Mago Barca / 马戈·巴卡

Overview

Mago Barca / 马戈·巴卡 is Hannibal Barca / 汉尼拔’s younger brother and a Carthaginian commander who fights in Iberia, loses the decisive Battle of Ilipa / 伊利帕战役 to Scipio Africanus / 大西庇阿, and later opens a final but unsuccessful front in northern Italy.

Current Profile

Mago’s career links Hannibal’s early victories to Carthage’s shrinking reinforcement options. After service at Trebia and Cannae, he displays rings taken from dead Roman elites to the Carthaginian Senate and helps secure additional troops, cavalry, elephants, and money.

In Iberia he helps maintain local loyalty and participates in the destruction of the older Scipios’ armies. By 206 BC, however, he and his allies face Scipio at Ilipa. Roman preparation, cavalry performance, and envelopment destroy the last effective Carthaginian field army in Spain.

Mago survives, fails to retake New Carthage, establishes a base in the Balearics, and invades northern Italy. He captures Genoa and sustains a campaign for several years, but he is wounded, recalled, and dies on the voyage to Carthage.

Key Characteristics

• Connects Hannibal’s Italian victories to requests for Carthaginian reinforcement.
• Helps sustain Carthaginian alliances and command in Iberia.
• Participates in the defeat of the older Scipio commanders.
• Loses the decisive Iberian field campaign at Ilipa.
• Continues resistance through a later invasion of northern Italy.

Evidence

• Reinforcement advocacy: 641. Rome’s Greatest Enemy: Hannibal’s Nemesis (Part 2) links Mago’s post-Cannae presentation at Carthage to new resources for the war.
• Iberian command: 641. Rome’s Greatest Enemy: Hannibal’s Nemesis (Part 2) describes his alliance work, role in the older Scipios’ defeat, and command at Ilipa.
• Final campaigns: 641. Rome’s Greatest Enemy: Hannibal’s Nemesis (Part 2) traces his failed New Carthage attack, Balearic base, invasion of northern Italy, wounding, recall, and death.

Qualifications

This profile is bounded to one podcast episode. The rings display, exact reinforcements, alliance motives, force totals, battle roles, chronology, place-name etymology, campaign duration, wounds, recall, and circumstances of death remain source-scoped.

What Changed

• Created the canonical page for Hannibal’s younger brother and his Spanish and Italian campaigns.
• Located Ilipa as the decisive loss of Carthaginian field capacity in Iberia rather than the end of all resistance.

Relationships

• Hannibal Barca / 汉尼拔 - older brother whose Italian war Mago supports and later tries to reinforce.
• Hasdrubal Barca / 哈斯德鲁巴·巴卡 - brother and fellow commander in the multi-army defense of Iberia.
• Scipio Africanus / 大西庇阿 - Roman commander who defeats his army at Ilipa.
• Massinissa / 马西尼萨 - Numidian ally who fights beside him at Ilipa before changing alignment.
• Battle of Ilipa / 伊利帕战役 - decisive defeat that removes effective Carthaginian field power from Iberia.
• New Carthage / 新迦太基 - lost strategic center he later fails to retake.