Hamilcar's victory with Naravas took place in 240 BC in what is now north-west Tunisia. A Carthaginian army led by Hamilcar Barca defeated a rebel army led by Spendius and Autaritus, after 2,000 Numidian cavalry led by Naravas defected from the rebels to Carthage. The precise location location of the battle is unknown. Carthage was fighting a coalition of mutinous soldiers and rebellious African cities in the Mercenary War which had started in 241BC. Hamilcar's army had manoeuvred to bring rebel-controlled towns back to Carthage while a rebel army under the command of Spendius, which included a contingent of Gauls under Autaritus and a group of Numidian cavalry under Naravas, shadowed it. Unable to confront the Carthaginian war elephants and cavalry on open ground, the rebels stayed on higher and rougher terrain and harassed the Carthaginian army. The Carthaginians became trapped in a mountain valley and their situation was bleak. Naravas defected to Carthage, bringing his 2,000 cavalry with him. Hamilcar, with his route of retreat now clear, deployed for battle. Spendius chose to engage and in a hard-fought battle was heavily defeated. Spendius perceived Hamilcar's generous treatment of rebel prisoners as the motivation behind Naravas's defection and feared the disintegration of his army. To remove the possibility of any goodwill between the sides, he had 700 Carthaginian prisoners tortured to death. The Carthaginians, in turn, killed their prisoners. From this point, neither side showed any mercy, and the unusual ferocity of the fighting caused the contemporary historian Polybius to term it the "Truceless War". The rebel army was finally defeated in 238 BC, with the last rebel city surrendering in 237 BC. Background The First Punic War was fought between Carthage and Rome, the two main powers of the western Mediterranean in the 3rd century BC, and lasted for 23 years, from 264 to 241 BC. The two powers struggled for supremacy primarily on the Mediterranean island of Sicily and its surrounding waters, and also in North Africa. While the war with Rome was being fought on Sicily, the Carthaginian general Hanno led a series of campaigns which greatly increased the area of Africa controlled by Carthage. He extended its control to Theveste (modern Tébessa, in Algeria) south west of their capital. Hanno was rigorous in squeezing taxes out of the newly conquered territory to pay for both the war with Rome and his own campaigns. Half of all