The capture of Carthage
What Rome did, and what it claimed to have done: the Third Punic War, from the disarming of the city to the burning of Byrsa.
of siege, from 149 to the spring of 146 BC
suits of armour and 2,000 catapults handed to Rome before the war
and six nights of street fighting up to Byrsa
survivors who came out of Byrsa, sold into slavery
« Carthago delenda est »
Back from an embassy to Africa, struck by Carthage's renewed prosperity, Cato ends every speech in the Senate with this phrase. According to Plutarch, he showed fresh figs picked in Carthage three days earlier: the enemy was within sailing distance. Scipio Nasica, by contrast, argued for sparing the city.
A real destruction, not an erasure
Rome burnt and dismantled Carthage, and killed or enslaved its people. But the tale of a city "razed" and sterilised with salt is legend: excavations find the Punic city beneath the Roman one, and Punic culture survived for centuries.
Masinissa, the other architect of the fall
Rome struck the final blow, but it was the Numidian king Masinissa who, for fifty years, ate away at Carthage's territory and handed Rome its pretext.
Rich lands, a coveted city
Masinissa wanted to build a great settled Numidian kingdom, with towns and wheat-growing land. Yet the most fertile plains and the richest trading posts in Africa belonged to Carthage, whose prosperity had survived defeat. He knew that with Rome behind him, every annexation would go unpunished.
Carthage had lost its best defender. As suffete, Hannibal had reformed the state and restored its finances, but his enemies denounced him to Rome. He went into exile in 195 and died in 183, long before the last war.
Rome used Masinissa without wanting to hand him Carthage. Several modern historians think the destruction of the city was also meant to stop an overly powerful Numidian kingdom from taking it: on his death, his kingdom was immediately divided.
The defences of Carthage
Before the siege, here is what Rome had to take: a city built on a peninsula, closed on the landward side by one of the most powerful fortifications of the ancient world. They explain how a disarmed city held out for almost three years.
- Triple line across the isthmus
- Sea wall (single)
- Byrsa, citadel
- Harbours
- Weak angle (Appian)
The triple wall of the isthmus
Three identical walls? Appian wrote in the 2nd century AD, drawing on Polybius, who witnessed the siege. Many modern historians read it instead as a defence in depth: a ditch, a palisade or outer wall, then the great towered wall housing barracks and stables.
34 km, a figure to qualify
The often-quoted figure comes from Livy (Periochae, 51): a circuit of 23 Roman miles, about 34 km. Orosius counts 22 (≈ 32.5 km); Strabo gives 360 stades (≈ 65 km) for the perimeter of the whole peninsula. The full line has never been found: think of a circuit of some thirty kilometres, taking in the garden suburb of Megara.
A single wall
Where the sea and the cliffs protected the city, a single wall was enough (Appian). The weak point: the low, neglected angle where this wall met the tongue of land leading to the harbours. There the consul Censorinus brought up his rams in 149; the breach was partly closed overnight and the assault driven back.
Byrsa, the last stronghold
At the heart of the city, the hill of Byrsa had its own wall, around the temple of Eshmun; Orosius gives it a circuit of a little over two miles (≈ 3 km). In 146 it was the besieged’s last bastion.
The Cothon, naval defence
The double harbour and its sheds for 220 ships are described on the foundation page. During the siege they became a key objective: Scipio blocked the entrance with a mole, and the besieged cut a new channel.
What excavation has found
On the seaward side, the German excavations of Friedrich Rakob (Magon quarter, UNESCO campaign) uncovered the 5th-century BC sea wall and a gate opening onto the shore. On the isthmus, General Duval traced a fortified line for about 2.9 km in 1949, which he identified as the outer Punic wall.
The “Theodosian wall”
Not every wall excavated at Carthage is Punic. Around AD 425, under Theodosius II, Roman Carthage built a new circuit against the Vandal threat; Canadian teams excavated it from 1976. It has nothing to do with the walls of 146.
What happened
Full timeline →The last days
Polybius, Scipio's friend and adviser, witnessed the fall of the city. Appian drew on his account.
The choice of the flames
Commander of the defence, Hasdrubal finally surrenders, as a suppliant, at the feet of Scipio. From the top of the burning temple, his wife, dressed in her finest clothes, curses him for his cowardice, kills their two sons and throws herself with them into the flames.
"A day will come when sacred Ilion shall perish, and Priam, and the people of Priam of the good ash spear."
Before the burning city, Scipio Aemilianus weeps and quotes these lines from the Iliad. When Polybius asks him why, he confides his fear that the same fate may one day strike Rome.
The citadel, from the last stand to the excavations
On the summit of Dido's legendary hill stood the temple of Eshmun, reached by sixty steps. There the last hours of Punic Carthage were played out.
Under Augustus, the Romans levelled the summit to build the forum of the new city. The spoil covered the slopes — and unwittingly protected a 2nd-century Punic residential quarter, streets and cisterns included, uncovered by French archaeologists from the 1970s onwards.
The foundation of Carthage →Roman myth / reality
"Carthage was razed to the ground"
The city was burnt and dismantled, but not erased: Punic houses, streets and cisterns have been found beneath the Roman layers, preserved several metres high.
"Salt was sown to sterilise the soil"
No ancient source — not Polybius, Appian or Livy — mentions it. The story appears in modern writers of the 19th and 20th centuries. Salt was, besides, a precious commodity.
"Carthaginian civilisation vanished"
Punic was still spoken in the 5th century AD. Towns in Roman Africa kept their suffetes, and Punic cults survived under Roman names.
"Carthage was never rebuilt"
After the failure of Gaius Gracchus (122 BC), Caesar decided on the refoundation, carried out under Augustus: Carthage became the capital of Roman Africa and one of the largest cities of the Empire.
Archaeological evidence
What the excavations actually show, notably those of the UNESCO "Save Carthage" campaign (1972–1995).
A refoundation on site
Colonia Iulia Concordia Carthago was built exactly on the Punic site, for its harbours and its position. The curse of 146 did not last a century.
Punic structures preserved
Punic walls, floors and cisterns appear beneath the Roman layers. On Byrsa, a thick burn layer precisely dates the capture of 146.
The salt myth
No ancient author speaks of salt spread over Carthage: the episode is a modern invention, perhaps inspired by biblical or medieval stories.
Cultural continuity
Neo-Punic inscriptions, personal names, cults: Punic culture lived on. Saint Augustine still attests the use of the language around AD 400.
The circular harbour
The plan of the Cothon survived the centuries: the Romans refitted the Punic naval harbour, whose ship sheds have been found by excavation.
A new grid
The Romans laid out a new orthogonal plan and levelled the top of Byrsa — which paradoxically preserved the Punic quarter buried beneath the fill.
Carthage did not disappear
The city of 146 did burn: excavations on Byrsa and in the Punic quarter find the fire layer, collapsed houses, sling bullets and catapult balls. But a civilisation is more than a city. Punic language, cults, institutions and towns lived on for centuries, and Carthage itself was rebuilt on the same site.
The Punic language
Spoken until the 5th century AD, nearly six centuries after the fall of Carthage. Saint Augustine, born in Thagaste, bears witness to it and quotes Punic words.
Neo-Punic inscriptions
Punic was still carved, in a script called Neo-Punic, until the 1st and 2nd centuries, then written in Latin letters until the 4th century.
The language of kings
The Numidian kings, Masinissa included, governed and minted coins in Punic. At Dougga, official inscriptions are bilingual, Libyan and Punic.
Lasting institutions
Under Rome, African towns such as Leptis Magna or Mactar still elected suffetes, the magistrates of the Carthaginian tradition, into the 1st and 2nd centuries.
The gods change their names
Baal Hammon is worshipped as African Saturn and Tanit as Caelestis, at the same sanctuaries and with stelae inherited from the Punic model.
Punic towns remain
Utica, Hadrumetum (Sousse), Leptis, Kerkouane… several Punic cities came through the war; some, Rome's allies in 149, kept their status as free cities.
Carthage reborn
Decided by Caesar, the colony was founded under Augustus on the same site. It became the capital of Africa Proconsularis and one of the largest cities of the Empire.
A name and a heritage
The name Africa, then Ifriqiya, comes from the territory of Carthage. The archaeological site is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Carthage today
Animated map →
Further readingSources for this page
12 references
Ancient sources
- Polybius, HistoriesI, 73 — eyewitness of the siege alongside Scipio Aemilianus; Appian's source
- Appian of Alexandria, Libyca (The African Book)95 — the isthmus walls, the siege and the fall of Byrsa
- Livy, History of Rome — Masinissa's encroachments (193, 174–172 BC)
- Livy, Periochae51 — length of the city wall (23 miles)
- Plutarch, Life of Cato the Elder — the figs of Carthage
- Orosius, Histories against the Pagans — circuit of the city and of Byrsa
- Strabo, Geography (book 17) — circuit of the peninsula
- Homer, IliadVI, 448–449 — lines quoted by Scipio Aemilianus before the burning city
- Saint Augustine — witness to Punic still being spoken around AD 400
Modern scholarship
- Abdelmajid Ennabli, Pour sauver Carthage : exploration et conservation de la cité punique, romaine et byzantine, Unesco/INAA, 1992 — on the UNESCO “Save Carthage” campaign
- Friedrich Rakob — German excavations of the Magon quarter, cited on this page
- General Duval — fortified line across the isthmus (1949), cited on this page