Punic War was very much an unequal struggle: the Romans had stripped Carthage of most of her military and defensive capacity after the Second Punic War. In the lead up to the war Carthage tried various means of appeasing Rome, but faced with a request to abandon Carthage and move ten miles inland, they abandoned that and fought to the bitter end. Most of the fighting took place around the city itself, which only fell after a long and bitter siege. It was only taken with great difficulty, in the end coming down to brutal street fighting, with the Romans having to capture the city block by block. The excerpts below are from Appian’s Punic Wars, part of his monumental Roman History, and deal with the end stages of the war around and in the city.
119 Now Scipio[1] set fire to the camp of the enemy, which they had abandoned the day before, when they took refuge in the city. Being in possession of the whole isthmus he began a trench across it from sea to sea not more than a stone's throw from the enemy. The latter were not idle. Along the whole distance of 4½ kilometer he had to work and fight at the same time. When he had finished this one he dug another of the same length, at no great distance from the first, looking towards the mainland. He then made two others running transversely, giving the interior space the form of a quadrangle, and threw around the whole a palisade of chevaux-de-frise.[2] In addition to the palisade he fortified the ditches also, and along the one looking toward Carthage he built a wall 4½ kilometer in length and 3 meters high, without counting the parapets and towers which surmounted the wall at intervals. The width of the wall was about one-half of its height. The highest tower was at the middle, and upon this another of wood, four stories high, was built, from which to observe what was going on in the city. Having completed this work in twenty days and nights, the whole army working and fighting and taking food and sleep by turns, he brought them all within the fortification.
120 This was at the same time a camp for himself and a rather long fort commanding the enemy's country. From this base he could intercept all the supplies sent to the Carthaginians from the interior, since Carthage was everywhere surrounded by the sea except on this neck. Hence this fort was the first and principal cause of famine and other troubles to the Carthaginians, for, while the great multitude fled from the fields to the city and none could go out on account of the siege, foreign merchants ceased to frequent the place on account of the war. Thus they had to rely on food brought from Africa alone, little coming in by sea and only when the weather was favorable, much the greater part being forwarded by the land route. Deprived of this, they began to suffer severely from hunger. Bithya, their cavalry general, who had been sent out some time before to procure food, did not venture to make the attempt by attacking and breaking through Scipio's fortification, but he sent supplies a long way around by water, although Scipio's ships were blockading Carthage.
The latter did not keep their place all the time, nor did they stand thickly together, as they had no shelter and the sea was full of reefs. Nor could they anchor near the city itself, with the Carthaginians standing on the walls and the sea pounding on the rocks there worst of all. Thus the ships of Bithya and an occasional merchant, whom the love of gain made reckless of danger, watching for a strong and favorable wind, spread their sails and ran the blockade, the Roman galleys not being able to pursue merchant ships sailing before the wind.
But these chances were rare and only when a strong wind was blowing from the sea. These supplies Hasdrubal distributed to his 30,000 soldiers exclusively, for he despised the multitude; for which reason they suffered greatly from hunger.
[Scipio then tried to blockade the entrance with an embankment; the Carthaginians – men, women, and children dug a new exit and build about 50 ships which sallied forth from it.]
122 The Romans were so astounded by the sudden appearance of this new entrance, and of the fleet issuing from it, that if the Carthaginians had at once fallen upon their ships, which were in disorder by reason of siege, neither sailors nor rowers being present, they might have possessed themselves of the whole fleet. But now (since it was fated that Carthage should perish) they only sailed out to make a show, and, having flouted the enemy in a pompous way, they returned inside the harbor.
Three days later they set out for a naval engagement, and the Romans advanced to meet them with their ships and other apparatus in good order. They came together with loud shouts on both sides and cheers from the rowers, steersmen, and marines, the Carthaginians resting their last hope of safety on this engagement and the Romans hoping to make it their final victory.
The fight raged till midday. During the battle the Carthaginian small boats, running under the sides of the Roman ships, which were taller, stove holes in their sterns and broke off their oars and rudders, and damaged them in various other ways, advancing and retreating nimbly. As the day verged toward evening the battle was still undecided, and the Carthaginians thought best to withdraw, not that they were beaten, but to renew the engagement the next day.
123 Their small boats retired first, and arriving at the entrance, and becoming entangled on account of their number, they blocked up the mouth so that when the larger ones arrived they were prevented from entering. They took refuge at a wide quay, which had been built against the city wall for unloading merchant ships some time before, and on which a small parapet had been erected during this war lest the space might sometime be occupied by the enemy.
When the Carthaginian ships took refuge here for want of a harbor, they ranged themselves with their bows outward and received the attack of the enemy, some of them standing on the ships, some on the quay, and still others on the parapet. To the Romans the onset was easy, for it is not hard to attack ships that are standing still, but when they attempted to turn around, in order to retire, the movement was slow and difficult on account of the length of the ships, for which reason they received as much damage as they had given; for while they were executing the movement they were exposed to the onset of the Carthaginians.
Finally five ships of the city of the Sidetae, which were in alliance with Scipio, dropped their anchors in the sea at some distance, attaching long ropes to them, by which means they were enabled to dash against the Carthaginian ships by rowing, and having delivered their blow warp themselves back by the ropes stern foremost. Then the whole fleet, catching the idea from the Sidetae, followed their example and inflicted great damage upon the enemy. Night put an end to the battle, after which the Carthaginians withdrew to the city - as many of them as survived the engagement.
124 At daylight Scipio attacked this quay because it was well situated to command the harbor. Assailing the parapet with rams and other engines he beat down a part of it. The Carthaginians, although oppressed by hunger and distress of various kinds, made a sally by night against the Roman engines, not by land, for there was no passageway, nor by ships, for the water was too shallow, but naked and bearing torches not lighted, so that they might not be seen at a distance.
Thus, in a way that nobody would have expected, they plunged into the sea and crossed over, some of them wading in water up to their breasts, others swimming. When they reached the engines they lighted their torches, and becoming visible and being naked they suffered greatly from wounds, which they courageously returned. Although the barbed arrows and spearpoints rained on their breasts and faces, they did not relax their efforts, but rushed forward like wild beasts against the blows until they had set the engines on fire and put the Romans to disorderly flight.
Panic and confusion spread through the whole camp and such fear as was never before known, caused by the frenzy of these naked enemies. Scipio, fearing the consequences, ran out with a squadron of horse and commanded his attendants to kill those who would not desist from flight. He killed some of them himself. The rest were brought by force into the camp, where they passed the night under arms, fearing some desperate deed of the enemy. The latter, having burned the engines, swam back home.
125. When daylight returned the Carthaginians, no longer molested by the engines, rebuilt that part of the outwork which had been battered down and added to it a number of towers at intervals. The Romans constructed new engines and built mounds in front of these towers, from which they threw upon them lighted torches and vessels filled with burning brimstone and pitch, and burned some of them, and drove away the Carthaginians.
The footway was so slippery with coagulated blood, lately shed in great quantity, that the Romans were compelled, unwillingly, to abandon the pursuit. Scipio, having possessed himself of the entire quay, fortified it and built a brick wall of the same height as that of Carthage, and at no great distance from it. When it was finished, he put 4,000 men on it to discharge darts and javelins at the enemy, which they could do with comparative safety. As the walls were of equal height the darts were thrown with great effect. And now the summer came to an end.
Scipio spent the winter of 147 taking action against Carthaginian allies and cities in the area before turning back to deal with the city of Carthage in the spring of 146.
127 When spring returned, Scipio laid siege to Byrsa and to the harbor of Cothon. Hasdrubal one night set fire to that part of Cothon which is in the form of a quadrangle. But Laelius, still expecting Scipio to make the attack, and while the Carthaginians were turned to that quarter, without being observed, mounted the other part of Cothon, which was in the form of a circle.
A shout went up as though a victory had been gained, the Carthaginians became alarmed, while the Romans mounted on all sides, despising the danger, and filled up the vacant spaces with timbers, engines, and scaffolding, the guards making only a feeble resistance because they were weak from hunger and downcast in spirit.
The wall around Cothon being taken, Scipio seized the neighboring forum. Being unable to do more, as it was now nightfall, he and his whole force passed the night there under arms. At daylight he brought in 4,000 fresh troops. They entered the temple of Apollo, whose statue was there, covered with gold, in a shrine of beaten gold, weighing 1,000 talents, which they plundered, chopping it with their swords, disregarding the commands of their officers until they had divided it among themselves, after which they returned to their duty.
128 Now Scipio hastened to the attack of Byrsa, the strongest part of the city, where the greater part of the inhabitants had taken refuge. There were three streets ascending from the forum to this fortress, along which, on either side, were houses built closely together and six stories high, from which the Romans were assailed with missiles. They were compelled, therefore, to possess themselves of the first ones and use those as a means of expelling the occupants of the next.
When they had mastered the first, they threw timbers from one to another over the narrow passageways, and crossed as on bridges. While war was raging in this way on the roofs, another fight was going on among those who met each other in the streets below. All places were filled with groans, shrieks, shouts, and every kind of agony. Some were stabbed, others were hurled alive from the roofs to the pavement, some of them alighting on the heads of spears or other pointed weapons, or swords. No one dared to set fire to the houses on account of those who were still on the roofs, until Scipio reached Byrsa. Then he set fire to the three streets all together, and gave orders to keep the passageways clear of burning material so that the army might move back and forth freely.
129 Then came new scenes of horror. As the fire spread and carried everything down, the soldiers did not wait to destroy the buildings little by little, but all in a heap. So the crashing grew louder, and many corpses fell with the stones into the midst. Others were seen still living, especially old men, women, and young children who had hidden in the inmost nooks of the houses, some of them wounded, some more or less burned, and uttering piteous cries. Still others, thrust out and falling from such a height with the stones, timbers, and fire, were torn asunder in all shapes of horror, crushed and mangled.
Nor was this the end of their miseries, for the street cleaners, who were removing the rubbish with axes, mattocks, and forks, and making the roads passable, tossed with these instruments the dead and the living together into holes in the ground, dragging them along like sticks and stones and turning them over with their iron tools. Trenches were filled with men. Some who were thrown in head foremost, with their legs sticking out of the ground, writhed a long time. Others fell with their feet downward and their heads above ground. Horses ran over them, crushing their faces and skulls, not purposely on the part of the riders, but in their headlong haste. Nor did the street cleaners do these things on purpose; but the tug of war, the glory of approaching victory, the rush of the soldiery, the orders of the officers, the blast of the trumpets, tribunes and centurions marching their cohorts hither and thither - all together made everybody frantic and heedless of the spectacles under their eyes.
130 Six days and nights were consumed in this kind of fighting, the soldiers being changed so that they might not be worn out with toil, slaughter, want of sleep, and these horrid sights. Scipio alone toiled without rest, hurrying here and there, without sleep, taking food while he was at work, until, utterly fatigued and relaxed, he sat down on a high place where he could overlook the work.
Much remained to be ravaged, and it seemed likely that the carnage would be of longer duration, but on the seventh day some suppliants presented themselves to Scipio bearing the sacred garlands of Asclepius, whose temple was much the richest and most renowned of all in the citadel.
These, taking olive branches from the temple, begged Scipio to spare the lives of all who might wish to depart from Byrsa. This he granted to all except the deserters. Forthwith there came out 50,000 men and women together, a narrow gate in the wall being opened, and a guard furnished for them.
The Roman deserters, about 900 in number, despairing of their lives, retreated to the temple of Asclepius with Hasdrubal and his wife and their two boys. Here they might have defended themselves a long time although they were few in number, on account of the height and rocky nature of the place, which in time of peace was reached by an ascent of sixty steps. But, finally, overcome by hunger, want of sleep, fear, toil, and approaching dissolution, they abandoned the enclosures of the temple and fled to the shrine and roof.
Hasdrubal, the leader of the Carthaginians, creeps out and surrenders to Scipio; the rest of the defenders, however, preferred to commit suicide and set fire to the temple in a last act of defiance; Hasdrubal’s wife is said to have appeared on the temple roof before the fire took hold fully, dressed as well as she could, and killed their children while rebuking him; she then threw herself into the fire with the bodies of the children.