Carthage, [y. r. 605. b. c. 147,] comprehended in a circuit of twenty-three miles, was besieged with immense exertion, and was gradually taken; first, by Mancinus, acting as lieutenant-general; and afterwards by Scipio, the consul, to whom Africa was voted as his province, without casting lots. The Carthaginians having constructed a new mole, (the old one being destroyed by Scipio,) and equipped, secretly, in an unusually short space of time, a considerable fleet, engage, unsuccessfully, in a sea-fight. Hasdrubal, with his army, notwithstanding he had taken post in a place of extremely difficult approach, was cut off by Scipio; who at length took the city by storm, in the seven hundredth year after its foundation. [y. r. 606. b. c. 146.] The greater part of the spoil was returned to the Sicilians, from whom it had been taken. During the destruction of the city, when Hasdrubal had given himself up into Scipio’s hands, his wife, who, a few days before, had not been able to prevail upon him to surrender to the conqueror, casts herself, with her two children, from a tower into the flames of the burning city. Scipio, following the example of his father, Æmilius Paullus, the conqueror of Macedon, celebrates solemn games; during which he exposes the deserters and fugitives to wild beasts. The origin of the Achæan war is referred to the circumstance of the ambassadors of the Romans being expelled from Corinth by the Achæans, when they were sent to separate from the Achæan council those cities which had been under the dominion of Philip.