Asbyte

Asbyte (died 219 BC) was a Libyan princess in the Carthaginian army before the Second Punic War, according to Silius Italicus's poem Punica.

The existence of Asbyte is doubted of, considering Silius's evident interest in embellishing his tale with epic heroes and duels, and has been thought instead as a reference to the Amazon Penthesilea and the Roman heroine Camilla. However, her character is rooted on a real tradition of warrior women in North Africa held by several ancient chroniclers, lending her a degree of veracity. Herodotus spoke about the Ausean and Machlye tribes of Libya, which hosted martial tournaments between young girls and loathed those who died at them, and the Zaueces, whose war chariots were driven by women. According to the poem, Asbyte's forces were deployed against a sally of the Saguntines, during which they scored multiple deaths with their javelins. A Cretan mercenary archer named Mopsus tried to kill her from the city, but only hit her Nasamonic lieutenant Harpe, which provoked a response in which Mopsus's sons were killed in the walls, driving him to suicide. Afterwards, the priest of Heracles of the city, Theron, gave Asbyte chase, and eventually killed her when she tried to attack him. Theron was then killed by Hannibal's forces, who recovered Asbyte's beheaded corpse and looted chariot. He later helps Hannibal to escape from Quintus Fabius Maximus and is finally felled in the Battle of Cannae.