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What if Carthage, instead of eventually winning the Mercenary War looses it?

How can the city can loose it in first place? Is a sack of Carthago needed and plausible, or a Mercenary victory can be translated as the establishment of a mercenary state in Africa?

Then, what would be the consequences? Mercenaries entering in roman sphere of influence seems possible, and at least tentatives of take-over of Carthagian non-african lands (as Spain) could happen earlier as IOTL.
As for Carthage, the successful war made the city a bit more "democratic", less traditionally aristocratic at least.
Would a more conservative merchant republic, without the same impetus to go in Spain, be crushed earlier than Rome, if a defeat in Mercenary War can weakened it significantly?
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