The Third Punic War (149 BC to 146 BC) was the third
and last of the Punic Wars fought between the former
Phoenician (Romans used this as an adjective meaning
'treacherous' after the Punic Wars) colony of
Carthage, and the Republic of Rome. The Punic Wars
were so named because of the Roman name for
Carthaginians: Punici, or Poenici.
The war was a much smaller engagement than the two
previous punic wars and primarily consisted of a
single action, the Battle of Carthage, but resulted
in the complete destruction of the city of Carthage,
the annexation of all remaining Carthaginian
territory by Rome, and the death or enslavement of
the entire Carthaginian population. The Third Punic
War ended Carthage's independent existence.
Background
In the years between the Second and Third Punic War,
Rome was engaged in the conquest of the Hellenistic
empires to the east (see Macedonian Wars, Illyrian
Wars, and the Roman-Syrian War) and ruthlessly
suppressing the Iberian people in the west, although
they had been essential to the Roman success in the
Second Punic War. Carthage, stripped of allies and
territory (Sicily, Sardinia, Hispania), was
suffering under a huge indemnity of 200 silver
talents to be paid every year for 50 years.
The Romans still harboured a bitter hatred for
Carthage, which had nearly destroyed their empire in
the Second Punic War. Sentiments ran so strong that
the powerful statesman Cato usually finished his
speeches on any subject in the Senate with the
phrase ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam,
which means "Furthermore, it is my opinion that
Carthage must be destroyed". Meanwhile, Carthage had
regained much of its prosperity through trade,
further alarming Rome that a revived Carthage could
again threaten them with war.
The peace treaty at the end of the Second Punic War
required that all border disputes involving Carthage
be arbitrated by the Roman Senate and required
Carthage to get explicit Roman approval before
arming its citizens, or hiring a mercenary force. As
a result, in the fifty intervening years between the
Second and Third Wars, Carthage had to take all
border disputes with Rome's ally Numidia to the
Senate, where they were decided almost exclusively
in Numidian favour.
The course of war
In 151 BC, the Carthaginian debt to Rome was fully
repaid, meaning that, in Punic eyes, the treaty was
now expired, though not so according to the Romans,
who instead viewed the treaty as a permanent
declaration of Carthaginian subordination to Rome
akin to the Roman treaties with its Italian allies.
Numidia launched another border raid on Carthaginian
soil, besieging a town, and Carthage launched a
large military expedition (25,000 soldiers) to repel
the Numidian invaders.
As a result, Carthage suffered a humiliating
military defeat and was charged with another fifty
year debt to Numidia. Immediately thereafter,
however, Rome showed displeasure with Carthage’s
decision to wage war against its neighbour without
Roman consent, and told Carthage that in order to
avoid a war it had to “satisfy the Roman People.”
The Roman Senate then began gathering an army. After
Utica defected to Rome in 149 BC, Rome declared war
against Carthage. The Carthaginians made a series of
attempts to negotiate with Rome, and received a
promise that if three hundred children of well-born
Carthaginians were sent as hostages to Rome the
Carthaginians would keep the rights to their land
and self-government. Even after this was done,
however, the Romans landed an army at Utica where
the consuls demanded that Carthage hand over all
weapons and armour. After those had been handed
over, Rome additionally demanded that the
Carthaginians move at least ten miles inland, while
Carthage itself was to be burned. When the
Carthaginians learned of this they abandoned
negotiations and the city was immediately besieged,
beginning the Third Punic War. The Carthaginians
endured the siege starting c.149 BC to the spring of
146 BC, when Scipio Aemilianus took the city by
storm.
Aftermath
Many Carthaginians died from starvation during the
latter part of the siege, while many others died in
the final six days of fighting. When the war ended,
the remaining 50,000 Carthaginians, a small part of
the original pre-war population, were sold into
slavery.
The city was systematically burned for somewhere
between 10 and 17 days. Then the city walls, its
buildings and its harbour were utterly destroyed
and, according to an unsubstantiated[1] 20th-century
historiographical tradition, the surrounding
territory was supposedly sown with salt to ensure
that nothing would grow there again.
The remaining Carthaginian territories were annexed
by Rome and constituted the Roman province of
Africa. The site of Carthage was later rebuilt as a
Roman city.
In February of 1985, Ugo Vetere, the mayor of Rome,
and Chedly Klibi, the mayor of Carthage, signed a
symbolic treaty "officially" ending the war which
had been supposedly extended by the lack of a peace
treaty for more than 2200 years.
References
- Ridley, R.T., "To Be Taken with a Pinch of
Salt: The Destruction of Carthage," Classical
Philology vol. 81, no. 2 (1986).
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