202 – 201 BC
The peace of 201 BC
Polybius gives 20,000 Carthaginians killed and as many taken prisoner, and 1,500 Romans killed. At least 11 elephants are captured. Hannibal reaches Hadrumetum and gathers 6,000 infantry and 500 cavalry, too few to fight on, and advises the Carthaginian Senate to make peace on whatever terms it can.
Scipio marches back to Tunis and opens talks. A Numidian army under Syphax’s son Vermina, marching to help Carthage, is caught and destroyed, with more than 16,000 killed or captured by Livy’s count. It is the last battle of the war.
Scipio Africanus welcomed outside the gates of Rome, drawing by Peter Paul Rubens after Giulio RomanoWikimedia Commons, Peter Paul Rubens, Public domain (Scipio Africanus Welcomed outside the Gates of Rome by Peter Paul Rubens.jpg)
Carthage accepts the terms in spring 201 BC, after Hannibal urges the Senate to take them. It gives up its lands outside Africa and some within it, pays 10,000 talents of silver over fifty years and hands over hostages. It may keep no war elephants and only ten warships, and may wage war only in Africa and there only with Rome’s permission. Scipio celebrates a triumph and takes the name Africanus.
Sources
- Polybius, Histories, book 15, 14 to 19.
- Livy, History of Rome, book 30, 36 to 45.
- Adrian Goldsworthy, The Fall of Carthage (2006).
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