User:Ms.mandy333/sandbox

Article Evaluation:

Change #1: BC should be changed to BCE (need to obtain citation sources on this) Change #2: Verbiage should be consistent and changed to past tense

Battle of Carthage (c. 149 BCE)

The Battle of Carthage was the main engagement of the Third Punic War between the Punic city of Carthage in Africa and the Roman Republic. It was a siege operation, that started sometime between 149 and 148 BCE, and ended in the spring of 146 BC with the sack and complete destruction of the city of Carthage.

Article Content: Is everything in the article relevant to the article topic? Is there anything that distracted you? No, not everything was relevant to the topic. Information on how Scepio became a Roman leader has nothing to due with the Battle of Carthage. That information should be indicated in Scepio's or Roman wikipedia page. The tone of the article seemed to digress into personal impressions rather than facts and that distracted me.

Is the article neutral? Are there any claims, or frames, that appear heavily biased toward a particular position? Most of the article is neutral, but not all. There seems to be slight tones of sympathy for the Carthaginians.

Are there viewpoints that are overrepresented, or underrepresented? Yes, there was not enough about Carthage and the Carthaginians in battle. The Romans were overrepresented in this article.

Check the citations. Do the links work? Does the source support the claims in the article? No, this citation does not work: 8. Polybius XXXVIII, 5 The Fall of Carthage.

Is each fact supported by an appropriate, reliable reference? Where does the information come from? Are these neutral sources? If biased, is that bias noted? Not each fact is supported appropriately. There are some reliable references and some of them are encyclopedia's and works of history. I found the sources to be neutral and I found no notation of a bias.

Is any information out of date? Is anything missing that should be added? There is quite a bit missing about the battle itself. As the title indicates, it is the Battle of Carthage, however, there is more information on the Romans and not enough on Carthage. The battle itself is barely outlined in this article. It does not indicate the different portions of the city, how Carthage was overrun. Which wall was scaled, the section about the building to building warefare was in Byrsa, a section of the city, which wasn't specified.

This paragraph does not have citations and has a few "author" descriptions that are not informative and may inadvertently create assumptions.

In spring 146 BC, the Romans broke through the city wall but they were hard-pressed to take the city. Every building, house and temple had been turned into a stronghold and every Carthaginian had taken up a weapon. The Romans were forced to move slowly, capturing the city house by house, street by street and fighting each Carthaginian soldier who fought with courage born of despair. Eventually after hours upon hours of house-to-house fighting, the Carthaginians surrendered. An estimated 50,000 surviving inhabitants were sold into slavery (where is the citation??). The city was then leveled. The land surrounding Carthage was eventually declared ager publicus (public land), and it was shared between local farmers, and Roman and Italian ones (ones what? Farmers?)(Citations?).

Insert this into the beginning of the Paragraph:

In the spring of 146 BCE, Scipio and the Roman troops seized the Cothon wall in Carthage. When daylight broke, 4,000 fresh Roman troops led by Scipio attacked Byrsa, the strongest part of Carthage. Three streets lined with six story houses, led to the Byrsa fortress.B oth Carthaginians and Romans waged war from the rooftops of the buildings and in the streets. The Romans used the buildings they captured, as a means to capture subsequent buildings. Scipia successfully captured Byrsa, and then set fire to the buildings, which caused further destruction and death. This fighting waged for six days and nights, until the Carthaginians surrendered.

Citation: