It’s a long held assumption that traders, like the Carthaginians are often assumed to have been, didn’t know how to handle weapons. They lived in an age before the Pax Americana that secured global trade. In the Early Middle Ages, Jewish traders were in conflict with more religious Jews, because they wore their swords on Sabbath and considered this non-negotionable. It was suicidal for a trader to transport immense amounts of wealth through the world, without the ability to defend them and his life anywhere anytime with weapon in hand.

Mercenaries weren’t the best choice to improve chances in this regard, because who were the people choosing this profession? Could you trust them or would they rob you instead of the robbers. A trade expedition needed armed men with arms suitable to fight skirmishes that trusted each other, because they wanted to get home together. For this reason Carthaginian and other North African traders needed the bulk of the escort of a trading mission to be fellows rooted in North Africa, within reach of Carthaginian retributions. The bond to the homeland was especially through the family with whom wealth from the expedition could be shared and who provided social security if things went wrong.

Carthaginians created important cooperative bonds by marrying their daughters to men, whom they wanted to trust in a joined undertaking. It’s likely that some, especially young adventurous, Carthaginians contacted a trader in their extended family or among the family’s friends and acquaintances, when they came of age and explored the world via an established trade route. A few might have partaken on explorations even further abroad and lived to tell the tale of strange lands and customs. But the prerequisite was that they were all well versed with weapons. And not every Carthaginian left the surroundings of Carthage or felt the need to acquire skill at arms. Most of them, like other people of the time and place, lived as small farmers and herders, and maybe did occasionally some craftsmenship to supplement their income.

The common belief about Carthaginians generally being traders is wrong, although many probably were once or a few times in their life part of trade expeditions. The other belief that merchants were to effimante to use weapons is modern slander that is clearly contradicted by the sources, merchants were among the most skilled fighters of their times. Robbing them was highly profitable and estimated homicide rates were a hundred- to a thousandfold higher than today. And while Carthage hired mercenaries, there’s no source that they hired them to protect their trade, because that has always been a very risky proposition and Carthage’s history is full of mutinies by discontent mercenaries.