Hanno fails to relieve Utica: Hanno, however, was busying himself with some success in providing defences. In this department of a general’s duty he showed considerable ability; but he was quite a different man at the head of a sally in force: he was not sagacious in his use of opportunities, and managed the whole business with neither skill nor promptitude. It was thus that his first expedition miscarried when he went to relieve Utica. The number of his elephants, of which he had as many as a hundred, struck terror into the enemy; yet he made so poor a use of this advantage that, instead of turning it into a complete victory, he very nearly brought the besieged, as well as himself, to utter destruction. He brought from Carthage catapults and darts, and in fact all the apparatus for a siege; and having encamped outside Utica undertook an assault upon the enemy’s entrenchment. The elephants forced their way into the camp, and the enemy, unable to withstand their weight and the fury of their attack, entirely evacuated the position. They lost a large number from wounds inflicted by the elephants83’ tusks; while the survivors made their way to a certain hill, which was a kind of natural fortification thickly covered with trees, and there halted, relying upon the strength of the position. But Hanno, accustomed to fight with Numidians and Libyans, who, once turned, never stay their flight till they are two days removed from the scene of the action, imagined that he had already put an end to the war and had gained a complete victory. He therefore troubled himself no more about his men, or about the camp generally, but went inside the town and occupied himself with his own personal comfort. But the mercenaries, who had fled in a body on to the hill, had been trained in the daring tactics of Barcas, and accustomed from their experience in the Sicilian warfare to retreat and return again to the attack many times in the same day. They now saw that the general had left his army and gone into the town, and that the soldiers, owing to their victory, were behaving carelessly, and in fact slipping out of the camp in various directions: they accordingly got themselves into order and made an assault upon the camp; killed a large number of the men; forced the rest to fly ignominiously to the protection of the city walls and gates; and possessed themselves of all the baggage and apparatus belonging to the besieged, which Hanno had brought outside the town in addition to his own, and thus put into the hands of the enemy.
But this was not the only instance of his incompetence. A few days afterwards, near a place called Gorza, he came right upon the enemy, who lay encamped there, and had two opportunities of securing a victory by pitched battles; and two more by surprising them, as they changed quarters close to where he was. But in both cases he let the opportunities slip for want of care and proper calculation.
Hamilcar Barcas takes the command: The Carthaginians, therefore, when they saw his mismanagement of the campaign, once more placed Hamilcar Barcas at the head of affairs; and despatched him to the war as commander-in-chief, with seventy elephants, the newly-collected mercenaries, and the deserters from the enemy; and along with them the cavalry and infantry enrolled from the citizens themselves, amounting in all to ten thousand men. His appearance from the first produced an immediate impression. The expedition was unexpected; and he was thus able, by the dismay which it produced, to lower the courage of the enemy. He succeeded in raising the siege of Utica, and showed himself worthy of his former achievements, and of the confidence felt in him by the people. What he accomplished on this service was this.
A chain of hills runs along the isthmus connecting Carthage with the mainland, which are difficult of access, and are crossed by artificial passes into the mainland; of these hills Mathōs had occupied all the available points and posted guards there. Besides these there is a river called Macaras (Bagradas), which at certain points interrupts the passage of travellers from the city to the mainland, and though for the most part impassable, owing to the strength of its stream, is only crossed by one bridge. This means of egress also Mathōs was guarding securely, and had built a town on it. The result was that, to say nothing of the Carthaginians entering the mainland with an army, it was rendered exceedingly difficult even for private individuals, who might wish to make their way through, to elude the vigilance of the enemy. This did not escape the observation and care of Hamilcar; and while revolving every means and every chance of putting an end to this difficulty about a passage, he at length hit upon the following. He observed that where the river discharges itself into the sea its mouth got silted up in certain positions of the wind, and that then the passage over the river at its mouth became like that over a marsh. He accordingly got everything ready in the camp for the expedition, without telling any one what he was going to do; and then watched for this state of things to occur. When the right moment arrived, he started under cover of night; and by daybreak had, without being observed by any one, got his army across this place, to the surprise of the citizens of Utica as well as of the enemy. Marching across the plain, he led his men straight against the enemy who were guarding the bridge.
And defeats Spendius: When he understood what had taken place Spendius advanced into the plain to meet Hamilcar. The force from the city at the bridge amounted to ten thousand men; that from before85 Utica to more than fifteen thousand men; both of which now advanced to support each other. When they had effected a junction they imagined that they had the Carthaginians in a trap, and therefore with mutual words of exhortation passed the order to engage, and at once commenced. Hamilcar was marching with his elephants in front, his cavalry and light troops next, while his heavy armed hoplites brought up the rear. But when he saw the precipitation of the enemy’s attack, he passed the word to his men to turn to the rear. His instructions were that the troops in front should, after thus turning to the rear, retire with all speed: while he again wheeled to the right about what had been originally his rear divisions, and got them into line successively so as to face the enemy. The Libyans and mercenaries mistook the object of this movement, and imagined that the Carthaginians were panic-stricken and in full retreat. Thereupon they broke from their ranks and, rushing forward, began a vigorous hand to hand struggle. When, however, they found that the cavalry had wheeled round again, and were drawn up close to the hoplites, and that the rest of the army also was being brought up, surprise filled the Libyans with panic; they immediately turned and began a retreat as precipitate and disorderly as their advance. In the blind flight which followed some of them ran foul of their own rear-guard, who were still advancing, and caused their own destruction or that of their comrades; but the greater part were trampled to death by the cavalry and elephants who immediately charged. As many as six thousand of the Libyans and foreign troops were killed, and about two thousand taken prisoners. The rest made good their escape, either to the town on the bridge or to the camp near Utica. After this victory Hamilcar followed close upon the heels of the enemy, carried the town on the bridge by assault, the enemy there abandoning it and flying to Tunes, and then proceeded to scour the rest of the district: some of the towns submitting, while the greater number he had to reduce by force. And thus he revived in the breasts of the Carthaginians some little spirit and courage, or at least rescued them from the state of absolute despair into which they had fallen. -Polybius The Histories Bk 1 sections 74-76
1. In the previous book I have described how the Romans, having subdued all Italy, began to aim at foreign dominion; Recapitulation of the subjects treated in Book I.how they crossed to Sicily, and the reasons of the war which they entered into against the Carthaginians for the possession of that island. Next I stated at what period they began the formation of a navy; and what befell both the one side and the other up to the end of the war; the consequence of which was that the Carthaginians entirely evacuated Sicily, and the Romans took possession of the whole island, except such parts as were still under the rule of Hiero. Following these events I endeavoured to describe how the mutiny of the mercenaries against Carthage, in what is called the Libyan War, burst out; the lengths to which the shocking outrages in it went; its surprises and extraordinary incidents, until its conclusion, and the final triumph of Carthage. I must now relate the events which immediately succeeded these, touching summarily upon each in accordance with my original plan.
As soon as they had brought the Libyan war to a conclusion the Carthaginian government collected an army B.C. 238, Hamilcar and his son Hannibal sent to Spain.and despatched it under the command of Hamilcar to Iberia. This general took over the command of the troops, and with his son Hannibal, then nine years old, crossing by the Pillars of Hercules, set about recovering the Carthaginian possessions in Iberia. He spent nine years in Iberia, B.C. 238-229.and after reducing many Iberian tribes by war or diplomacy to obedience to Carthage he died in a manner worthy of his great achievements; for he lost his life in a battle against the most warlike and powerful tribes, in which he showed a conspicuous100 and even reckless personal gallantry. The Carthaginians appointed his son-in-law Hasdrubal to succeed him, who was at the time in command of the fleet. – Polybius The Histories Bk 2 section 1
Parallel Narratives 