a Carthaginian general, the father of Hannibal, of a family which pretended to trace its descent to the ancient kings of Tyre, and which, from the warlike nature of its policy, was a favourite with the people. It was the eighteenth year of the first Punic war (247 B.C.), when Hamilcar was appointed to the command of the Carthaginian forces in Sicily, from which they were nearly expelled. With his fleet he plundered the land of the Brutti and Locrians, and then took up his station near Eryx, from which no power of the Romans could dislodge him. For five years he continued to desolate the coast of Italy, and to dispute the possession of Sicily, but his exertions were destined to prove of no avail. The fate of the war was decided without his intervention, in the naval engagement off the Insulae Cegaes, and he had nothing but the humiliating duty to perform of arranging with the Romans the terms on which peace would be granted.

The Carthaginians were no sooner relieved from this critical position than they were threatened with a war of a still more alarming character. Their own mercenaries having assembled at Carthage to receive their arrears of pay, became clamorous and unreasonable in their demands, and at last proceeded to make open war on the country in whose defence they had been hitherto employed. Hamilcar was again called into active service, and soon relieved his country from all fear of these league banditti. The insulting conduct of the Romans was keenly felt by Hamilcar, and the whole object of his life was now directed to find the means of taking vengeance on his proud foe. For this purpose he procured his appointment to the command of the troops in Spain, with the hope of uniting to his country the whole of the peninsula. Here he expected to find resources which would enable him to make a successful attack on the Romans; and during the course of nearly nine years he continued extending the dominions of the republic, and reducing many nations under the Carthaginian yoke. At last he fell in an engagement with the Vettones, 229 B.C., and his son-in-law Hasdrubal, succeeded to the command. (Polyb. ii. i.)