Then dividing his care at the same time between the offensive and defensive operations of the war, lest while he was advancing on Italy by a land journey through Spain and Gaul, Africa should be unprotected and exposed to the Romans from Sicily, he resolved to strengthen it with a powerful force.

For this purpose he requested a reinforcement from Africa, chiefly of light-armed spearmen, in order that the Africans might serve in Spain, and the Spaniards in Africa, each likely to be a better soldier at a distance from home, as if bound by mutual pledges.
He sent into Africa thirteen thousand eight hundred and fifty targetteers, eight hundred and seventy Balearic slingers, and one thousand two hundred horsemen, composed of various nations.

He orders these forces partly to be used as a garrison for Carthage and partly to be distributed through Africa: at the same time having sent commissaries into the different states, he orders four thousand chosen youth whom they had levied to be conducted to Carthage, both as a garrison and as hostages.
22.

Thinking also that Spain ought not to be neglected (and the less because he was aware that it had been traversed by the Roman ambassadors, to influence the minds of the chiefs,) he assigns that province to his brother Hasdrubal, a man of active spirit, and strengthens him chiefly with African troops: eleven thousand eight hundred and fifty African infantry, three hundred Ligurians, and five hundred Balearians.

To these forces of infantry were added four hundred horsemen of the Libyphoenicians, a mixed race of Carthaginians and Africans; of the Numidians and Moors, who border on the ocean, to the number of one thousand eight hundred, and a small band of Ilergetes from Spain, amounting to two hundred horse: and, that no description of land force might be wanting, fourteen elephants.