WI Carthage Loses Africa But Keeps Spain

ben0628

Banned
Is there any way that Carthage loses its capital and all of North Africa, but manages to form a new, lasting empire based in Spain?
 
I don't think it's that plausible, for some reasons.

1) Spain was a particularily rich province, famed for its mines and its fertility. The Second Punic War ended with the objective to curb down Carthagian's ambitions, and giving Spain away would be, all proportion kepts, as taking the northern half of the peninsula while allowing Spain to keep Peru.
Of course, the prospect of swallowing up new rich provinces, like Sicily was, played a lot as well.

2) It was less a Carthaginian holding, than a Barcid holding. On several aspect, Iberia was indeed largely autonomous from the city's assemblies and power, and firmly entranched into a semi-dynastic, semi-military authority which benefitted the "imperialist" faction in Carthage and justified its frontal opposition to Rome (the conquest of Iberia was really frowned upon by the "Africanist", more moderate faction). It was a poll of ressources, not only for precious metal, slaves, and lands but also for military recruitment.
On this regard, taking over Spain was also taking over the power base of Barcids and ruining the hopes of the "imperialist" faction in Carthage.*

*As a side note, I'm leaning to think that a Barcid victory in the Second Punic War would possibly end as a civil war between these factions, which Rome could use to recover in Italy. But I digress.

3) The expension in Spain was seen as a threat to Roman and Massaliote (traditional allies of Rome in the region) interests. The casus belli for the second punic war, was the war Barcids waged against Iberian peoples, namely against the city of Arse*, or generally their expansion (territorial or influential way beyond southern Iberia**).
That Barcid rule more or less bullied Iberian chiefdoms into submission gave Romans hope to win them over : which more or less happened immediatly (until Iberians peoples realized Romans weren't that a better option).
Eventually, the return of traditional alliance (focused on Italy and Massalia since decades for some peoples, especially in the North-East) or shifting of alliances in the South, allowed Rome to prospect a much better management, than in Africa : attempting to annex African cities would have turned the "Africanist" faction against them, providing a much longer war (that Rome could only pull by a new pressure on its ressources and allies) with the certainty that ruling over a really hostile population (especially with a Carthaginian powerhouse in Spain) would be difficult and costly.

*Now you had a good laugh, people, shall we continue?

** It's not clear how much influence had Carthage on Ibero-Ligurians peoples as Elysices, but giving the widespread destruction of sites such as Pech Maho, you probably had at least war by proxy in the early IInd century in modern Languedoc.
I'd say more, IMO, giving that Hannibal's journey in Gaul was as much to overturn Roman naval protection than to recruit mercenaries and make political points in Gaul.
 
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