212 – 211 BC
The Upper Baetis
For several years the Scipios receive no reinforcements from Italy and fight on with raids and alliances with Iberian tribes. In 212 BC they retake Saguntum and take Castulo, a mining town and the home of Hannibal’s wife Imilce, where they winter. Hasdrubal Barca is now joined by two more Carthaginian armies under his brother Mago and Hasdrubal Gisco.
The Tower of the Scipios near Tarraco, a Roman funerary monument that tradition links to Gnaeus and Publius Scipio, lithograph in Recuerdos y bellezas de España, 1839Wikimedia Commons, Recuerdos y bellezas de España, Public domain (Recuerdos y bellezas de España - Torre dels Escipions (IA recuerdosybellez12parc) (page 456 crop).jpg)
In 211 BC the brothers hire 20,000 Celtiberian mercenaries to add to their 30,000 Romans and allies, and divide their forces. Publius marches against Mago near Castulo, is caught by Masinissa’s Numidian cavalry and the armies of Mago and Hasdrubal Gisco, and is killed with most of his men. Hasdrubal Barca bribes the Celtiberians with Gnaeus to go home, and a few days later Gnaeus is overrun and killed on a hill near Ilorca. The survivors, about 8,000 to 9,000 men, gather north of the Ebro.
Sources
- Livy, History of Rome, book 25, 32 to 36.
- Dexter Hoyos, Mastering the West (2015).
- Adrian Goldsworthy, The Fall of Carthage (2006).
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