Professional Carthaginian Army

[Happers]

How could Carthage have created a professional army, instead of mercenaries? Correct if I'm wrong but isn't the reason that they didn't was because Carthage had a lot of skilled people in the capital (Carthage). So, why didn't they just levy troops from Iberia, Berber North Africa, Sicily, or Sardinia as part time or full time soldiers?

Also, I might as well put this here. If Carthage won the Punic Wars would they have adopted Roman military technology or would they have continued using the Hoplities and other Greek military technologies?

 

[Practical Lobster]

Are mercenaries not a professional army? Seems to me they're the very definition of a professional army. They're people who make war their profession. We can't understand the role mercenaries in antiquity the way we do in a modern or early modern context. The terms are quite different.

Carthage raised a variety of military forces both from the territory of their home country and from their overseas colonies and hegemony. Some of these forces were obligated to serve the state, others did so for payment. Ultimately if the Carthagian army was heterogeneous, it reflected the diverse sources from which they could gather manpower. In practice I don't think that system looks much different than any other city-state army of the time period. Later, as Carthage began to be stripped of her overseas colonies, yes, they did rely increasingly on hired foriegn troops. But we also have to avoid basing our understanding of Carthage entirely off of ancient writers with profound biases and utilize more epigraphic and archeological sources.

I wouldn't think of Roman military as a technology, but rather a system. It seems very unlikely Carthage would adopt that system wholesale. It isnt really suited to the exigencies of an overseas trading empire. Individual military technologies were exchanged by both sides over the course of the wars. See also: the Roman sword design, among other things.

 

[Deleted member 97083]

Are mercenaries not a professional army? Seems to me they're the very definition of a professional army. They're people who make war their profession. We can't understand the role mercenaries in antiquity the way we do in a modern or early modern context. The terms are quite different.

I believe what he means is a standing army.

 

[Practical Lobster]

I believe what he means is a standing army.

Which Carthage did have. More so than many Italian polities. Standing garrison forces in various colonies, standing mercenary forces, etc.

 

[Happers]

I believe what he means is a standing army.

Yeah, I meant standing army. Sorry for the confusion.

 

[Happers]

Are mercenaries not a professional army? Seems to me they're the very definition of a professional army. They're people who make war their profession. We can't understand the role mercenaries in antiquity the way we do in a modern or early modern context. The terms are quite different.

Carthage raised a variety of military forces both from the territory of their home country and from their overseas colonies and hegemony. Some of these forces were obligated to serve the state, others did so for payment. Ultimately if the Carthagian army was heterogeneous, it reflected the diverse sources from which they could gather manpower. In practice I don't think that system looks much different than any other city-state army of the time period. Later, as Carthage began to be stripped of her overseas colonies, yes, they did rely increasingly on hired foriegn troops. But we also have to avoid basing our understanding of Carthage entirely off of ancient writers with profound biases and utilize more epigraphic and archeological sources.

I wouldn't think of Roman military as a technology, but rather a system. It seems very unlikely Carthage would adopt that system wholesale. It isnt really suited to the exigencies of an overseas trading empire. Individual military technologies were exchanged by both sides over the course of the wars. See also: the Roman sword design, among other things.

Sorry I meant standing army.

By Roman technologies I meant their shields, armor, and tactics.

 

[Practical Lobster]

Yeah, I meant standing army. Sorry for the confusion.

Yes, but like many ancient polities, Carthage did employ standing forces, as garrisons and otherwise.

 

[Happers]

Which Carthage did have. More so than many Italian polities. Standing garrison forces in various colonies, standing mercenary forces, etc.

I thought the mercenaries were part time though. Payed until the Carthaginian government didn't need them any more, then just relying on local garrison and the Carthaginian navy.

 

[Happers]

Yes, but like many ancient polities, Carthage did employ standing forces, as garrisons and otherwise.

But were these standing armies attack forces? I thought mercenaries were the attack forces with very little native born Carthaginians. With exceptions like the Sacred Band.

 

[Practical Lobster]

But were these standing armies attack forces? I thought mercenaries were the attack forces with very little native born Carthaginians. With exceptions like the Sacred Band.

Much depends on what we're defining as "native Carthaginian." As far as I know, based on the large military barracks maintained in Carthage, at least a substantial portion of the Carthaginian military was retained.

When Carthage would embark on a major campaign, particularly early in their history, mercenary forces were supplemented with soldiers raised from their subjects and clients as well as their homeland - Libyans and Carthaginian colonists. However, this isn't that much different than the practices of Republican Rome at the same time.

 

[Fabius Maximus]

How could Carthage have created a professional army, instead of mercenaries? Correct if I'm wrong but isn't the reason that they didn't was because Carthage had a lot of skilled people in the capital (Carthage). So, why didn't they just levy troops from Iberia, Berber North Africa, Sicily, or Sardinia as part time or full time soldiers?

Also, I might as well put this here. If Carthage won the Punic Wars would they have adopted Roman military technology or would they have continued using the Hoplities and other Greek military technologies?

I think the main reason they relied so much on mercenaries was that they didn't have the manpower to raise large armies and crew their enormous fleet, and since the navy was considered more important (Carthage being primarily a trading nation after all) most citizens served at sea. Plus the Carthaginians tended to demilitarise their subjects, at least in North Africa (the cities there were forbidden to build defensive walls IIRC), in case they rebelled, so they weren't able to call on many soldiers from that source either. Basically to get a bigger native-born Carthaginian army you'd want to either reduce their naval focus, or else have them adopt a policy similar to OTL Rome's of incorporating other cities into the state instead of keeping them as subjects.

 

[dandan_noodles]

Might set up a quasi-Spartan system, where you have a caste of people with enough wealth to not have to work, and thus can devote their whole lives to war. Rather than forming the rank and file, though, they serve as a proto-general staffs to lead armies built out of contingents from their allies, tributaries, and mercenaries. Most of the bodies are foreigners, but a professional Carthaginian officer corps could make them more effective fighters.

By comparison, the Roman army of the Punic Wars was almost completely amateur; soldiers served for campaigns, produced their own weapons, and elected their officers from among their ranks. What sent them apart from Hoplites in Greece was mainly their cultural willingness to submit to military discipline when on campaign; when Spartan generals and officers disciplined their allied contingents, they could be attacked and beaten, and when the contingents returned home, even their own generals could be put on trial when the campaign was over.

 

[Karolus Rex]

Adding to what was said is that you have to remember that the Roman army at the time was a militia force, a well trained militia but still only a militia, not an army made up of professional soldiers (mercs) like the carthaginian one, that was complemented by the troops of the Italian cities under their control. The main Roman advantage was their large manpower pool.

 

[Fabius Maximus]

Might set up a quasi-Spartan system, where you have a caste of people with enough wealth to not have to work, and thus can devote their whole lives to war.

Hopefully they'd treat their Helots better than the Spartans did, or else they'd be constantly constrained by the need to keep most of their manpower at home to fend off rebellions.

 

[dandan_noodles]

I mean, did the Carthaginians not have slaves, or for that matter, the Athenians or the Romans? Since the prospective Carthaginian caste would mostly work as officer corps, them being on campaign wouldn't take that many free men out of the labor pool, so there would be plenty to crack down on possible uprisings.

 

[Dunning Kruger]

So, why didn't they just levy troops from Iberia, Berber North Africa, Sicily, or Sardinia as part time or full time soldiers?

That's exactly what they did. They drew extensively from subject states and some, IIRC the Numidians for example, were extraordinarily effective.

 

[KnightofTempest]

They could have put together an extremely effective Proffesional Army by drawing trainers from all over their Empire. Slingers from the Balaerics, Numidian Horsemen, Heavy Infantry from Iberia and Lybia, they could have drawn trainers from these places and had a small but elite professional force which they could then augment with Vassal Troops.

It probably would have been highly effective, though I'm unsure if it would be effective enough against Rome.

 

[Fabius Maximus]

I mean, did the Carthaginians not have slaves, or for that matter, the Athenians or the Romans? Since the prospective Carthaginian caste would mostly work as officer corps, them being on campaign wouldn't take that many free men out of the labor pool, so there would be plenty to crack down on possible uprisings.

Well, the Carthaginians would presumably have to conquer their empire themselves in order to conscript others into their armies. And even once they had, having to keep a large portion of their manpower at home to keep the serfs in line would limit their strategic possibilities (and, arguably, defeat the main point of having a professional citizen army in the first place -- why bother when you can't ever use it?). Not to mention, it would make them more vulnerable to invasion of their homeland. The comparison between Rome and Sparta is instructive here: even during the darkest day of the Hannibalic War, Rome's allies largely remained loyal to them; on the other hand, when Epaminondas invaded Laconia after the Battle of Leuctra, the helots all deserted to him and Sparta never really recovered.

 

[Indicus]

Carthage was a coastal city - I think the fact that it has left almost no legacy on the Berber peoples is representative of how little it cared for inland territoriee. It was simply too small and sea-oriented to have a Rome-style standing army.

 

[SlyDessertFox]

I mean, did the Carthaginians not have slaves, or for that matter, the Athenians or the Romans? Since the prospective Carthaginian caste would mostly work as officer corps, them being on campaign wouldn't take that many free men out of the labor pool, so there would be plenty to crack down on possible uprisings.

Yes but those Carthaginians were needed to man the war and trade ships.


Anyway the Carthaginian army far more resembled a professional army than the Roman levy army at the time. Their problem was the difficulty in maintaining cohesion in such a diverse army and their general lack of good military leaders.