After the Senate, led by Cato the Elder, who ended every speech with 'Carthage must be destroyed', found a pretext, Rome began the Third Punic War in 149 BC and besieged Carthage. In the spring of 146 BC the general Scipio Aemilianus broke into the city and after six days of street fighting burned it. Most of its roughly 50,000 survivors were sold into slavery. The story that Romans sowed the fields with salt is a later invention. Rome made the region the province of Africa. In the same year Roman troops destroyed Corinth, ending Greek independence.
Before and after
- from 167 BCE to 160 BCEMaccabean Revolt
- from 2nd century BCE to 2nd centuryProto–Three Kingdoms of Korea
- from 149 BCE to 146 BCEThird Punic War
- from 149 BCE to 146 BCESiege of Carthage
- 147 BCERome destroys Carthage
- from 146 BCE to 330 CERoman Greece
- 145 BCEBirth of Sima Qian
- 141 BCEPaper
- 2nd century BCEVenus de Milo
More in Wars, politics & history
- from 74 BCE to 72 BCEThe slave revolt of Spartacus
- from 73 BCE to 71 BCEThird Servile War
- from 58 BCE to 51 BCEGallic War
- 49 BCECaesar defeats Pompey at Pharsalus
- 451 CEAetius and Theodoric stop Attila at the Catalaunian Plains
- 476 CEFall of the western Roman Empire
The era
This moment belongs to the Ancient civilizations (3,200 BCE to 500 CE), writing, cities and empires. You can also browse everything in the 2nd century BCE.