ruins; on which occasion a number of persons unable to fight, who were concealed in the houses, miserably perished.  Then at last the remnant of the population, crowded together in the citadel, besought for mercy.  Bare life was conceded to them, and they appeared before the victor, 30,000 men and 25,000 women, not the tenth part of the former population.  The Roman deserters alone, 900 in number, and the general Hasdrubal with his wife and his two children had thrown themselves into the temple of the God of Healing; for them—­for soldiers who had deserted their posts, and for the murderer of the Roman prisoners—­there were no terms.  But when, yielding to famine, the most resolute of them set fire to the temple, Hasdrubal could not endure to face death; alone he ran forth to the victor and falling upon his knees pleaded for his life.  It was granted; but, when his wife who with her children was among the rest on the roof of the temple saw him at the feet of Scipio, her proud heart swelled at this disgrace brought on her dear perishing home, and, with bitter words bidding her husband be careful to save his life, she plunged first her sons and then herself into the flames.  The struggle was at an end.  The joy in the camp and at Rome was boundless; the noblest of the people alone were in secret ashamed of the most recent grand achievement of the nation.  The prisoners were mostly sold as slaves; several were allowed to languish in prison; the most notable, Hasdrubal and Bithyas, were sent to the interior of Italy as Roman state-prisoners and tolerably treated.  The moveable property, with the exception of gold, silver, and votive gifts, was abandoned to the pillage of the soldiers.  As to the temple treasures, the booty that had been in better times carried off by the Carthaginians from the Sicilian towns was restored to them; the bull of Phalaris, for example, was returned to the Agrigentines; the rest fell to the Roman state.

Destruction of Carthage

But by far the larger portion of the city still remained standing.  We may believe that Scipio desired its preservation; at least he addressed a special inquiry to the senate on the subject.  Scipio Nasica once more attempted to gain a hearing for the demands of reason and honour; but in vain.  The senate ordered the general to level the city of Carthage and the suburb of Magalia with the ground, and to do the same with all the townships which had held by Carthage to the last; and thereafter to pass the plough over the site of Carthage so as to put an end in legal form to the existence of the city, and to curse the soil and site for ever, that neither house nor cornfield might ever reappear on the spot.  The command was punctually obeyed.  The ruins burned for seventeen days:  recently, when the remains of the Carthaginian city wall were excavated, they were found to be covered with a layer of ashes from four to five feet deep, filled with half-charred pieces of wood, fragments of iron, and projectiles.