Destroy Carthage Page 16

  Hasdrubal had pulled into the Byrsa to shorten his defensive line. The inner walls were strong, the inhabitants resilient. An inspired leader might have personified the glory of resist­ance in the crisis, but the stout general, more at home among his mercenary guards than the citizens, responded with savage wrath. Dragging his Roman prisoners to the ramparts, he tor­tured and slew them in full view of their comrades, tossing the bodies to the ground outside. Those Carthaginians who protested were also killed.

  Hasdrubal's tactics, recalling the horrors of the Mercenary War, were calculated it seems to commit his men. Perhaps some of his soldiers had been wavering. But that the mass ofCarthaginians required any such gesture is denied by all the evidence, and a man of sensitivity must have known it so. The crude brutality did nothing for Carthage; plenty for Scipio. His legionaries needed just such a motive for the job ahead.

  26: The ‘Final Fifty'

  Having garrisoned the fort on the isthmus, Scipio marched the greater part of his army southeast round the city toward the taenia, where, like Censorinus before him, he based his fleet. Here, close to the pellucid shallows of the bay of Kram, he was as near as he could get, without breaching the walls, to the vitals of the metropolis.

  Immediately to his north lay the flats of the dockland, the rectangular merchant harbour interposing between his view­point and the naval pool. The first basin, normally a throbbing pulse of Punic commerce, now languished, its activity confined to the occasional vessel which braved the Roman sea blockade. The second, concealed by its surrounding galley sheds, was of slight concern to Scipio, for Carthage had lacked a navy since Zama. The admiral's tower reared a docile head, its trumpets silent.

  Beside the docks stretched the sacred ground of the tophet and the ashes of countless acts of sacrifice, a sanctuary the superstitious Roman troops would hope to by-pass. More ap­pealing to their cupidity were the market between the cothon and the near heights, the salubrious buildings round the public square, the neighbouring senate house. Here would be rich loot.

  Prominent on the ground rising from the square to the citadel, tall apartment blocks with roof-views of coast and sea would have stood out clearly from the bay of Kram. Among them climbed the narrow roads to the acropolis and to the range of hills - from St Louis northeast to Bordj Djedid - which terminated the northern aspect from the Roman camp. It was amid the wharves, offices, tenements and state buildings of the Byrsa that the struggle for the city would be won and lost,Beyond the enceinte, from easterly Cape Carthage to Cape Gammarth in the north, and throughout the westerly Megara, a scattered population must quickly capitulate once the dense conurbation of the southeast were captured. Trapped between a Roman army in possession of the Byrsa, and Scipio's strangle­hold on the isthmus, the people would have lost their one slender life-line with the outer world: the small fleet of merchantmen still defying the sea blockade.

  The intrepid captains of this band, homing with the elusive skill that had foiled another generation of Romans in Sicily, delayed the plans of Scipio, whose strategy rested on weakening the city by starvation before mounting his assault. In this policy lay the essential difference between his approach and that of Censorinus, who had attacked an under-armed but robust and spirited populace.

  The measure of Scipio's reluctance to take on the Carth­aginians, even with his immense force, until they had been enfeebled by lack of food, was demonstrated by the second of his engineering prodigies. Unable to beat the blockade- runners with his navy, he now resolved to build a great mole from the taenia across the bay of Kram to the choma, or outer quay, shutting off the common entrance to the harbours. For the rest of the summer, the Roman army laboured at the task.

  Nearly 800 yards in length (some portions are visible above the water to this day), Scipio's mole was described by Appian as 24 feet wide at the top and 96 feet across the base. At that rate, according to one modern estimate, more than 12,000 cubic metres of stone - possibly as much as 18,000 cubic metres - would have had to be shifted in the construction. Unsurprisingly, the Carthaginians at first regarded the project with scepticism. Then, as the wall progressed and its threat to them became evident, they countered with a scheme of equal magnitude.

  This involved two feats: 1, The improvisation of a fighting fleet from old materials; 2, The digging of a new harbour entrance, a direct channel from the naval basin to emerge at sea north of the outer quay. The second, an enormous oper­ation in which men, women and children all assisted, was the more remarkable since the Romans, on their own admission, remained oblivious to the work afoot. Even reports from de­fecting mercenaries, though describing the incessant sound of heavy toil, failed to identify its actual source.

  Doubtless security precautions were rigorous. Nevertheless, a characteristic civic responsibility, a closeness amounting almost to mass stealth, is evidenced. The building of the fleet was no less secretive. In this, however, the seclusion of the naval base greatly helped.

  Fifty vessels were constructed. Why this had not been done earlier is unexplained, but probably the armaments drive had claimed ship-builders for more urgent work. There were other resource problems. Given a limited supply of materials, should the Carthaginians create a small navy, outnumbered and out­weighed by the Roman fleet, or concentrate on vital blockade- running merchantmen?

  Could they, indeed, spare the able-bodied men for a fighting fleet which, even restricted to fifty ships, might still take a third or more of Hasdrubal's effectives? Such was the risk, it seems reasonable to suppose, that it took the dramatic tighten­ing of the siege under Scipio to give the project impetus.

  One thing is certain: had they wished to do so, the Carth­aginians had neither time nor the supplies to build heavy­weight warships. In fact, relatively light, highly manoeuvrable craft were their preference; skilled seamanship their prime reliance. Wrote Polybius:

  Their ships were built to move in all directions with great agility; their oarsmen were experts ... if some of their vessels were hard-pressed by the enemy, their light weight enabled them to withdraw safely and make for open water. Should the enemy attempt pursuit, they came quickly about, darting round them, attacking on the beam, always haras­sing . . .Experienced handling was important. Punic galleys normally possessed two rudder-oars, one belayed to each side of the vessel. Much of the time only one was used, the other held in reserve. But in battle two helmsmen were employed, operating the rudders simultaneously for maximum manoeuvrability. Without perfect synchronization, the method not only lacked advantage but could prove a grave embarrassment. It followed that practice and teamwork within a fighting crew were vital.

  Carthaginian seamen had missed battle experience for many years. Until it got to sea, the new navy could not rehearse old skills - and it could not get to sea until the emergency channel had been finished, for the Roman mole was far across the bay by the time the ships were ready. A special incentive to those labouring on the passage was the fact that the enemy, pre­occupied with his own toils, had left his fleet largely un­attended.

  Feverishly, the Carthaginians dug their channel; methodi­cally, the Romans slogged at their pier of stone. Scarcely was the causeway completed, sealing, as its architects believed, the harbour complex, than the citizens broke through the final stretch of land to the north and their fleet appeared at sea. It was a brilliant stroke, utterly surprising the Romans.

  But delay in seeking naval action was inevitable. Little value can be placed in the familiar complaint that the Punic mariners wasted time on the open gulf parading their new ships 'in childish but natural glee.' The vessels had never been out of a basin less than 350 yards in diameter - and that with an island in the middle. They took to sea virtually from the building sheds, crews unaccustomed to ships and each other.

  The first task of the captains was to get the feel of the vessels, their individual handling qualities, and to allow oars­men and helmsmen time to find rhythm and to rehearse the execution of manoeuvres. It was, in fact, a period not of idl
e cavorting but of sea trials and integration, with adjustments perhaps required in harbour. Thus, while the case for an im­mediate attack on the Romans is evident, the Carthaginians are maligned if their delay is seen as frivolous.

  In opting for a couple of days in which to shape for ac­tion, the Punic captains were conscious not merely of the tremendous effort made to float their vessels, but that these were irreplaceable. The burden on them was a heavy one.

  As it happened, it was too great. Three days after its first emergence in the gulf, the little navy bravely engaged the powerful Roman fleet. A brisk but inconclusive battle followed in which the Carthaginians weathered the odds until evening, then withdrew toward harbour. The new channel was narrow, soon congested. Unlike the sheltered and shallow approach by the bay of Kram, it gave into deep water disposed to a tricky swell.

  While the smaller of the Punic galleys nosed into the channel first, their larger sisters lay up by the outer quay to the south, covered by artillery on the city walls and on the quay itself. The big Roman warships that had followed were baffled. Attacking head-on, they presented slight targets, but as they turned to draw off they were broadside to the missile barrage, highly vulnerable.

  The Carthaginians might have been safe had it not been for a flotilla of five ships from Side in Pamphylia, Asia Minor, on a mission of goodwill to Scipio. Better seamen than the Romans, the Pamphylians dropped sea-anchors on long lines and warped back after running in to strike the Punic ships.

  Scipio's captains, grasping the lesson, found themselves able to inflict heavy damage to the enemy without turning their prows from his artillery. Night had fallen before the surviving Carthaginian craft managed to limp into harbour.

  Such was the last naval battle of Punic history. Compared with the great sea struggles against Rome - the victory of the crows at Heraclea, the Carthaginian triumph at Drepanum, and other epics - it was an anti-climax, an affair of modest numbers in which the odds were too uneven to leave the out­come in much doubt. But the challenge of the 'final fifty' was in the stirring tradition of a people whose seamanship was praised unanimously by contemporaries, not excluding their rivals.

  From now on, every citizen would be occupied in land de­fence.

  27 The Deadly Thrust

  The day following the naval action, Roman troops equipped with rams and assault machines could have been seen crossing the mole toward the choma. Their objective was a defence post on the broad outer quay from which Carthaginian artillery had pounded their warships. Revengefully, the attackers ap­plied their engines to the stronghold, smashing part of its guard-wall.

  A vicious struggle ensued for the choma, a vital stepping-stone to the docklands. Since the building of the mole, both sides had land connections with the essentially sea-bound quay, whose merits as a missile platform were obvious. The Carth­aginians defended it desperately.

  In a classic operation against the Roman engines, a party of swimmers from the city scrambled from the water, slipped to the machines under cover of darkness, and suddenly lit torches. Startled by the flaring lights, the Romans responded with a hail of darts. The naked swimmers were vulnerable. With suicidal preoccupation they pursued their task until the siege engines were blazing.

  So affected was the Roman camp by the shock of the attack, the fanatical intensity of its participants, that the wisdom of confronting such defenders was widely doubted. Scipio is said to have deployed a cavalry squadron to prevent desertions among his troops. Meanwhile, the Carthaginians repaired the damaged strong-post.

  The fight for the choma resumed with fresh fury. New at­tacks were repulsed. Among Scipio's problems was the diffi­culty of manhandling heavy assault equipment across the slender footway of the mole. Huge metal-capped battering- rams of the type employed by Censorinus would have done the job quickly, but were impractical on the causeway. Such implements demanded the tractive power of men and oxen by the hundred.

  Lighter contraptions were brought forward to replace the burnt engines. Still, the Punic post resisted. Only when Scipio, borrowing inspiration from the enemy, resorted to incendiary tactics was he eventually successful. Forcing the defenders from their station with burning projectiles, the Romans oc­cupied the whole outer quay. To prevent its recapture, Scipio built a wall on its landward side behind which he placed ballistae and catapults.

  The fall of the choma, coming at summer's end, was a death-blow to the harbours. Roman artillery could now cover the merchant pool with heavy missiles (the ancient ballista could throw crushing stones some 400 yards) and cast lighter ones into the naval base. In any case, the impunity with which Scipio's warships were enabled to lie beside the quay denied even the slipperiest of Punic craft use of the new channel.

  Carthage entered the winter with starvation not far ahead. Subsistence depended on the gardens of the Megara - a mere supplement, in normal times, to inland and overseas pro­duce - together with some fish and goods smuggled across the lake from Nepheris. Nepheris, still held by the forces of Diogenes, became the next target for Scipio.

  Reviving the wilted interest of Gulussa, the Roman com­mander organized a joint Roman-Numidian campaign against the inland fort. The legate Laelius led the allies, with inter­mittent supervision from Scipio, who shuttled between his camp and siege headquarters. The operation was opposed more by winter's blows than by the enemy's. Diogenes's mercen­aries were in poor heart. The peasant levies enlisted to support them showed less zeal. Most broke and ran at an early stage, to be ridden down and slaughtered by Gulussa's cavalry.

  Galled by wintry conditions in their field camp, the legion­aries pressed Nepheris, and the promise of shelter, tenaciously. The fall of the stronghold, cutting Carthage's last flimsy life­line, signalled the capitulation of the few other African towns yet to bow to Rome. Though of little practical assistance, their resistance had helped to keep up spirits in the metropolis.

  The most extreme of Punic optimists could no longer dispute the outcome of the conflict. In the course of the winter, the Carthaginians made at least one final attempt to obtain toler­able terms from the Romans. Perhaps it was felt that the ap­proaching termination of the consulship of 147 was a favourable moment. Roman generals were notoriously anxious to conclude their campaigns in time to retire as popular victors. Unfortunately for Carthage, reasoning on these lines was in­validated by confirmation of Scipio's understanding that his command would continue until the war was over.

  When Hasdrubal, through the mediation of Gulussa, ap­proached Scipio on behalf of the city, the Roman refused to budge from his purpose of destruction. Though apologists were at pains to stress not only his military competence but his sympathetic qualities, it seems that Scipio lacked the magna­nimity, the capacity for the big human gesture, that had made his grandfather by adoption great.

  Instead, he displayed mere cunning in offering safe-conduct to Hasdrubal, his family and ten friends of the Carthaginian's choosing. Polybius and the Romans defamed the Punic general, but, whatever his failings, he dismissed the invitation with the contempt it merited. Negotiation impossible, he returned to Carthage for the last scenes of the tragedy.

  For three years the city had stood at bay, stripped of empire, bereft of allies, strength ebbing but still dangerous. Even now, her people dying wretchedly of hunger, Carthage evoked fear in her assailants - like some great beast lying mortally crippled with barred fangs. Determined in the spring of 146 to deal the coup de grace, Scipio moved with prudent caution.The first step was to assure the operation on religious grounds. Omens were consulted to check on the timing; the protective gods of the city entreated 'to forsake the places, temples, sacred sites, the people and the buildings, and depart from them. Cast terror and confusion on the enemy; fly to Rome and her people.' In return, Scipio's chaplains were pre­pared to promise 'that temples and games shall be founded to honour you.'

  This ceremony, the evocatio, was followed by the dreadful devotio, consigning Carthage and her forces to the demons of the netherwor
ld. Such formulae, vital to troop morale, were essential in the assault of a city whose evil mystique was a watchword in Roman quarters.

  Little doubt can have attached to the location of the attack. Throughout winter, Scipio's artillery had commanded the docks from the choma. From his camp on the taenia, storm- troops could move safely by the mole to the outer quay, a sprint from the merchant harbour. Once this were taken, the section of wall facing the taenia, outflanked, would be unten­able by the Carthaginians. Roman reinforcements could stream into the city from the southeast.

  Accordingly, the assault infantry, under Laelius, massed by the bay of Kram.

  Probably supported by amphibious units, the storming party on the choma launched the offensive at an early hour. Rising in line from the Roman-built bulwark on the outer quay, the legionaries had the sun behind them, casting bedazzling shafts from their helmets and arms toward the guard posts. Resistance on the seaward side of the harbour was desultory.

  Here, cut off in rear by the rectangular basin, the coastal wall was a hazardous station. Hasdrubal seems to have resigned himself to its abandonment, for he promptly set fire to the harbour sheds, covering his tactical withdrawal.

  The Roman infantry technique against missile fire, the 'armadillo,' involved a roof of interlocked shields held aloft in formation. In such a fashion the leading units most likely reached the east wall, scrambling on to it with little opposition. According to Plutarch, the foremost troops included the pro­spective historian Fannius and a youthful brother-in-law of Scipio, Tiberius Gracchus, later of agrarian distinction.Laelius now found himself amid a bewildering scene of fire and bombardment, partly blinded by swirling smoke. Swiftly turning the confusion to advantage, he picked his way north by the wall to the region of the naval base. This, the Romans quickly overran. Scarcely pausing, the attackers swept boldly against a secondary wall dividing the docks from the city-proper.