Page:A Short History of the World.djvu/195

 Rome and Carthage 175 under the Ptolemies, and Pergamum and most of the small states of Asia Minor into " Allies," or, as we should call them now, " protected states." Meanwhile Carthage, subjugated and enfeebled, had been slowly regaining something of her former prosperity. Her recovery revived the hate and suspicion of the Romans. She was attacked upon the most shallow and artificial of quarrels (149 b.c), she made an obstinate and bitter resistance, stood a long siege and was stormed (146 b.c). The street fighting, or massacre, lasted six days ; it was extraordin- arily bloody, and when the citadel capitulated only about fifty thous- and of the Carthaginian population remained alive out of a quarter of a million. They were sold into slavery, and the city was burnt and elaborately destroyed. The blackened ruins were ploughed and sown as a sort of ceremonial effacement. So ended the Third Punic War. Of all the Semitic states and cities that had flourished in the world five centuries before only one little country remained free under native rulers. This was Judea, which had liberated itself from the Seleucids and was under the rule of the native Maccabean princes. By this time it had its Bible almost complete, and was developing the distinctive traditions of the Jewish world as we know it now. It was natural that the Car- thaginians, Phoenicians and kindred peoples dispersed about the world should-find a common link in their practically identical language <?& KiTENT oP f& TiCMAN POWER & tts ALLIJkNCE^-aioutj^OM: Pt6lanaic Empire. . ||||||[ J.F.H. -