Iberians

It was a master class in the skills of leading an army.

The immediate task for the Carthaginian expeditionary force was to tighten their grip on the Iberian Peninsula.

But no one was in any doubt as to who the eventual target was.

Rome.

In 229, when Hannibal was just 18, his charismatic father, Hamilcar, was killed in battle against Iberian tribesmen.

On his death, command of the army passed to his son-in-law, Hasdrubal.

Hasdrubal could see the military genius of his young kinsman and put Hannibal in charge of the cavalry, vital experience for the years ahead.

Biding his time, he decided to test his command in the west, far away from Rome's sphere of influence.

Do not play any games on me about whether I am a Celt, a word that is dim to the anthropologist and utterly unmeaning to anybody else.

Do not start any drivelling discussions about whether the word Shaw is German or Scandinavian or Iberian or Basque.

You know you are human.

I know I am Irish.

At the touch, Shaw poured forth a torrent of theory, explaining that climate was the only thing that affected nationality and that whatever races came into the English or Irish climate would become like the English or Irish.

Now the modern theory of race is certainly a piece of stupid materialism.

It is an attempt to explain the things we are sure of, France, Scotland, Rome, Japan, by means of the things we are not sure of at all, prehistoric conjectures, Celts, Mongols and Iberians.

Of course, there is a reality in race, but there is no reality in the theories of race offered by some ethnological professors.

Do not play any games on me about whether I am a Celt, a word that is dim to the anthropologist and utterly unmeaning to anybody else.

Do not start any driveling discussions about whether the word Shaw is German or Scandinavian or Iberian or Basque.

You know you are human.

i know i am irish i know i belong to a certain type and temper of society i know that all sorts of people of all sorts of blood live in that society and by that society and are therefore irish you can take your books of anthropology to hell or to oxford thus gently elaborately and at length mr shaw would have explained his meaning if he had thought it worth his while as he did not he merely flung the symbolic but very complete sentence i am a typical irishman my family came from yorkshire What, then, is the colour of this Irish society, of which Bernard Shaw, with all his individual oddity, is yet an essential type? One generalisation, I think, may at least be made.

What they cared about was getting and giving in Britain what they had got and given in Gaul.

We do not know whether the Britons then, or for that matter the Britons now, were Iberian or Cymric or Teutonic.

We do know that in a short time they were Roman.

Every now and then there is discovered in modern England some fragment such as a Roman pavement.

The red hair and large limbs of the inhabitants of Caledonia point clearly to a German origin.

The dark complexion of the Silures, their usually curly hair, and the fact that Spain is the opposite shore to them, are an evidence that Iberians of a former date crossed over and occupied these parts.

Those who are nearest to the Gauls are also like them, either from the permanent influence of original descent, or because in countries which run out so far to meet each other, climate has produced similar physical qualities.

But a general survey inclines me to believe that the Gauls established themselves in an island so near to them.

Do not play any games on me about whether I am a Celt, a word that is dim to the anthropologist and utterly unmeaning to anybody else.

Do not start any drivelling discussions about whether the word Shaw is German or Scandinavian or Iberian or Basque.

You know you are human.

I know I am Irish.

Do not play any games on me about whether I am a Celt, a word that is dim to the anthropologist and utterly unmeaning to anybody else.

Do not start any driveling discussions about whether the word Shaw is German or Scandinavian or Iberian or Basque.

You know you are human.

I know I am Irish.

At the touch Shaw poured forth a torrent of theory, explaining that climate was the only thing that affected nationality and that whatever races came into the English or Irish climate would become like the English or Irish.

Now the modern theory of race is certainly a piece of stupid materialism.

It is an attempt to explain the things we are sure of, France, Scotland, Rome, Japan, by means of the things we are not sure of at all, prehistoric conjectures, Celts, Mongols and Iberians.

Of course there is a reality in race but there is no reality in the theories of race offered by some ethnological professors.

The Carthaginians, on the contrary, when they saw that Hero had become their enemy and that the Romans were becoming more deeply involved in the enterprise in Sicily, considered that they themselves required stronger forces in order to be able to confront their enemies and control Sicilian affairs.

They therefore enlisted foreign mercenaries from the opposite coasts, many of them Ligurians, Celts, and still more Iberians, and dispatched them all to Sicily.

Perceiving that the city of Agrigentum had the greatest natural advantages for making their preparations, it being also the most important city in their province, they collected their troops and supplies there and decided to use it as a base in the war.

Meanwhile, the Roman consuls who had made the treaty with Hero had left, and their successors, Lucius Postumius and Quintus Mamilius, 262 BC, had arrived in Sicily with their legions.

For the Carthaginian practice of employing hired troops of various nationalities is indeed well calculated to prevent them from combining rapidly in acts of insubordination or disrespect to their officers, but in cases of an outburst of anger or of slanderous rumours or disaffection, it is most prejudicial to all efforts to convey the truth to them, to calm their passions, or to conciliate the culprits.

Indeed, such forces, when once their anger is aroused against anyone or slander spreads among them, are not content with mere human wickedness, but end by becoming like wild beasts or men deranged, as happened in the present case.

Some of these troops were Iberians, some Celts, some Ligurians, and some from the Balearic Islands.

There were a good many Greek half-breeds, mostly deserters and slaves, but the largest portion consisted of Libyans.