Episode 1820
Battle of Oroscopa
Fri, 2022-Apr-29 01:03 UTC
Length - 3:01
Direct Link
Welcome to featured Wiki of the Day where we read the summary of the featured Wikipedia article every day.
The featured article for Friday, 29 April 2022 is Battle of Oroscopa.
The Battle of Oroscopa was fought between a Carthaginian army of more than 30,000 men commanded by the general Hasdrubal and a Numidian force of unknown size under its king, Masinissa. It took place in late 151 BC near the ancient town of Oroscopa in what is now north western Tunisia. The battle resulted in a heavy Carthaginian defeat.
When the Second Punic War between Rome and Carthage ended in 201 BC, one of the terms of the peace treaty prohibited Carthage from waging war without the permission of the Roman Senate. Masinissa, an ally of Rome, exploited this to repeatedly raid and seize Carthaginian territory with impunity. In 151 BC, Carthage assembled an army of 25,400 men under Hasdrubal, disregarding the treaty. This force, joined by 6,000 Numidian cavalry led by two disgruntled Numidian leaders, attempted to deter Masinissa's aggression against the Carthaginian-held town of Oroscopa. Amid considerable fighting Masinissa lured the Carthaginians into an area of rough terrain with limited water sources, where foraging for food was difficult, and surrounded them. The Carthaginians considered their opponents to be unregimented tribesmen and expected them to disperse, but Masinissa had forged a well-disciplined army with an efficient logistics system and it was able to starve the Carthaginians into surrender.
In contravention of the terms of the surrender, the Carthaginians were then attacked and many, perhaps most, were killed. Hasdrubal and most of his officers survived and returned to Carthage. There, Hasdrubal was condemned to death in an attempt to placate Rome, but anti-Carthaginian factions in Rome used the illicit military action as a pretext to prepare a punitive expedition. This sparked the Third Punic War, which ended in the complete destruction of Carthage in 146 BC and the death or enslavement of its population.
This recording reflects the Wikipedia text as of 01:03 UTC on Friday, 29 April 2022.
For the full current version of the article, see Battle of Oroscopa on Wikipedia.
This podcast is produced by Abulsme Productions based on Wikipedia content and is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.
Visit wikioftheday.com for our archives, sister podcasts, and swag. Please subscribe to never miss an episode. You can also follow @WotDpod on Twitter.
Abulsme Productions produces the current events podcast Curmudgeon's Corner as well. Check it out in your podcast player of choice.
This has been Amy Neural. Thank you for listening to featured Wiki of the Day.
|
|
Buy WotD Stuff!!
