Last updated Statue of an ancient Lusitanian warrior from Lisbon, Portugal.
Mercenary life is recorded as a custom of Iron AgeSpain, particularly in the central area of the Iberian Peninsula. Departing from the native tribe and applying to serve in others was a way for economically disadvantaged youth to escape poverty and find an opportunity to use their fighting skills.[1] Starting from 5th century BC, mercenary life would become a true social phenomenon in Hispania, with great numbers of fighters from distant lands coming to join the armies of Carthage, Rome, Sicily and even Greece, as well as other Hispanic peoples.[2]
They are repeatedly described by authors like Strabo and Thucydides as being among the best fighting forces in the Mediterranean Sea area, as well as, according to Livy, the most elite unit in Hannibal's army (id roboris in omni exercitu).[3]Polybius cites them as the reason for the Carthaginian victory in several battles during the Second Punic War.[4]
Differentiating literal mercenaries from foreign vassals, brought to the battlefield through pacts or hostages instead of payment, is often difficult in ancient chronicles.[5] Similarly, the exact provenience of Hispanic mercenaries is usually difficult to ascertain, as the terms used to refer to inhabitants of the Iberian peninsula are frequently vague, often using the generic Iberian to mean not only the coastal Iberian tribes, but any other people of Hispania. However, there is evidence that Hispania developed as a rich source of mercenary work during the early Iron Age. The reasons for this were mainly economic, as departing from the native tribe and serving in another, wealthier faction was a way for economically disadvantaged youth to escape poverty in their local lands, which were commonly subjected to sharp economic inequality. The main examples were found in Lusitania and Celtiberia, where cultivable terrains was concentrated among a few landowners, leaving mercenary life as the only alternative to banditry.[2] However, the long history of tribal warfare and warrior culture between tribes in Hispania cannot be discarded as another factor in their choice.[2] Natives from Balearic Islands and mountain folk from Cantabria were also recognized to have a strong mercenary tradition.[6]
Hispanic mercenaries would not work individually, but in small-sized units formed by friends and relatives, managed by their own chiefs and retaining their own cultural traits, including armament and tactics.[1] Mercenaries having left Hispania did not always return to their countries, and some of them, like Balearics, were known for spending all their gained money during their service,[7] but they would be met with prestige and fame among their countrymen if they did, given the warrior character of their societies.[5] However, their destinations were not always abroad, but also merely nearby regions of Hispania with a better economical profile, like Turdetania or Bastetania. Important southern war chiefs like Indortes, Istolatius and possibly Audax, Ditalcus and Minurus were Celts hired by the Turdetanians. Nevertheless, the most important roles played by Hispanic mercenaries in ancient story were in the armies of Carthage, Rome and Hellenic countries.[2] Important centers of recruitment were Gadir, Empúries, Castulo, Baria (modern day Villaricos) and the Balearic Islands.[5] Hispanic mercenaries were sought after for their toughness, discipline and skills, aside from their weapons, and not least of all for their ferocity; it being believed abroad that these peninsular warriors even practiced cannibalism.[8]
5th–4th centuries BC
Imagining of an Iberian soldier.
The first mentions of Spanish mercenaries come from the Sicilian Wars (460–307 BC), where they were part of the Carthaginian military serving in Sicily. While the Iberians may have been on the Carthaginian payroll as early as 535 BC, during the campaigns in Sardinia, their first substantial employment occurred in the Battle of Himera in 480, when Diodorus and Herodotus tell they were part of the expedition of Hamilcar I against the Greek forces of Gelo and Theron.[2][5] Hispanics were the only Punic to regroup after the battle to defend the camp, inflicting heavy losses on the Greek until Theron's counterattack forced them to flee for the beached ships. Contingents of Iberians reappear again in the captures of Selinus and Himera, where they headed the final assaults to the cities, and the battles of Akragas, Gela and Camarina, as well as the siege of Syracuse.[2][5]
In 396 BC, after the Carthaginian general Himilco abandoned all his mercenaries to their fate upon leaving Sicily in the Third Sicilian War, the mercenary peninsular forces were the only not to be annihilated. According to Diodorus, they banded up in battle formation and offered Dionysius I of Syracuse their services, impressing Dionysius into hiring them as a personal guard.[5] Later, in 368, his son Dionysius II sent a contingent of those Celts and Iberians to the Theban–Spartan War in order to assist the Spartans in the siege of Corinth, which they did with great effectivity.[2][5][9] They also captured the territory of Sicyon before sailing back to Sicily.[10]
When Plato visited his apprentice Dionysius II in 361 BC, he witnessed a brief rebellion by the king's mercenaries due to his attempts to reduce their payment. They marched towards the acropolis chanting their war paean, scaring Dionysius II so much that he relented and gave them even more than they reclaimed. Balearic slingers were also present in the Carthaginian side in the 311 Battle of the Himera River.
3rd century BC
In 274 BC, Hiero II of Syracuse ended the traditional mercenary presence in Sicily in order to prevent more mutinies. He pitted them against the Mamertines, a body of Italian marauders, in the river Cyamosorus near the city of Centuripa, and then left them to their fate. Withholding his own citizen troops in order to stack the odds against the mercenaries, Hiero saw them being defeated and decimated.[11] However, it is likely he continued hiring Hispanic mercenaries anyway, as Livy mentions them as auxiliars in the army of his grandson Hieronymus.[12]
Carthaginian peninsular mercenaries did not return to Sicily until the First Punic War in 264, this time in the army commanded by Hanno. When Carthage lost the war the Hispanics were amongst the mercenaries transported to Africa to be paid off and discharged. There the foreign warriors rebelled against the Carthaginians when the latter were unable to pay their emolument, due to the economic sanctions imposed by Rome. This led to the Mercenary War and the destruction of the rebels by loyal Carthaginian forces led by Hamilcar Barca.[2][5] It would be in the Second Punic War, though, that Iberian peninsulars become a factor again, given that Hispania was the main front of the war.[13]
Imagining of a Spanish soldier in Hannibal's army.
Upon Hamilcar Barca's arrival to Hispania in 237 BC, he succeeded at conquering multiple Hispanic tribes and drawing reinforcements from them, employing alliances, payment and hostages depending on the case. His son Hannibal continued his effort after his death with plans to lead an expeditionary army to Italy. As mentioned earlier, in this case it is again difficult to differentiate between true mercenaries and conscripted vassals: it can only be inferred that they would work for a payment whenever their origin was not of conquered regions, as apparently Hannibal himself only distinguished among his Hispanics by the form and degree of their allegiance.[5] Thus, in 218, before departing from Cartagena, he sent 16,000 Bastetani, Oretani and Olcade serfs to garrison Carthage in exchange for 15,200 African javelin throwers, seeking to prevent any possible rebellion of any of them due to the distance from their home lands.[14] He also released, before crossing the Pyrenees, many Carpetanians who did not wish to leave Hispania.[14] As a consequence of those moves, Hannibal kept only those with a bond of devotion to him, which would presumably include mercenaries and the most loyal vassals. It is estimated that between 8,000 and 10,000 Hispanics, counting the sum of their many peninsular peoples, reached Italy with Hannibal.[13] The majority of them might have been still alive and serving when he returned to Carthage in 202, proving the reliability that had moved the Punics to hire them.[8]
The variety and provenience of the mercenaries is not faithfully recorded, other than Celtiberians, Lusitanians and Balearics, which Hannibal would arrange and use for their particular talents. The first served as heavy cavalry, in contrast to the lighter, skirmishing Numidian cavalry, though they were also entrusted the front lines as infantry in battles like Cannae, where they stood out for their ability to hold the line.[13] Lusitanians are mentioned as having served as mountain troops, possibly playing the role of both skirmishers and heavy cavalry along with Celtiberians. Their combined force, composed of around 2,000 horsemen, was praised by Livy over their more numerous and famous Numidian homologues.[4][13] Finally, Balearics, ranging between 1,000 and 2,000, excelled as skirmishing infantry, being armed with fibre or sinew slings capable of throwing heavy shot into enemy ranks with devastating effect.[15][13]Silius Italicus speaks of even more tribes in the army, including Vettones, Gallaecians (combined with the Lusitanians in a single battalion), Cantabrians, Astures, and Vascones,[16] although authors have doubted of such diversity.[5] In any case, Celtiberians and Lusitanians probably were the main bodies of mercenaries, as Hannibal's spiel addressing them before the Battle of Ticinus attests.[17]
A Celtiberian gladius hispaniensis, used by Hannibal's mercenaries and adopted by the Romans.
Other Celtiberians fought against Carthage after their pact with Rome, defeating Hasdrubal Barca's forces in 217 BC. Four years later, they became the first mercenaries employed by Rome, as Publius Cornelius Scipio was forced to hire them to retain their allegiance. According to Livy and Appian, he sent 200 to Italy in order to try to convince their countrymen in Hannibal's army into deserting. This endeavor had little success, but it might have helped to undermine Hannibal's trust on them.[5][17] In turn, Hasdrubal capitalized on his superior familiarity with Hispanic tribes to bribe Scipio's mercenaries, who agreed to abandon the Roman general even if they would not turn against him out of principles. The result was Scipio and his brother being killed near of Ilorci in 211 BC.[17] The same year, possibly inspired by a desertion of Numidians and Hispanics to Marcus Claudius Marcellus after the Battle of Nola in 215, Celtiberians commanders Moericus and Belligenus betrayed the Punic-allied Syracusians and joined Marcellus's entourage.[5][14] Another defection happened in Arpi, where 1,000 Hispanics chose to join the Roman side,[14] although this might have been an exchange to get 5,000 Africans out of the city and back with Hannibal.[8] Those seem to have been the only exceptions to the Hispanic mercenaries' loyalty. Hispanics seemingly held their Carthaginian masters in high regard, addressing them as their supreme commanders, and in many cases, such as during the defeats of Hasdrubal and Hanno, died fighting with suicidal determination for their leaders.[13] Hannibal considered his peninsular fighters to be among his most valuable forces, almost at the level of his African compatriots, and contrasting especially with the more expendable and undisciplined Gauls and Ligurians.[8]
In 209 BC, after gathering large contingents of Celtiberian and Cantabrian mercenaries, Hasdrubal departed Hispania for Italy in order to meet with Hannibal. His army arrived in 207 only to be discovered and defeated in the Battle of the Metaurus, where Hasdrubal was killed among the peninsulars, the last Punic forces to fall. Some Celtiberians managed to cut their way out and reach Hannibal.[17] The same year, generals Mago Barca and Hanno moved to Celtiberia to collect another army, but a new Roman attack, this time by Marcus Junius Silanus behind local guides and under orders from Scipio Africanus, ended it before they could depart too.[17][14] This would be a tough decision for the Roman side, as their intrusion in the Celtiberians's lands would put them against Rome again, making them join Indibilis and Mandonius's Iberian Ilergete revolt.[17][14] Anyhow, Mago managed to flee with 2,000 survivors to Gadir. After the Battle of Ilipa, he sent a prefect also named Hanno to gather yet another Celtiberian contingent, but the resultant Battle of the Guadalquivir ended the third and final attempt to maintain a large scale native army.[17] The remnant mercenaries, now 12,000 after the last levies,[8] were placed by Mago in an improvised fleet, which finally sailed towards Italy after having unsuccessfully attempted to retake Cartagena, but not without hiring other 2,000 Balearics on the way.[17][14]
The last great deployments of peninsular mercenaries in the Second Punic War were in the territorial defense of Carthage, firstly in a brief intervention after the Battle of Utica. Shortly after, taking command of 4000 Celtiberians from the Ilergete revolt previously sent by Mago, Hasdrubal Gisco and Syphax clashed with the invading Romans led by Scipio in the Battle of the Great Plains. The encounter was bitter to both the Celtiberians and Scipio, as the former had shown mercy to them in Hispania despite their allegiance to Indibilis and Mandonius, so the mercenaries knew the Roman general would not spare them a second time. Consequently, when the mercenaries found themselves being characteristically the last Carthaginian force still standing in the battle, most of them chose to fight to the end and died in their posts.[5][17] There were further attempts to bring new Hispanic fighters to Carthage, but the Saguntines captured the Carthaginian recruiters and sold them to Rome.[17] In 202 BC, Hannibal brought the remnant of his veteran mercenaries from Italy and united them to those of Mago, who had died in the sea while returning to Africa. They faced Scipio again in the Battle of Zama, being ultimately defeated and witnessing the end of the war. The loss of Carthage saw the end of the Punic mercenary tradition, as it was specifically written among the conditions imposed by Rome.
2nd–1st centuries BC
Despite the withdrawal of Carthage from Hispania, the peninsular custom of mercenary life survived. Between 197 and 195 BC, the Turdetanians employed 30,000 Celtiberians as elite troops during the Iberian revolt, while in 147 BC the Romans themselves sent them unsuccessfully against the Lusitanians led by Viriathus. Julius Caesar would also use Balearic slingers in the Gallic Wars.[18]
1st–4th centuries AD
The employment of Balearic slingers as mercenaries continued in the Imperial Roman army. The value of light infantry skilled in the use of stone missile throwing by slings was recognised as late as the 4th century AD, although by this date their recruitment basis had been extended from beyond Iberia and the Balearic Islands.[19]
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.
Gnaeus Cornelius Scipio Calvus was a Roman general and statesman during the third century BC. He played a major part in the Second Punic War, establishing Roman rule in the east of the Iberian peninsula and tying up several Carthaginian armies to keep them from reinforcing Hannibal.
Mago Barca was a Carthaginian, member of the Barcid family, who played an important role in the Second Punic War, leading forces of Carthage against the Roman Republic in Iberia and northern and central Italy. Mago was the third son of Hamilcar Barca, was the brother of Hannibal and Hasdrubal, and was the brother-in-law of Hasdrubal the Fair.
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 Battle of Ilipa was an engagement considered by many as Scipio Africanus’s most brilliant victory in his military career during the Second Punic War in 206 BC. It may have taken place on a plain east of Alcalá del Río, Seville, Spain, near the village of Esquivel, the site of the Carthaginian camp.
This is a historical timeline of Portugal.
The Battle of Baecula was a major field battle in Iberia during the Second Punic War. Roman Republican and Iberian auxiliary forces under the command of Scipio Africanus routed the Carthaginian army of Hasdrubal Barca.
The Battle of the Upper Baetis was a double battle, comprising the battles of Castulo and Ilorca, fought in 211 BC during the Second Punic War between a Carthaginian force led by Hasdrubal Barca and a Roman force led by Publius Cornelius Scipio and his brother Gnaeus. The immediate result was a Carthaginian victory in which both Roman brothers were killed. Before this defeat, the brothers had spent seven years campaigning against the Carthaginians in Hispania, thus limiting the resources available to Hannibal, who was simultaneously fighting the Romans in Italy.
The Battles of Kroton in 204 and 203 BC were, as well as the raid in Cisalpine Gaul, the last larger scale engagements between the Romans and the Carthaginians in Italy during the Second Punic War. After Hannibal’s retreat to Bruttium due to the Metaurus debacle, the Romans continuously tried to block his forces from gaining access to the Ionian Sea and cut his eventual escape to Carthage by capturing Kroton, the last port which had remained in his hands after years of fighting.
Hasdrubal Gisco, a latinization of the name ʿAzrubaʿal son of Gersakkun, was a Carthaginian general who fought against Rome in Iberia (Hispania) and North Africa during the Second Punic War.
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 Roman Republic conquered and occupied territories in the Iberian Peninsula that were previously under the control of native Celtic, Iberian, Celtiberian and Aquitanian tribes and the Carthaginian Empire. The Carthaginian territories in the south and east of the peninsula were conquered in 206 BC during the Second Punic War. Control was gradually extended over most of the peninsula without annexations. It was completed after the end of the Roman Republic, by Augustus, the first Roman emperor, who annexed the whole of the peninsula to the Roman Empire in 19 BC.
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 Battle of Insubria in 203 BC was the culmination of a major war, carried out by the Carthaginian commander Mago, brother of Hannibal Barca, at the end of the Second Punic war between Rome and Carthage in what is now northwestern Italy. Mago had landed at Genoa, Liguria, two years before, in an effort to keep the Romans busy to the North and thus hamper indirectly their plans to invade Carthage's hinterland in Africa. He was quite successful in reigniting the unrest among various peoples against the Roman dominance. Rome was forced to concentrate large forces against him which finally resulted in a battle fought in the land of the Insubres (Lombardy). Mago suffered defeat and had to retreat. The strategy to divert the enemy's forces failed as the Roman general Publius Cornelius Scipio laid waste to Africa and wiped out the Carthaginian armies that were sent to destroy the invader. To counter Scipio, the Carthaginian government recalled Mago from Italy. However, the remnants of the Carthaginian forces in Cisalpine Gaul continued to harass the Romans for several years after the end of the war.
The city of Carthage was founded in the 9th century BC on the coast of Northwest Africa, in what is now Tunisia, as one of a number of Phoenician settlements in the western Mediterranean created to facilitate trade from the city of Tyre on the coast of what is now Lebanon. The name of both the city and the wider republic that grew out of it, Carthage developed into a significant trading empire throughout the Mediterranean. The date from which Carthage can be counted as an independent power cannot exactly be determined, and probably nothing distinguished Carthage from the other Phoenician colonies in Northwest Africa and the Mediterranean during 800–700 BC. By the end of the 7th century BC, Carthage was becoming one of the leading commercial centres of the West Mediterranean region. After a long conflict with the emerging Roman Republic, known as the Punic Wars, Rome finally destroyed Carthage in 146 BC. A Roman Carthage was established on the ruins of the first. Roman Carthage was eventually destroyed—its walls torn down, its water supply cut off, and its harbours made unusable—following its conquest by Arab invaders at the close of the 7th century. It was replaced by Tunis as the major regional centre, which has spread to include the ancient site of Carthage in a modern suburb.
The battle of New Carthage took place in early 209BC when a Roman army under Publius Cornelius Scipio successfully assaulted New Carthage, the capital of Carthaginian Iberia, which was defended by a garrison under Mago. The battle was part of the Second Punic War.
Carthaginian Iberia was a province of the larger Carthaginian Empire. The Carthaginians conquered the Mediterranean part of Iberia and remained there until the 2nd Punic war and the Roman conquest of the peninsula.
This section of the timeline of Hispania concerns Spanish and Portuguese history events from the Carthaginian conquests to before the barbarian invasions.
Warfare in ancient Iberian Peninsula occupied an important place in historical chronicles, first during the Carthaginian invasion of Hispania, including the Punic Wars, and later during the Roman conquest of the peninsula. The densely bellicose character of the Pre-Roman peoples who inhabited Hispania was repeatedly shown in their conflicts against Rome, Carthage and each other.
References
1 2 Joaquín Gómez-Pantoja, Eduardo Sánchez Moreno (2007). Protohistoria y Antigüedad de la Península Ibérica II (in Spanish). Sílex Ediciones. ISBN978-84-773718-2-3.
↑ Phillip Harding (2015). Athens Transformed, 404-262 BC: From Popular Sovereignty to the Dominion of Wealth (in Spanish). Routledge. ISBN978-13-174354-5-7.
↑ John Drogo Montagu (2015). Battles of the Greek and Roman Worlds: A Chronological Compendium of 667 Battles to 31 BC From the Historians of the Ancient World. Frontline Books. ISBN978-14-738968-7-1.
↑ Theodore V. Buttrey, Kenan T. Erim, Thomas D. Groves, R. Ross Holloway (2019). Morgantina Studies, Volume II: The Coins. Princeton University Press. p.209. ISBN9780691200637.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
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