643. Rome’s Greatest Enemy: Carthage Destroyed (Part 4)

21:12Tom Holland:At the same time, like Scipio Africanus, he is a great enthusiast for Greek culture, a great scholar. And actually, this is how he'd come into contact with Polybius through the loan of some books. and general literary chat. So Scipio Aemilianus and Polybius, it's like you and Tabby will be doing on your forthcoming podcast.

21:34Dominic Sandbrook:Who's Tabby in that analogy? I'm Scipio Aemilianus, right?

21:37Tom Holland:Well, Scipio Aemilianus is much younger, so it's probably Tabby.

21:40Dominic Sandbrook:Yeah, but it's about charisma, isn't it?

21:41Tom Holland:You are this Greek hostage.

21:43Dominic Sandbrook:No, absolutely not. Right, let's get back to Carthage. So Scipio Aemilianus, the Dominic Sandbrook of Roman history. The tabby cyret of the rest is history. What does he make of Carthage? Because he's the adoptive grandson of the bloke who basically defeated it. So does he feel that he has unfinished business with Carthage? Does he want to do the same? Actually, it seems not. I think that Scipio Africanus, because he was the guy who had forced terms on the Carthaginians

22:16Tom Holland:and got them to accept these terms, he then felt a certain kind of responsibility towards Carthage. because it's a bit like a patron with a client. That is a relationship that is very important to the Roman aristocracy. And I think that Scipio Africanus, you know, he took this seriously. So, for instance, for as long as Hannibal was in Carthage, Scipio Africanus back in Rome had had Hannibal's back. And I think all the kind of the various members of Scipio's dynasty, they share in this obligation. So we can see this from Polybius, who is obviously very influenced by what the Scipio dynasty think.

22:52Tom Holland:So he's always describing how the Carthaginians are going to Rome to complain about Massinissa slicing off bits of their territory. And Polybius, you know, I mean, he emphasizes that these complaints are just. And presumably in saying that he is picking up on the opinion of his Scipionic patrons. But I think it's fair to say that this in Rome is a minority position. and there is one person in particular who views any kind of attempt to water down the harshness with which carthage is treated as essentially a form of treason and this is the old enemy of scipio africanus so again we met in the last episode marcus porcius cato yeah who by this point he's just turned 80 but he is as flinty and as hardcore as ever so that kind of you know that That ginger hair that he had has gone.

23:47Tom Holland:He's now terrifyingly bald and got lots of crow feet and jowls.

23:52Dominic Sandbrook:He's a terrifying man. I hate him. I find Cato such an unpleasant person.

23:57Tom Holland:Well, I think there are good reasons for hating him, as we will see as this episode progresses.

24:02Dominic Sandbrook:So Cato was sent. He goes to Carthage. Of all people to go, he goes to Carthage in 152, doesn't he, to investigate yet another spat between the Carthaginians and the Numidians. Massinissa. Massinissa by this point is also very old, it should just be said. And when Cato gets to Carthage, he is horrified by what he sees because basically he had assumed that the Carthaginians would be living like dogs in the gutter, their city in ruins. But actually the Carthaginians, fair play to them, they've dragged themselves back upright and the city is actually doing quite well again.

24:37Tom Holland:And Cato doesn't like this at all. They don't have an empire to run. They don't have wars to fight. And so the Carthaginians have been able to focus all their energies on getting rich. So again, I mean, to pursue another analogy, it's a bit like West Germany after the Second World War. They're not allowed to have an army or anything. So they can just focus on kind of inventing televisions and stuff. That old Carthage bond parallel. So the Carthage unions are actually doing very well. And despite the attempts of the Romans to kneecap its economy, the economy is booming. They have this hinterland.

25:11Tom Holland:The Numidians may be snipping bits off but carthage still controls most of it it's very fertile very rich carthage has massive grain silos it's essentially become the breadbasket of the western mediterranean which is a role that it will play throughout the history subsequent history of the roman empire they have upgraded their harbors and they have this inner dockyard which has berths for 170 ships and cato is obviously very suspicious of this why do they need berths for 170 ships and he also notices storehouses in which there are piled great mounds of timber. And so he's thinking, is this timber for the construction of merchant shipping or are the Carthaginians planning to reactivate a war fleet?

25:57Tom Holland:And Cato being Cato, he obviously assumes the worst and he returns to convinced that the Carthaginians are preparing for vengeance. And he stands before the Senate and he shakes out the folds of his toga and from his toga there drops a fig. Cato bends down, he holds it up and he invites his fellow senators to admire it. It's very plump, it's very beautiful, it's clearly still very fresh. And Cato then reveals that this fig had come from Carthage, as he points out a mere three days sail from rome and his message is twofold firstly carthage is back as a great power yeah but secondly suppose a third punic war were to be launched a war of annihilation against carthage then all those lands in north africa currently ruled by carthage

27:03Dominic Sandbrook:would become Rome's. And so from that point onwards, whenever Cato stands up in the Senate and he gives a speech, he ends every speech the same way, doesn't he? He makes the same urgent, sort of resounding pronouncement. What is more? I mean, it must be extremely boring for his listeners that he says the same thing every time. Anyway, he says, what is more? I think that Carthage must be destroyed.

27:30Tom Holland:I mean, Dominic, you say it must be boring for his listeners. I don't think so at all. His speeches are not necessarily about Carthage. Yeah. But he always makes this comment. And so you're listening to it and you're kind of waiting for it. How's he going to get Carthage in again? He'll just mention it willy nilly. But it is a kind of drumbeat, isn't it? And if there's one thing the Romans love, it's a drumbeat of war. So I think he is essentially kind of, you know, provoking a war fever. And this kind of statement that he's making at the end of every speech, what is more, I think that Carthage must be destroyed, abbreviated, it's become one of the most notorious of all latin aphorisms carthago delenda est carthage must be destroyed so the

28:15Dominic Sandbrook:scene is set for the final confrontation and the annihilation of carthage come back after the break for this very sad story this episode is brought to you by rocket money son we often talk about how to organize our finances. I'm very conscious that I'm paying for a lot of mad subscriptions. And there's one thing that we've talked about often on the show. It's the thing that we probably hate more than any other. And it's a hidden fee. I would love to get my finances under control. There are all these things piling up on our bank statements. And I think I need to fix this problem. I need to sort this out and to stop this.

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29:34Dominic Sandbrook:That's rocketmoney.com slash ishistory. rocketmoney.com slash ishistory.

29:47Dominic Sandbrook:Welcome back to The Rest is History. The year is 152 BC. and Cato this crabby miserable old man of Roman politics who everybody admires or at least lots of people admire for his sort of republican austerity and his ostentatious performative puritanical morality he is now calling for the total destruction of Carthage. Tom you've got the word genocide in the notes presumably he's not calling for the extermination of every last it's Carthaginian, it's the city rather than the people, or have I got that wrong?

30:22Tom Holland:I think if you're saying destroy a city, you are effectively saying destroy a people. To destroy the mother city of a people effectively is to destroy a people. So I think it's, I mean, it's anachronistic, but I think there is that element in it. And I think that people should be aware of what is being planned, the scale of what is being planned. I mean, it is horrific. And some of the Romans think it's horrific, right? Absolutely. There are senators in Rome who oppose Cato. And of course, many of these belong to the dynasty of Scipio Africanus. And one of them, a guy called Scipio Nassica, he's coined his own catchphrase to counter Cato's.

31:02Tom Holland:So his is Cithargo Servander Est, Carthage must be preserved. Now, listeners may be wondering, what's his motivation in coming up with this catchphrase? Is it because he has a sense of humanity, a concern for human rights? Is it from the depths of his kindness? It is not. A concern with being kind does not really seem to have been a factor. those who are arguing against a war of annihilation against Carthage their motivations were told by a Greek historian writing a century later fundamentally is that Rome needs a worthy enemy because having Carthage as this great bogey on their doorstep keeps them honest it keeps them on their toes and the worry is that if you destroy Carthage then the Romans may become decadent and self-indulgent and may end up kind of turning on themselves if they don't have to guard against an outside enemy, all of which, of course, in a sense, does happen.

32:13Tom Holland:And so it's more than possible that that Greek historian is writing with the benefit of hindsight. I mean, you know, not necessarily, but possible. And I do think it's clear that at the time, the chief source of anxiety for Romans in the Senate, listening to Cato push for this war of annihilation, is actually that they're worried about breaking the treaty that they'd signed with Carthage. Because this will then offend the gods and bring down divine anger on the head of their city. because the Romans, they saw themselves as being the most devout of peoples. And certainly they were kind of very legalistic.

32:54Tom Holland:So even when they are attacking Macedonian kings or taking Greek bigwigs hostage, they always needed to feel that they were legally justified in what they were doing. They're not, as they see it, doing anything that is unmerited or unprovoked. They always have to feel that the gods are on their side. and so this is what large numbers in the senate feel they need with regard to carthage they can't attack carthage without a casus belli and fortunately for them they have one on hand

33:28Dominic Sandbrook:because this is masinissa right so this bloke has been constantly having his border skirmishes with the carthaginians and attacking their farmland and and snatching their you know their olive groves or whatever but if you're cato or one of the war hawks in rome isn't this the perfect opportunity he's like the equivalent of the people in donetsk and luhansk in eastern ukraine who vladimir putin

33:50Tom Holland:used as a pretext basically for his war in ukraine yes and so masinissa by now in his late 80s is as acquisitive as ever and so his men continue to launch attacks on farms and estates in Carthage's rural hinterland with the aim of appropriating them. And in Carthage, there is now total despair that Rome will ever reign Massinissa in. And this despair brings new leaders to power who are much more hawkish than the previous generation. And these are men who are saying, well, look, we need a more assertive foreign policy. We cannot go on like this. so in 151 ignoring the prescriptions of the treaty that they had signed with rome back in 201 the carthaginians go to war with masinissa they do not have the permission of the romans to do this and the result for the carthaginians unfortunately is disaster so masinissa he's he's he's now basically 90 but he's still in the saddle he fights the carthaginian army to a standstill near a town called Orescoppa and he isolates them on a hill they don't have any water so they have no option but to surrender and submit to humiliating terms which include again a kind of massive indemnity which is bad enough but the real disaster is the open goal obviously that the Carthaginians have now given to the war party in Rome because hawks there can now argue that Carthage is in breach of her treaty obligations and that therefore if the Romans attack Carthage the gods will be backing them so that's everything they need so now the romans have their opportunity

35:32Dominic Sandbrook:to launch their strike and what is more there are financial motives aren't there because in 151 the carthaginians have paid off the very last installment basically of their reparations their their war indemnity so there's going to be no more money coming to rome from carthage if the romans want the carthaginian wealth they have to go and seize it so it's they've both got the kind of the diplomatic opportunity because this business with massenissa but also now there is a very big financial incentive for greedy people in rome to urge a war with carthage it's like these people who say uh well it's like i don't know saddam hussein is a bad man and there's a lot

36:14Tom Holland:of oil in iraq you know let's go in yeah exactly and so in 150 the romans begin to mobilize for an invasion of africa and back in carthage understandably the news of this throws the entire city into panic and so they desperately try to appease the romans and they do this first of all by condemning the general who'd been defeated at oroscopa to death and it will not surprise regular listeners to this series to learn that the name of this general is of course hasdrubal yet another yet another hasdrubal and then the carthaginians send an embassy to rome basically to beg for mercy and when they arrive there they're appalled to discover that this roman task force has already left and is in Sicily.

36:59Tom Holland:So just across the sea from Carthage. And they also find Cato on absolutely top form. So he gives a kind of zinger of a speech. What people can't be trusted to keep their treaties? The Carthaginians. What people are inveterate warmongers notorious for their cruelty? The Carthaginians. What people left Italy a smouldering wasteland? The Carthaginians. So still that harping on all the destruction that Hannibal had brought to Italy. And when the carthaginian envoys you know they beg to know how can we make amends i mean what can we do they receive this very menacingly delphic response by satisfying the roman people but the senate does not specify how this satisfaction can be obtained so let's take

37:45Dominic Sandbrook:us to the next year 12 months on uh the romans have landed in north africa they have established their base camp 30 miles northwest of Carthage. The Carthaginians sent envoys to try and negotiate with the Romans. And what happens next?

38:04Tom Holland:Well, they arrive at the Roman camp. And as they approach, there's this kind of great deafening blast of trumpets. And then they enter the camp and they are led past the massed ranks of the legions who are all drawn up and who are totally silent. I mean, it must have been terrifying. Ahead of them are the two consuls sat down on a podium and the Carthaginian envoys are brought before the consuls and they start stammering, trying to make their excuses. but all these excuses are dismissed. And then one of the consuls, Lucius Marcius Sensorinus, he informs the envoys that there will be no more negotiations until Carthage has handed over all the weapons in the city, all the armour, all the war machines.

38:54Tom Holland:And so the envoys go back to Carthage and shortly afterwards, great wagon loads of weapons and armour kind of rumbling up to the Roman camp and also in their train over 2 ,000 catapults. So these are all handed over to the Romans. And then the envoys come back and they stand in front of the consuls again. And now at last the terms are delivered and I will quote them. Bear bravely the remaining commands of the Roman Senate, the envoys are told. You must evacuate your city and surrender it to us. You will be allowed to settle where you please within the limits of your own territory provided that it is at least 10 miles from the sea as for us we are resolved to level carthage to the ground

39:39Dominic Sandbrook:i just mean the carthaginian envoy is listening to that i mean terrifying and of course i mean what can they do there's no way that the carthaginians can possibly accept this you would

39:48Tom Holland:think i mean just to emphasize for people talked about how how people are identified with their mother city. And in a sense, to lose your mother city is to lose your identity. That city, it's not just about the history, it's also about the temples, the gods, whatever. You know, you lose everything. And of course, I mean, you know, on the economic sense, if you no longer have a port, you no longer have really have a way of kind of making a living. So as you say, I mean, it would seem impossible for the Carthaginians to accept these terms. And so it proves because when the ambassadors from the roman camp um returned to carthage the people of the city refused to accept it even though they know that in effect by doing so they are signing their own death warrant and anyone who speaks up saying actually i think we should accept these terms i mean you know we we've got no chance of of keeping the romans at bay they are lynched they're stoned whatever um and so there is a mass effort to try and and steal carthage for the the horrors are to come because of course they've handed over their catapults their weapons their armor all of that so what measures do they take all the slaves in the city are freed to the degree that the carthaginians still have arms arms are given to these slaves people rush out to quarries outside the city and haul in stones because they're going to try and make more catapults we're told all the shrines the temples and every other public space was turned into workshops where men and women worked day and night without pause taking turns to eat according to a fixed schedule so basically the equivalent of munitions factories popping up across the city in their temples.

41:22Tom Holland:And in these workshops, of course, people are busy making swords, spears, shields. Anything made of metal in the city is being melted down. And women donate their hair so that it can be used as rope for the catapults, kind of twine it. Hasdrubal, their general who'd lost the battle at Oraskoppa and is still on death row, he's reprieved and he's given back his old command. and he leads out a makeshift army and prepares for a guerrilla war against the romans and it is war for the third time rome and carthage are locked in what really is this time a death struggle it's not a death struggle for rome but it absolutely is for carthage so it's the kind

42:06Dominic Sandbrook:of war it's a bit like uh i don't know when the um nazis invaded poland in 1939 and you know they They had the Germans had such a preponderance of forces, but allied sympathizers with Poland sort of said, oh, you know, they will have all the pluck. You know, they've got such spirit. They're fighting for their homeland. You know, the people will rise and they will see off the invaders, all of this kind of thing. And actually, that turned out to be complete wishful thinking because the balance of forces was such that the attacker could not but win. and in this case well actually it's not an immediate walkover is it by any means so the

42:44Tom Holland:carthaginians do actually manage to hold out for much longer than the poles do against the nazis as it turns out for several years and they're able to do this because even though the carthaginians have had to you know have been tricked into handing over uh so much of their weaponry the city is still pretty well prepared for a siege so it has these kind of great triple walls and these walls in turn are buttressed with ditches and banks and i mentioned the grain silos so they have a lot of food inside the city and they've also built huge cisterns for collecting rainwater so again water shouldn't be a problem and meanwhile the romans as they advance up to the city they camp beside a stagnant lake and it's summer and so predictably they all start you know catching various horrible diseases and actually has trouble who you know he proved an absolute dud in open combat when it comes to guerrilla warfare he's actually pretty good he's very successful at attacking roman supply lines uh masterminding sallies and so all the all that year 149 the siege carries on 148 roman setbacks continue um they are going around trying to mop up carthaginian strongholds beyond carthage But these two are able to hold out.

43:59Tom Holland:And again, sallies are launched out from the walls and they burn Roman siege engines and so on. And then in 148, Masinissa, you know, the old war horse, the great the man who had once been a Carthaginian ally and then become their great enemy. He dies at the fabulous age of 91. And that might have offered hope to the Carthaginians, perhaps, you know, that this kind of inveterate enemy of theirs has gone. And then there comes news from the Balkans that a pretender to the Macedonian throne has emerged. So people remember that the kingdom of Macedon had been divided up into these four cantons. A pretender has emerged and he wants to reunite these cantons and make himself king.

44:43Tom Holland:And he defeats a Roman army and sends messages to the Carthaginians saying, will you enter into an alliance? And of course, the Carthaginians say yes. So suddenly they do have an ally. now the romans you know they're not despondent they're still fully expecting to win but i think there's a certain sense of alarm developing and so they start to look around for a savior someone qualified to step into the breach and prove himself a hero and there is of course really only the one candidate so the obvious person i guess the adoptive grandson of scipio

45:23Dominic Sandbrook:africanus it's the person we've already talked about scipio emilianus and he it's not just that he has got the right bloodline or the right heredity he has experienced doesn't he he's

45:35Tom Holland:already fought the carthaginians he has i mean he's a very very good soldier so he'd been an observer at oriscopa where masinissa had defeated the carthaginians and so he had seen hasdrupal the carthaginian commander-in-chief up close you know he knew what made him tick and then for the past two years, he'd been serving before the walls of Carthage itself, where he was basically the only senior officer to have emerged with any credit at all. I mean, he'd had a very good war. The only drawback is that he's still in his 30s, and people will remember that the minimum age to serve as consul is 40.

46:10Tom Holland:That had been waived for Scipio Africanus against the opposition of Roman conservatives. But the people hadn't cared. They'd forced it through. And the same thing happens this time. The people, and I quote, declared that he was the only worthy successor of his father, Aemilius Paulus, the conqueror of Macedon, and of the Scipios. And so the Senate, recognising the force of public opinion, perhaps, you know, just a little desperate themselves, agree to waive the prohibition and say, yeah, Scipio can run for consul and he's duly elected. and the intriguing thing is that even the absolute spokesman for conservatism cato even cato gives scipio milianus the nod i mean he really is the right man for the job so now at last

46:59Dominic Sandbrook:we come to the final chapter in the story so the siege of carthage the end of the punic wars and indeed the end of this great ancient city itself so the romans have put all their hopes in scipio emilianus and when he arrives in africa as consul in 146 tom he has the the vigor and the dynamism and the ambition that his predecessors have lacked and he more than bears out the hope that the

47:24Tom Holland:senate had in him yes and hasdrubal who has clashed with scipio emilianus before i mean he's very respectful of his reputation and so he rather than continuing with his guerrilla war he withdraws all his troops inside Carthage and hunkers down there. But this, of course, is only to play into Scipio Emelianus's hands because now all the Carthaginian forces are trapped inside the great city. And Emelianus knows that if he can only invest the city completely, completely surround it, cut off all supplies of food, then he will be able in the long run to starve the city into submission. and so he orders his men to start constructing a massive mole across the entrance of the harbour which to the Carthaginian seems an impossible engineering project but Skippy Aemilianus is a very good engineer as well as a very good soldier and is able to pull it off and so this mole ends up being constructed access to the harbour is now blocked off and there is no possibility of food coming into Carthage.

48:32Tom Holland:And so Scipio Aemilianus knows that he can now sit back and wait. And with each day that passes, the noose will tighten. And what about the Carthaginians?

48:44Dominic Sandbrook:Well, this noose is tightening.

48:45Tom Holland:What are they doing? Well, Carthage has always been run by a Senate. In that sense, it's always had a kind of civilian government. But Hasdrubal, he feels that the only way that Carthage survive is if he institutes a military dictatorship. And so this is what he does. He's got all the soldiers at his back, there's no one to stop him. And by doing that, of course, he is able to commandeer all the food supplies within the city and ensure that his men are well fed, even while everyone else starts to starve. And the corpses of those who no longer have access to food begin to litter the streets of the dying city.

49:23Tom Holland:And Hasdrubal is anxious that this experience of starvation on the part of the vast majority of the public may result in civic unrest, may lead to pressure on him to open negotiations with the Romans, and he's not prepared to do that. So he takes Roman legionaries who've been captured in the fighting, and he leads them up onto the walls of Carthage. And there, where the Romans far below can see what is being done to their comrades. They're tortured to death and their bodies are dumped into the Roman positions. So that, of course, makes sure that there will be no negotiations. And Scipio Aemilianus is waiting for the morale in the city to hit rock bottom, for people really to start dying, for disease to spread.

50:11Tom Holland:And then when that moment comes he strikes and he takes the carthaginians completely by surprise and his assault it's not over the walls it's through the harbors from the mole that mole is a kind of launch pad and so the romans are able to it's an amphibious attack they go through the outer harbor into that inner harbor that the carthaginians have just been built and from there there is easy access to the great marketplace in the center of the city and once the romans have breached the harbour defences they pour into this marketplace and they essentially make it the base for the sack of the city that is now going to happen first of all they strip this great temple that is standing there of all its gold pile that gold up and then they start literally disassembling the city brick by brick so what they do there are um kind of very tight narrow streets fanning off from the marketplace and there are blocks of housing that reach up six stories and these are but the marketplace and the houses that are adjacent to the marketplace soldiers go in they clear all the opposition from all the enemy from the each of the stories of these houses and then once the houses have been cleared they take planks up to the top story and they lay them out across the kind of narrow streets below.

51:34Tom Holland:And from there, they can pass into the next block of houses, and they do the same. And the process just goes on and on and on. And once the houses have been cleared, and the soldiers have gone from the one block to the next, they then set the houses on fire. And you get masonry, you get beams, you get the corpses of the slain, you get old men, women children who might have taken shelter inside these houses they all come crashing down into the streets and we have a horrific description of what this was like once all the kind of the debris has fallen into the streets cleaners came who had been charged with making the streets passable so that the soldiers can continue up the streets and these cleaners hauled the dead and the living alike into great pits they had dug disposing of them as though they were masonry and burning timbers mere debris some of the living were thrown in headfirst so that their legs stuck out of the ground and they were left to writhe where they had been buried a long time so a kind of hideous grotesque

52:37Dominic Sandbrook:image do you know what it reminds me of it reminds me of the siege of tenochtitlan that we talked about in the fall of the aztecs the spanish fighting house by house destroying the houses to stop the aztecs from using them as kind of refuges i mean it's very very similar isn't it with this Stalingrad-style battle.

52:52Tom Holland:I mean, it's possible that there would have been Spaniards in the war who had read these very accounts. I was thinking that.

52:59Dominic Sandbrook:Yeah, they had classical education, a lot of these people. So they would have known about all this.

53:03Tom Holland:And the destruction of Carthage is the archetype of the destruction of a great and famous and beautiful capital. And the process of clearance goes on for six days. And on the seventh day, the vast mass of the Carthaginians who remained alive surrendered. and the only resistance now is from Hasdrubal and 900 Roman deserters who held out on the kind of the topmost fort the Carthaginian equivalent of an Acropolis but in time he too is brought to surrender and he's brought before Scipio Aemilianus and grovels before the feet of the Roman commander and his wife is who'd been with him is utterly contemptuous of this and she takes a dagger she slits the throats of their two sons and she throws the corpses of her sons into a fire that is blazing nearby and then she hurls herself into the flames as well very dido yeah i mean it's a bit sad that women tend only to appear in the series when they're killing themselves that's

54:01Dominic Sandbrook:antiquity for you yeah so what happens to hasdrubal and what happens to the deserters

54:07Tom Holland:so hasribal is spared and taken back to rome where he walks in uh scipio amelianus's triumph um and then he's allowed to settle in a farm outside rome so he survives the roman deserters of course are put horribly to death the carthaginians who've surrendered they are all enslaved about 50 000 of them they're led out men women children all become slaves the city is systematically stripped of all its treasures um no respect is shown the temples of the carthaginian gods they are demolished carthage had a rich and venerable literary tradition all the libraries are emptied and given to the nemidians who promptly seem to have lost them um the romans do keep one 28 volume treatise on agriculture which they have translated into latin because obviously they're thinking well we want to take over these lands and this is the guide to how to you know how to make the fields flourish so we'll keep that but otherwise all the wealth of punic literature is gone so we have nothing we have no histories written by the carthaginians and so as so often you know in these stories whether it's the belgians in the congo or whatever yeah or indeed the you know the americans in the great plains we only have one side we only have the roman side yeah the news of carthage's fall is sent to rome and the senate then send back instructions to scipio emilianus that what remained of the city was to be razed to the ground and that a curse was to be laid on anyone who in the future might try to settle there so carthage is to be left abandoned to weeds but here's an amazing thing they don't sow the the ruins with salt they everyone thinks they did that and they didn't they don't it was a a metaphorical flourish in the Cambridge ancient history, which came out in the 1920s.

56:03Tom Holland:And it's just spread like wildfire ever since. But that did, you know, there's no reference to that happening in any of the ancient sources at all. But, you know, they might as well have sowed the fields with salt because the signal that the destruction of this very famous, very ancient, very beautiful city, the signal sent to the world was unmistakable that the romans are no longer prepared to brook any rival any hint of disobedience and that is a message that is rammed home a few months later so people may remember that you know there's this uprising in macedon this pretender to the macedonian throne has emerged i mean he does not last long he gets crushed and there's then a kind of there's an uprising in greece and the romans deal with that very brutally as well and the suppression of that uprising culminates in the annihilation of a second famous ancient and beautiful city and that is the destruction of Corinth in Greece commanding the isthmus that joins the Peloponnese to northern Greece and I think that anyone in the Mediterranean in 146 BC contemplating the destruction in the same year of Carthage and of Corinth are well aware that an era has dawned in which Rome is so preponderant that effectively no one in the Mediterranean has any real independence left at all.

57:30Tom Holland:And, you know, within a century, the whole of the Mediterranean will become a Roman lake. But the story of how Rome rises to that position of preponderance, what it means for people in the Mediterranean and what it means for the Romans themselves. I mean, that is a story for another day. But I just thought to end this series, we've done three series in all. And we began the very first series with a passage that derives from Polybius's recollections. Polybius had accompanied Scipio Aemilianus to the siege and had witnessed it for himself. So I'll just finish by reading this passage. It is said that Scipio Aemilianus, as Carthage was going up in flames, its annihilation almost complete, gazed at the city in its death throes and openly wept for his enemies.

58:16Tom Holland:He stood wrapped in thought for a long time, pondering how every city, every people, every empire must, as men do, meet with their doom in the end. For such had been the fate of Troy, once a proud and flourishing city, and of the empires of Assyria, Media, and Persia, each in their own day the greatest in the world, and of Macedon, which only recently had blazed with such a brilliance. and then either deliberately or because he could not help quoting them Scipio spoke two lines of Homer a day will come when sacred Troy shall perish and Priam and his people all be slain and when Polybius speaking to him with the freedom he was granted as Scipio's tutor in Greek literature asked him what he meant by these words it is said that without any attempt to veil his meaning Scipio made reference to his own country for when he pondered how all things that are mortal must fall he dreaded how Rome too would fall

59:24Dominic Sandbrook:Crikey, well thank you very much Tom that's a salutary warning and indeed one that sets up beautifully our next series on The Rest is History which will be starting on Monday and that series is the tale of the fall of the incas one of the longest and largest contiguous empires in world history that came crashing down at the hands of francisco pizarro and his conquistadors so on monday members of the rest is history club will get all six episodes in that mighty series and if you want to join them if you want to plunge into the streets of cuzco and cajamaca and the jungles of the amazon and scale the peaks of the andes with the spaniards then you merely have to head to the rest is history.com to sign up and you'll get all six episodes on monday but for now tom what an amazing uh effort to cover that epic story in three mighty seasons thank you so much And that was Carthage.

1:00:31Dominic Sandbrook:Bye-bye, everybody. Ave. Acque vale.

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