The Historians' History of the World 05 [The Roman Republic]

Car for carrying a Battering Ram

The people, who were anxiously waiting their return, when they saw their downcast melancholy looks, abandoned themselves to despair and lamented aloud. The envoys passed on in silence to the senate house, and there made known the inexorable resolve of Rome. When the senators heard it they groaned and wept; the people without joined in their lamentations; then giving way to rage, they rushed in and tore to pieces the principal advisers of the delivery of the hostages and arms; they stoned the ambassadors and dragged them about the city; and then fell on and abused in various ways such Italians as happened to be still there. The senate that very day resolved on war; they proclaimed liberty to the slaves, they chose Hasdrubal—whom they had condemned to death, and who was at a place called Nepheris at the head of a force of twenty thousand men—general for the exterior, and another Hasdrubal, the grandson of Masinissa, for the city; and having again applied in vain to the consuls for a truce that they might send envoys to Rome, they prepared vigorously for defence, resolved to endure the last rather than abandon their city. The temples and other sacred places were turned into workshops, men and women laboured day and night in the manufacture of arms, and the women cut off their long hair that it might be twisted into bowstrings. The consuls meantime, though urged by Masinissa, did not advance against the city, either through dislike of the unpleasant task, or because they thought that they could take it whenever they pleased. At length they led their troops to the attack of the town.

The city of Carthage lay on a peninsula at the bottom of a large bay; at its neck, which was nearly three miles in width, stood the citadel, Byrsa, on a rock whose summit was occupied by the temple of Esmun or Æsculapius; from the neck on the east ran a narrow belt or tongue of land between the lake of Tunis and the sea; at a little distance inlands extended a rocky ridge, through which narrow passes had been hewn. The harbour was on the east side of the peninsula; it was double, consisting of an outer and an inner one, and its mouth, which was seventy feet wide, was secured with iron chains; the outer harbour was surrounded by a quay for the landing of goods. The inner one, named the Cothon, was for the ships of war; its only entrance was through the outer one, and it was defended by a double wall; in its centre was an elevated island, on which stood the admiral’s house, whence there was a view out over the open sea. The Cothon was able to contain 220 ships, and was provided with all the requisite magazines. A single wall environed the whole city; that of Byrsa was triple, each wall being thirty ells high exclusive of the battlements, and at intervals of two hundred feet were towers four stories high. A double row of vaults ran round each wall, the lower one containing stalls for three hundred elephants and four thousand horses, with granaries for their fodder; the upper barracks, for twenty thousand foot and four thousand horse. Three streets led from Byrsa to the market, which was near the Cothon, which harbour gave name to this quarter of the town. That part of the town which lay to the west and north was named Megara; it was more thinly inhabited, and full of gardens divided by walls and hedges. The city was in compass twenty-three miles, and is said to have contained at this time seven hundred thousand inhabitants.

The consuls divided their forces; Censorinus attacked from his ships the wall where it was weakest, at the angle of the isthmus, while Manilius attempted to fill the ditch and carry the outer works of the great wall. They reckoned on no resistance; but their expectations were deceived, and they were forced to retire. Censorinus then constructed two large battering-rams, with which he threw down a part of the wall near the belt; the Carthaginians partly rebuilt it during the night, and next day they drove out with loss such of the Romans as had entered by the breach. They had also in the night made a sally and burned the engines of the besiegers. It being now the dog days, Censorinus finding the situation of his camp, close to a lake of standing water, unwholesome, removed to the sea-shore. The Carthaginians then, watching when the wind blew strong from the sea on the Roman station, used to fill small vessels with combustibles, to which they set fire, and spreading their sails let the wind drive them on the Roman ships, many of which were thus destroyed.

Censorinus having gone to Rome for the elections, the Carthaginians became more daring, and they ventured a nocturnal attack on the camp of Manilius, in which they would have succeeded but for the presence of mind of Scipio, one of the tribunes, who led out the horse at the rear of the camp and fell on them unexpectedly. A second nocturnal attack was frustrated by the same Scipio, who was now the life and soul of the army. Manilius then, contrary to the advice of Scipio, led his troops to Nepheris against Hasdrubal; but he was forced to retire with loss, and four entire cohorts would have been cut off had it not been for the valour and the skill of Scipio. Shortly after, when commissioners came out from Rome to inquire into the causes of the want of success, Manilius and his officers, laying aside all jealousy, bore testimony to the merits of Scipio; the affection of the army for him was also manifest; of all which the commissioners informed the senate and people on their return.

[149-147 B.C.]

Masinissa dying at this time, left the regulation of his kingdom to Scipio, who divided the regal office among the three legitimate sons of the deceased monarch; giving the capital and the chief dignity to Micipsa, the eldest, the management of the foreign relations to Gulussa, and the administration of justice to Mastanabal. Scipio also induced Himilco Phamæas, a Punic commander, who had hitherto done the Romans much mischief, to desert to them, bringing over with him twenty-two hundred horses.

In the spring (148) the new consul L. Calpurnius Piso came out to take the command of the army, and the prætor L. Hostilius Mancinus to take that of the fleet. They attacked the town of Clupea by sea and land, but were repulsed; and Calpurnius then spent the whole summer to no purpose in the siege of a strong town named Hippagreta. The Carthaginians, elevated by their unexpected good fortune, were now masters of the country; they insulted the Romans, and endeavoured to detach the Numidians. Hasdrubal, proud of his successes over Manilius, aspired to the command in the city; he accused the other Hasdrubal of having intelligence with his uncle Gulussa, who was in the Roman camp; and when this last, on being charged with it in the senate, hesitated from surprise, the senators fell on and killed him with the seats; and his rival thus gained his object.

The elections now came on at Rome; Scipio was there as a candidate for the ædileship; all eyes were turned on him, his friends doubtless were not idle, and the letters from the soldiers in Africa represented him as the only man able to take Carthage. The tribes therefore resolved to make him consul, though he was not of the proper age.[60] The presiding consul opposed in vain; he was elected, and the people further assumed the power of assigning him Africa for his province.