238 BC

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Events

By place

Carthage

* Hamilcar Barca strikes at the supply lines of the mercenary army besieging Carthage, forcing them to cease the siege of the city. He then fights a series of running engagements with the mercenary armies, keeping them off-balance. Hamilcar manages to force the mercenary armies into a box canyon in the Battle of "The Saw". The mercenaries are besieged in the canyon.
* The mercenary army, under the leadership of Spendius, attempts to fight its way out of the siege but is totally defeated by the Carthaginian forces led by Hamilcar Barca. After the battle, Hamilcar executes some 40,000 rebel mercenaries.
* Hamilcar's armies capture a number of rebel Libyan cities. The Libyan settlements that have rebelled surrender to Carthage, with the exception of Utica and Hippacritae.
* Hamilcar and another Carthaginian general, Hannibal, besiege Mathos' mercenary army at Tunis and crucify the captured mercenary leaders in sight of the mercenary battlements.
* Mathos exploits a weakness in Hannibal's defences and launches an attack against his army, capturing Hannibal and several other high ranking Carthaginians. The mercenaries then crucify the captured Carthaginian leaders.
* Carthaginian reinforcements led by Hanno the Great join the battle. They defeat Mathos' mercenary forces and Mathos is captured.
* The Carthaginian armies besiege and capture Utica and Hippacritae. This ends the Carthaginian civil war.
* The Romans declare war on the Carthaginians over which state controls Sardinia. However, Carthage defers to Rome rather than enter yet another war and gives up any claim to Sardinia.

Egypt

* The Decree of Canopus, also called "Table Of Tanis", is a memorial stone promulgated by an assemblage of priests in honour of Ptolemy III Euergetes and his consort Berenice. The decree, written in Greek, demotic, and hieroglyphs is an ancient bilingual Egyptian decree that provides a key for deciphering hieroglyphic and the simpler demotic scripts.

Persia

* Arsaces, chief of an Iranian nomad tribe, the Parni, murders the Seleucid governor of Persia, Andragoras, and then sets up the kingdom of the Parthians in the land he conquers from the Seleucid king Antiochus II in remote areas of northern Iran, in what is today known as Turkmenistan.

Births

*

Deaths

* Andragoras, Seleucid satrap (governor) of Parthia
* Xun Zi, Chinese philosopher (approximate date)