147 BC
The mole and the new channel
Ships still slip food into the city by sea. Scipio builds an immense mole out from the strip of land south of the harbours to close the harbour entrance. The Carthaginians answer by cutting a new channel from their harbour to the open sea, and by building a new fleet of 50 triremes and many smaller ships.
The Punic harbours of Carthage from the air in 1942, the rectangular merchant harbour and the circular naval harbourWikimedia Commons, unknown photographer, Public domain (Carthage view.jpg)
The new fleet sails out and takes the Romans by surprise, but it needs a few days to train its crews, and by then the Romans have gathered their ships. In the battle that follows the lighter Carthaginian ships hold their own. As they withdraw, a collision blocks the new channel, and many ships caught against the sea wall are sunk or captured before the rest get back into harbour.
The circular naval harbour of Carthage todayWikimedia Commons, Emna Mizouni, CC BY-SA 4.0 (Punic Harbour 1.JPG)
The Romans then fight for the broad quay in front of the harbour wall. Carthaginians swim across at night and set fire to several siege engines. Once the Romans hold the quay, they build a brick wall on it as high as the city wall, from which 4,000 men shoot onto the ramparts. In the winter Scipio’s army storms the Carthaginian camp at Nepheris and destroys the field army.
Sources
- Appian, The Punic Wars, 121 to 126.
- Adrian Goldsworthy, The Fall of Carthage (2006).
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