Sacred Band of Carthage

The Sacred Band of Carthage is the name used by ancient Greek historians to refer to an elite infantry unit of Carthaginian citizens that served in military campaigns during the fourth century BC. It is unknown how they identified themselves or whether they were considered a distinct formation.

The Sacred Band was highly atypical since Carthaginian citizens generally only served as officers or cavalry; the bulk of Carthaginian armies was usually made up of foreign mercenaries, infantry from allied communities (who might be Punic colonists), and levies from client states. It consisted of 2,000-3,000 heavy infantry drawn from the wealthiest families of Carthage; Plutarch describes its members as "inferior to none among them as to birth, wealth, or reputation" and distinguished by "the splendour of their arms, and the slowness and order of their march". Trained from an early age to be tough phalanx spearmen, they fought in a well organized phalanx style developed in Greece. As in many Greek city-states and the early Roman Republic, members of the Sacred Band were armed and equipped at their own expense, and thus had high quality armor and weaponry.

The earliest known mention of this unit is in the first century AD by Diodorus Siculus, in his account of the Battle of the Crimissus in Sicily in 341 BC. He describes the Carthaginians being ambushed by Greek forces while crossing the river Crimissus, and the prolonged engagement that followed during torrential rain. "Even the Carthaginians who composed the Sacred Band, twenty-five hundred in number and drawn from the ranks of those citizens who were distinguished for valour and reputation as well as for wealth, were all cut down after a gallant struggle".

In the second century AD, Plutarch writes of the same events, but makes no explicit mention of the Sacred Band. He describes Carthaginian forces as consisting of 10,000 infantrymen bearing white shields, wearing splendorous armor, and marching in a disciplined manner. Among the casualties of the battle, he notes that "three thousand were those of Carthaginians, a great affliction for the city.