other celtiberians fought against carthage after their pact with rome, defeating hasdrubal barca's forces in 217 bc. four years later, they became the first mercenaries employed by rome, as publius cornelius scipio was forced to hire them to retain their allegiance. according to livy and appian, he sent 200 to italy in order to try to convince their countrymen in hannibal's army into deserting. this empress had little success, but it might have helped to undermine hannibal's trust on them. in turn, hasdrubal capitalized on his superior familiarity with hispanic tribes to bribe scipio's mercenaries, who agreed to abandon the roman general even if they would not turn against him out of principles. the result was scipio and his brother being killed near of ilorci in 211 bc. the same year, possibly inspired by a desertion of numidians and iberians to marcus claudius marcellus after the battle of nola in 215, celtiberians commander moericus and belligenus betrayed the punic-allied syracusians and joined marcellus's entourage. another defection happened in arpi, where 1,000 hispanics chose to join the roman side, although this might have been an exchange to get 5,000 africans out of the city and back with hannibal. nevertheless, those seem to have been exceptions to the hispanic mercenaries's loyalty. they generally held their carthaginian masters in high regard, addressing them as their supreme commanders, and in many cases, like the defeats of hasdrubal and hanno, they died in suicide battle for them. hannibal considered his peninsular fighters to be among his most valuable forces, almost at the level of his african compatriots, and contrasting especially with the more expendable and undisciplined gauls and ligurians.