"You will in actuality attack the walls of a single city, but in that city you will have made yourselves masters of Spain"
_ Scipio Africanus (from the writings of Livy)
Rise of Scipio
Publius Cornelius Scipio (later added 'Africanus') took command of the war in Spain and was given the Proconsul 'imperium'.
While he was young - 25 when given control of the Spanish campaign - Scipio was not new to warfare. He is believed to have distinguished himself at the Battle of Ticinus River, when he rushed in the middle of the heat of battle to help his wounded father.
However, there is a contradictory story saying that his father was saved by his Ligurian slave. Scipio's story became the popular one no doubt due to his already beloved character.
Another story of how he rallied routing Roman soldiers, organized them and led them back to battle had made him a favored character in Rome.
Although evidence is weak, it is assumed that he was present in some of the skirmish battles against Hannibal. He was now also the oldest man and heir to one of the most powerful families of Rome, the Cornelii family.
Adrian Goldsworthy, in his book The Fall of Carthage: The Punic Wars 265-146 BC, refers to Scipio as:
"One of the most charismatic figures produced by the Romans during the Punic Wars. In many respects he conformed to the ideal of the youthful military genius which has done much to shape Western ideas of heroism since Alexander the Great."
The fact that Scipio was given the command in the first place has perplexed historians for a while. It was a unanimous decision, but completely out of the ordinary. Scipio had not held any major magistracies beforehand, being too young to have held a Praetorship or Consulship. He had been a Curule Aedile, responsible for the care and supervision of the markets, in 213 BC, but this was a minor role.
Livy mentions how a comitia centuriata (military assembly) convened a vote on the next general willing to continue the campaign in Spain, but nobody was said to have wanted control of the foreign war until Scipio stepped up and was unanimously picked.
This is a very strange occurrence, as pro-magistracies were not elected but picked by the Senate. It is very likely that the intentions of Scipio were already known in the closed Senatorial world, and this move was made to legalize it.
There have been many attempts to try and understand this event. Goldsworthy was not one for favoring any speculations, stating:
"Attempts to understand the incident in terms of factional politics once again fail to convince and rely on far too many unjustified assumptions about the 'policies' of different families."
Command in Spain was not that appealing a choice. It was a foreign land, where shortage of supplies was common, with the liklihood of facing massive armies; something the past Scipio's were constantly complaining about. The recent defeats had also heavily demoralized the people. The environment in Italy was familiar and friendly, unlike Spain, which was considered an enemy's territory.
Additionally, the loyalty of the Spanish tribes was known to be fickle, as evidenced by their switching between Carthage and Rome, and the sudden abandonment of the Scipio's in their time of need.
Scipio in Spain
According to Livy, Scipio was given 12,000 infantry - half Roman and half Italian - and 1,200 cavalry, of which 300 were Roman and 800 were Latin. Appian of Alexandria gives a different number; he stated 10,000 infantry and 1,000 cavalry. This was in addition to the men already in Spain, so in total about 28,000 infantry and 3,000 cavalry.
This was a very small number compared to the large armies that the Carthaginian generals in Spain controlled. Scipio simply could not chase one without fear of unexpectedly meeting another one.
After spending the winter in Spain, negotiating alliances between the Spanish tribes in the area, Scipio decided on a very risky idea. His plan was to take the city of Carthago Nova (New Carthage), the center of Carthaginian control in Spain and containing much needed and desired supplies.
Scipio learned from nearby inhabitants that the three main Carthaginian armies were well distributed throughout Spain in their fighting against the Spanish tribes. Hasdubral was in present-day Toledo fighting the Carpetani, Mago was near the present-day Straits of Gibraltar, and Gisgo was with the Lusitanians.
This allowed Scipio to head to the city unopposed. He also found out that the city was poorly defended. The general who was defending the city only had about 2,000 citizen fighters and about 1,000 mercenaries.
Even so, the size of the city and the relatively small size of the Roman army meant that the city would not be easy to take.
Siege of New Carthage
Scipio took with him 25,000 of his infantry and 2,500 cavalry, while Gaius Laelius took on the attack of the coastal side of the city with 30 ships. He arrived at New Carthage in about seven days and caught the city by surprise with his speed.
From the start it can be assumed that Scipio had little interest in besieging and starving the city. He made no attempt to surround it through circumvallation. Starving it out was nearly impossible due to the proximity of the Carthaginian armies and the small size of the Roman force. If Scipio was to take the city, he would have to do it fast.
Mago, the garrison leader at New Carthage (not to be confused with Hannibal's brother, Mago), had split his mercenary troops in two. He placed one in the citadel of the city, and the other on the hillock on the eastern side of the city. He then placed his citizen militia at the city gate.
Mago then ordered his militia troops to sally out and meet the Roman force near their camp. Expecting this, Scipio had organized his troops in an area where the advantage would be entirely his. As the two sides met, a fierce struggle ensued. However, the Roman soldiers soon overwhelmed the small citizen force and routed them, inflicting many casualties.
Scipio now decided to use this momentum and ordered his men to scale the walls with ladders, while Laelius attacked the sea-facing side of the city with his fleet. Scipio himself took part in the siege. Fighting alongside his men gave them confidence and allowed him to see everything around him. However, he took care to properly defend himself, placing long-shielded men around him to cover him from arrows and other attacks.
The first attack failed due to heavy missile fire that prevented his men from scaling the ladders. By noon, Scipio called off the attack. The attack had failed, both in damaging the cities defenses of killing many enemy troops from the garrison. This definitely gave courage to the Carthaginian army, adding to their belief that they would be able to hold on until a relief army arrived.
The Fall
To the city's great shock, Scipio now decided on another attack. This time he ordered even more ladders to storm the walls, giving many historians the belief that Scipio had simply organized the first attack to survey the defenses of the city. By now, though, the city's defenders had nearly depleted their missiles, and they struggled to hold the Romans off from scaling the walls.
While this was going on, Scipio had organized a group of 500 men that would go around the lagoon to the north of the city's defenses. It is believed that Scipio waited until later in the day because he had heard from fishermen nearby that the tide of the lagoon would lower. As the attack began and the water level was indeed lower, it exposed the northern city walls.
To Scipio's men, this seemed like the divine aid of Neptune (before the siege, Scipio had claimed that Neptune had given him the plans). This gave the entire army a boost of morale and they renewed the battle, which had been going on for most of the day.
Mago had abandoned that side of the walls due to the hard fighting on the other side. The group of 500 then proceeded to climb the walls unnoticed, and made quick work of the wall's defenders, thus freeing an opening for the outside army.
The city was now overrun, but not conquered. The Romans took great care to secure the walls and allow all of their men to enter the city before they proceeded. This could be due to their unfamiliarity of the city and fear of that Mago could rally the troops and use their knowledge of the city's layout to attack and drive the Romans out.
As Scipio's army dispersed throughout the city, they were ordered to kill any person they came across. While this was carried out, Scipio moved with his troops to the citadel to secure it. During this particular event, the Romans were almost uncontrolled in their slaughter and sack of the population. Polybius, a historian of the time, later reported seeing the remains of the sacking with his own eyes, and excavations conducted in later years confirmed the veracity of his account.
The Roman soldiers were particularly brutal in this case, possibly due to the hard defenses they encountered and the high loss of life they suffered, but most likely to suppress any remaining resistance and to instill fear in the citizens of the city... those that were left, anyway.
Aftermath
The capture of the city silenced Roman doubters of Scipio... he had accomplished what many thought impossible. Roman control to the city also brought many Spanish tribes in the area over to the Roman side. Many Spanish hostages, probably taken to secure their allegiance, were returned home. Merchant hostages were temporarily enslaved until the end of the war, and the rest of the hostages served in the Roman fleet.
The city also had a vast amount of wealth that was now in Roman control; this included siege engines, material and a large treasury.
There have been many stories of Scipio being offered a beautiful Spanish girl by the soldiers in the city as a prize, but she was returned by him to her father. If true, this would have been a clever political move by Scipio, making himself and Rome seem better then the Carthagenians, whom had often been especially cruel to the Spanish tribes.
With the city now taken, New Carthage would now serve as a base for Roman operations in Spain.
Did you know...
Carthago Nova, the most important Carthaginian city in Spain, is now known as Cartagena.
