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Updated: June 6, 2025
On the first expedition to Nepheris, when the passage of the river had taken place in opposition to his advice and had almost occasioned the destruction of the army, by a bold attack in flank he relieved the pressure on the retreating troops, and by his devoted and heroic courage rescued a division which had been given up as lost While the other officers, and the consul in particular, by their perfidy deterred the towns and party-leaders that were inclined to negotiate, Scipio succeeded in inducing one of the ablest of the latter, Himilco Phameas, to pass over to the Romans with 2200 cavalry.
Of the army of the enemy, the Sicilians, as soon as they perceived that diseases had become very common from the unwholesomeness of the situation, dispersed to their respective cities in the neighbourhood; but the Carthaginians, who had no place to retire to, perished, together with their generals, Hippocrates and Himilco, to a man.
I may answer therefore to Himilco, that I have not ceased to regret the war, nor shall I cease to censure your invincible general until I see the war concluded on some tolerable terms; nor will any thing except a new peace put a period to my regret for the loss of the old one.
Nor was the siege of Saguntum, in the mean time, less vigorously maintained; Maharbal, the son of Himilco, whom Hannibal had set over the army, carrying on operations so actively that neither the townsmen nor their enemies perceived that the general was away.
Much about the same time, Himilco, who had kept his fleet for a long time at the promontory of Pachynus, landed twenty-five thousand infantry, three thousand horse, and twelve elephants, at Heraclea, which they call Minoa. This force was much greater than that which he had before on board his fleet at Pachynus.
A pestilence carried off most of the African army encamped in the valley of Anapus, with the general Himilco. Bomilcar, the Carthaginian admiral, retreated, rather than fight the Roman fleet. Marcellus obtained, by the treachery of a Sicilian captain, possession of the island of Ortygia, where Dionysius had once intrenched himself, the key to the port and the city, and Syracuse fell.
The Carthaginian army, under Hasdrubal, encamped on the other side of the lake near the fortress of Nepheris, whence it obstructed the labours of the Roman soldiers despatched to cut timber for constructing machines, and the able cavalry-leader in particular, Himilco Phameas, slew many of the Romans.
According to Pliny, Hanno and Himilco were contemporaries; the latter author mentions the commentaries of Hanno, but in such a manner as if he had not seen, and did not believe them.
The Carthaginian officer of the ordinary type estimated his mercenaries, and even the Libyan farmers, very much as men in modern warfare estimate cannon-balls; hence such disgraceful proceedings as the betrayal of the Libyan troops by their general Himilco in 358, which was followed by a dangerous insurrection of the Libyans, and hence that proverbial cry of "Punic faith," which did the Carthaginians no small injury.
They began with a regular attack; machines were erected, and in a short time the batteries had demolished six of the towers flanking the walls, so that the breach soon appeared to be practicable. But the able Carthaginian commander Himilco parried this assault by giving orders for the erection of a second wall behind the breach.
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