of the mother country. They well knew how often the treasury of
Carthage was empty owing to the extravagance and dishonesty of
her rulers, and how impossible it would be to obtain thence the
supplies required for the army. Therefore they established immense
workshops, where arms, munitions of war, machines for sieges, and
everything required for the use of the army were fabricated.

Vast as were the expenses of these establishments, the revenues of
Iberia were amply sufficient not only to defray all the cost of
occupation, but to transmit large sums to Carthage. These revenues
were derived partly from the tribute paid by conquered tribes,
partly from the spoils taken in captured cities, but most of all
from the mines of gold and silver, which were at that time immensely
rich, and were worked by the labour of slaves taken in war or of
whole tribes subdued.

Some idea of the richness of these mines may be formed by the
fact that one mine, which Hannibal had inherited from his father,
brought in to him a revenue of nearly a thousand pounds a day;
and this was but one of his various sources of wealth. This was
the reason that Hamilcar, Hasdrubal, and Hannibal were able to
maintain themselves in spite of the intrigues of their enemies in
the capital. Their armies were their own rather than those of the
country.

It was to them that the soldiers looked for their pay, as well as
for promotion and rewards for valour, and they were able, therefore,
to carry out the plans which their genius suggested untrammelled
by orders from Carthage. They occupied, indeed, a position very
similar to that of Wallenstein, when, with an army raised and