; who bargain for blood, as though it were an article of trade,
and always go to the cheapest market. In such a republic, when an exigency
is once answered, the merit of services is no longer remembered.

These soldiers, most of whom came to Carthage, having been long accustomed
to a licentious life, caused great disturbances in the city; to remedy
which, it was proposed to their officers, to march them all to a little
neighbouring town called Sicca, and there supply them with whatever was
necessary for their subsistence, till the arrival of the rest of their
companions; and that then they should all be paid off, and sent home. This
was a second oversight.

A third was, the refusing to let them leave their baggage, their wives,
and children in Carthage, as they desired; and the forcing them to remove
these to Sicca; whereas, had they staid in Carthage, they would have been
in a manner so many hostages.

Being all met together at Sicca, they began (having little else to do) to
compute the arrears of their pay, which they made amount to much more than
was really due to them. To this computation, they added the mighty
promises which had been made them, at different times, as an encouragement
for them to do their duty; and pretended that these likewise ought to be
brought into the account. Hanno, who was then governor of Africa, and had
been sent to them from the magistrates of Carthage, proposed to them to
consent to some abatement of their arrears; and to content themselves with
receiving a part, in consideration of the great distress to which the
commonwealth was reduced, and its present unhappy circumstances. The
reader will easily guess how such a proposal was received. Complaints,
murmurs, seditious and insolent clamours, were every where heard. These
troops being composed of different nations, who were strangers to one
another's language, were incapable of hearing reason when they once
mutinied. Spaniards, Gauls, Ligurians; inhabitants of the Balearic isles;
Greeks, the greatest part of them slaves or deserters, and a very great
number of Africans, composed these mercenary forces. Transported with
rage, they immediately break up, march towards Carthage, (being upwards of
twenty thousand,) and encamp at Tunis, not far from that metropolis.

The Carthaginians discovered too late their error. There was no
compliance, how grovelling soever, to which they did not stoop, to soothe
these exasperated soldiers: who, on thei