Talk:Siege of Utica

Untitled

This needs a source. Is this just a duplication of the more famous battle of utica?--SkiDragon (talk) 10:42, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by AirshipJungleman29 talk 12:18, 10 March 2025 (UTC)

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• Comment or view
• Article history

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• ... that during the siege of Utica in 204 BC the Romans tied their whole fleet together prior to battle?

• Source: Lazenby, John (1998). Hannibal's War: A Military History of the Second Punic War. Warminster: Aris & Phillips. ISBN 978-0-85668-080-9. Page 211.

• • ALT1: ... that during the siege of Utica in 204 BC the Romans simultaneously defeated two large armies with a night attack? Source: Goldsworthy, Adrian (2006). The Fall of Carthage: The Punic Wars 265–146 BC. London: Phoenix. ISBN 978-0-304-36642-2. Pages 292–294.
  • Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/Marriage in the United Arab Emirates
  • Comment: I am happy to consider alternative suggestions for hooks.

5x expanded by Gog the Mild (talk). Number of QPQs required: 1. Nominator has 82 past nominations.

Gog the Mild (talk) 22:34, 13 February 2025 (UTC).

General: Article is new enough and long enough
New enough: Long enough:

Policy: Article is sourced, neutral, and free of copyright problems
Adequate sourcing: Neutral: Free of copyright violations, plagiarism, and close paraphrasing:

Hook: Hook has been verified by provided inline citation
Cited: - Offline/paywalled citation accepted in good faith Interesting:

QPQ: Done.

Overall: Great rewrite, Gog. I don't see any issues with the page. Easy pass here and I imagine it will sail through its GAN. Thanks for an interesting and in-depth addition to Roman history. ThaesOfereode (talk) 15:34, 14 February 2025 (UTC)

GA Review

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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This review is transcluded from Talk:Siege of Utica (204 BC)/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Nominator: Gog the Mild (talk · contribs) 21:40, 13 February 2025 (UTC)

Reviewer: Hog Farm (talk · contribs) 23:57, 16 February 2025 (UTC)

Review to follow in the next couple days. Hog Farm _Talk 23:57, 16 February 2025 (UTC)

I have done some copy editing. Hog Farm _Talk 03:47, 20 February 2025 (UTC)

• Well, to start out with, the infobox says this started in 205, but the lead and title have 204?

Oops. Probably a typo. Standardised.

• Link Numidians in the lead?

Done.

• Link Tunis in the lead?

Done.

• "Scipio could not conscript troops for his consular army, as was usual, only call for volunteers" - is this missing a word?

Nope. It reads fine to me. Is it possible to narrow down where it goes wrong for you?

This looks to be in pretty good shape for GA. The post-naval battle material feels pretty thin, but I suspect that's due to limitations in the underlying ancient source material; I'll try to do some spotchecks tomorrow or day after. Hog Farm _Talk 03:47, 20 February 2025 (UTC)

Post-naval battle: yeah, at this point it disappears from the primary sources completelty. Ditto the modern ones. ORing I imagine that the Carthaginians brought transport ships with their battle fleet and stocked Utica up on reinforcements, ammunition and food. And possibly evacuated the wounded and useless mouths. I mean, you'd have to be an idiot not to. So Scipio effectively gave up on Utica and moved his army back to Tunis, from where he could both blockade and threaten Carthage. Ok - I have found some support for this in Lazenby and expanded "Peace" a little. That said, the article still peters out a little. ANy suggestions? Gog the Mild (talk) 14:56, 20 February 2025 (UTC)

I reckon this is about as good as this can get; would there be a way to come up with a non-awkward heading to get the two one-paragraph sections together? The short sections at the end at least to me make the fall-off of material more jarring than it necessarily has to be. Hog Farm _Talk 04:44, 22 February 2025 (UTC)

Good thinking. Done.

For spot-checks, could you please provide the quotes from the relevant sources that support these items from the article?

• "Hasdrubal fled to Carthage, where he was demoted and exiled."

Hoyos: "Hasdrubal got away to Carthage—to be stripped of command and banished".

• "The combined force is estimated to have been 30,000 strong"

Goldsworthy: "Their combined forces, something like 30,000 men, encamped in a strong position""

• "While the Roman navy demonstrated off Utica Scipio briefed his senior officers that in fact they were going to launch night attacks on the enemy camps"

Bagnall: "Assembling the tribunes at midday while his fleet demonstrated to seaward, Scipio briefed them personally on his true intentions ..."

• " 8,000 captives were sent back to Sicily as slaves"

Goldsworthy: "and 8,000 captives to send back to Sicily in the transport ships."

• "The Romans marched back to Castra Cornelia, where they were again resupplied from Sicily, then again to Tunis"

Lazenby: "... the propraetor ... had arrived at Utica ... carrying all kinds of supplies ... he [Scipio] returned to Utica ... On the march to Tunis [he fought] the last battle of the Second Punic War. At Tunis thirty Carthaginian envoys waited upon Scipio ..."

I have paper or electronic copies of all of these, so let me know if you want photos or screenshots of any of them.

Assuming all goes well with the spot-check, I just have one question. Is (204 BC) truly the best disambiguator here, given that the scope of the article covers more than just the 204 events, but rather the whole of the multi-year siege of the city? Hog Farm _Talk 04:41, 22 February 2025 (UTC)

It's the one I inherited and I'm not a fan. But as no source explicitly mentions when the siege ends I am loath to add "-201" or whatever. While there were other sieges of Utica, none of them have articles, so there is a case for losing the pre-emptive disambiguater altogether. What do you think?

Finally, do you think that with a bit of work - especially a thorough trawl of the sources - this might have the legs for FAC. When I started work on it I was only aiming for GAN (maybe ACR), but I now reckon there is enough meat on the bones to make an ok FAC. But I am close to it, so could you give me a second opinion? Thanks. Gog the Mild (talk) 12:38, 22 February 2025 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Barceló 2015

I just noticed that Barceló 2015 is in the 'citations' section but the full bibliographic entry is missing from the 'sources' section. Richard Nevell (talk) 19:48, 15 July 2025 (UTC)

Gah! I would forget my head if it were loose. It's not as if I have never added a new source before. Thanks Richard. Gog the Mild (talk) 20:01, 15 July 2025 (UTC)

Carthaginian victory?

It is quite confusing to have "Carthaginian victory" in the infobox, since the intro and the rest of the article mention a succession of Carthaginian defeats. Maybe in the narrow context of the siege itself, it might be considered a Carthaginian victory. But since most of the article deals with the wider conflict, not just with the siege, I find the "Result" in the infobox very confusing. Vpab15 (talk) 11:28, 1 February 2026 (UTC)

The template notes for this infobox say 'The term used is for the "immediate" outcome of the "subject" conflict'. And bear in mind that this has gone through FAC, so has had quite a few eyes on it. Gog the Mild (talk) 18:29, 1 February 2026 (UTC)

Maybe it can be considered a Carthaginian victory if only the siege of 204 is included. I believe that was the previous scope of the article. But now the scope is the wider 3 year campaign, which clearly ended in a Carthaginian defeat. If not that, maybe the result could be changed to "peace treaty" or similar. Vpab15 (talk) 19:28, 1 February 2026 (UTC)

I have to agree with Vpab. The lead strongly gives the impression that the Romans achieved all of their strategic objectives in the campaign and that the Carthaginians failed to win any major victories. The fact that Rome never actually captured the city seems inconsequential in comparison. Do any of your sources describe this as a Carthaginian victory? If not, this seems like OR. —Compassionate727 ^(T·C) 20:10, 1 February 2026 (UTC)

We need to separate the siege itself from the overall course of the war. Yes the Romans won the war (and the Battle of Utica (203 BC)), but the siege was not successful: The siege of Utica had been lifted at some point prior to this after over two years of siege or blockade; it remained a Carthaginian city. This means that the Romans at some point gave up. Any failed siege is a victory for the besieged or it could be described as a stalemate. It does not read as a Roman victory for the siege itself since they failed to breach the city. A.Cython(talk) 01:09, 2 February 2026 (UTC)

Well, the article treats the events as part of a campaign, not as separate, so the result should consider that. The fact that the Romans didn't complete the siege looks irrelevant in that context. It would be like saying the Gauls defeated the Romans at the Battle of Alesia, because the siege there was also not completed. Vpab15 (talk) 11:04, 2 February 2026 (UTC)

This quote from the Battle of Alesia article: After multiple attacks, the Gauls realized that they could not overcome the truly impressive Roman siege works. At this point, it became clear that the Romans would be able to outlast the defenders, and that the revolt was doomed. does not sound the same as in the siege of Utica, where the Romans just abandoned the siege. The Carthaginian surrender came from events happening elsewhere that are just happened to be described for the curious reader here. In Battle of Alesia the surrendering Goths were at Alesia not somewhere else. Anyhow, I do not want to get too much in to this but it appears to me that there is confusion in what is the role of the infobox. IMO the infobox should contain vital info on the article's main subject, i.e., siege of Utica, not the overall war, which is covered in a different article, i.e., Second Punic War. It is like saying, just because the WWII was won by the Allies then every battle engagement must be an Allied victory as well. My 2 cents... A.Cython(talk) 05:49, 3 February 2026 (UTC)

• The lead defines the scope of the article. At present, the lead includes several battles within its scope. Gog the Mild as the FA nom, was the siege an integral part of these battles; or, was it more a case that Scipio went skipping across north Africa wreaking havoc while the siege went on in the background? Cinderella157 (talk) 09:23, 2 February 2026 (UTC)

A bit of both - obviously the point of invading was to campaign in Africa and defeat he Carthaginian field army, but to do that the Romans badly needed a secure base - see the fuller treatment in Roman invasion of Africa (204–201 BC). Carthaginian forces of varying strengths turned up and Scipio saw off each of them. The most serious of these has its own article. Scipio goes off campaigning, which is covered in passing, and Utica slips into the background although still blockaded by a small Roman force. Then back into the limelight when the naval relief is attempted: this was a bit of a mixed result, but probably a Carthaginian failure. Of the six articles in the Featured Topic which this is part of the infoboxes of five have "Roman victory". But the subject of this article is the Roman attempt to capture Utica by siege: they failed to do so; the Carthaginians continued to hold it to the end of the war. The fact that the Carthaginians lost both the campaign and the war should not distract from this. Gog the Mild (talk) 20:10, 2 February 2026 (UTC)

Thank you, do we have sources that explicitly say this was a Carthaginian victory or the Carthaginian's won? Sign late Cinderella157 (talk) 00:49, 8 February 2026 (UTC)

Epithet of the Carthaginian General

A minor detail of note in this siege is that Hannibal was known to the Romans at the time as "Hanniblus Fumans," according to Albanian historian Agnes Chalmskin.

While many people writing about Utica may never have heard the name Steamed Hanns, it's an Albani expression and I believe it's worth adding to the page Heart Shaped L0x (talk) 17:51, 1 February 2026 (UTC)

Can you provide an hQ RS for it? Gog the Mild (talk) 18:25, 1 February 2026 (UTC)

This is a "steamed hams" joke. Belbury (talk) 12:04, 14 February 2026 (UTC)