Military of Ancient Carthage - Mercenaries in The Forces of Carthage

Mercenaries in The Forces of Carthage

Ancient authors such as Polybius tend to stress the reliance of Carthage on foreign mercenaries. However, the term 'mercenary' is misleading when applied to the African and Spanish recruits, i.e. from areas controlled by Carthage. They were comparable to Roman Auxilia though Carthage did also employ mercenaries in the true sense as well. These units were mostly deployed in the expeditionary armies overseas, while in Africa Punic militias formed the backbone of the troops.

Units were generally segregated by ethnicity which was also a criterion for the respective specialisation. While within a unit communication in the native tongue was possible, between the units Greek and Punic helped to establish communication. According to Polybius this enabled the insurgents during the Mercenary War, which is also the only recorded large mutiny of Carthage's troops, to communicate with each other on higher levels.

The reported causes for this conflict were that following the First Punic War against Rome, payment of the mercenaries was delayed for over a year. When finally arrangements for payment were made the mistrust between the mercenaries and their employer helped to kindle the war. The native African Libyans, the largest contingent of the 'mercenaries', objected to being paid last while their comrades had been shipped home. Fear had spread that this might be a trap of the Carthaginians to exterminate them without payment and save their silver, after having crippled their army of the specialized supportive arms units. The conditions for the payment were rejected, although their former commander, Gisco, had provided them with his own person and 500 other nobles as hostages to reassure them of Carthage's sincere and honest intentions. The mercenaries and supporting native insurgents began attacking Carthaginian targets and urging the Libyan natives to rise. According to our sources the war was conducted in a particularly brutal fashion and ended, after three years, with the total destruction of the mercenary and insurgent forces.

It would be difficult to say precisely what a typical make-up of Carthage's armies would be, but in the Punic wars, they are reported to have included Iberians (Spanish), Celts (Gauls), Balearic slingers, Italians (e.g.Ligures), native Sicilian tribesmen, Numidian cavalry, Libyans and Lybophoenicians (also called Africans), Greeks, and naturally Punics from Carthage and its external settlements.