Description

The Battle of the Bagradas River was fought between a Carthaginian army led by Hamilcar Barca, who was victorious, and a rebel force led by Spendius. The battle in 240 BC was fought in what is now northeast Tunisia. Carthage was fighting a coalition of mutinous soldiers and rebellious African cities in the Mercenary War, which had started late the previous year in the wake of the First Punic War. The rebels were blockading Carthage and besieging the northern ports of Utica and Hippo. A Carthaginian army commanded by Hanno had attempted and failed to relieve Utica earlier that year. A second army was assembled in Carthage and entrusted to Hamilcar, who had commanded Carthaginian forces on Sicily for the last six years of the First Punic War.