Autaritus - Wikipedia
Jump to content
Main menu
Main menu
move to sidebar
hide
Navigation
Main page
Contents
Current events
Random article
About Wikipedia
Contact us
Contribute
Help
Learn to edit
Community portal
Recent changes
Upload file
Special pages
Search
Search
Appearance
Donate
Create account
Log in
Personal tools
Donate
Create account
Log in
Contents
move to sidebar
hide
(Top)
1
Footnotes
2
References
Toggle the table of contents
Autaritus
10 languages
Български
Català
Dansk
Ελληνικά
Español
Français
עברית
Português
Русский
Kiswahili
Edit links
Article
Talk
English
Read
Edit
View history
Tools
Tools
move to sidebar
hide
Actions
Read
Edit
View history
General
What links here
Related changes
Upload file
Permanent link
Page information
Cite this page
Get shortened URL
Switch to legacy parser
Print/export
Download as PDF
Printable version
In other projects
Wikidata item
Appearance
move to sidebar
hide
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
3rd-century BCE Gallic chieftain and mercenary
Mercenary rebels"},"battles":{"wt":"{{Tree list}}\n*[[First Punic War]]\n**[[Battle of Agrigentum]]\n*[[Mercenary War]]\n**[[Hamilcar's defeat of Spendius and Autaritus|Hamilcar's victory with Naravas]]\n**[[Battle of the Saw]]\n{{tree list/end}}"}},"i":0}}]}'
AutaritusDied238 BCEAllegianceCarthage
Mercenary rebels
Conflicts
First Punic War
Battle of Agrigentum
Mercenary War
Hamilcar's victory with Naravas
Battle of the Saw
Autaritus (Ancient Greek: Αὐτάριτος
; died 238 BCE) was a leader of Gallic mercenaries in the Carthaginian army during the First Punic War and later a rebel commander in the Mercenary War.
With his men Autaritus fought in 262 BCE at the Battle of Agrigentum and remained loyal to Carthage when his countrymen defected en masse to the Romans. After his return to Africa he was compelled to join the other mercenaries hired by Carthage during the war in mutinying due to the Carthaginians' inability and reluctance to pay them. He became a noted leader during the following conflict, along with Spendius and Mathos.
In 240 BCE, Autaritus led a force of Gallic infantry under Spendius during a campaign shadowing Carthaginian general Hamilcar Barca's army, which had been attacking rebel-allied towns. Unable to face the superior Carthaginian cavalry and war elephants, they instead harassed them with raids from harsher, higher terrain. Eventually, they managed to trap the Carthaginians in a narrow valley, the location of which has never been discovered, and prepared for battle. However, Naravas, a Numidian cavalry commander, defected to the Carthaginians with his 2,000 horsemen, giving Hamilcar an opportunity to escape. Despite fierce fighting, Autaritus was forced to pull his men back to Hippo.
With Autaritus' gifts as an orator and his knowledge of Phoenician, he incited his men to particular savagery. Notably, he was the instigator of the massacre of the Carthaginian commander Gisco and his men in 239 BCE, fearing that the Carthaginians' fair treatment of prisoners was causing defections like Naravas', which he hoped to dissuade by showing no such quarter. This incident caused Hamilcar Barca to subsequently offer no mercy to the rebels he faced for the rest of the conflict, leading it to be termed as the Truceless War.
Eventually he and the rebels, after several months of a series of brutal skirmishes, were forcibly maneveured by Hamilcar against a mountain range at the Battle of the Saw in 238 BCE. Despite holding out for several weeks, slowly starving and resorting to cannibalism, Spendius, Autaritus and a rebel lieutenant called Zarzas were eventually forced to parley with Hamilcar and were taken prisoner. Together with other mercenary leaders, he was crucified before the walls of Tunis, in full view of their comrades defending the city.[1]
Footnotes[edit]
↑ Polybius i. 77, 79, 80, 85, 86.
References[edit]
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain:
Smith, William, ed. (1870). "Autaritus". Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology. p. 446.
Authority control databases
VIAF
GND
This biographical article related to the European military is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by adding missing information.
v
t
e
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Autaritus&oldid=1364744597"
Categories:
Celtic warriors
Gaulish people
Carthaginian commanders of the First Punic War
Ancient mercenaries
People executed by crucifixion
238 BC deaths
European military personnel stubs
Hidden categories:
Use dmy dates from July 2026
Articles with short description
Short description matches Wikidata
Articles containing Ancient Greek (to 1453)-language text
Wikipedia articles incorporating a citation from the DGRBM
Wikipedia articles incorporating a citation from the DGRBM without a Wikisource reference
Wikipedia articles incorporating text from the DGRBM
Year of birth unknown
All stub articles
This page was last edited on 18 July 2026, at 07:27 (UTC).
Page was rendered with Parsoid.
Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License;
additional terms may apply. By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization.
Privacy policy
About Wikipedia
Disclaimers
Contact Wikipedia
Legal & safety contacts
Code of Conduct
Developers
Statistics
Cookie statement
Mobile view
Search
Search
Toggle the table of contents
Autaritus
10 languages
Add topic