Strength: 3
Type: Siege Unit
Flavor Text: Scipio wept for Carthage. "A day will come when sacred Troy shall perish, And Priam and his people shall be slain."
Flavor Source: Polybius or Scipio Aemilianus
Artwork: Catapulta by Edward Poynter (1868)
About the card:
Roman soldiers operate a siege engine during their attack on the walls of Carthage in 146 BCE(the third Punic War). The words on the catapult read “Delenda est Carthago (Carthage must be Destroyed)”, attributed to Cato the Elder, a Roman senator and historian who, at the end of every speech he made in the senate, would repeat this maxim. The siege ended in the destruction of Carthage.
In Virgil's Aeneid (see also Styx), Priam is the legendary King of Troy who is murdered by Achilles' son Pyrrhus during the Sack of Troy. The legendary sack of Troy is related here to the sack of Carthage as a visage of Rome's future by the historian Polybius. Polybius' words would only ring true long after he died when Rome itself was sacked and destroyed by repeated Gothic invasions (see also Sack).
