Punic Wars

The Second Punic War, by far the greatest struggle in which either power engaged, had thus ended in the complete triumph of Rome. This triumph is not to be explained in the main by any faultiness in the Carthaginians' method of attack. The history of the First Punic Wat, and that of the Second outside of Italy, prove that the Romans were irresistible on neutral or Carthaginian ground Carthage could only hope to win by invading Italy and using the enemy's home resources against him. The failure of Hannibal's brilliant endeavour to realize these conditions was not due to any strategical mistakes on his part. It was caused by the indomitable strength of will of the Romans, whose character dur ing this period appears at its best, and to the compactness of their Italian confederacy, which no shock of defeat or strain of war could entirely disintegrate. It is this spectacle of individual genius overborne by corporate and persevering effort which lends to the Second Punic War its peculiar interest.

The Third Punic War (149-146 B.C.).

The political power of Carthage henceforth remained quite insignificant, but its com merce and material resources revived in the 2nd century with such rapidity as to excite the jealousy of the growing mercantile popu lation of Rome and the alarm of its more timid statesmen. Under the influence of these feelings the conviction—sedulously fostered by Cato the Elder, the Censor—that "Carthage must be destroyed" overbore the scruples of more clear-sighted statesmen. A cams belli was readily found in a formal breach of the treaty, com mitted by the Carthaginians in 154, when they resisted Massi nissa's aggressions by force of arms. A Roman army was des

patched to Africa, and although the Carthaginians consented to make reparation by giving hostages and surrendering their arms, they were goaded into revolt by the further stipulation that they must emigrate to some inland site where they would be debarred from commerce. By a desperate effort they created a new war equipment and prepared their city for a siege (149). The Roman attack for two years completely miscarried, until in 147 the com mand was given to a young officer who had distinguished himself in the early operations of the war—Scipio Aemilianus, the adoptive grandson of the former conqueror of Carthage. Scipio made the blockade stringent by walling off the isthmus on which the town lay and by cutting off its sources of supplies from oversew. His main attack was delivered on the harbour side, where he effected an entrance in the face of a determined and ingenious resistance The struggle did not cease until he had carried house by house the streets that led up to the citadel. Of a population probably ex ceeding half a million only 50,000 remained at the final surrender. The survivors were sold into slavery ; the city was razed to the ground and its site condemned by solemn imprecations to lie desolate for ever. The territory of Carthage, which had recently been much narrowed by Massinissa's encroachments, was con verted into a Roman province under the name of "Africa."