Was The Third Punic War and the Destruction of Carthage Justified?

I don’t feel that the genocide of Carthage was justified at the time. After the Battle of Zama at which Publius Cornelius Scipio defeated Hannibal, he imposed a treaty on Carthage which imposed a huge indemnity to be paid over a fifty-year period, and limited Carthage’s military activities to Africa and allowed them to make war only with Roman permission.
Fifty years later the indemnity was paid off, which gave the Romans less incentive to allow the city to exist. After the end of the Second Punic War, the Numidian Kingdom under Masinissa invaded Carthaginian territory about every decade, claiming land that they said was ancestral land of the Numidians. The Carthaginians would complain to Rome, but Rome usually favored the Numidians in these disputes.
In 150 B.C. the Numidians under their now 90-year-old King Masinissa attacked again. This time the Carthaginians didn’t wait for permission from Rome to defend their territory. They assembled a force of over 50,000 men and confronted the Numidians in battle. After the battle, which had been indecisive, the Numidians laid siege to the Carthaginian camp, The Numidians insisted that the Carthaginians surrender Numidian defectors which the Carthaginian leader, Hasdrubal, refused to do. The standoff continued for weeks while conditions in the besieged camp became lethal. In the end, Hasdrubal acceded to the Numidian demands and an agreement was made to allow the survivors to return to Carthage, but when they left the camp, they were attacked by Masinissa’s son Galussa. Very few of the Carthaginians made it home.
The Romans realized that the Carthaginians were now in a very weak position militarily, having lost about 50,000 fighting men. They used the fact that the Carthaginians had not requested permission from Rome to fight the Numidians as the pretext to declare war on Carthage. Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus had been a voice of moderation when it came to Rome’s relationship with Carthage, but he was long dead. The most influential leader in Rome was now Marcus Porcius Cato, who hated Carthage passionately. Every time he gave a speech in the Senate or the Forum, no matter what the subject, he always ended it with the words: “Cetera censeo Cartagine esse delendam.”-And furthermore I advise that Carthage must be destroyed.
Following the dictates of Cato, Rome invaded Africa with 80,000 legionaries. The Carthaginians resisted as well as they could, but after three years the siege conducted by Scipio Aemilianus was successful, the city was destroyed, and the 50,000 survivors were sold into slavery. And no, the Romans did not sow the surrounding lands with salt.
According to historian Adrian Goldsworthy in his book The Fall of Carthage “There is no doubt that the Third Punic War was deliberately provoked by the Romans, who had made a conscious decision to destroy their old enemy. Roman negotiators shamelessly exploited the Carthaginians’ willingness to grant concessions in their desire to avoid war with Rome. stealthily increasing their demands to force a conflict on a weakened enemy. It was a far worse display than any of the recorded examples of ‘Punic treachery’”
If interested in the Third Punic war, read my book The Last Carthaginian. it’s available on Amazon and Kindle.