e gates of the Citadel marched
out fifty thousand men as prisoners of war.

Hasdrubal, the Carthaginian commander, who had made so brave a defence
against Rome, retired with his family and nine hundred deserters and
others into the Temple of Esculapius, as if to make a final desperate
defence. But his heart failed him at the last moment, and, slipping out
alone, he cast himself at Scipio's feet, and begged his pardon and
mercy. His wife, who saw his dastardly act, reproached him bitterly for
cowardice, and threw herself and her children into the flames which
enveloped the Citadel. Most of the deserters perished in the same
flames.

"Assyria has fallen," said Scipio, as he looked with eyes of prevision
on the devouring flames. "Persia and Macedonia have likewise fallen.
Carthage is burning. The day of Rome's fall may come next."

For five days the soldiers plundered the city, yet enough of statues and
other valuables remained to yield the consul a magnificent triumph on
his return to Rome. Before doing so he celebrated the fall of Carthage
with grand games, in which the spoil of that great city was shown the
army. To Rome he sent the brief despatch, "Carthage is taken. The army
waits for further orders."

The orders sent were that the walls should be destroyed and every house
levelled to the ground. A curse was pronounced by Scipio on any one who
should seek to build a town on the site. The curse did not prove
effective. Julius Caesar afterwards projected a new Carthage, and
Augustus built it. It grew to be a noble city, and in the third century
A.D. became one of the principal cities of the Roman empire and an
important seat of Western Christianity. It was finally destroyed by the
Arabs.

_THE GRACCHI AND THEIR FALL._

In the assault by the Roman forces on Megara, the suburb of Carthage,
the first to mount the wall was a young man named Tiberius Gracchus,
brother-in-law of Scipio, the commander, and grandson of the famous
Scipio Africanus. This young man and his brother were to play prominent
parts in Rome.

One day when the great Scipio was feasting in the Capitol, with other
senators of Rome, he was asked by some friends to give his daughter
Cornelia in marriage to Tiberius Gracchus, a young plebeian. Proud
patrician as he was, he consented, for Gracchus was highly esteemed for
probity, and had done him a personal service.

On his return home he told his wife that he had promised his daughter to
a p