Mercenary War
Financially exhausted by defeat in the First Punic War, Carthage was unable to pay the mercenaries it had hired for the Sicilian campaign. The unpaid soldiers, joined by rebellious Libyan subjects who supplied much of Carthage's manpower and tribute, rose in a ferocious revolt from 241 to 238 BCE that at one point besieged the city. Hamilcar Barca eventually crushed the rebellion with extreme brutality, but the war revealed the systemic vulnerability of a commercial oligarchy that relied on contractual rather than citizen soldiers. The conflict was so savage that ancient writers called it the 'Truceless War'. In its aftermath Rome seized Sardinia and Corsica, deepening the strategic imbalance that would shape the Punic Wars to come.
- Year: 241 BCE
- Category: Military
