Mathos sent messengers to the main African settlements under Carthaginian suzerainty with the news that a formed, experienced, anti-Carthaginian army now existed in the heart of its territory and many cities and towns rose in rebellion. Provisions, money and reinforcements poured in; eventually, an additional 70,000 men according to the ancient historian of Rome, Polybius, although many would have been tied down in garrisoning their home towns against Carthaginian retribution. Almost all of Carthaginian Africa joined the mutineers. The pay dispute had become a full-scale revolt, the Mercenary War, threatening Carthage's existence as a state.