Battle of the Saw

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.