Polybius, Histories

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Aftereffects in Hippo, Utica, and Sardinia

Most places in Libya submitted to Carthage after this

Reduction of Hippo and Utica, B. C. 238.

battle. But the towns of Hippo and Utica still held out, feeling that they had no reasonable grounds for obtaining terms, because their original acts of hostility left them no place for mercy or pardon. So true is it that even in such outbreaks, however criminal in themselves, it is of inestimable advantage to be moderate, and to refrain from wanton acts which commit their perpetrator beyond all power of forgiveness. Nor did their attitude of defiance help these cities. Hanno invested one and Barcas the other, and quickly reduced them to accept whatever terms the Carthaginians might determine.

The war with the Libyans had indeed reduced Carthage to

B. C. 241-238.

dreadful danger; but its termination enabled her not only to re-establish her authority over Libya, but also to inflict condign punishment upon the authors of the revolt. For the last act in the drama was performed by the young men conducting a triumphal procession through the town, and finally inflicting every kind of torture upon Mathōs. For three years and about four months did the mercenaries maintain a war against the Carthaginians which far surpassed any that I ever heard of for cruelty and inhumanity.

And about the same time the Romans took in hand a

The Romans interfere in Sardinia.

naval expedition to Sardinia upon the request of the mercenaries who had deserted from that island and come to Italy; and when the Carthaginians expressed indignation at this, on the ground that the lordship over Sardinia more properly belonged to them, and were preparing to take measures against those who caused the revolt of the island, the Romans voted to declare war against them, on the pretence that they were making warlike preparations, not against Sardinia, but against themselves. The Carthaginians, however, having just had an almost miraculous escape from annihilation in the recent war, were in every respect disabled from renewing their quarrel with the Romans. They therefore yielded to the necessities of the hour, and not only abandoned Sardinia, but paid the Romans twelve hundred talents into the bargain, that they might not be obliged to undertake the war for the present.