ed a permanent settlement.

Sardinia Roman
The Libyan Insurrection
Corsica

They only regretted that the possession of that beautiful island was
not enough to convert the western waters into a Roman inland sea,
so long as Sardinia still remained Carthaginian. Soon, however,
after the conclusion of the peace there appeared an unexpected
prospect of wresting from the Carthaginians this second island of the
Mediterranean. In Africa, immediately after peace had been concluded
with Rome, the mercenaries and the subjects of the Phoenicians joined
in a common revolt. The blame of the dangerous insurrection was
mainly chargeable on the Carthaginian government. In the last years
of the war Hamilcar had not been able to pay his Sicilian mercenaries
as formerly from his own resources, and he had vainly requested that
money might be sent to him from home; he might, he was told, send his
forces to Africa to be paid off. He obeyed; but as he knew the men,
he prudently embarked them in small subdivisions, that the authorities
might pay them off by troops or might at least separate them, and
thereupon he laid down his command. But all his precautions were
thwarted not so much by the emptiness of the exchequer, as by the
collegiate method of transacting business and the folly of the
bureaucracy. They waited till the whole army was once more united in
Libya, and then endeavoured to curtail the pay promised to the men.
Of course a mutiny broke out among the troops, and the hesitating and
cowardly demeanour of the authorities showed the mutineers what they
might dare. Most of them were natives of the districts ruled by, or
dependent on, Carthage; they knew the feelings which had been provoked
throughout these districts by the slaughter decreed by the government
after the expedition of Regulus(1) and by the fearful pressure of
taxation, and they knew also the character of their government, which
never kept faith and never pardoned; they were well aware of what
awaited them, should they disperse to their homes with pay exacted by
mutiny. The Carthaginians had for long been digging the mine, and
they now themselves supplied the men who could not but explode it.
Like wildfire the revolution spread from garrison to garrison, from
village to village; the Libyan women contributed their ornaments to
pay the wages of the mercenaries; a number of Carthaginian citizens,
amongst whom were some of the most distinguished officers of the
Sic