Is it true that the Romans sowed salt in the land where Carthage was destroyed?

It is generally accepted that after the long-awaited victory over Carthage and the complete destruction of the city in 146 BC. the troops of Scipio Africanus plowed the land in the area and covered it with sea salt so that nothing would grow in these places. We checked how plausible this historical detail is.

The fact that the winners chose such an original way to once and for all put an end to the lair of their worst enemy is reported by many sources in Russian and other languages. Among them are authoritative online resources (encyclopedia "Around the World"), and printed publications ("Great Russian Encyclopedia", 14-volume encyclopedia "World History", books "100 Great Cities of Antiquity" And "100 Great Battles of Antiquity"), as well as some university textbooks.

In 2012, explaining his position regarding the war in Syria, Russian President Vladimir Putin noted that the first large-scale ethnic cleansing took place against the population of the Phoenician state. “The Roman Empire not only captured and occupied Carthage, but when it destroyed everything, slaughtered everyone, they also sprinkled salt so that nothing would grow,” - reminded then Putin.

As we know from school textbooks, Third Punic War put an end to the centuries-long confrontation between Carthage and the Roman Republic. The dream of the Roman Cato the Elder came true, who, according to Plutarch, ended each of his speeches in the Senate with the words: “Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam” (“And besides, I argue that Carthage must be destroyed” - lat.). Cato himself lived a rather long life (especially for the Ancient World) - 85 years, but missed one of the key events in the history of his country by only three years.

In 146 BC. e. after a long siege, Carthage fell. Taking the city, the Roman commander Scipio Aemilianus Africanus ordered set it on fire. The fire in the city of almost half a million lasted 17 days. Most of the inhabitants died during the siege and assault, and the survivors were sold into slavery. Further, as the material on the website of the Russian Historical Library tells, Scipio sent a request to the Senate on how to deal with the conquered state. “The majority of senators insisted on the implementation of a long-standing goal - to raze Carthage to the ground, to destroy all the cities that remained loyal to him to the end. It was done. According to ancient custom, Scipio appealed to the gods of Carthage, asking them to leave the defeated country and settle in Rome; the ruins of Carthage were demolished, and a curse was pronounced over its place, which had turned into an empty field, dooming it to remain abandoned by people forever; it was forbidden to settle on it or sow grain,” the site tells us.

Curses curses, but what about the notorious salt? There are several basic sources of information about the Punic Wars. This is first and foremost "General History" in 40 books by the ancient Greek historian Polybius, who witnessed the capture of Carthage. Unfortunately, most of this work is considered lost, including a significant portion of information about the Third Punic War. Today, certain details of the disappeared books are known only in the retelling of Byzantine historians of the 10th century. Also, the fundamental work on this topic can be called “The History of Rome from the Foundation of the City” by Titus Livy, who lived at the turn of two eras. However, the 51st book - about the period of interest to us - has survived only in the form summary. Other ancient sources about the Punic Wars include stories Plutarch, Cassia Dione And Diodorus Siculus. Alas, from them only scattered information about the events of 146 BC has reached us. And only "Roman History" Appian of Alexandria (2nd century) contains more or less detailed data about the last days of Carthage. Neither in it, nor in those fragments that have survived from other ancient authors, is there anything about salt or about the plow.

Moreover, no medieval historians wrote about the “salting” of the Carthaginian land. When, at the end of the 13th century, Italian Palestrina rebelled against the power of the Pope, Boniface VIII ordered the destruction of this town and issued a bull in which it was ordered that it should be plowed “following the old example of Carthage in Africa” and then salted. From the quote “I drove a plow over it, as through ancient Carthage in Africa, and sowed salt on it...”, you will agree that it is not clear whether the pope meant that the second action in Carthage was also carried out.

And only many centuries later, information about the use of salt in Carthage appears in the literature. So, in 1858 this was written about in a not very authoritative "New American Encyclopedia", and in 1930 they were first reproduced in academic literature - in an article by Bertrand Hallward, included in "Cambridge Ancient History". Following this, information about the symbolic gesture spread through history books. It was only in the 1980s that historians began to put forward convincing arguments against it. arguments.

In 2007 on the site The Straight Dope decided to calculate how much salt would be needed to really make the land of Carthage barren or almost barren. As it turned out, 763,210 tons, or a fleet of 5,000 - 10,000 ships at that time. So the practical, non-symbolic version of sowing salt here could be excluded even without familiarization with the works of historians.

Where did the information about salt come from? The fact is that the custom of sprinkling salt on a destroyed city and cursing anyone who dared to rebuild it was widespread in the ancient Near East. In the Book of Judges (9:45) said: “And Abimelech fought with the city all that day, and took the city, and slew the people that were in it, and destroyed the city and sowed it with salt.” The city in question is Shechem in Canaan. The ceremonial throwing of salt over destroyed cities is also mentioned in various Hittite and Assyrian texts. Perhaps echoes of this ancient tradition reached modern historians, and some of them wove a beautiful custom into the story of the death of one of the greatest cities of antiquity. One way or another, today there is no basis to claim that salt was sowed in Carthage. And even information about plowing the land on the site of Carthage first appears in serious literature only in the 18th–19th centuries (for example, in 1797 - in “Encyclopedia Britannica", in 1875 - from a German historian Barthold Niebuhr). All this, apparently, is a later embellishment of events.

Not true

What do our verdicts mean?

Read on the topic:

1. 7 myths about Rome
2. Did Ancient Romans sprinkle with salt Carthage’s ground?