Rome versus Carthage. The Second Punic War battlefield of Baecula and the siege of Iliturgi.

Abstract

The Carthaginian army found itself territorially divided, perhaps in an attempt to sustain the territorial cohesion of a fictitious domination of an extensive territory and, to ensure the necessary control of that territory to guarantee the supply of their respective armies. Iliturgi was destroyed by Scipio the African in 206 BC in an action that reminds us the fate of Carthage itself a few years’ later. As in that action in Hannibal's home-land, Rome sought to exact an exemplary punishment on the Iberian town. The fall of Carthagonova was a moral and strategic blow to the Carthaginians in the Punic War, as it deprived their armies of their main supply port and provided the Roman army with a considerable booty of weapons and other resources. It is generally seen as a pyrrhic victory for Scipio, given that he allowed the Carthaginian general Hasdrubal Barca to escape with his army to Italy and because he decided against pursuing the Carthaginian army.