Gesco and His Staff Arrested
This complete disorganisation and disorder did not
escape the observation of Gesco. But his chief anxiety was
to secure the safety of his country; and seeing clearly that, if
these men were driven to exasperation, the Carthaginians
would be in danger of total destruction, he exerted himself
with desperate courage and persistence: sometimes summoning their officers, sometimes calling a meeting of the men
according to their nationalities and remonstrating with them.
But on one occasion the Libyans, not having received their
wages as soon as they considered that they ought to have been
paid to them, approached Gesco himself with
some insolence.
Gesco and his staff seized and thrown into chains |
With the idea of rebuking
their precipitancy he refused to produce the pay,
and bade them "go and ask their general Mathōs
for it." This so enraged them, that without a moment's delay
they first made a raid upon the money that was kept in
readiness, and then arrested Gesco and the Carthaginians
with him. Mathōs and Spendius thought that the speediest
way to secure an outbreak of war was for the men to commit
some outrage upon the sanctity of law and in violation of their
engagements. They therefore co-operated with the mass of
the men in their reckless outrages; plundered the baggage of
the Carthaginians along with their money; manacled Gesco and
his staff with every mark of insolent violence, and committed
them into custody. Thenceforth they were at open war with
Carthage, having bound themselves together by oaths which
were at once impious and contrary to the principles universally
received among mankind.
This was the origin and beginning of the mercenary, or, as
it is also called, the Libyan war. Mathōs lost no
time after this outrage in sending emissaries to
the various cities in
Libya, urging them to assert their freedom,
and begging them to come to their aid and join them in their
undertaking. The appeal was successful: nearly all the cities
in
Libya readily listened to the proposal that they should revolt
against
Carthage, and were soon zealously engaged in sending
them supplies and reinforcements. They therefore divided
themselves into two parties; one of which laid siege to
Utica,
the other to
Hippo Zarytus, because these two cities refused
to participate in the revolt.
