Scenes From Elsewhere (Carthage) II

In Carthage, the mood of the Shophets following the defeat at the Trigona was mixed. On the one hand, Malik Gisgo still had a sizable army of forty-three thousand troops in the field that was being further buoyed by Mercenaries from the Sicels of the Interior. Not only that, but Akragas was still in Carthaginian Hands and the sea lanes remained open following the defeat of the Epirote Fleet at the Battle of Hampsicora's Ambush for reinforcements and resupply. On the other, Malik Gisgo was clearly now on the backfoot in terms of the land campaign.

It had caused something of a debate in the halls of the Former Assembly, as Shophets decided whether to continue their support for Gisgo's war or not. A Malik of Carthage was not one who ruled as an Autocrat, after all. Even though Malik Gisgo had executive power, he still required the support of the Shophets to exercise that power well. If he wasn't careful, he may well find that the Assembly would reclaim such powers they had given him, by force if necessary. It had, after all, happened before.

In these debates, two factions began to form. The Western Party and the Eastern Party. The Western Party was led by none other than the former General and current Shophet, Hannibal the Bearded, head of the military Barcid Family. The Western Party advocated for an end to the war with Epirus and the Greeks in favor of pursuing further colonization and conquest in Iberia and Gaul. The Iberians and Gauls were a less serious threat than Epirus was proving to be, and while Akragas was still in Carthaginian Hands, it provided a position of strength to negotiate peace from.

The Eastern Party, on the other hand, was also known as the Malik's Party and was led by the Son of Malik Gisgo and heir presumptive to the Malikship, Bomilcar the Black. Bomilcar was so-named due to his darker complexion, his mother having been Gisgo's first wife, Kandake of Meroe, a Nubian Princess. The Eastern Party wished to continue the war in support of Malik Gisgo and pressed for the conquest of all Sicily as a stepping stone toward checking Epirote incursions into the Central Mediterranean. Bomilcar argued that while the treasury was still full and the sea lanes to Lilybaeum and Panormos were still open, Carthage could hire no shortage of mercenaries to fill manpower gaps.

The debate continued throughout the winter, with the Eastern Party gaining supremacy by the end of January, Two-Eighty. What ensued was a number of negotiations, primarily with Masillia, represented by the Head of the Protidae Family, Critias the One-Eyed, the Ligures, represented by King Brancalion, and the Sardinians represented by Hampsicora the Elder. All three agreed to provide Mercenary Troops in exchange for gold and goods, as did several non-client Iberian and Celtiberian Tribes.

Unfortunately, the Western Party did not go quietly into their defeat. Many of the Shophets that supported the Western Party began subtly plotting behind the scenes to remove Malik Gisgo from power should it become necessary to do so. Notably, however, Hannibal the Bearded refused to go along with such a scheme, instead lobbying for the position of Governor of Carthago Novo in Iberia and receiving it from the Shophets, as the Eastern Party viewed it as getting rid of a potential troublemaker and the Western Party was supportive of the Barcids from the start.

Hannibal the Bearded took his Brittanian wife and newborn son, Hamilcar to the Barcid Estates in Carthago Novo in Iberia, content to wait out the clear storm that was brewing in Carthaginian Politics and serve his time as governor of the few directly ruled Carthaginian provinces in Iberia. Secretly, however, Hannibal the Bearded was playing the long game, inviting various Clients and Local Kings of independent tribes to Carthago Novo under the pretense of settling local disputes as Governor. In reality, he built a network of allies, building up a power base, and settling down to bide his time. The Eastern Party and Malik Gisgo had not heard the last of the Barcids.

Even with the Barcid flight and the shadowy plots of the Western Party, the Eastern Party managed to secure a further fifteen thousand mercenary troops and ship them to Lilybaeum and Panormos. These were added to the forty-three-thousand troops that had escaped the slaughter at the Trigona, and the six-thousand Sicel Mercenaries that Malik Gisgo managed to secure from the Interior of Sicily for a total of sixty-one-thousand Carthaginian Troops. However, now the majority of the troops fighting in Sicily for Carthage were Mercenaries from all over the known world. This cost the treasury dearly to keep so many mercenaries in the field, and that wasn't the sole challenge that Malik Gisgo faced.

No, as January turned to February, Malik Gisgo found he had a dozen different peoples in his army, all with differing ways of waging war. Celtiberian Swordsmen shared the same army as Balearic Slingers, Libyan Heavy Spearmen, Numidian Light Cavalry, Gallic Heavy Cavalry, Greek Hoplites from Massillia, Punic Phalangites, Sardinian Axemen, Sicel Skirmishers, and various others. These disparate peoples rarely spoke the same mother tongue, though many spoke Masillian Greek or Punic as a second language, just the translating took time and effort. The only way for Malik Gisgo to forge a proper army out of this lot of assembled troops would be to drill constantly and hope that they picked things up on reflex.

So it was that February of Two-Eighty would be known as the Month of Drums by the residents of Akragas, for there was scarcely a single hour of the day where the Army of Malik Gisgo was not drilling. So necessary was the Month of Drums, that it even extended into March of Two-Eighty for a full nine days. Whether such drills were enough to force cohesion or not mattered little, for news came in on the tenth of March of a Second Naval Battle against Epirus off the Island of Hiera, west of Lilybaeum.

The Fleet had attempted once more to use fire ships against the Epirote to disastrous results, as the tactic apparently worked far less well in a full battle as opposed to an ambush. The Fire Ships had been targeted by the Epirote Fleet as a priority and several of them had been destroyed by Ballistae fire from the Epirote Dromons whilst still among the Carthaginian Fleet, causing massive fire hazards to bloom amongst the Carthaginian Fleet. The Epirotes had taken advantage of that to utterly trounce the Fleet, which had returned to the naval base at Lopadusa and placed under blockade by the Epirotes.

In the aftermath, the Islands of Hiera, Aegusa, and Phorbantia had Epirote Marines landed on them, and the small towns there that normally supplied the Fleet on voyages into Magna Graecia had already had their garrisons reduced to reinforce Malik Gisgo's army. The Shophets received word of their surrender within three days of the Fleet Battle of Hiera. With those Islands under enemy control, and the Fleet Blockaded in Lopadusa, the Sea Lanes were now shut to Carthage.

In his camp at Akragas, news of those defeats reached Malik Gisgo at the same time as news of another ill-tiding. Pyrrhus of Epirus was on his way to Akragas with Sixty-Five Thousand Troops to push Malik Gisgo back out of all of his conquests of the previous year. Rather than stay in Akragas to be besieged while Pyrrhus, who had other forces on the Island, sent troops to strike deeper into Carthaginian Territory, Malik Gisgo instead opted to march out to meet the Epirote King in a field battle and maybe have a chance at preserving the mobility of his Army in Sicily. The two sides would meet in battle beneath the shadow of Mount Kakyron, some twenty-three kilometers east of Akragas on the Ides of March, Two-Eighty.

The fate of the war would largely be decided there. . .

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AN: So yeah, Carthage has reinforced Gisgo just in time for the Sea Lanes to be closed to future reinforcements. Furthermore, the Islands of Hiera, Aegusa, and Phorbantia, which we know as the modern-day Aegadian Islands of Marittimo, Favignaga, and Levanzo off the western coast of Sicily have fallen into Epirote Hands. That means that even if the Carthaginian Fleet breaks out of their blockade somehow, Epirus is still going to be able to intercept any reinforcements or resupply going into and out of Lilybaeum, which is the primary port of Carthage on Sicily.

This plus the Shophets scheming and the Barcids building up a power base in Iberia is going to cause Carthage several massive headaches in the near future. Plus there's also the fact that Gisgo's Army is almost seventy percent mercenaries now, which is also going to cause problems in the event that Gisgo loses the war, which is seeming more likely by the day. Expect Carthage to have to deal with political turmoil and a Mercenary War in the near future.

For now, though, the next chapter will be a look at various Minor Powers, and then we'll be back with Pyrrhus.

Stay tuned. . .