The Roman campaign suffered repeated setbacks through 149 BC, only alleviated by Scipio Aemilianus, a middle-ranking officer, distinguishing himself several times.

At the annual election of Roman magistrates in early 147 BC, the public support for Scipio was so great that the usual age restrictions were lifted to allow him to be appointed commander in Africa.

Scipio's term began with two Carthaginian successes, but he tightened the siege and commenced a construction of a large mole to prevent supplies from getting into Carthage via blockade runners.

[26] At the end of the war, the Roman ally Masinissa emerged as by far the most powerful ruler among the Numidians, the dominant indigenous people in North Africa west of Egypt.

[32][33] Nevertheless, elements in the Roman Senate had long wished to destroy Carthage, and, using the illicit Carthaginian military action as a pretext, began preparing a punitive expedition.

[38][42] The city had few reliable sources of ground water, but possessed a complex system to catch and channel rainwater and a large number of cisterns to store it.

[46] Appian gives the strength of the Roman army which landed in Africa as 84,000 soldiers; modern historians estimate it at 40,000–50,000 men, of whom 4,000 were cavalry.

[39][42] The Roman army moved to Carthage and twice attempted to scale the city walls, from the sea and the landward sides, being repulsed both times, before settling down for a siege.

The Romans would have been in difficulty except for the actions of Scipio Aemilianus,[note 5] who was serving with the 4th Legion as a tribune – a middle-ranking military position.

[48] Separately, a night attack was launched against Manilius's camp; a dangerous outcome for the Romans was again averted by Scipio's prompt action.

[51] The Romans elected two new consuls in 148 BC, but only one of them was sent to Africa: Calpurnius Piso; Lucius Mancinus commanded the navy as his subordinate.

He pulled back the close siege of Carthage to a looser blockade and attempted to mop up the other Carthaginian-supporting cities in the area but failed.

But the public demand to appoint him as consul, and so allow him to take charge of the African war, was so strong that the Senate put aside the age requirements for all posts for the year.

In any event, he secured sole command in Africa, the usual right to conscript enough men to make up the numbers of the forces there, and the unusual entitlement to enroll volunteers.

[54] Meanwhile, early in 147 BC Mancinius seized an unexpected opportunity to capture a sally port and forced 3,500 men into the city, 3,000 of whom were lightly armed and armoured sailors.

He sailed overnight for Carthage and arrived just in time to evacuate Mancinius's hard-pressed force as it was expelled by a Carthaginian counterattack.

He then led a night march with a strong force that culminated in an assault against what the Romans considered to be a weak point in Carthage's main wall.

[57][58] The renewed close siege cut off landward entry to the city, but a tight seaward interdiction was all but impossible with the naval technology of the time.

Frustrated at the amount of food being shipped into the city, Scipio started to build an immense mole to cut off access to the harbour.

A few days were necessary to trim the new-built ships and to train the new crews who had not been to sea for over two years and were out of the habit of operating together, and by the time the Carthaginians felt ready to give battle the Romans had concentrated their own naval forces.

[61][62][63] Scipio's position as the Roman commander in Africa was extended for a year in 146 BC,[64] and in the spring he launched the final assault.

Hasdrubal's wife, watching from a rampart, then blessed Scipio, cursed her husband, and walked into the temple with her children, to burn to death.

After this, a commission of ten senators arrived, ordering Scipio to destroy whatever remained of Carthage and decreed nobody was allowed to settle there or rebuild; however, it was not forbidden to go upon the ground nor was the land cursed,[70] the notion that Roman forces then sowed the city with salt is a 19th-century invention.

[71][72][73] Many of the religious items and cult-statues which Carthage had pillaged from Sicilian cities and temples over the centuries were returned with great ceremony.

[82][83] Rome still exists as the capital of Italy; the ruins of Carthage lie 16 kilometres (10 mi) east of Tunis on the North African coast.

[84] A formal peace treaty was signed by Ugo Vetere and Chedli Klibi, the mayors of Rome and the modern city of Carthage, respectively, on 5 February 1985; 2,131 years after the war ended.