146 BC

Events in 146 BC 2

• 149 BC – 146 BC Third Punic War — Destruction of Carthage The Third Punic War ends with the total destruction of Carthage in 146 BC. The city is besieged for three years; when it falls, the surviving 50,000 inhabitants are sold into slavery and the city is burned for 17 days. The site is later salted — or so the legend goes (the salting is almost certainly apocryphal). The phrase "Carthago delenda est" (Carthage must be destroyed), attributed to Cato the Elder who appended it to every Senate speech, defines Rome's ruthlessness when threatened.
• 146 BC Destruction of Corinth — Rome masters Greece In the same year as Carthage's destruction, Rome sacks Corinth — the greatest city of mainland Greece — after the Achaean League resists Roman authority. The male population is killed, the women and children enslaved. Greece becomes the Roman province of Achaea. Rome has now absorbed the entire Hellenistic world; Greek culture floods back into Rome in the form of philosophy, art, architecture and literature. "Graecia capta ferum victorem cepit" — captive Greece captured her savage conqueror (Horace).