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Hasdrubal's troops were first weakened by famine then swept by epidemic. In the end, they agreed to purchase a passage by surrendering their arms and the deserters, and promising an indemnity.
    Even so, disaster awaited the survivors. As they trudged defencelessly from camp, Masinissa's horsemen harried them savagely, leaving few to reach safety. The affair might have been planned to suit Cato. By embarking on war against Numidia in contravention of the treaty of 201, Carthage had absolved Rome of her legal obligation as co-signatory. By losing that war, and her army to boot, Carthage had left herself naked. Walls she possessed, but no battalions to man them.
    Also, she had reinforced the old bogey of Carthaginian per­fidy. Romans on the whole might not share Cato's hatred of Carthage, but they did regard her people with mistrust. Like Plautus's Hanno, they were thought to be tricky rogues. Trickery could be amusing in a pedlar, but when it came to breaking treaties the legalistic Roman had a meagre sense of humour. The public, as one Roman avouched, was not discrim­inatory in what it believed about the Punic race.
    By 150, 'Destroy Carthage!' had ceased to seem an outrage­ous slogan. Against the drift of sentiment, Scipio Nasica warned of the need to have regard for world opinion. But to many minds the destruction of an untrustworthy city would be a salutary message to the world, succinct in any tongue: a timely counter to wrong ideas which might be drawn from the intransigence of Spanish savages. Contrary to recruiting problems apropos of Spain, raising an army for the seemingly profitable picnic of demolishing a rich and cultivated state was all too easy. 80,000 Italians, unde­ceived by official secrecy about their destination, quickly volunteered for the campaign. It could hardly have come at a more opportune moment. Masinissa, having smashed the Carthaginian army, was fast approaching the end of his own life.
    In the struggle for succession which must follow, Numidia would be ill-placed either to exploit the demise of her rival or to contest a Roman stake in Africa.
    How far the ruthlessness of Roman intentions toward Carthage was part of a wider strategy of supremacy, or in fact a crude reaction in the absence of any real policy, is question­able. The ancient world was divided in opinion. According to Polybius, one school of thought held the assault on Carthage an astute and far-sighted action on Rome's part, while others saw it as the brutal aberration of a normally civilized nation, a treacherous and profane act.
    Its immensity was not doubted. The sands of Punic history were running out.
 
7: Dido and the Voyagers
     
     
    Legend has it that Carthage was founded in the 9th century b.c. by a princess of Tyre named Elissa, or Dido. When Dido's brother, Pygmalion, became king, the princess married her uncle, Acherbas, the wealthiest member of the royal house. Coveting his fortune, Pygmalion had Acherbas murdered, but Dido escaped to sea with the riches and her followers.
    According to the story, told with several variations, Dido sailed to Cyprus where the high priest of the Semitic goddess Astarte agreed to join her on condition that his family should be granted the priesthood in perpetuity of any colony founded. A number of sacred prostitutes embarked with him, to provide women for the men and, in time, regenerate the company. In Justin's version of the legend, Dido went to Africa where
    finding that the people of those parts were well disposed to strangers, and liked buying and selling, she agreed to buy a piece of land, so much as could be encompassed by the hide of an ox, on which to rest her weary companions. This hide she cut into narrow strips that they might encircle a large plot, which was called Byrsa, that is the Hide.
    Like Utica, a colony already thriving on the coast to the west, Dido's foundation prospered. But so great was the re­putation of the princess's beauty (runs the fable) that one native