THE CAPTURE OF NEW CARTHAGE
From the time that Hannibal entered Italy, it seemed as though the
Romans needed all their strength to meet so powerful a foe. They did,
indeed, have as many as eight legions on the battlefield of Cannæ. Yet,
at the same time, they had sent officers and soldiers to Spain, and
were fighting against the Carthaginians in that country, as well as in
Italy.
Publius Scipio had, you remember, been ordered to march to Spain in
218 B.C. to punish Hannibal for defying the demands of Rome. But as he
found that Hannibal was crossing the Alps, he awaited him in the valley
of the Po, sending his brother Gnæus to Spain in his stead.
In about twelve months Publius was able to join his brother, and for
four years they fought together against the Carthaginians. Then in 213
B.C. the Romans found that the enemy was making a determined effort to
push their possessions beyond the river Ebro.
Such presumption must be punished, and Publius with an army set out to
repulse the enemy. But in the battle that followed he fell, mortally
wounded. Gnæus also was slain about three weeks later.
The loss of the Scipios was a serious blow to Rome, for their influence
in Spain had made the Roman name powerful. Nor was it easy to find
an officer to send to Spain in the place of the brothers, for every
soldier wished to stay in Italy to fight against Hannibal, the arch
enemy.
At length Cornelius, the son of Publius Scipio, offered to take up the
work that had fallen from his father’s hands.
Cornelius Scipio was only twenty-four years of age, but he had already
shown that he was brave and skilful. On the battlefield of Ticinus
he had by his prompt action saved his father’s life, and after the
slaughter at Cannæ he had prevented a band of young knights from
forsaking their country.
In Rome, Scipio was a favourite with the people, partly, perhaps,
because of his good looks, and partly because, although he was so
young, he was grave and dignified, and his serious ways became him well.
His offer to serve in Spain was accepted, the people electing him for
the post with goodwill. The few who were anxious lest he was too young
for so great a charge were soon reassured, for his speech, when he
addressed them, was wise as well as confident. And the trust of the
people was justified.
Scipio arrived in Spain about 210 B.C., and finding that a town,
which the enemy had named New Carthage, was of great importance, he
determined to attack it.
Although the Carthaginians had three armies in Spain, each of their
camps was at some distance from New Carthage.
So confident, too, were the Punic generals of the strength of the town,
that it was guarded by a garrison of only one thousand men. As for the
inhabitants, they knew little of the use of arms, being for the most
part fishermen and mechanics.
Yet New Carthage was supremely important. She was the nearest port to
Carthage, and it was at her harbour that reinforcements and stores from
Africa were landed. Here, too, the Carthaginians kept their magazines,
their money, and their Spanish hostages.
The city was surrounded by high, strong walls, save at one place, where
it was protected by an inland sea or lagoon. Here the walls were low
and guarded less vigilantly, for the sea was believed to make the city
secure from attack.
But Scipio had been talking in his grave and pleasant way with the
fishermen of New Carthage, and he had learned quite simply what he
wished to know--that the sea was shallow enough at times to make it
possible to reach the low and well-nigh unguarded wall.
When Scipio, his plan determined, ordered his soldiers to march, they
knew nothing of what their young leader meant to attempt. Only to
Lælius, his most trusted friend, did he confide his scheme, bidding him
take the Roman fleet to the harbour of New Carthage on a certain day.
Lælius was to join in the assault upon the city; if it failed, he was
to be ready to carry off the troops in his ships.
Scipio’s orders were obeyed. The fleet reached the harbour at the same
time that the Roman army encamped without the city walls.
Mago, who was in command of the garrison, was surprised when he saw
the Roman fleet in the harbour, the Roman army close to his gates. He
at once ordered the walls to be manned, and about two thousand of the
citizens to be armed.
A party of soldiers then sallied out to drive off the enemy, the armed
citizens joining in the attack. They were, however, beaten back by the
Romans. In a panic the citizens crowded together in the narrow gateway,
each trying to regain the safety of the streets. So foolish was their
haste, that many of them were trampled underfoot and wounded, if not
killed.
The Roman soldiers all but succeeded in pushing their way into the
city, along with the desperate citizens. They did not quite succeed,
but they managed to fix the scaling ladders against the walls. This
proved, however, of little use, for the ladders, they found, were too
short for the height of the walls, while they suffered greatly from
the arrows and missiles which fell in their midst.
It was afternoon when the Romans withdrew, and the garrison believed
that they were safe for another day. But a few hours later the
besiegers again attacked the walls.
This second attack was only a ruse to distract the defenders of the
city from a more serious undertaking.
Scipio had seen that the water in the lagoon was ebbing, and would soon
be shallow. So he now ordered his men to step boldly into the water and
carry their ladders to the low and carelessly guarded wall.
His order was speedily carried out. The ladders were soon in position,
and the next moment the Roman soldiers were climbing up into the city.
Meanwhile the garrison was busy repulsing the attack upon her high and
strongly guarded walls.
But the Roman soldiers, having scaled their ladders, leaped into the
city, killing the few guards whom they encountered. Quickly they made
their way toward the gate, which was being assaulted from without. When
they reached it they flung it open, and their comrades poured into the
city, the garrison was overcome, and New Carthage was in the hands of
Scipio.
The young general was modest, and refused to claim all the glory of the
victory. Part of it, at least, was due to Neptune, the god of the sea,
for he, said Scipio, had come to him as he slept and bidden him enter
the city by the lagoon.
There was much booty to be gathered in the conquered city, and in the
harbour a fleet of both warships and merchant vessels was captured.
But the chief value of the victory was that the Romans had now
possession of a town in the very centre of the enemy’s country, as well
as of its best port.
In 206 B.C. Scipio returned to Rome, able to say that he had left no
Carthaginian soldier in Spain.
But Scipio had done more than drive the enemy out of Spain. He had
tried to win two powerful allies for his country, in Africa, and he had
succeeded in gaining one.
Syphax, King of Western Numidia, had been now on the side of Rome,
now on that of Carthage. Scipio sailed to Africa to visit Syphax, and
before he left him he believed that he had secured his fidelity to Rome.
But although the king was charmed with the Roman, and said of him that
he was ‘even more admirable in conversation than in war,’ when Scipio’s
influence was removed he proved fickle as ever. In the end he went over
to, and remained on, the side of the Carthaginians.
The ally whom Scipio gained was an African prince named Masinissa. He
had come to Spain with a body of Numidian cavalry, and promised that it
should be at the service of Scipio when he landed in Africa.
For this was now the young general’s great ambition--to carry the war
with the Carthaginians into their own country.