PROCONSUL PUBLIUS SCIPIO AEMILIANUS STOOD BEFORE the walls of Carthage watching the city burn. After a long, bloody siege, the Romans had breached the walls and pierced the heart of their greatest enemy. The Carthaginians had put up a fight, forcing the Romans to conquer the city street by street, but at the end of a week’s fighting the Romans prevailed. After systematically looting the city, Aemilianus ordered Carthage destroyed and its remaining inhabitants either sold into slavery or resettled further inland—far away from their lucrative harbor on the coast of North Africa. Long one of the
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