Destruction of Carthage

The Third Punic War concluded in spring 146 BCE when Roman forces under Scipio Aemilianus breached Carthage's walls after a three-year siege. Street-by-street fighting lasted six days before the city fell. Ancient sources record that approximately 50,000 survivors were sold into slavery. The Roman Senate ordered the city systematically demolished. Carthage's North African territory became the Roman province of Africa, ending 120 years of intermittent Punic Wars that had begun in 264 BCE over control of Sicily and western Mediterranean trade routes.