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. Where the industrious Phoenicians had bustled and
trafficked for five hundred years, Roman slaves henceforth pastured
the herds of their distant masters. Scipio, however, whom nature
had destined for a nobler part than that of an executioner, gazed
with horror on his own work; and, instead of the joy of victory,