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Ancient authors, such as Polybius, tend to stress Carthage's reliance on foreign mercenaries. [25] However, the term 'mercenary' is misleading when applied to the North African and Iberian 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 ...
Xanthippus (Ancient Greek: Ξάνθιππος) of Lacedaemon, or of Carthage, was a Spartan mercenary general employed by Carthage during the First Punic War.He led the Carthaginian army to considerable success, compared to previous failure, against the Roman Republic during the course of the war, training the army to a professional standard before defeating the Romans at the Battle of Tunis ...
Carthaginian armies were nearly always composed of foreigners; citizens only served in the army if there was a direct threat to the city of Carthage. Roman sources refer to these foreign fighters derogatively as "mercenaries", but the historian Adrian Goldsworthy describes this as "a gross oversimplification".
[4] [5] His works include a now-lost manual on military tactics, [6] but he is known today for The Histories, written sometime after 146 BC, or about a century after this war. [4] [7] Polybius's work is considered broadly objective and largely neutral as between Carthaginian and Roman points of view. [8] [9]
Some of the Carthaginian mercenaries, either Libyans or Iberians, quarrelled about the booty, mutinied in a passion, and added to the number of the highland settlers. Their name in the Cyrnian (Corsican) language is Balari, which is the Cyrnian word for fugitives.
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 ...
For four years Spendius led a rebel army against Carthage, in what is known as the Mercenary War, with mixed success. In 238 BC Spendius led 40,000 men against the Carthaginian general Hamilcar, keeping to the higher and rougher terrain due to the Carthaginian superiority in cavalry and elephants, and harassed the Carthaginian army. His army ...
Prologue:The nature of armies in the 16th century (pdf): A given army often included numerous nationalities and languages. The normal Landsknecht regiment included one interpreter per 400 men, and interpreters were commonly budgeted for in the staffs of the field armies of the French, and of German reiter regiments as well.