The text of the entry was: Did you know ... that a Carthaginian army trapped 40,000 rebels and starved them into cannibalism before attacking and killing every man at the Battle of the Saw?
Current status: Featured article
This article is rated FA-class on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following
WikiProjects:
This article is within the scope of the Military history WikiProject. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the project and see a
list of open tasks. To use this banner, please see the
full instructions.Military historyWikipedia:WikiProject Military historyTemplate:WikiProject Military historymilitary history articles
This article is within the scope of the WikiProject Phoenicia, a collaborative effort to improve Wikipedia's coverage of Phoenicia. If you would like to participate, you can visit the project page, where you can join the project and see a list of open tasks.PhoeniciaWikipedia:WikiProject PhoeniciaTemplate:WikiProject PhoeniciaPhoenicia articles
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Africa, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of
Africa on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join
the discussion and see a list of open tasks.AfricaWikipedia:WikiProject AfricaTemplate:WikiProject AfricaAfrica articles
Can you add a note into the map caption indicating which numbered mark represents the Saw? It's not clear, as its not at one of the named cities. Presuming that its #7.
Good point. Sloppy of me. Added.
Background
Like with the Siege of Tunis article, can you add a brief mention of the name Mercenary War when the revolt transitions to open conflict
Done.
Campaign
"The Carthaginians were probably organised in three divisions: one under Hamilcar, one under his senior subordinate general Hannibal, and the third a strong cavalry force commanded by Naravus" - I'm assuming Naravus is a typo for Naravas.
Gah! Thank goodness one of us is literate. Fixed.
Infobox
I feel like "light" would be better than "unknown" for Carthaginian casualties in the infobox.
True. Changed.
Not much to talk about here. Very well written article, and since the majority of it is the same as the material from the Siege of Tunis article I just reviewed, I've already caught most of the errors in the prose. Placing on hold.
Hog FarmBacon14:41, 28 October 2020 (UTC)reply
The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as
this nomination's talk page,
the article's talk page or
Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.
... that a Carthaginian army trapped 40,000 rebels and starved them into cannibalism before attacking them and killing every man at the Battle of the Saw? Source: Hoyos, Dexter (2007). Truceless War: Carthage's Fight for Survival, 241 to 237 BC. Leiden ; Boston: Brill.
ISBN978-90-474-2192-4. "40,000 rebels" p. 206; "starved them into cannibalism" p. 211; "attacking them and killing every man" pp. 216-217.
Five times expanded, well-referenced and neutrally written throughout, Earwig finds only a book title and one short unavoidable phrase. Hook is interesting and cited, QPQ done, ready to go. Good work. The illustration by Poirson was a nice find!
Moonraker (
talk)
02:32, 28 October 2020 (UTC)reply
Hi, I came by to promote this, but I'm having trouble finding the 40,000 rebels in the article. Could you add that, with a cite? Thanks,
Yoninah (
talk)
21:39, 10 November 2020 (UTC)reply
The below statements were identified by an
AI as having minor
POV issues. The aim is to detect
weasel words and inflated/ambiguous language in the statements automatically to aid in article review. Please let us know inline if these below statements indeed have
NPOV issues. Feel free to leave general comments on my
talk page. Your valuable feedback will help us evaluate the AI and refine it for practical use. See the
discussion on
FAR for more information.
Sumit (
talk)
03:56, 16 December 2020 (UTC)reply
Hanno and Hamilcar marched after the rebels with an army totalling over 25,000 men and a large number of war elephants, including every Carthaginian citizen of military age. At the
ensuing battle the rebels were crushed.
He was only saved from destruction when an African leader,
Naravas, who had served with and admired Hamilcar in Sicily, swapped sides with his 2,000
cavalry. This proved disastrous for the rebels, and in the
resulting battle they lost 10,000 killed and 4,000 captured.
They attempted to hold out, but Polybius says that they too "quickly" surrendered, probably in late 238 BC or very early 237 BC. The surrendered towns and cities were treated leniently, although Carthaginian governors were imposed on them.
Carthage was fighting a coalition of
mutinous soldiers and rebellious African cities in the
Mercenary War which had started in 240 BC.
The Carthaginians then attacked the leaderless, starving rebels with their whole force, led by their elephants, and they were massacred to a man.
Content balance
Although this article—a featured article—is titled "Battle of the Saw", there is very little about the actual battle in it. Instead, there are many sections and paragraphs about the
First Punic War, the
Mercenary War (itself a featured article three months ago), the campaigning that led to the battle, and discussion of the armies involved. The battle itself is disposed of in three sentences. The "aftermath" section alone has that many paragraphs. I have to submit that this article, as it currently stands, could very well be merged with the article about the war. --
Piledhigheranddeeper (
talk)
17:29, 21 April 2021 (UTC)reply