Abstract
The Carthaginian delegates were accorded no right of reply. Rome soon began a three-year siege of the world's wealthiest city.4 Of a population of 2-400,000,5 at least 150,000 Carthaginians perished. Appian described one battle in which ‘70,000, including non-combatants’ were killed, probably an exaggeration. But Polybius, who participated in the campaign, confirmed that ‘the number of deaths was incredibly large’ and the Carthaginians ‘utterly exterminated’.6 In 146, Roman legions under Scipio Aemilianus, Cato's ally and brother-in-law of his son, razed the city, and dispersed into slavery the 55,000 survivors, including 25,000 women. Plutarch concluded: ‘The annihilation of Carthage … was primarily due to the advice and counsel of Cato’.7
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