Carthage Must Be Destroyed (35 page)

Understandably, after this disaster the revolt began to collapse. The native Libyans saw that the tide had now turned against the rebels and deserted in droves to the Carthaginian side. Hamilcar was now free to turn his attention to Tunes, the last rebel stronghold. To dampen the morale of the besieged rebels, Spendius and the other captured leaders were brought in front of the walls and crucified in full view of their comrades. Mathos had, however, noticed that Hamilcar’s co-general Hannibal, now confident of victory, was no longer guarding his own camp properly. The rebels launched a surprise attack, and not only managed to kill many of the Carthaginian troops, but also captured Hannibal himself. The unfortunate general was terribly tortured before being nailed up on to the cross which had previously held Spendius. As a macabre farewell offering to his fallen comrade, Mathos is said to have had thirty high-born Carthaginians slaughtered around Spendius’ body.
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Chastened by this gruesome reverse, the Carthaginian leadership pulled together once more. A committee of thirty councillors was formed which managed to persuade Hamilcar and his great political rival, Hanno, to put their differences aside so that the enemy could finally be crushed. A new force was raised, comprising all the remaining citizens of military age. The rebels, depleted of men and supplies, had realized that their only chance of victory lay in throwing everything into one final battle, but their strength was spent and they were easily defeated. The Libyans were then quickly pacified. Utica and Hippacritae, fearing Carthaginian vengence, held out for a while, but were both soon captured and forced to accept terms. All those rebels who were unlucky enough to be captured alive were crucified–all bar Mathos, who in 237 was led through the streets of Carthage in a mocking charade of the triumphal procession of which he had perhaps dreamed. As he was dragged through the city, its young men inflicted all kinds of terrible tortures on his body. Thus a war which, in the words of Polybius, ‘far excelled all wars we know of in cruelty and defiance of principle’ was perhaps fittingly concluded with a hideous death.
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The hard-won victory over the mercenaries earned the Carthaginians only a brief respite from their troubles. In Sardinia, their last significant overseas possession, a mercenary rebellion every bit as brutal as the African insurrection had broken out in 240 BC. After the rebels killed Bostar, the military governor on the island, and other Carthaginians, a force was dispatched from Carthage. After arriving, however, its mercenary troops mutinied and crucified their Carthaginian general, then massacred all the Carthaginians in Sardinia.
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What made the situation even more precarious was that there seems to have been some coordination between the two revolts. Polybius recounts how a letter from the Sardinian mutineers was sent to the African rebels which appeared to impart information about persons in their camp who were secretly negotiating with the Carthaginians.
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Although Polybius believes that the letter could have been a fabrication, it is possible that the mercenary troops sent out from Carthage to Sardinia may have had some knowledge of this. Alarmingly for Carthage, in 240 the mercenaries offered to hand over the island to Rome. For the time being the Romans declined this invitation, and without powerful allies the mercenaries were soon driven off the island by indigenous Sardinians. Taking refuge in Italy, they once more approached the Romans to aid their enterprise, and this time their offer was accepted.

In 238 BC Rome let it be known that it was planning an expedition to occupy Sardinia. When the Carthaginians quite justifiably objected –on the grounds that the 241 treaty recognized their sovereignty over the island–and then stated their intention to retake it, the Romans declared that they would consider this a declaration of war. Severely weakened after years of conflict, Carthage had to back down. In 237 both Sardinia and the neighbouring island of Corsica were seized, and matters were made even worse by the Roman demand of a further indemnity of 1,200 talents from Carthage.
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Even Polybius strongly condemned the Roman annexation of Sardinia, which was in his words ‘contrary to all justice’ and an action for which ‘it is impossible to discover any reasonable pretext or cause.’
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These were sharp criticisms from one of Rome’s strongest supporters. Why did Rome, after initially turning down the inducements of the rebels, eventually break its own treaty and take Sardinia for itself? Later writers, perhaps buying into Roman propaganda of the time, argued that this was retaliation for Carthage’s imprisonment, and in some cases execution, of the Italian traders who were caught profiteering from the Mercenaries’ Revolt.
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This seems highly implausible given the earlier amicable agreement between the two powers. The answer very probably lies in the aggressive and acquisitive behaviour that had been the hallmark of Roman foreign policy for some time, and there were a number of reasons why the Romans had now taken up an invitation that they had first refused in 240.
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Carthage had in 238 defeated the rebels in North Africa and could now turn its full attention to reclaiming Sardinia (indeed, a further force was being prepared under the command of Hamilcar Barca for that purpose).
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Rome, therefore, annexed the island to prevent Carthage from reasserting itself in the central Mediterranean.
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It should also be noted that it was the Roman Popular Assembly–a body which had already proved itself willing to take a far more hawkish attitude towards Carthage–that voted for the annexation of Sardinia.
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The fact that the mercenaries had massacred the Carthaginians on the island before being driven out also made it easier for the Romans to present this as a simple occupation of neutral territory.
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The annexation of Sardinia had a seismic impact on future events. Economically, Sardinia had been a very important part of the Carthaginian zone of influence. As the Carthaginian hold on western Sicily had become increasingly insecure, Sardinian mints had increasingly taken on the production of Carthage’s bronze coinage.
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The loss of Sardinia was a blow not merely to Carthage’s economic prospects, however, but also to its sense of pride. Rome’s annexation of the territory and demand for indemnities were a brutal reminder that Carthage’s former status as a major player in the central Mediterranean, disingenuously acknowledged in the 241 treaty just a few years before, was no more.

In order to conserve its hold on power, the Carthaginian elite looked around for a scapegoat to blame for the mercenaries debacle. Hamilcar Barca, who had rashly made his soldiers promises that he could not keep, and whose military command in Sicily had been unsuccessful in meeting any of Carthage’s immediate strategic aims, was the obvious candidate.
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Yet Hamilcar’s glamorous but ineffectual raids against the Romans, and his eventual defeat of the rebels, had earned him great popularity among the citizen body. Although he had been the commander of the Carthaginian armies in Sicily, and had indeed been in charge of the peace negotiations, he had not been tainted by the abrupt surrender like other members of the Carthaginian elite. As the Roman historian Livy records, he felt that ‘Sicily had been surrendered too soon, before the situation had become really desperate.’
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Hamilcar was also by far the most popular general among the Carthaginian troops–as emphatically proved when they voted for him, rather than Hanno, as their leader during the Mercenaries’ Revolt.
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Hamilcar was also well connected to wealthy individuals who had great influence with the general citizenry, such as his new son-in-law, Hasdrubal.
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By using his connections, he was able not only to escape attempts at prosecution, but also to obtain a military command over all Libya that was granted him by popular vote.
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Carthaginian generals on overseas campaign had long enjoyed wide powers, and now it appears that Hamilcar would enjoy them in North Africa itself. Indeed, Hamilcar Barca appears to have been the main beneficiary of sweeping political changes in the crisis-hit state. According to Polybius, it was in this period that ‘in Carthage the voice of the people had become pre-dominant in deliberations and that for the Carthaginians it was the opinion of the greatest number that prevailed’.
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Although many of the details remain opaque, there is no doubt that the sequential catastrophes of the defeat in the war against Rome, the loss of Sicily, near-extinction at the hands of their own mercenaries and the further loss of Sardinia had ushered in a period of profound political transformation in Carthage. The delicate balance of aristocratic, oligarchic and democratic governance, so admired by Aristotle, had relied to a large extent on the forward momentum of the overseas success that Carthage had enjoyed in the fourth century.
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The loss of the empire was a devastating blow to that effective political status quo. The Mercenaries’ Revolt had already strengthened the Carthaginian officers, who during the conflict had been heavily involved in the selection of their commander-in-chief. This now became a jealously guarded privilege, rather than a one-off piece of crisis management.

Moreover, within the mass of the ordinary citizenry or the
s’rnm
(‘little ones’) were ambitious groups who were clearly no longer willing to accept a political system that gave them so little influence.
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Previously, some limited opportunities for social and civic advancement had existed for a select few of Carthage’s non-citizen male inhabitants. (As was the norm right across the ancient Mediterranean world, no such opportunities for enfranchisement were open to the female population of the city, whatever their social status.)
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For instance, it had been possible for some very highly valued slaves legally to gain their freedom, although they were still bound to their ex-masters by a formal set of obligations.
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However, there is no evidence of the
s’rnm
being accepted into the exalted ranks of Carthage’s elite.

That did not mean that they had no influence. In particular, the tradesmen and artisans, who were the most dynamic sections of the
s’rnm
, were extremely well organized and belonged to powerful guilds and corporations which had sufficient resources to contribute to major construction projects in the city.
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The main political vehicle for the ordinary citizens of Carthage since at least the end of the fourth century had been the Popular Assembly, although its original powers were strictly limited. The Assembly could debate issues only when they had been expressly invited to do so by the suffetes and the Council of Elders, or when the two chief officials were in disagreement with one another. Now it appears to have acquired more influence over the decisions of the Council of Elders and the Tribunal of One Hundred and Four, including an extension of its influence over the annual election of the two suffetes. It was because of these developments that Polybius, who was vehemently unsympathetic to democracy, considered post-war Carthage as exhibiting all the worst aspects of a slow drift into demagogy.
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Diodorus went even further in his description of Hamilcar Barca’s growing political influence in Carthage: ‘Later, after the end of the Libyan War, he created a political faction of the basest sort of men, and from this source, as well as from war booty, amassed a large amount of wealth; sensing that his successes were gaining him great power, he gave himself over to demagogy and to earning favour with the people.’
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Indeed, the tactics supposedly used by Hamilcar Barca to amass political power would have been very familiar to any of the Sicilian Greek historians (such as those used as sources by Diodorus), as they were similar to those that had been deployed by many autocratic leaders in Sicily. In Syracuse, Dionysius, Agathocles and now Hiero had all seized and maintained political power through the support of three key constituencies of the Syracusan state: the Popular Assembly, the mercenary army, and a number of the rich and influential elite. Although both Agathocles and Hiero would later proclaim themselves kings, both had initially used their appointments as
strategos autokrator
(sole commander of the armed forces) as a power base from which to gain control of the political process.
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The growing political influence of the Barcids–Hamilcar’s clan–was further displayed when, immediately after the African command, he received permission from the Council to take an expeditionary force to southern Spain.
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The southern and south-eastern coasts of the Iberian peninsula were certainly not unknown to the Carthaginians. Since the fourth century BC, Punic products as well as considerable amounts of Campanian and Athenian pottery had been arriving in Spain courtesy of Carthaginian merchants often operating through the Ibizan town of Ebusus. Indeed, in the second treaty with Rome, in 348, southern Spain had been listed as an area of Carthaginian influence, although there is no evidence of any direct intervention.
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Carthage’s main interest in the region, like that of Tyre before it, appears, unsurprisingly considering its huge war expenses, to have been silver.
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A further connection between the Iberian region and Carthage existed through the recruitment of mercenaries. On the island of Majorca there exist fortified enclosures built by the Carthaginians which archaeologists have suggested were mustering points for the famous Balearic slingers, whom the Carthaginians used to such deadly effect in their armies.
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Hamilcar’s reasons for targeting Spain were simple: it was blessed with enormous natural resources of metal ores, people and food. Indeed, the Greek geographer Strabo reported the unlikely tale that the Barcids had first become aware of the great mineral wealth in the region when they witnessed the Turdentani, the tribe on whose territory the richest mines were located, using silver feeding troughs and wine jars.
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