The Battle of Leptis Parva was fought in 238 BC between a Carthaginian army of over 30,000 commanded by Hamilcar Barca and Hanno, and approximately 20,000 mutinous Carthaginian soldiers and North African rebels under Matho in the North African province of Byzacium (in modern Tunisia). The battle was the final major conflict of the Mercenary War and resulted in a decisive victory for the Carthaginians.
In 241 BC 20,000 foreign troops who had been employed by Carthage during the First Punic War (264 to 241 BC) mutinied under the leadership of Spendius and Mathos starting the Mercenary War. They were supported by an uprising of Carthage's oppressed African territories and 70,000 local recruits flocked to join them, bringing supplies and finance. War-weary Carthage fared poorly in the initial engagements of the war, especially under the leadership of Hanno. Hamilcar Barca was given supreme command in 239 BC and slowly turned the tide.
In 238 BC Mathos and the remnants of the rebel army left the area around Carthage and marched 160km (100mi) south to the wealthy port city of Leptis Parva. Hanno reconciled with Hamilcar and with a larger Carthaginian army they pursued the rebels, harrying their march. After three months of manoeuvres, in which the rebels consistently came off worst, battle was given and the rebels were completely defeated. The remaining rebellious cities rapidly surrendered or were captured by the Carthaginians, ending the war.
Background
Main manoeuvres during the war
In 241 BC 20,000 foreign troops who had been employed by Carthage in the fighting on Sicily during the First Punic War (264 to 241 BC) were recalled to the Carthaginian homeland in North Africa (in what is now Tunisia) to be paid and despatched home.[1] A dispute over the payment of wages owed developed and late in the year the troops mutinied under the leadership of Spendius and Matho starting the Mercenary War. They were supported by an uprising of Carthage's oppressed dependent territories and 70,000 Africans flocked to join them, bringing supplies and finance.[2][3][4]
War-weary Carthage fared poorly in the initial engagements of the war, especially under the generalship of Hanno, and was under blockade for most of the war.[5][6] At some point during 240 BC the Carthaginians raised another, smaller, force, which was placed under the command of Hamilcar Barca,[note 1] who had commanded the Carthaginian forces on Sicily for the last six years of the First Punic War.[6] After a significant victory over a rebel army led by Spendius at the Battle of the Bagradas River[8][9] Hamilcar was given joint command of the army. Hamilcar and Hanno were political opponents and had different approaches to fighting the war, so there was no military cooperation between them.[10] Hamilcar campaigned successfully, initially demonstrating leniency in an attempt to woo the rebels over. To ensure a great hatred between the armies, and so prevent their men being tempted to desert to the Carthaginians, in 240 BC Spendius tortured 700 Carthaginian prisoners to death, and henceforth the war was pursued with great brutality.[11][12] Hamilcar was given supreme command in 239 BC.[13][14]
Meanwhile, the rebels under Mathos had blockaded the Carthaginian-supporting cities of Utica and Hippo (modern Bizerte)[15] and put an army under Spendius into the field. Eventually the rebel field army was destroyed and Spendius captured[16][17] and crucified.[18][19] Despite the inhabitants of Utica and Hippo slaughtering their Carthaginian garrisons and going over to the rebels in 239 BC,[13] the following year Mathos and his army left the area around Carthage and marched 160km (100mi) south to the wealthy port city of Leptis Parva (just south of the modern city of Monastir, Tunisia). This was the capital of the prosperous Byzacium region and had risen against Carthage earlier in the war.[18] The historian Dexter Hoyos speculates that the rebels may have been hoping to leave the area by sea.[20]
The Carthaginian Senate encouraged reconciliation between Hanno and Hamilcar, and they agreed to serve together. The pair marched after the rebels with an army totalling perhaps 25,000[21] including every Carthaginian citizen of military age.[22] On this occasion Hanno and Hamilcar cooperated well together and harassed the rebels on their march.[23] The rebels were forced into a succession of unsuccessful skirmishes in Byzacium as the Carthaginians attempted to wear them down.[23] Mathos, rather than wait to be besieged, decided to meet the Carthaginians in open battle in mid- to late 238 BC.[24] As the rebels were by now in extremis Mathos called in every available man, stripping all rebel-held towns of garrisons.[23] As the rebels' situation had worsened, they had increasingly suffered from desertions.[21] Few of the original mutineers remained, after the previous three years of fierce campaigning, to participate in this battle; most of the rebel army was made up of indigenous North Africans.[25] The Carthaginian army on the other hand, was steadily reinforced and had grown to over 30,000 men and a large number of war elephants.[note 2][21]
Battle was given eight to ten weeks after the two armies arrived in Byzacium, although the location is not known.[25] Few details of the battle survive.[30] It was a set piece battle, with no subtleties of manoeuvre–Mathos was not a proficient general and the Carthaginians were so superior that they felt no need for stratagems.[25] Hamilcar was the senior Carthaginian commander and he ensured that the rebels were crushed, with few losses to the Carthaginians.[31][25] In a change of policy, prisoners were taken, which probably helped to ensure that there was no desperate last stand. Captives were sold into slavery.[32] Mathos was also captured, and he was dragged through the streets of Carthage and tortured to death by its inhabitants.[22]
Aftermath
Most of the towns and cities which had not already come to terms with Carthage now did so, with the exceptions of Utica and Hippo, whose inhabitants feared vengeance for their massacre of Carthaginians. They attempted to hold out, but Polybius says that they too "quickly" surrendered, probably in late 238 or very early 237 BC.[33] The towns and cities that surrendered were treated leniently, although Carthaginian governors were imposed on them.[34] Immediately after the war Hamilcar led many of his veterans on an expedition to expand Carthaginian holdings in southern Iberia; this was to become a semi-autonomous Barcid fiefdom. In 218 BC a Carthaginian army under Hannibal besieged the Roman-protected town of Saguntum in eastern Iberia, providing the spark which ignited the Second Punic War.[35][36]
↑ North Africa had indigenous African forest elephants at the time.[26][27] These were typically about 2.5-metre-high (8ft) at the shoulder, and should not be confused with the larger African bush elephant.[28] The sources are not clear as to whether they carried towers containing fighting men.[29]
Hoyos, Dexter (2000). "Towards a Chronology of the 'Truceless War', 241–237 B.C.". Rheinisches Museum für Philologie. 143 (3/4): 369–380. JSTOR41234468.
Hoyos, Dexter (2007). Truceless War: Carthage's Fight for Survival, 241 to 237 BC. Leiden; Boston: Brill. ISBN978-90-474-2192-4.
Lazenby, John (1996). The First Punic War: A Military History. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press. ISBN978-0-8047-2673-3.
Miles, Richard (2011). Carthage Must be Destroyed. London: Penguin. ISBN978-0-141-01809-6.
Sabin, Philip (1996). "The Mechanics of Battle in the Second Punic War". Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies. Supplement. 67 (67): 59–79. JSTOR43767903.
Scullard, H.H. (2006) [1989]. "Carthage and Rome". In Walbank, F. W.; Astin, A. E.; Frederiksen, M. W. & Ogilvie, R. M. (eds.). Cambridge Ancient History: Volume 7, Part 2, 2nd Edition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp.486–569. ISBN0-521-23446-8.
The First Punic War was the first of three wars fought between Rome and Carthage, the two main powers of the western Mediterranean in the early 3rd century BC. For 23 years, in the longest continuous conflict and greatest naval war of antiquity, the two powers struggled for supremacy. The war was fought primarily on the Mediterranean island of Sicily and its surrounding waters, and also in North Africa. After immense losses on both sides, the Carthaginians were defeated and Rome gained territory from Carthage.
The Punic Wars were a series of wars between 264 and 146BC fought between the Roman Republic and Ancient Carthage. Three wars took place, on both land and sea, across the western Mediterranean region and involved a total of forty-three years of warfare. The Punic Wars are also considered to include the four-year-long revolt against Carthage which started in 241BC. Each war involved immense materiel and human losses on both sides.
The Second Punic War was the second of three wars fought between Carthage and Rome, the two main powers of the western Mediterranean in the 3rd century BC. For 17 years the two states struggled for supremacy, primarily in Italy and Iberia, but also on the islands of Sicily and Sardinia and, towards the end of the war, in North Africa. After immense materiel and human losses on both sides, the Carthaginians were once again defeated. Macedonia, Syracuse and several Numidian kingdoms were drawn into the fighting, and Iberian and Gallic forces fought on both sides. There were three main military theatres during the war: Italy, where Hannibal defeated the Roman legions repeatedly, with occasional subsidiary campaigns in Sicily, Sardinia and Greece; Iberia, where Hasdrubal, a younger brother of Hannibal, defended the Carthaginian colonial cities with mixed success before moving into Italy; and Africa, where Rome finally won the war.
Hamilcar Barca or Barcas was a Carthaginian general and statesman, leader of the Barcid family, and father of Hannibal, Hasdrubal and Mago. He was also father-in-law to Hasdrubal the Fair.
Hanno II the "Great" was a wealthy Carthaginian aristocrat in the 3rd century BC.
Hasdrubal Barca, a latinization of ʿAzrubaʿal son of Hamilcar Barca, was a Carthaginian general in the Second Punic War. He was the brother of Hannibal and Mago Barca.
The Mercenary War, also known as the Truceless War, was a mutiny by troops that were employed by Carthage at the end of the First Punic War (264–241 BC), supported by uprisings of African settlements revolting against Carthaginian control. It lasted from 241 to late 238 or early 237 BC and ended with Carthage suppressing both the mutiny and the revolt.
The Battle of the Bagradas River was fought between a Carthaginian army led by Hamilcar Barca and a rebel force led by Spendius in 240 BC in what is now north-east Tunisia. Carthage was fighting a coalition of mutinous soldiers and rebellious African cities in the Mercenary War, which had started late the previous year in the wake of the First Punic War. The rebels were blockading Carthage and besieging the northern ports of Utica and Hippo. A Carthaginian army commanded by Hanno had attempted and failed to relieve Utica early in 240 BC. A second army was assembled in Carthage and entrusted to Hamilcar, who had commanded Carthaginian forces on Sicily for the last six years of the First Punic War.
The Battle of Utica took place early in 240 BC between a Carthaginian army commanded by Hanno and a force of rebellious mutineers possibly led by Spendius. It was the first major engagement of the Mercenary War between Carthage and the combined forces of mutinous ex-Carthaginian troops and rebellious African cities which broke out in the wake of the First Punic War. Both sides were routed during the course of the battle, which ended with the rebels occupying the field but was strategically inconclusive.
The Battle of the Saw was the culminating battle of a campaign fought between a Carthaginian army led by Hamilcar Barca and a rebel force led by Spendius in 238BC in what is now northern Tunisia. Carthage was fighting a coalition of mutinous soldiers and rebellious African cities in the Mercenary War which had started in 241BC. The rebels had been besieging Carthage while the Carthaginian field army under Hamilcar raided their supply lines. Under this pressure the rebels pulled back to their base at Tunis and despatched their own army to prevent Hamilcar's activities and, ideally, destroy his army.
The Battle of Ibera, also known as the Battle of Dertosa, was fought in the spring of 215 BC on the south bank of the Ebro River near the town of Ibera and was part of the Second Punic War. A Roman army, under the command of the brothers Gnaeus and Publius Scipio, defeated a similarly sized Carthaginian army under Hasdrubal Barca. The Romans, under Gnaeus Scipio, had invaded Iberia in late 218 BC and established a foothold after winning the Battle of Cissa. This lodgement, on the north-east Iberian coast, between the Ebro and the Pyrenees, blocked the route of any reinforcements from Iberia for the army of Hannibal, who had invaded Italy from Iberia earlier in the year. Hasdrubal attempted to evict the Romans in 217 BC, but this ended in defeat when the Carthaginian naval contingent was mauled at the Battle of Ebro River.
The battle of the Great Plains was fought in 203 BC in modern Tunisia between a Roman army commanded by Publius Cornelius Scipio, and allied Carthaginian and Numidian armies commanded by Hasdrubal Gisco and Syphax respectively. The battle was part of the Second Punic War and resulted in a heavy defeat for Carthage.
The Treaty of Lutatius was the agreement between Carthage and Rome of 241 BC, that ended the First Punic War after 23 years of conflict. Most of the fighting during the war took place on, or in the waters around, the island of Sicily and in 241 BC a Carthaginian fleet was defeated by a Roman fleet commanded by Gaius Lutatius Catulus while attempting to lift the blockade of its last, beleaguered, strongholds there. Accepting defeat, the Carthaginian Senate ordered their army commander on Sicily, Hamilcar Barca, to negotiate a peace treaty with the Romans, on whatever terms he could negotiate. Hamilcar refused, claiming the surrender was unnecessary, and the negotiation of the peace terms was left to Gisco, the commander of Lilybaeum, as the next most senior Carthaginian on the island. A draft treaty was rapidly agreed upon, but when it was referred to Rome for ratification it was rejected.
Naravas was a 3rd Century BCE Numidian chief who fought in the Mercenary War, he first joined the rebels, but changed sides in 239 BCE.
During the siege of Tunis in October 238 BC a rebel army under Mathos was besieged by a Carthaginian force under Hamilcar Barca and Hannibal. The Carthaginian army, which had served on Sicily during the First Punic War, mutinied in late 241 BC in the wake of Carthage's defeat, starting the Mercenary War. After three years of increasingly bitter war, the Carthaginians defeated the rebel field army at the Battle of the Saw, capturing its leaders. The Carthaginians then moved to besiege the rebels' strongest remaining stronghold at Tunis.
Hamilcar's victory with Naravas took place in 240 BC in what is now north-west Tunisia. A Carthaginian army led by Hamilcar Barca defeated a rebel army led by Spendius and Autaritus, after 2,000 Numidian cavalry led by Naravas defected from the rebels to Carthage. The precise location of the battle is unknown. Carthage was fighting a coalition of mutinous soldiers and rebellious African cities in the Mercenary War which had started in 241BC.
Mathos was a Libyan from the North African possessions of Carthage and was recruited into the Carthaginian Army during the First Punic War at some point prior to 241 BC. Mathos's date of birth is unknown, as are most details of his activities prior to his coming to prominence as a low-ranking officer in 241 BC.
The Roman withdrawal from Africa was the attempt by the Roman Republic in 255 BC to rescue the survivors of their defeated expeditionary force to Carthaginian Africa during the First Punic War. A large fleet commanded by Servius Fulvius Paetinus Nobilior and Marcus Aemilius Paullus successfully evacuated the survivors after defeating an intercepting Carthaginian fleet, but was struck by a storm while returning, losing most of its ships.
Gisco was a Carthaginian general who served during the closing years of the First Punic War and took a leading part in the events which sparked the Mercenary War. He was a citizen of the city state of Carthage, which was located in what is now Tunisia. His date of birth and age at death are both unknown, as are his activities prior to his rise to prominence towards the end of the First Punic War.
Spendius was a former Roman slave who led a rebel army against Carthage, in what is known as the Mercenary War. He escaped or was rescued from slavery in Campania and was recruited into the Carthaginian Army during the First Punic War at some point prior to 241 BC. Spendius's date of birth is unknown, as are most details of his activities prior to his coming to prominence as a mutineer in 241 BC. After the First Punic War, Carthage attempted to pay its soldiers less than the full amount due to them before demobilising them. Spendius faced death by torture if he were returned to Roman authority and took a dim view of the increasingly warm relationship between Carthage and Rome. He came to the fore as a member of the army most vocal in resisting Carthaginian efforts to settle the dispute. When the disagreement broke down into a full-scale mutiny in late 241 BC he was elected co-general with the African Mathos by his fellow mutineers. Mathos spread the news of the mutiny to the main African settlements under Carthaginian suzerainty and they rose in rebellion. Provisions, money and 70,000 reinforcements poured in. For four years Spendius led a rebel army against Carthage, in what is known as the Mercenary War, with mixed success.
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