Hasdrubal the Boeotarch

Hasdrubal the Boeotarch was a Carthaginian general involved in the Punic Wars.

Biography

Little is known about Hasdrubal the Boeotarch, the general who lost the Third Punic War to Scipio Aemilianus, Consul of the Roman Republic at the Siege of Carthage in 146 BC. His military skill was not to be doubted, as his army had been well trained and equipped and his work at defending Carthage cost the Romans a difficult campaign to suppress the defenders, but his tactical skills were dwarfed by his contemporaries, Masinissa and Scipio. He also had a wife and two sons, who, according to an account by Polybius, threw themselves into a burning temple when they saw Hasdrubal's army defeated by the Roman attackers. Hasdrubal surrendered himself to the Romans after his family's unfortunate deaths, but what happened to him after that is not known.

This may be the same general Hasdrubal who was defeated near the town of Tunes (now Tunis) by the Numidian king, Masinissa, just after war was declared (149 BC).

References

• H. L. Havell, "Republican Rome: Her Conquests Manners and Institutions from the Earliest times to the Death of Caesar", BiblioBazaar, 2009, ISBN 1115395742, p. 321
• Book XXXVIII of Polybius' Histories, English Translation, 7-8,20
• William Smith, "Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology, Volume 2", C.C. Little and J. Brown, 1849

External links

• [1]
• Livius.org: Hasdrubal
• William Smith, "Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology, Volume 2", C.C. Little and J. Brown, 1849 [2].