Battle of Carthage ( c . 149 BC ) The Battle of Carthage was the main engagement of the Third Punic War between the Punic city of Carthage in Africa and the Roman Republic . It was a siege operation , starting sometime between 149 and 148 BC , and ending in spring 146 BC with the sack and complete destruction of the city of Carthage . After a Roman army under Manius Manilius landed in Africa in 149 BC , Carthage surrendered and handed over hostages and arms . However , the Romans demanded the complete surrender of the city , and surprisingly to the Romans the city refused , the faction advocating submission overturned by one in favor of defense . The Carthaginians manned the walls and defied the Romans , a situation which lasted for two years . In this period , the 500 , 000 Carthaginians inside the wall transformed the town into a huge arsenal . They produced about 300 sword s , 500 spear s , 140 shield s and 1 , 000 projectile s for catapult s daily . The Romans elected the young but popular Scipio Aemilianus as consul , a special law being passed to lift the age restriction . Scipio restored discipline , defeated the Carthaginians at Nepheris , and besieged the city closely , constructing a mole to block the harbor . In spring 146 BC , the Romans broke through the city wall but they were hard - pressed to take the city . Every building , house and temple had been turned into a stronghold and every Carthaginian had taken up a weapon . The Romans were forced to move slowly , capturing the city house by house , street by street and fighting each Carthaginian soldier who fought with courage born of despair . Eventually after hours upon hours of house - to - house fighting , the Carthaginians surrendered . An estimated 50 , 000 surviving inhabitants were sold into slavery . The city was then leveled . The land surrounding Carthage was eventually declared " ager publicus " , and it was shared between local farmers , and Roman and Italian ones . Before the end of the battle , a dramatic event took place : 900 survivors , most of them Roman deserters , had found refuge in the temple of Eshmun , in the citadel of Byrsa , although it was already burning . They negotiated their surrender , but Scipio Aemilianus expressed that forgiveness was impossible either for Hasdrubal , the general who defended the city , or for the defectors . Hasdrubal then left the Citadel to surrender and pray for mercy ( he had tortured Roman prisoners in front of the Roman army ) . At that moment Hasdrubal ' s wife allegedly went out with her two children , insulted her husband , sacrificed her sons and jumped with them into a fire that the deserters had started . The deserters too then hurled themselves into the flames , upon which Scipio Aemilianus began weeping . He recited a sentence from Homer ' s Iliad , a prophecy about the destruction of Troy , that could be applied now to Carthage ' s end . Scipio declared that the fate of Carthage might one day be Rome ' s . In the words of Polybius : Since the 19th century , various historians have claimed that the Romans plowed over the city and sowed salt into the soil after destroying it , but this is not supported by ancient sources .