From the historian's notes

Carthage, 146 BCE

Tunisia · North Africa · spring 146 BCE · spring

What it was high

a great city in the third year of a Roman siege, starving behind its wallsby Phoenicians from Tyre, traditionally in 814 BCE

That year

• Scipio's final assault: the Romans break in by the harbours and fight street by street toward the Byrsa citadel for six days spring 146 BCE highthe end of the city
• The city burns; some 50,000 survivors are sold into slavery; Hasdrubal surrenders, and his wife, by the ancient accounts, throws herself and her children into the burning temple spring 146 BCE higha people ended
• The historian Polybius stands beside Scipio and watches; Scipio is said to weep, quoting Homer on the fall of Troy spring 146 BCE highthe destruction has a witness

Who held it high

the Carthaginian republic, governed by two annually elected sufetsits defence is commanded by the general HasdrubalRome declared war in 149 BCE and has besieged the city since; Scipio Aemilianus took command in 147

Its name high

Qart-hadasht, 'New City' in PunicWritten in the Punic alphabet

The date, there low

unknownyears named after the sufets in officeWatches of the night and the sun by day; under siege, the hours are counted in assaults.

Money medium

Carthaginian coinage in gold, silver and bronzethe shekelunknown, and meaningless in a starving city

Weather medium

spring: mild, around 18–22 °C, the last rains

Things

ObjectsPunic coins of gold, silver and bronze; red-slipped pottery; glass beads and amulets; purple-dye vatsFoodalmost nothing: three years of siege; what remains is grain, oil and salted fishClothlinen and wool; purple cloth for the richGetting aboutships, though the harbour mouth is blocked by a Roman moleIn the airsmoke; the sea; a hungry city

What she'd hear

Punic in the city, Libyan in the countryside, Greek among the educated; outside the walls, Latin.

Where she could stand

• the circular military harbour — the round naval harbour with its island admiralty and ship-sheds
• the commercial harbour — the rectangular harbour, now the Roman way in
• the houses on the Byrsa slope — multi-storey houses with cisterns and mosaic floors
• the walls on the isthmus — the triple land walls facing the Roman siege lines

Researched for this card · confidence high