209 BC
The city taken
As the gate opens, the defence on the walls gives way and the Romans pour into the city. Scipio leads a large force to the marketplace and orders the rest to sack the city, and Polybius records that every person they meet is killed. A detachment goes against a hill where Carthaginians still fight, and Scipio takes 1,000 men to the citadel. Mago first refuses, then surrenders the citadel and his command.
The Romans take a treasury with 600 talents of silver, a working mint, 63 merchant ships, catapults, arms and stocks of food. About 10,000 men are taken prisoner, among them members of the Carthaginian Senate, together with more than 300 Iberian hostages. Scipio sends the citizens back to their homes, puts the artisans to work for Rome with a promise of freedom and crews 18 captured ships with the strongest slaves.
The Continence of Scipio, painting by Nicolas-Guy Brenet, 1788, after Livy’s story of a captive Iberian woman returned to her betrothedWikimedia Commons, Nicolas-Guy Brenet, Public domain (Continence of Scipio mg 0095.jpg)
Scipio treats the hostages well and sends them home when their tribes go over to Rome. Livy tells how he returns a captive young woman unharmed to her betrothed, a scene often painted in later centuries. The crown for the first man over the wall goes to two men at once, a centurion of the Fourth Legion and a marine.
Sources
- Polybius, Histories, book 10, 15 to 19.
- Livy, History of Rome, book 26, 46 to 50.
- Nigel Bagnall, The Punic Wars (1990).
Prev: Across the lagoonNext: Baecula, and Hasdrubal leaves Iberia