209 BC, morning
The first assault
Mago keeps part of his regular troops in the citadel in the west of the city and posts the rest on the southern wall. The 2,000 militia wait at the east gate, and the townspeople are given missiles and spread along the walls. In the morning the galleys under Laelius attack the south wall from the harbour, while 2,000 picked legionaries advance on the east gate with scaling ladders.
The militia sally from the gate. The Romans hold back, and the fight develops about 400 m from the gate, closer to their own camp. On the narrow isthmus neither side can outflank the other, but Scipio feeds in fresh men from the camp, while the Carthaginians have no reserve. The militia break and flee, and many are cut down as they crowd back through the gate.
The excavated Punic wall of New Carthage in Cartagena, seen from aboveWikimedia Commons, VIATOR IMPERI, CC BY-SA 2.0 (Carthaginian wall of Cartagena.jpg)
The Romans fail to force the gate before it closes and set their ladders against the walls on both sides of it. The defenders, joined by the survivors of the sortie, throw them back, and the marines from the galleys make no headway against the south wall. Scipio calls off the attack.
Sources
- Polybius, Histories, book 10, 9 to 13.
- Livy, History of Rome, book 26, 44.
- Nigel Bagnall, The Punic Wars (1990).
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