Collections: Raising Carthaginian Armies, Part IV: Allies and Mercenaries

This is the fourth part of our series (I, II, III) looking at how Carthage’s complex, multi-ethnic armies were raised and structured. Last week, we looked at Carthage’s unusual system for raising vassal forces: long-serving Carthaginian generals could inhabit positions within the personalist, non-state mobilization systems of Numidia and Iberia, enabling them to access military resources (mostly manpower) as a non-state ‘Big Man’ would, through kinship and patronage networks. Merging Carthage’s state-based conscription system with the non-state mobilization systems of Numidia and Iberia would already be a remarkable achievement and would have given Carthage an ‘all call’ peak mobilization somewhere north of 125,000 men, easily eclipsing the military mobilization potential of the major powers of the Hellenistic East. But of course Carthage isn’t fighting the heirs of Alexander in the third century. Carthage is fighting Rome. So they are going to need more. That means recruiting from…