Biography

Little is known about Hasdrubal the Boeotarch, the general who lost the Third Punic War

Third Punic War

The Third Punic War was the third and last of the Punic Wars fought between the former Phoenician colony of Carthage, and the Roman Republic...

 to Scipio Aemilianus, Consul

Consul

Consul was the highest elected office of the Roman Republic and an appointive office under the Empire. The title was also used in other city states and also revived in modern states, notably in the First French Republic...

 of the Roman Republic

Roman Republic

The Roman Republic was the period of the ancient Roman civilization where the government operated as a republic. It began with the overthrow of the Roman monarchy, traditionally dated around 508 BC, and its replacement by a government headed by two consuls, elected annually by the citizens and...

 at the Siege of Carthage

Carthage

Carthage , implying it was a 'new Tyre') is a major urban centre that has existed for nearly 3,000 years on the Gulf of Tunis, developing from a Phoenician colony of the 1st millennium BC...

 in 146 BC. His military skill was not to be doubted, as his army had been well trained and equipped and his work at defending Carthage cost the Romans a difficult campaign to suppress the defenders, but his tactical skills were dwarfed by his contemporaries, Masinissa and Scipio. He also had a wife and two sons, who, according to an account by Polybius

Polybius

Polybius , Greek ) was a Greek historian of the Hellenistic Period noted for his work, The Histories, which covered the period of 220–146 BC in detail. The work describes in part the rise of the Roman Republic and its gradual domination over Greece...

, threw themselves into a burning temple when they saw Hasdrubal's army defeated by the Roman attackers. Hasdrubal surrendered himself to the Romans after his family's unfortunate deaths, but what happened to him after that is not known.

This may be the same general Hasdrubal who was defeated near the town of Tunes

Tunes

Tunes may refer to:* Music* Tunes , a brand of boiled sweet* iTunes music software* TUNES , an operating system concept* Looney Tunes, a cartoon* Tunes , an album by Spiers and Boden...

 (now Tunis

Tunis

Tunis is the capital of both the Tunisian Republic and the Tunis Governorate. It is Tunisia's largest city, with a population of 728,453 as of 2004; the greater metropolitan area holds some 2,412,500 inhabitants....

) by the Numidian king, Masinissa

Masinissa

Masinissa — also spelled Massinissa and Massena — was the first King of Numidia, an ancient North African nation of ancient Libyan tribes. As a successful general, Masinissa fought in the Second Punic War , first against the Romans as an ally of Carthage an later switching sides when he saw which...

, just after war was declared (149 BC).

External links

• http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Polybius/38*.html#7
• Livius.org: Hasdrubal
• William Smith, "Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology, Volume 2", C.C. Little and J. Brown, 1849 http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=nVkoAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA359&dq=%22siege+of+Carthage%22+146&as_brr=3#v=onepage&q=%22siege%20of%20Carthage%22%20146&f=false.