Carthage was reduced to a second-rate power following the end of the First Punic War, forced to pay an almost-crippling indemnity to victorious Rome and stripped of its overseas possessions on Sicily, Sardinia and Corsica. Hamilcar Barca, father of the great Hannibal, endeavoured to reverse those fortunes. Whilst Rome was occupied with its Illyrian wars, he struck out in the opposite direction, into Iberia, and there set about refilling Carthaginian coffers by exploiting the rich silver deposits to be found there. Hamilcar then used this newly acquired wealth to pay off the state's war reparations to Rome, before rebuilding Carthage's faltering military might into the grand multinational army that his son would later inherit.
