Strata: In History

February 5, 146 B.C. The Third Punic War—the last of three between Rome and Carthage, formerly a Phoenician colony—came to an end on this day, culminating in the final destruction of Carthage, the enslavement of its people and the rise of Roman hegemony over the entire western Mediterranean—fulfilling the repeated call of Cato the Elder that Carthago delenda est (Carthage must be destroyed). The Roman siege and annihilation of Carthage was led by Scipio Aemilianus, or Scipio the Younger, the grandson by adoption of Scipio Africanus, the Roman general who defeated the Carthaginian military commander Hannibal during the Second Punic War.