significant victory over a rebel army led by Spendius at the Battle of the Bagradas River Hamilcar was given joint command of the army. Hamilcar and Hanno were political opponents and had different approaches to fighting the war, so there was no military cooperation between them. Hamilcar campaigned successfully, initially demonstrating leniency in an attempt to woo the rebels over. To ensure a great hatred between the armies, and so prevent their men being tempted to desert to the Carthaginians, in 240 BC Spendius tortured 700 Carthaginian prisoners to death, and henceforth the war was pursued with great brutality. Hamilcar was given supreme command in 239 BC. Meanwhile, the rebels under Mathos had blockaded the Carthaginian-supporting cities of Utica and Hippo (modern Bizerte) and put an army under Spendius into the field. Eventually the rebel field army was destroyed and Spendius captured and crucified. Despite the inhabitants of Utica and Hippo slaughtering their Carthaginian garrisons and going over to the rebels in 239 BC, the following year Mathos and his army left the area around Carthage and marched south to the wealthy port city of Leptis Parva (just south of the modern city of Monastir, Tunisia). This was the capital of the prosperous Byzacium region and had risen against Carthage earlier in the war. The historian Dexter Hoyos speculates that the rebels may have been hoping to leave the area by sea. Battle The Carthaginian Senate encouraged reconciliation between Hanno and Hamilcar, and they agreed to serve together. The pair marched after the rebels with an army totalling perhaps 25,000 including every Carthaginian citizen of military age. On this occasion Hanno and Hamilcar cooperated well together and harassed the rebels on their march. The rebels were forced into a succession of unsuccessful skirmishes in Byzacium as the Carthaginians attempted to wear them down. Mathos, rather than wait to be besieged, decided to meet the Carthaginians in open battle in mid- to late 238 BC. As the rebels were by now in extremis Mathos called in every available man, stripping all rebel-held towns of garrisons. As the rebels' situation had worsened, they had increasingly suffered from desertions. Few of the original mutineers remained, after the previous three years of fierce campaigning, to participate in this battle; most of the rebel army was made up of indigenous North Africans. The Carthaginian army on the other hand, was steadily reinforced and had grown