FRAGMENT OF
THE MERCENARY WAR.
The battle
of the Saw.
Attention
to this fragment. It puzzles me for a very long time. Where did those events
took place? Tissot has an opinion (near Kairouan), Kromayer & Veith think
of Sidi Jedidi and I am inclined to believe the last one. I went there in 1982
and found a mountain-range, that fits very well in the description of the
battle, which is nicknamed as the battle of the SAW.
Description
of the events:
In the
beginning of the year 238, the struggle is focused again applied in
the inland. Spendios, Matho and Zarzas (Mercenary-leaders) collect an army
of 50,000 men in the mountains. They involve positions, which are spread
in the inland and those are promptly defeated one by one. Slowly but definitely
the forces of the rebels are diminishing and finally Hamilcar succeeds in
encircling a large number of them in a trap in a ravine. Surrender of the detainees is not considered,
because their fate is there well known. It comes to degrading conditions.
After the hunger even follows cannibalism. The rebels themselves become
increasingly clashed with eachother and finally kill each other
off. Eventually, with the starvation in mind is a delegation to Hamilcar is
joining him to negotiate surrender. His demand is: extradition by choosing him
10 hostages, after which the others can go without weapons. The terms of
Hamilcar, who are very clement, of course are accepted, but at
the overwrought starving, the madness near being insurgents,
finds probably a catastrophic misunderstanding place in their minds.
Hamilcar choose sly the 10 negotiators as the 10 hostages and when they
don’t return, the rebels think of treason and still seize the weapons and
try to break out from the encircling.
Then
Hamilcar does with his elephants in front a large-scale attack, whereby
the weakened rebels hardly are no more fighting party. Becomes narrated
that almost all the besieged rebels (40,000!?) were put to death.
