Hamilcar Barca was never beaten on land by Rome, yet he lived to see Carthage lose the war. In the last years of the First Punic War he held out in Sicily against everything Rome could send, and when peace came he turned to building a new source of Carthaginian power in Hispania, the base from which his son Hannibal would one day march on Italy.
Sicily and the First Punic War
Hamilcar took command in Sicily around 247 BC1, late in the long First Punic War with Rome. From the mountain strongholds of Ercte and Eryx2 he waged a relentless campaign of raids and skirmishes, tying down Roman forces and never being driven from the field. The war was decided instead at sea: when the Carthaginian fleet was destroyed at the Aegates Islands in 241 BC3, Carthage sued for peace and gave up Sicily. Hamilcar, undefeated on land, resented the terms bitterly.
The Mercenary Revolt
Peace brought a new danger. Carthage could not pay the mercenary army it had hired for the war, and the soldiers rose in a savage rebellion, joined by many of Carthage's African subjects. In this Mercenary Revolt, sometimes called the Truceless War4, Hamilcar took the field and, after fighting of great cruelty on both sides, crushed the rebels and saved the city4.
The conquest of Hispania
With Sicily lost, Hamilcar looked west. From about 237 BC he led an army into5 Hispania, the Iberian peninsula, and over nearly a decade subdued its tribes, opening rich silver mines and building a power base beyond the reach of Carthage's cautious senate. Here the family's private empire took shape, worked and expanded after him by his son-in-law Hasdrubal the Fair5 and then by Hannibal.
The oath and the sons
Greek and Roman writers tell that Hamilcar, before leaving for Spain, had his young son Hannibal swear at the altar never to be a friend of Rome2, a story that comes to us as tradition rather than certain fact. Hamilcar died around 228 BC on campaign in Hispania, drowned in a river while covering his sons' retreat6, according to the ancient accounts. He left three sons, Hannibal, Hasdrubal and Mago, who would carry his war to Rome.
Read on with the other great commanders of Carthage, or see the long struggle in Rome vs Carthage.
Sources and notes
Numbered notes in the text point to the works below.
- World History Encyclopedia (Mark Cartwright), “Hamilcar Barca” ↩ a b
- Polybius, Histories, Book 1, 56 to 58 (Hercte and Eryx), 62 (the peace of 241 BC), 65 to 88 (the Mercenary War); Book 2, 1 (Spain, about nine years of campaigning, his death); Book 3, 11 (the oath of Hannibal). Loeb translation online at LacusCurtius: https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Polybius/home.html. ↩ a b
- Adrian Goldsworthy, The Punic Wars (Cassell, 2000). ↩
- Dexter Hoyos, Truceless War: Carthage's Fight for Survival, 241 to 237 BC (Brill, 2007). ↩ a b
- Dexter Hoyos, Hannibal's Dynasty: Power and Politics in the Western Mediterranean, 247-183 BC (Routledge, 2003). ↩ a b
- Diodorus Siculus, Library of History, Book 25, 10 (Hamilcar turns aside to save his sons and friends, then drowns in a river). Loeb translation online at LacusCurtius: https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Diodorus_Siculus/25*.html. ↩
- Wikipedia, “Hamilcar Barca, Wikipedia”