When Scipio perceived this he planned to close the entrance to the harbor on the west side, not very far from the shore. For this purpose he carried a strong embankment into the sea, beginning on the tongue of land which lay between the lake and sea, advancing straight toward the harbor’s mouth. He filled it with heavy stones so that it might not be washed away by the waves. The embankment was twenty-four feet wide on the top and four times as much on the bottom. The Carthaginians at first despised this work as likely to take a long time, and perhaps impossible of execution altogether. But when they saw the whole army proceeding eagerly, and not intermitting the work by day or by night, they became alarmed, and began to excavate another entrance at another part of the harbor in midsea, where it was impossible to carry an embankment on account of the depth of the water and the fury of the wind. Even the women and children helped to dig. They began the work inside, and carefully concealed what they were doing. At the same time they built triremes and quinqueremes from old material, and they left nothing to be desired in the way of courage and high spirit. Moreover, they concealed everything so perfectly that not even the prisoners could tell Scipio with certainty what was going on, but merely that there was a great racket in the harbor day and night; what it was about they did not know. Finally, everything being finished, the Carthaginians opened the new entrance about the dawn of day and passed out with fifty triremes, besides pinnaces, brigantines, and other small craft decked out in a way to cause terror.
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 beleaguerment of the walls, 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.
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.
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 passage-way, 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 spear-points 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.
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 4000 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.
At the beginning of winter, Scipio resolved to sweep away the Carthaginian power in the country, and the allies from whom supplies were sent to them. Sending his captains this way and that he moved in person to Nepheris against Diogenes, who held that town as Hasdrubal’s successor, going by the lake while sending Gaius Laelius by land. When he arrived he encamped at a distance of two stades from Diogenes. Leaving Gulussa to keep Diogenes unceasingly employed, he hastened back to Carthage, after which he kept passing to and fro between the two places overseeing all that was done. When two of the spaces between Diogenes’ towers were demolished Scipio came and stationed 1000 picked soldiers in ambush in the enemy’s rear, and 3000 more, also carefully selected for bravery, in his front, to attack the demolished rampart. They. did not make the attack en masse, but by divisions in close order, following each other, so that if those in front were repulsed they could not retreat on account of the weight of those coming behind. The attack was made with loud shouts, and the Africans were drawn thither. The 1000 in ambush, unperceived and unsuspected, fell boldly upon the rear of the camp, as they had been ordered, and tore down and scaled the palisade. When the first ones entered the Africans were panic-stricken and fled, thinking that the numbers of the new assailants were much greater than they were. Gulussa pursued them with his Numidian cavalry and elephants and made a great slaughter, some 70,000, including non-combatants, being killed. Ten thousand were captured and about 4000 escaped. In addition to the camp the city of Nepheris was taken also, after a siege of twenty-two days, prosecuted by Scipio with great labor and suffering on account of the severity of the weather. This success contributed much to the taking of Carthage, for provisions were conveyed to it by this army, and the people of Africa were in good courage as long as they saw this force in the field. As soon as it was captured the remainder of Africa surrendered to Scipio’s lieutenants or was taken without much difficulty. The supplies of Carthage now fell short, since none came from Africa or from foreign parts, navigation being cut off in every direction by the war and the storms of winter.
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 B.C.146 night there under arms. At daylight he brought in 4000 fresh troops. They entered the temple of Apollo, whose statue was there, covered with gold, in a shrine of beaten gold, weighing 1000 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.
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.
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.
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 Aesculapius, whose temple was much the richest and most renowned of all in the citadel. These, taking olive branches from the temple, besought Scipio that he would spare the lives of all who might wish to depart from Byrsa. This he granted to all except the deserters. Forth-with 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, betook themselves to the temple of Aesculapius 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.
Thereupon Hasdrubal secretly presented himself to Scipio, bearing an olive branch. Scipio commanded him to sit at his feet and there showed him to the deserters. When they saw him, they asked silence, and when it was granted, they heaped all manner of reproaches upon Hasdrubal, then set fire to the temple and were consumed in it. It is said that as the fire was lighted the wife of Hasdrubal, in full view of Scipio, arrayed in the best attire possible under such circumstances, and with her children by her side, said in Scipio’s hearing, For you, Roman, the gods have no cause of indignation, since you exercise the right of war. Upon this Hasdrubal, betrayer of his country and her temples, of me and his children, may the gods of Carthage take vengeance, and you be their instrument. Then turning to Hasdrubal, Wretch, she exclaimed, traitor, most effeminate of men, this fire will entomb me and my children. Will you, the leader of great Carthage, decorate a Roman triumph? Ah, what punishment will you not receive from him at whose feet you are now sitting. Having reproached him thus, she slew her children, flung them into the fire, and plunged in after them. Such, they say, was the death of the wife of Hasdrubal, which would have been more becoming to himself.
Scipio, beholding this city, which had flourished 700 years from its foundation and had ruled over so many lands, islands, and seas, rich with arms and fleets, elephants and money, equal to the mightiest monarchies but far surpassing them in bravery and high spirit (since without ships or arms, and in the face of famine, it had sustained continuous war for three years), now come to its end in total destruction — Scipio, beholding this spectacle, is said to have shed tears and publicly lamented the fortune of the enemy. After meditating by himself a long time and reflecting on the rise and fall of cities, nations, and empires, as well as of individuals, upon the fate of Troy, that once proud city, upon that of the Assyrians, the Medes, and the Persians, greatest of all, and later the splendid Macedonian empire, either voluntarily or otherwise the words of the poet escaped his lips: — The day shall come in which our sacred Troy And Priam, and the people over whom Spear-bearing Priam rules, shall perish all.Ἔσσεται ἦμαρ, ὅταν ποτ’ ὀλώλῃ Ἴλιος ἱρὴ, καὶ Πρίαμος, καὶ λαὸς ἐϋμμελίω Πριάμοιο. (Iliad, vi, 448, 449; Bryant’s translation.)
Being asked by Polybius in familiar conversation (for Polybius had been his tutor) what he meant by using these words, he said that he did not hesitate frankly to name his own country, for whose fate he feared when he considered the mutability of human affairs. And Polybius wrote this down just as he heard it.
Carthage being destroyed, Scipio gave the soldiers a certain number of days for plunder, reserving the gold, silver, and temple gifts. He also gave prizes to all who had distinguished themselves for bravery, except those who had violated the shrine of Apollo. He sent a swift ship, embellished with spoils, to Rome to announce the victory. He also sent word to Sicily that whatever temple gifts they could identify as taken from them by the Carthaginians in former wars they might come and take away. Thus he endeared himself to the people as one who united clemency with power. He sold the rest of the spoils, and, in sacrificial cincture, burned the arms, engines, and useless ships as an offering to Mars and Minerva, according to the Roman custom.
When the people of Rome saw the ship and heard of the victory early in the evening, they poured into the streets and spent the whole night congratulating and embracing each other like people just now delivered from some great fear, just now confirmed in their world-wide supremacy, just now assured of the permanence of their own city, and winners of such a victory as never before. Many brilliant deeds of their own, many more of their ancestors, in Macedonia and Spain and lately against Antiochus the Great, and in Italy itself, had they celebrated; but no other war had so terrified them at their own gates as the Punic wars, which ever brought peril to them by reason of the perseverance, skill, and courage, as well as the bad faith, of those enemies. They recalled what they had suffered from the Carthaginians in Sicily and Spain, and in Italy itself for sixteen years, during which Hannibal destroyed 400 towns and killed 300,000 of their men in battles alone, more than once marching up to the city and putting it in extreme peril. Pondering on these things, they were so excited over this victory that they could hardly believe it, and they asked each other over and over again whether it was really true that Carthage was destroyed. And so they gabbled the whole night, telling how the arms of the Carthaginians were got away from them and how, contrary to expectation, they supplied themselves with others; how they lost their ships and built a great fleet out of old material; how the mouth of their harbor was closed, yet they managed to open another in a few days. They talked about the height of the walls, and the size of the stones, and the fires that so often destroyed the engines. They pictured to each other the whole war, as though it were just taking place under their own eyes, suiting the action to the word; and they seemed to see Scipio on the ladders, on shipboard, at the gates, in the battles, and darting hither and thither. In this way the people of Rome passed the night.
The next day there were sacrifices and solemn processions to the gods by tribes, also games and spectacles of various kinds. The Senate sent ten of the noblest of their own number as deputies to arrange the affairs of Africa in conjunction with Scipio, to the advantage of Rome. They decreed that if anything was still left of Carthage, Scipio should obliterate it and that nobody should be allowed to live there. Direful threats were levelled against any who should disobey and chiefly against the rebuilding of Byrsa or Megara, but it was not forbidden to go upon the ground. The towns that had allied themselves with the enemy it was decided to destroy, to the last one. To those who had aided the Romans there was an allotment of lands won by the sword, and first of all to the Uticans was given the territory of Carthage itself, extending as far as Hippo. Upon all the rest a tribute was imposed, both a land tax and a personal tax, upon men and women alike. It was decreed that a praetor should be sent from Rome yearly to govern the country. After these arrangements had been carried out by the deputies, they returned to Rome. Scipio did all that they directed, and he instituted sacrifices and games to the gods for the victory. When all was finished, he sailed for home and was awarded the most glorious triumph that had ever been known, splendid with gold and gorged with statues and votive offerings that the Carthaginians had gathered from all parts of the world through all time, the fruit of their countless victories. It was at this time also that the third Macedonian triumph occurred for the capture of Andriscus, surnamed Pseudophilippus, and the first Grecian one, for Mummius. This was about the 160th Olympiad. Y.R. 631
Some time later, in the tribunate of Gaius Gracchus, B.C.123 uprisings occurred in Rome on account of scarcity, and it was decided to send 6000 colonists into Africa. When they were laying out the land for this purpose in the vicinity of Carthage, all the boundary lines were torn down and obliterated by wolves. Then the Senate put a stop to the settlement. At a still later time it is said that Caesar, who afterwards became dictator for life, when he had pursued Pompey to Egypt, and Pompey’s friends from thence into Africa, and was encamped near the site of Carthage, was troubled by a dream in which he saw a whole army weeping, and that he immediately made a memorandum in writing that Carthage should be colonized. Returning to Rome not long after, and while making a distribution of lands to the poor, he arranged to send some of them to Carthage and some to Corinth. But he was assassinated shortly afterward by his enemies in the Roman Senate, and his son Augustus, finding this memorandum, built the present Carthage, not on the site of the old one, but very near it, in order to avoid the ancient curse. I have ascertained that he sent some 3000 colonists from Rome and that the rest came from the neighboring country. And Y.R. 708 thus the Romans took Africa away from the Carthaginians, B.C.46 destroyed Carthage, and repeopled it again 102 years after its destruction.
Appian’s account of the defeat of Regulus by Xanthippus is altogether different from that given by Polybius. I subjoin a translation of the latter: —
About this time a certain recruiting officer returned to Carthage who had been sent to Greece some time before, bringing a large number of soldiers, and among them a certain Xanthippus, a Lacedemonian, versed in the Spartan discipline and having corresponding experience in matters of war. When he had acquainted himself with the circumstances of the late defeat and had observed what still remained of the Carthaginian forces, and particularly their great strength in cavalry and elephants, he began to put this and that together, and showed his friends how it happened that the Carthaginians had been beaten, not by the Romans, but by the unskilfulness of their own generals. The words of Xanthippus, being rumored around among the multitude and the generals, finally reached the ears of the magistrates, who sent for him in order to get better information. When he came he explained the causes of their recent failure, and showed that if they would follow his advice and choose the level ground for their marches, camps, and battles, they might easily repair their losses and overcome the enemy. The generals accepted this advice and immediately put their forces under his training. When the advice of Xanthippus was spread through the city hopeful talk and rumors became common among the people. When he brought the forces in front of the city, and marshalled them in good order, and began to drill them by divisions, and to give the word of command according to rule, he presented such a contrast to the want of discipline of the former commanders that the rank and file applauded and demanded to be led against the enemy as soon as possible, feeling assured that no misfortune could befall them under the lead of Xanthippus. The generals, seeing the spirits of the soldiers so wonderfully raised, addressed them in a manner befitting the occasion, and a few days later put their forces on the march. They had 12,000 foot, 4000 horse, and about 100 elephants.
The Romans, seeing the Carthaginians marching through the open country and camping on level ground, were surprised at this unexpected movement and hastened to meet them. At the end of the first day’s march they encamped at a distance of only ten stades from the enemy. The next day the Carthaginian generals held a council of war to determine what should be done. But the soldiers, despising the danger, ran together in crowds and, shouting the name of Xanthippus, demanded to be led immediately against the enemy. The generals, observing the eagerness and confidence of their men and being urged by Xanthippus not to lose this opportunity, gave orders to the army to prepare for battle and put everything in the hands of Xanthippus to do as he liked. He took command, ranged the elephants in a single line in front of the whole army, and stationed the Carthaginian phalanx a short distance behind them. He placed the bulk of the mercenaries on the right wing, but the light-armed ones were stationed at the front of each wing, together with the horse. The Romans, observing the enemy’s movements, drew up their forces with equal readiness. In order to protect themselves against the onset of the elephants, which they dreaded, they threw forward a large number of skirmishers armed with javelins. Behind these were ranged the legions, and the horse were divided between the two wings. Their line of battle was somewhat shorter than usual, but deeper, being well calculated to receive the attack of the elephants, but not to withstand that of the enemy’s horse, which far outnumbered their own. When both armies had been put in battle array, according to their respective plans and divisions, they stood still for a while, each one eagerly expecting the moment of attack.
At the same time that Xanthippus gave the order for the elephants to advance and break the ranks of the enemy, and for the horse to surround and attack their wings, the Roman soldiers, clashing their arms, according to their custom, and raising a shout, rushed against their adversaries. The Roman horse were speedily put to flight on both wings, being so much inferior in number to the Carthaginians. Their foot soldiers, stationed on the left wing in order to avoid the onset of the elephants and because they despised the enemy’s mercenaries, dashed furiously against the Carthaginian right wing, broke it, and pursued them as far as their camp. The first who encountered the elephants were thrust aside by their momentum, or trampled down in heaps, and utterly destroyed, but the column, as a whole, remained unbroken for a considerable time by reason of the depth of the files. When those bringing up the rear were surrounded on all sides by the Carthaginian horse and compelled to turn and ward off this danger, and when those who had struggled through the line of elephants to the front encountered, in the rear of the beasts, the solid Carthaginian phalanx still in perfect order, and were slaughtered by them, the Romans were everywhere in difficulties. The greater part were trampled down by the enormous weight of the elephants and the rest fell in their very ranks under the javelins of the Carthaginian horse. Finally, a few took refuge in flight. As their line of retreat lay through an open country, most of these were destroyed by the enemy’s cavalry and elephants. About 500, who had escaped with their general, Marcus, were, after a little, overtaken and made prisoners. About 800 of the Carthaginian mercenaries, who were opposed to the Roman left wing, were killed, and the 2000 Romans who pursued them, being thus carried out of danger, were saved. All the rest were slain except Marcus and those who were retreating with him. Those who escaped found refuge unexpectedly in the city of Aspis. The Carthaginians, having stripped the dead, returned to the city rejoicing over their victory and bringing the Roman general and the prisoners captured with him. (Polybius I., 32-34.)
The following sketch of the present appearance of the site of ancient Carthage is from the pen of the Rt. Hon. James Bryce, M.P.: —
At the extremity of a peninsula stretching eight or ten miles into the Mediterranean, and connected with the mainland by a flat isthmus, across which the sea must once have flowed, there is a ridge of hills, forming a sort of semicircle some four miles long, with its convex turned toward the sea, and rising at its highest point to about 400 feet. The sea under the hills is deep and sheltered from the northwest, the quarter whence most high winds come, while toward the land the neck of the peninsula, even now only some three miles wide, and 2500 years ago probably much narrower, makes the defence of a settlement upon the hills comparatively easy. It was at the southern extremity of this line of hills that the Tyrian founders of Carthage planted their settlement, and the last eminence or hummock toward the south became their citadel or Bozrah (for Bozrah seems to be the true Phœnician form of the word which the Greek and Roman authors have written Byrsa). This hummock rises about 200 feet above the sea, from which its base is a quarter of a mile distant. It is steep towards the sea on the east and the south, while sloping more gently towards the west. On it and around its base the city arose. The ports were excavated beneath it to the southeast, and were easily made large enough (the ground being partly alluvial and the rock soft) to contain a large fleet and many merchant vessels. Thus the position was both convenient and strong. The citadel defended the ports, and while the citadel was surrounded by a wall of its own, the city, stretching along the line of eminences to the north, had also an enclosing wall of its own, and thus gave a double protection to the citadel on the sides (north and west) where the acclivities were gentle.
So much is clear. The so-called ports which are now visible have been dug out afresh recently, on what is believed to be the site, or part of the site, of the ancient ports. The space they occupy is so decidedly smaller than the descriptions of ancient writers imply that some antiquaries suppose there existed another port, enclosed by moles projecting into the sea, which has since vanished. The remains of the amphitheatre have been unearthed in the lower ground at the western base of the hill. And as to the Bozrah itself, on whose summit stood in Punic times the temple of the great god Eshmun, and where probably stood afterwards the residence of the Roman proconsul, and still later the palace of the Vandal kings, there is no question. But almost everything else is uncertain. Various spots have been suggested as the sites of the temples and churches and other public edifices mentioned by the ancient writers, but no data have yet been discovered sufficient to fix them. Even the direction of the walls and the extent of ground covered by the city are matters of controversy, so far as the evidence of the diggings goes. The ground area included in the compass of the city proper would appear to have been small (hardly more than a square mile) compared with its population, which is said to have at one time reached 700,000 or even 1,000,000. But probably there were large suburbs; and as the bulk of the population consisted of slaves, many might well be crowded into a small space.
As the position is strong for defence, with the sea environing it, as it is admirable for maritime empire, lying in the middle of the Mediterranean, with Sicily and Sardinia close at hand, half-way from the mother-land of Tyre to the outermost Phœnician settlements on the edge of the ocean, so it rivals in the nobility of its landscape Constantinople or Corinth or Gibraltar. The hill of Bozrah is not lofty, but it rises so steeply from the sea, and commands so unbroken a prospect in every direction, except northeast (where it is overtopped by Sidi Bou Said, another eminence of the same chain of hills two miles away), that the view seems boundless over both land and sea. To the east there is the vast expanse of the Mediterranean, broken twenty-five miles off by the rocky isle of Zembra. To the southeast a long line of hills rises over the ample bosom of the Gulf of Tunis, running far out to the Fair Promontory, as the ancients called it, now Cape Bon. To the northwest, beyond the flat lands which the sea once covered, rise the gentler ridges where stand the lonely ruins of Utica, the elder sister of Carthage, the spot where Cato’s death left Julius Caesar master of all the Roman world except Spain. To the south and southwest three magnificent mountain groups successively arrest the eye and carry it far into the interior of Africa. Nearest, with its foot washed by the sea, is the double-peaked summit of Bou Kornein, the mountain of the two-horned Baal (Saturnus Baalcaranensis, as the Romans called him), where the ruins of his temple have been recently discovered. Further to the south is Jebel Resas, the Lead Mountain, among whose gorges the mercenary troops that revolted from Carthage, and brought her almost to destruction after the First Punic war, were hemmed in and destroyed by famine and the sword. Furthest of all, and highest, is the magnificent pinnacle of Zaghwan, Mons Zeugitanus, whence the Zeugitanian province took its name. In this peak rise the copious springs which, led by an aqueduct more than eighty miles in length, supplied Carthage with the purest water, and from its craggy top the view extends far away to the south over plains once rich, but now mostly waste and desolate, almost to the verge of the Sahara. Immediately beneath the hill of Carthage is the narrow strip of land that divides the lagoon of Tunis from the sea, with Goletta, long a stronghold of the Moorish pirates, stormed by the Emperor Charles V., and again (after his troops had been withdrawn) the arsenal and fortress of the Beys, rising upon it at the point where a narrow channel gives access from the sea to the lagoon. And at the head of the lagoon, its smooth surface ruffled only by the flocks of flamingoes that disport themselves in the sunshine, rise the minarets and cupolas of Tunis, glittering white across the blue waters, with line after line of hill seen behind it, growing dimmer and more delicate in their soft blue-gray tints till they sink beneath the western horizon on the borders of Numidia. As there are few more exquisite views in the world, so there are few which embrace a region more full of stirring and terrible events. For 1600 years, down to the destruction of Carthage by the Arabs in A.D. 697 a fierce and strenuous life ebbed and flowed incessantly round this hill and on the plain that lies between it and Tunis. For 1200 years the hill has stood silent and melancholy as it stands now, and, in the words of Tasso, Low lies proud Carthage; and the silent shore Keeps of her lordly ruins scarce a trace.
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