Siege of Carthage (Third Punic War)

01The Roman Senate debated Carthage's fate for years before voting; Cato the Elder ended every speech with 'Carthago delenda est' — Carthage must be destroyed.
02After 17 days of burning, Roman general Scipio Aemilianus reportedly wept watching the city fall, quoting Homer about the eventual fall of Rome itself.
03The site was declared 'accursed land' — ager damnatus — and legally forbidden from resettlement for over a century after 146 BC.

The Hereford Mappa Mundi , about 1300, Hereford Cathedral , England

Rome burned Carthage for 17 days in 146 BC, killed or enslaved its 700,000 citizens, plowed the ground, and — according to one account — sowed it with salt. Then Rome wept. Then Rome erased the city's name from its maps.