Collections: Raising Carthaginian Armies, Part III: Generals, Warlords and Vassals

This is the third part (I, II) of our series looking at how Carthage’s complex, multipart armies were raised and constituted. Last time, we looked at the backbone of Carthage’s armies: North African troops levied out of Carthage’s subject communities in North Africa. These fellows seem to have been directly employed by the Carthaginian state, paid for their service, equipped by the state and mustered in Carthage itself. But beyond these troops drawn from close to the core of Carthage’s empire, we also see a pattern of Carthage mobilizing troops from more loosely and indirectly controlled places. Carthage, by the third century, had extended a limited kind of control over the two kingdoms of Numidia (Massaesylii and Massylii) and Numidian cavalry – some of the best in the Mediterranean world – becomes an important component of Carthaginian armies. Meanwhile, Carthage also maintained a presence in Spain (dramatically expanded after 237) and Iberian warriors, men drawn from the…