There were many benefits to the exploitation of Iberia's gold and silver. Not only did it allow Carthage to repay its war reparations and fund the raising of Hamilcar Barca's new army, it also guaranteed the loyalty of those newly hired mercenaries by the exceptional purity of the silver used in the coins that paid their wages. The Carthaginian mining operation in Sierra Morena was so colossal that historians have suggested that Barcid industry in the Iberian peninsula funded an army of almost 60,000 men and forty elephants. As always, the wheels of war were driven by money, so as Carthage's debts disappeared, and its coffers filled, so too did the ranks of its grand new army.
