The Defenses

Here is the general view of the city of Carthage from the land side. There were three separate defensive walls surrounding the city. First there was an outer ditch with a berm or artifical rampart. This defense was not intended to do anything more than to slow an assault. However Appian says it did delay the Roman assault for sometime. This is barely visible but it is a there in the picture. I had a ditch and a low rise like feature running outside the city. I represented this with brown balast and styrene under the ground cloth. I will have to recreate this differently for Cold Wars 2007.

Behind the first land defensive line was a second more substancial wall system with curtain walls and circuit towers.There may have been some fields and farms in the area behind this wall. While more impressive than the first defense it was nothing compared to the third and final interior walls.

The final defensive system was an enormous number of curtain walls, circuit towers and gates. Three gates peirced the walls. They do not seem to be in the towers which one would normally think natural. Much like Troy the gates were placed beside the towers. The garrison of the city was housed inside this last set of walls. They were housed inside these walls which were as thick as 35 feet and about 45 feet high. These walls like those of Troy were sloped on the enemy side. This is called battering.