S03 E03 Carthage Part 1 transcript
To listen along with this transcript, the episode is here.
Ed:
In today's episode we're going to talk about a country that produced one of the greatest generals in the world. And that general was Hannibal.
Phil:
I think you'll find he was a colonel.
Ed:
Who are you thinking of?
Phil:
Genius strategic thinker? Inspired incredible loyalty from a core band of followers?
Ed:
That's the one.
Phil:
Well, John "Hannibal" Smith obviously. "I got a plan see. We convert this small, El Salvadorian monastery into an attack helicopter."
Ed:
Phil. I'm taking about Hannibal Barca of Carthage. I'm not talking about a teatime drama serial from the 80s.
Phil:
Oh right.
Ed:
You know I have a BA in history…
Phil:
BA in history? Gadzooks, Hannibal. I ain't ridin on no omnibus, fool.
Ed:
*Sigh*
Phil:
I still get to read the script, right?
VO:
"In 146 BC, a crack North African city was sacked by the Roman Empire for a crime they didn't commit. These Carthaginians promptly escaped to the Mediteranean underground. Today, still wanted by the consuls, they survive as soldiers of fortune. If you have a Roman problem, if no one else can help, and if you have a seaworthy trireme....maybe you can hire The C-Team."
A-Team theme into CTDEA theme…
What was Carthage?
Carthage was a city state that rivaled Rome and very nearly destroyed it. At its height, it was the Mediterranean world’s number one power.
Who were the Carthaginians?
They were a blend of local Tunisians and Phoenicians. The Phoenicians were a semitic people who lived along the coast of the Levant - and the Carthaginian Phoenicians originated from the city of Tyre.
Tyre?
Tyre was one of several Phoenician city states and was based in modern-day Lebanon. Tyre was a trading powerhouse but over time became dominated by the Assyrian Empire.
An arrangement existed whereby the more powerful Assyrians would basically leave Tyre alone as long as it paid a tribute of precious metals.
So, the Phoenicians of Tyre set off across the Med and established colonies (for example in southern Spain and Sicily) to extract these metals. Carthage was one of these metal-producing colonies.
Going back to the Carthaginians. Elite families made a lot of their Tyrian origins. They also worshipped Phoenician Gods, headed up by Melquart - who was like a chief god associated with the kings of Tyre. Almost a way for Tyre to control its colonists without having to send massive armies out.
Ed:
It’s almost like religion is about controlling people...
Phil
Only the ancient defunct ones. Not the surviving true ones.
Ed:
Well that's all right then.
But anyway, these Phoenicians were master craftsmen, master sailors and master traders. A lot of things that the ancient Greeks take credit for, including the trireme, could well be Phoenician inventions. In fact, there are plenty of words in Greek that are in fact Phoenician - demonstrating what a cultural influence they had.
Like
Byblos - papyrus reed
Deltos - writing tablet
Byssos - linen
Sakkos - sack
Gaulos - ship
Makellon - market
All very mercantile, as were the things the Greeks borrowed from the Phoenicians, like interest-bearing loans, maritime insurance, financing of commercial ventures and deposit banking. As well as giving potential debtors a Parker Pen just for enquiring.
Ed:
Don't we make that joke every episode?
Phil:
We get a Parker Pen every time we do.
So although the Greeks had a lot to thank the Carthaginians for, they in fact characterised them as a bunch of swindling scumbums. But that's national identity for you. How can you possibly know who you are without defining someone who isn't you as much worse?
Ed:
Exactly. I’m glad we’re not French, for example.
Phil:
Why? Because of their better wine, weather, food, football team and train service?
Ed:
Yes, but their public toilets are a bit smellier than ours.
Phil:
Good point. Rule Britannia!
What was Carthage’s founding myth?
Like Rome, Carthage had a founding myth. Unfortunately we only really know the Roman version. So this is even less reliable than the usual myth.
Ed:
Even less reliable than being made up?
Yes, but this was made up by a power that didn't always wish them well.
Ed:
That's very unreliable.
The short version was that Queen Dido was fleeing Tyre from her cruel brother, Pygmalion. But as she approached the north African coast, her ship started to sink and she fled ashore singing…
Landing in North Africa, she asked some local king for some land. He agreed but only as much land as could be covered with an oxen’s hide. She took this hide and pulled out a thread which was large enough to cover a huge area. To which the local king said, “bugger.”
As with Dublin or Aksum (plug) , Carthage was picked because of its brilliant location. It joined two of Tyre's most important trading routes and was called Qart Hadasht in Phoenician, which translates as New City. So this was never just going to be another trading port.
And archaeology supports this.
The early settlement was already a serious town. Sun-dried brick houses were laid out on streets with wells, gardens and squares even by the early 7th century BC and the city was protected by a 3 metre wide wall.
Within a century of existence, Carthage had a population of 30,000 people. At its height this was 700,000 - making Carthage at one point the largest city in the world.
In its heydey, Carthage had buildings 6-7 storeys tall. Buildings were built around courtyards which included cisterns that collected water for drinking and washing. Visit a Carthaginian household and the first room you'd go into would be wash rooms, complete with waterproof plaster, and terracotta hip baths with elbow rests.
Ed:
I know that people have front doors leading into their front rooms, which I find weird. But a front door into the bathroom?
Phil:
Pretty covid safe though.
Ed:
Yes, and pretty good for getting rid of Jehovah's Witnesses.
FX: Door opens
JW:
Have you thought about letting the Lord Jesus into your… ahhh!
Woman:
Oops. There goes my towel again. What am I like?
Carthage was also a highly productive place. While still early on, the Carthaginians were manufacturing terracotta figurines, masks, jewellery and carved ivory that were exported to other Phoenician colonies.
What religion did Carthage have?
Although its pantheon of gods was closely aligned to Tyre, Carthage promoted its own fave gods to dominance. Namely Baal Hannon and his consort, Tanit. They were like a celebrity pair of gods like David and Victoria Beckham, Kanye & Kim or Jedward.
Melquart was chief God in Tyre but demoted in Carthage. He must have been humble, since he called his son Sid!
If the name Baal rings a bell, it's because Baal means lord and even makes a cameo in the Bible. And so does Tyre, Sidon, Canaanites… That's their name for the Phoenicians. All biblical.
God:
Thou shalt have no gods before me.
Worshipper:
Wait. But aren’t you the only god?
God:
Err… yes, no…. right that’s it. *BUZZ* now you’re a pillar of salt! How do you like that, smart guy?
Ed:
And that's why God never created Columbo in the Garden of Eden.
Phil:
True. You don't want someone there who notices the inconsistencies in your story. At first it would all be friendly and "can I take an apple home to my wife?" And the next minute…"just one more question.'
Astarte was also a major goddess. She was the consort of Melqart and also the goddess of sacred prostitution.
Sacred prostitution?
That’s where the temple has a brothel to help keep it going. Church attendance must have been incredible!
Ed:
If the Church of England traded church fetes for prostituion when fundraising, there wouldn’t be a single church roof that needed fixing.
Here's a weird Carthage God fact. In the precincts of Melqart, two things were banned - dogs and flies!
When we think of the ancient world, we usually think of the gods of Greece and Rome. But actually Phoenician gods influenced Roman and Greek and Etruscan gods too. One example were the merging of the identities of Greek Heracles and Phoenician Melqart into a joint god - which at times Carthage, Greece and Rome tried to claim as their own to give them the right to rule the Mediterranean world.
Ed:
Wait. So religion can be used to justify… bad things? Mind blown.
When are we going to talk about child sacrifice?
Phil:
This is one of the things the Carthaginians had in common with the Inca.
Ed:
That's the worst thing to have in common. So I guess when times were hard you throw a poor kid under the bus.
Phil:
Actually no. Unlike the Inca, when the going got tough it was actually the children of the rich that was sacrificed and it was considered a great honour.
1:
How are the twins doing at school?
2:
Oh great! Got their names down nice and early. Well, you have to these days. How’s little Hamilcar?
1:
Actually, we sacrificed him.
2:
Oh my God!
1:
Yeah, it was such an honour!
2:
Oh right – we're sacrificing our two.
1:
I thought you said they were at school...
2:
yeah, but we're bumping them off after clarinet practice.
We might think of child sacrifice as something that shouldn't happen in the Mediterranean but it did. And if you open your bibles, you'll find that another semitic people (the Hebrews) were fine with bumping off their oldest sons if the good Lord told you to. So, it's not such a weird idea really.
What are the Carthaginians eat?
Dogs.
What?
As well as fish, sheep, goats, pigs, chickens, wheat, barley, pulses, veg, pomegranates, figs, grapes, olives, plums, pistachios...
Ed:
Yes, but I think the headline for the website article needs to be the dog eating carthaginians.
Phil:
I blame BuzzFeed.
Ed:
No, they didn't eat bees.
(rimshot)
Anyway, at this time North Africa was very fertile so Carthage was able to expand into the land around it to feed its population and to have fancy country retreats of course.
Carthaginians were expert growers; they had their own agricultural Revolution. Mago, an expert on trees, fruits, vinoculture and farming was cited by Greek and Roman authors. Carthaginians developed an early threshing machine and were early advocates of pruning and fertiliser.
Carthaginians were also great sailors and, according to a Greek work called the Periplus of Hanno, they visited Britain and Ireland. They were also said to have sailed as far south as perhaps Gabon. That said, the Egyptians had already sailed around South Africa, so I’m probably CV padding here.
From the 6th century BC, Carthage had influence over other Phoenician colonies in Spain, Sardinia and Sicily - but wasn't an empire at this point. As the influence of Tyre declined under Assyrian pressure, Carthage became the cultural leader of the Phoenician diaspora.
The Carthaginians usually had some competitive jostling with the Greeks so also had strong relations with the Etruscans.
For example in 535 BC when Greeks attacked Carthaginian ships, a joint Carthaginian and Etruscan force of 200 ships attacked them off the coast of Corsica at the Battle of the Sardinian Sea.
Quote: “avengers assemble.”
in 509 BC, Carthage also signed a treaty with a little-known city-state known as Rome. This covered trade and not messing with each other's territory. Shoring up one front, Carthage continued to expand its influence.
During the 5th century BC, Carthaginian settlers moved to Sardinia and Ibiza.
Song:
“We come from Carthage, we come from, we come from Carthage… the Carthage ship is coming and everybody’s running, they’re running for their lives, forgetting all their wives
From the 430s BC onwards, increasingly more food is transported from Sardinia to Carthage. This led to fancy new settlements on the island and a wealthy elite. But unlike with Roman territories this was still not a colony.
So when Carthaginian troops did invade Sicily in the late fifth century to protect Carthaginian interests, it was a private affair. Not an activity of the state.
What kind of government did the Carthaginians have?
Similar to the Roman Republic, Carthage was ruled by oligarchs. The difference in Carthage was that the most powerful family of a particular time took on monarchical powers and had extra powers - like heading up the army.
So if we can say Carthage had kings, their powers were granted by a council of elders and these kings could technically come from any elite family - for hundreds of years it was the Magonids, and then this transferred to the Barcids. But we’ll come to that.
The political structure of Carthage included:
The council of elders
The tribunal of 104
The popular assembly - which was initially extremely limited but grew in influence later.
Plus there were Sufettes, who were chief magistrates.
In 410 BC, Hannibal (the leader of the Magonids) invaded Sicily with 60 ships and 1500 transports. Now, there were loads of little wars in Sicily between Carthage and Sicily. But what's important about them is this:
1. Cathage extensively used mercenaries.
2. Carthage minted its first coins to pay the mercenaries.
During this war and after many battles, the Carthaginians suffered a major defeat under the leading general Himilco. He took it well, spending the rest of his days dressed in cheap robes, accusing himself of impiety before stabbing himself to death.
But this led to the fall of the Magonids as the leading family and the rise of a new clan led by Hanno the Great. What followed was a period of constitutional change where the leading family lost a lot of its powers to state supervision.
The aristocratic elite, known as the tribunal of 104, oversaw the conduct of officials and military commands. They became a kind of supreme court.
The council of elders took control of the treasury and foreign affairs. There was also the election of two senior executive officers known as the Suffetes.
Hanno the Great didn't take this well. What was the point of coming into power only to have no power to exercise? He thus tried to overthrow the Carthaginians state with the help of Libyan and Numidian tribes. Unfortunately for Hanno he failed, was tortured and then crucified.
Up to this point Carthage doesn't really have an empire, but this starts to change. Carthage took to protecting its trade with its military might. It starts putting military bases on Sicily such as Lilybaeum which was a high security port with a military governor. Lots of fortresses and watchtowers are then built and dotted around Sicily.
Carthage had to protect its trade with a large force of mercenaries, who were protecting a trade that paid their wages. Think about that for a second and you might start to see where things could go wrong.
But why did the carthaginians use mercenaries?
Because the likes of Rome and Sparta were famous for using citizen soldiers, we tend to think that that was the default way of ancient armies.
But actually using citizens to fight was quite rare - and in fact could be a risky move - as Carthage had learned. In 340 BC, a large Carthaginian force were defeated in Sicily where 10,000 Carthaginian citizen soldiers (known as the sacred band) were killed and 15,000 were captured. When population sizes are in the hundreds of thousands at most, losing 10,000 of your best and strongest is no joke. To continue the war Carthage relied on mercenaries.
But the obvious problem with mercenaries was that you couldn't really rely on them. In Sicily, where generals had extra powers, the oligarchies at home was suspicious of them and the mercenaries who fought for them, since they had no loyalty except to who was paying them.
And, because generals were chosen by the popular assembly, there would be a tension between the power of the oligarchies at home and the ambitions of the general on campaign. Athenian politician Isocrates said Carthage "was ruled by an oligarchy at home and by a king in the field."
And it didn't stop there. These generals were then judged for their actions and campaigns retroactively back in Carthage. if decisions went against you, you could be crucified!
And being crucified for a battlefield mistake may make you think twice about your loyalty to a bunch of crucifixion happy old goats.
Agothocles, a Syracusion wannabe Alexander the Great, made an arrangement with his supposed enemy, a Carthaginian general, Hamillcar.
If Hamilcar helped Agothocles seize power in Syracuse, Agothocles would help Hamilcar take over Carthage as an autocrat.
Back in Carthage, the Carthaginian council were furious but didn't really know what they could do about Hamilcar. If they recalled him, he might just invade them. So they did the constitutional equivalent of writing a strongly worded letter to their local newspaper. Fortunately for the council, Hamilcar died and they were able to send another general, also called Hamilcar, to restore order.
Wait a minute. How many Hamilcars were there?
Carthaginian general had about 1 of 4 names, usually beginning with an H and either Hannibal, Hamilcar, Hanno or Hildebrand.
Vo:
One of these is wrong. Can you spot which one? Send your answer and a crisp £5 note to Hildebrand is the wrong answer, PO Box 5, Streatham.
Agothocles had a brainwave which was to forget fighting in Sicily and invade North Africa instead, since...
The citizens of Cathage were not used to fighting, so wouldn't be able to deal with a direct invasion.
The country had not had a war on its doorstep in some time and so there would be plenty of resources and loot.
Agathocles was not wrong about his instincts because even the general the council sent against him, called Bomil-car (you weren't expecting that name were you?) decided this might be a great time for him to seize control of Carthage.
Panicked by this, the Carthaginians responded by building fancy new temples to the gods and proactively looking around for noble babies to murder.
Blackadder: Excellent, excellent.
Fortunately for Carthage, not only did this coup fail but Agothocles being a giant bastard soon caught up with him.
Was Agothocles a giant bastard?
Although, by the standards of the time, there was an extremely high bar for being a bastard, Agothocles paid for his campaigns by murdering rich opponents, stealing women's jewellery and taking orphans' inheritances. So judge for yourselves.
In North Africa, Agothocles murdered his closest ally to steal that allies army. But then he had to go home to Sicily because all of his vassal city's rebelled against him in his absence.
Eddie: I wonder why!!!
Eventually, Agothocles declared himself a king, tried to conquer South Italy, failed, caught a disease that wouldn't let him move or speak and was probably accidentally burned alive as a result. So, there is some justice.
So, while all this was a let off for Carthage, it did expose them as very vulnerable.
in 348 BC, Carthage signed a second major treaty with Rome. Rome was a power on the make who deeply distrusted Syracuse. This led to a period of cooperation between Rome and Carthage. In fact in Rome there was even an African quarter. And when Rome was invaded by Greek king Pyrrhus of Epirus in the 270s BC, Carthage even sent ships to offer assistance to the Romans. And this wasn't entirely out of friendly feeling because...
Pyrrhus then successfully invaded Sicily, seized Carthaginian possessions, but then crossed back into Italy where he was thumped by the Romans with Carthaginian naval support.
Ed:
Wow. So at one point they were really good mates and the ended badly.
Phil:
It's Biggie and Tupac all over again.
But with Pyrrhus out of the way and Rome ever more ambitious, Rome and Carthage started to take a long suspicious look at each other.
Curb your enthusiasm suspicion music
Expanding Rome was also starting to have an identity makeover, aligning itself with the Greek world. It took on Heracles as a Roman hero, decided that the Romans were descended from the Trojans and that anybody who wasn't in this Hellenistic world (we're looking at you Carthage) were untrustworthy barbarians.
Trouble started in the 260s when a group of former mercenaries, known as the Mammatines, captured the Sicilian city of Massana from Syracuse and were threatened with invasion from Syracuse… for some weird reason.
The Mammatines appeal to both Rome and Carthage but it was Carthage who decided to step in and assist them against Syracuse despite the fact that these mercenaries had previously campaigned for Agothocles against Carthage - but it's just business.
(godfather it’s business not personal)
Meanwhile, the Romans also sent forces to help but what followed was like a squabble over who was going to pay the bill at a restaurant.
Hanno refused to let the Romans cross to Sicily saying he wouldn't even let Romans wash their hands in the sea. But they did. The Romans sent Hanno packing back to Carthage where he was crucified for "both his lack of sense and his lack of courage… and the way he left his plate on the side and never put it into the dishwasher."
Ed:
Crucifixion, like the carthaginian naughty step.
With the Romans in Sicily, something unusual happened. Carthage and Syracuse allied against the Romans and a different Hanno, son of one of 5000 Hannibals, blockaded Messana.
Rome responded with a reinforcing army of 40,000 men and (what do you know) Syracuse switched sides to Rome.
But even though Rome wanted to expand and Carthage wanted to defend what it had, the rush to war really wasn't inevitable. Rome and Carthage really just fell into it.
Blackadder: it was just too much effort not to have a war.
And although Rome's army was equal to or better than Carthage, Rome knew that Carthage's navy reigned supreme.
So did Carthage really rule the waves?
As the dominant trading power in the Mediterranean, Carthage had to have a pretty powerful navy. although the Greeks are famous for the three-decked trireme, it was probably a Carthaginian invention.
And by developing the quadrireme (the four decked ship) and then perfecting the five-decked quinririme, all of these ships made the trireme look like yesterday's news. In fact there have been a naval arms race in the Mediterranean that Carthage was leading.
At the time, naval warfare was all about ramming and hooking ships together and boarding and fighting man to man. And that's what made the quinrireme the dreadnought of its day. It had a wider, reinforced hole which meant more marines could be used in boarding.
Carthaginian shipwrecks have been found that show that each section of the ship was numbered so that ship construction was like an Ikea flat pack.
In fact it was only when Rome was able to capture and copy a Carthaginian ship that it could present a serious challenge to Carthage's navy.
Maybe this explains why Carthage didn't worry too much about its armies. All Carthage felt it had to do was control the water. If you kept the water you kept trading and with that money you could keep buying new mercenary armies.
In 262 BC, Rome put Agracus, Carthage's new HQ in Sicily, to siege. A Carthaginian relief force was sent including 50,000 infantry, 6,000 cavalry and 60 war elephants.
Their commander, Hanno son of Hannibal (yes, another one) didn't seem to have any confidence in his army and just camped out for a bit. When he finally attacked the Romans, Hanno put his infantry in front of his elephants. Surprisingly the infantry were initially successful against the Romans but then his own elephants panicked and stampeded over the front lines which broke the army and routed them leaving Agracus to be captured.
Did I mention that Carthage had no confidence in its army?
Hanno returned to Carthage where he was fined, stripped of his rights as a citizen and probably his pants too.
But meanwhile the Carthaginian navy was having a great time raiding the Italian coast. Rome responded. It got its hands on a Carthaginian quinririme, copied it, then it got a bunch of poor people and prisoners to be the crews.
And their training? I kid you not. They sat on benches on dry land and had to practice miming rowing in time. But they weren't totally stupid. The Romans developed the corvus, which was like a gang plank armed with spikes in one end which would make boarding enemy ships much easier.
The Romans didn't think they could outsail the Carthaginians. They felt they just needed to get their marines into fighting and they could win.
And this is exactly what happened. At the Battle of Mylae in 62 BC, the commander, a different Hannibal, only escaped punishment by sending a message back to Carthage after the battle asking if he should attack. When he received a message back saying yes, he was able to claim that he had been only following orders.
But he didn't get away with it for long. After losing another skirmish off Sardinia, his own men turned and crucified him. Why would you join the Carthaginian military?
So, halftime during the First Punic War.
Punic?
This was the Romans name for the Carthaginians. And the fact that we call the war the Roman name for the Carthaginians may give you a hint to the result.
But losing on land, losing at sea, it feels like Carthage might be out, right?
Actually, the Carthaginian system had one advantage over the Romans. To stop one man from amassing too much power, Roman consoles and generals only had command for one year at a time. And because they didn’t have much time and wanted to make their mark, Roman leaders were always geared up for big decisive battles.
But Carthaginian generals held their post a lot longer. As long as they could avoid big battles or getting sent home to be crucified, Carthage’s generals started to switch to guerilla campaigns of raids and sieges - with the aim of wearing the Romans down.
This frustrated the Romans so much that, combined with their surprise naval victories, the Romans decided to take a tip from the Syracusian playbook and just invade North Africa.
Initially the Romans had success in North Africa but one of the consoles had to go home, taking half the army with him. Then, Carthage had a brainwave. Instead of just hiring mercenary soldiers, why not hire a mercenary general too? So they brought in a Spartan general who brought along some brilliant tactics - like not letting your elephant stampede over your own men - which brought Carthage a great victory.
And back in Sicily, the Romans may have dominated sea battles but they were still not great sailors. On a victory lap around Sicily for example, the Roman navy was almost completely scattered during the storm.
Note to self: don't do a victory lap.
But Carthage weren't doing great in Sicily either. Lured into an open battle, new commander Hasdrubal lost, returned to Carthage and of course was put to death.
The big problem for Carthage is that its naval power had been disrupted, most of the fighting in Sicily had been on its own land, and it wasn't used to Roman warfare - which was to chuck everything but the kitchen sink at the war effort. It was financially in trouble.
So Carthage sent its top man to Sicily... Hamilcar Barca. Barca actually means flash!
Sing:
Flash...Hamilcar! Saviour of the universe!
He was a great PR man and understood the importance of showy victories. So he set off on a campaign of small but daring raids through South Italy. Although militarily pointless, they were great for morale.
Flash: Flash by name, flash by nature.
He then went on to score small victories in Sicily but with a heavy cost to his own manpower. And it wasn't enough for Carthage, who lost another important naval battle to a now effective Roman Navy.
Sing:
Flash Hamilcar! Didn't really save anything!
So in 241 BC, Carthage sued for peace but they were really going to have to pay for it. On the terms of the peace treaty, there were:
Kicked out of Sicily.
Had to pay a huge annual indemnity to Rome for 20 years.
Forced to give up all of their islands except Sardinia.
So, losers right?
Sort of but maybe not.
While Carthage was fighting Rome it was also fighting a war of expansion against the Numidians in North Africa. Both population and agricultural output in North Africa increased in this period and rather than importing food from Sicily, Carthage was exporting there instead. Carthage had been fighting wars in Sicily for over 100 years. Maybe it wasn't worth it.
One person who definitely didn't think that the peace was worth it because with more time he definitely would have won the war was…
Ed:
Adolf Hitler?
Yes, but also Flash Hamilcar.
Flash Hamilcar…. (maybe)
Problems were made worse. Carthage still had a large mercenary army in Sicily that needed paying. But, according to the terms of the treaty, Carthage had to evacuate its forces. The Carthaginian Council needed the army brought back to Carthage in an orderly fashion but in a way that meant that they wouldn't go on the rampage. So, they asked their best man, Flash Hamilcar, to resolve the situation. At which point, Flash Hamilkar resigned.
Sing: Flash Hamilcar...won't take responsibility.
Gathering the mercs together in North Africa, the Carthaginians said:
Ed:
"Guys. Guess what? And you won't believe it! But we're having a few cash flow issues…"
And then had to say that hundreds of times in different dialects because of the international flavour of the mercenaries.
Weirdly the mercenaries didn't respond too well to this and went on the rampage, also recruiting 70,000 peevish, overtaxed Libyans to join them.
And this wasn't some ragtag, weekend warrior force. In fact they were so well organised that they stamped their own symbol onto Carthaginian currency before paying their soldiers - just to make the point how serious and well organised they were.
And because Carthage didn't have the money to pay the mercenaries that were now attacking them, they had to do the thing they didn't like doing - which was to raise a citizen army.
Lucky for Carthage, Hanno was a war hero who had defeated many Numidian tribes. Unlucky for Carthage, he wasn't used to defeating incredibly well armed and trained mercenaries.
Lucky for Carthage, these mercenaries were so busy sieging the city of Utica that Hanno was able to surprise them from behind.
Unlucky for Carthage, rather than pursuing these scattered forces, Hanno entered Utica and threw himself some victory celebrations, leaving the regrouped rebels to capture the siege equipment and supplies of the Carthaginian army.
Note to self: never throw yourself victory celebrations until you’ve actually got a victory.
The rebels then divided into smaller forces to cause maximum disarray across the Carthaginian countryside.
Batman VO:
Is this the end for Carthage? Will the meddling mercenaries cause Cathaginian calamity? Will Rome take the opportunity to finish Carthage once and for all? Who can possibly save them now?
Flash
Hamilcar
Will he save Carthage?
Flash
Hamilcar
Or will he just bugger off
Flash
Hamilcar
He thinks he’s a miracle
(Cathage’s unprecedented loss of territory is no cause for alarm)
Flash
Hamilcar
King of the achievable
He's for every one of us
As long as it's convenient
He's willing to sacrifice
Every man, every woman, every child with a mighty Flash!
Council of Elders, Flash Hamilcar retreating.
What do y ou mean Flash Hamilcar retreating?
Ed:
Yes, we'll find out if Flash Hamilcar will save the day next time on part 2 of CTDEA.
Phil:
And before we go, we’d like to thank our first Patreon subscriber, God King Michael Matthews for his generous donations to the show. If you’d like to join him and help keep us existing, please go to patron.com/ctdeapod.
Ed:
And if you aren’t in a position to pony up dough, you can help by leaving us a review on Apple podcasts or anywhere else, sharing the show and telling your friends about us.
Phil:
Join us for the exciting resolution of our Carthage… not trilogy. Bilogy? Biology?
Ed:
Let’s call it a bireme.
Phil:
Join us for the exciting resolution of our Carthage bireme on…
*THEME TUNE*
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