Spring 203 BC, night
The burning of the camps
Through the winter Scipio negotiates with Syphax, who offers to arrange a peace. With each embassy he sends officers dressed as slaves, who report that the Carthaginian camp has timber huts behind earth ramparts, while the Numidian camp has huts of reed and thatch and no clear perimeter. In spring he prepares openly to assault Utica, then marches out late one evening and divides his army.
Syphax receiving Scipio on his earlier visit to Numidia in 206 BC, fresco by Alessandro Allori, about 1578 to 1582, Medici villa at Poggio a CaianoWikimedia Commons, Alessandro Allori, CC BY-SA 3.0 (Allori, Siface di Numidia che riceve Scipione, 1578-82 ca. 07.JPG)
Laelius and Masinissa attack the Numidian camp and set the reed huts on fire. Many Carthaginians, taking the blaze for an accident, run unarmed from their own camp to help, and Scipio storms their camp and fires its huts. In the dark and the panic both armies lose heavily. Hasdrubal escapes 40 km to Carthage with 2,500 men, and Syphax with a few horsemen.
Sources
- Polybius, Histories, book 14, 1 to 6.
- Livy, History of Rome, book 30, 3 to 6.
- Adrian Goldsworthy, The Fall of Carthage (2006).
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