Answer:
Explanation:
In 157 a Roman senator, Cato, visited North Africa and became aware that prosperity had returned to Carthage – forty-four years after the Rome's last war with Carthage had ended. He assumed that this made Carthage a menace and an enemy to Rome. Not wanting to put aside old conflicts, he postured with overwhelming righteousness concerning Rome's two wars against Carthage, and he began ending his speeches in the Senate with the words "Carthage must be destroyed."
A neighbor of Carthage, Numidia, took advantage of Rome's hostility to Carthage by making encroachments on Carthaginian territory and then asking Rome for arbitration. Rome failed to act with the impartiality that might have inhibited Numidia from making further encroachments. And after suffering a number of aggressions by Numidia, Carthage lost its patience and retaliated against Numidia. Rome in its bias saw this as a breach of peace by Carthage, and, in the year 150, Rome's Senate mustered its arrogance and voted for another war against Carthage.
Believing that war against Rome was hopeless, a delegation that Carthage sent to Rome offered surrender in the form of a commitment to "the faith of Rome" – understood to mean that Rome could take possession of Carthage but that the lives of the people of Carthage would be spared and that they would not be taken as slaves. Rome's Senate responded by granting Carthage self-rule and the right of the city and its people to keep all their possessions on condition that Carthage send to Rome three hundred of its leading citizens as hostages. Hoping to save their city from destruction, amid much grieving, the Carthaginians sent their leading citizens to Rome as hostages.
But Rome had already decided to wipe Carthage from the map. Rome demanded that Carthage surrender all its weapons, and Carthage did so, including 200,000 suits of mail and two thousand catapults. Then Rome demanded that the people of Carthage surrender their city and move ten miles inland. For the Carthaginians this meant leaving behind their homes, their docks and quays and their ability to carry on their sea-going trade. The people of Carthage preferred war and refused. Rome responded as it had planned, with military operations, which began in the year 149, the year that Cato, at 85, died
