209 BC, afternoon
Across the lagoon
The same afternoon, to the defenders’ surprise, the Romans attack again with fresh troops and new ladders. Laelius’s galleys return to the south wall, legionaries form a testudo under their overlapping shields and hack at the east gate with axes, and another force moves up to the channel west of the city. The defenders, short of missiles after the morning, move men to the threatened walls and leave the north wall above the lagoon almost unmanned.
The capture of Carthago Nova, engraving by Pieter Furnius in a 16th century series on the story of Scipio AfricanusWikimedia Commons, Pieter Furnius, CC BY 4.0 (The story of Scipio Africanus The conquest of Carthago Nova in Spain (Strenuitas) PK-1891-P-6.jpg)
Scipio sends 500 picked men across the lagoon with guides. Polybius writes that the water fell each evening with the tide, Livy that a north wind drove it back. Modern historians doubt both and suggest sluices on the channel, or a lagoon shallow enough to wade in any case. The 500 reach the north wall unseen, climb it, cut their way east along the wall and open the east gate from inside.
Sources
- Polybius, Histories, book 10, 14 to 15.
- Livy, History of Rome, book 26, 45 to 46.
- J. H. Richardson, The Romans and the lagoon at New Carthage, in Historia (2018).
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