Hannibal’s Last Battle

by Brian Todd Carey; Joshua B. Allfree; John Cairns

  After his defeat at Magnesia, Antiochus made peace with the Romans and withdrew from most of Anatolia, leaving it to the Romans and their allies. Hannibal, realizing that his presence in the Syrian court was no longer desired, quickly and quietly fled the Levant for the island of Crete, famous as a haven for pirates and refugees. Hannibal settled near the city of Gortyna, a few miles inland from the southern coast. One story, possibly apocryphal, has him openly depositing his sizable treasure in large clay vases at the temple of Artemis. Such actions were common in the ancient world, with temples acting as banks. In reality, Hannibal had weighed these pots down with lead, disguised with a scattering of gold. His treasure was instead well hidden in hollow bronze statues on his property. By the time the Romans finally heard about a wealthy Carthaginian living on the island, Hannibal had already slipped away by sea, abandoning his clay pots to the priests of Artemis and curious Roman soldiers.

  The Battle of Magnesia, 190 BCE, Phase I. After two weeks of manoeuvring, Lucius Cornelius Scipio brings the army of Antiochus to battle near Magnesia in Anatolia. The 35,000-man Roman army is outnumbered two-to-one by the Seleucid force. Scipio commands the Roman centre, while Eumenes II, King of Pergamum, commands the cavalry on the right wing.

  The Battle of Magnesia, 190 BCE, Phase II. The Seleucid cavalry, the right commanded by Antiochus himself, charge the Roman flanks (1) as the armies advance towards each other (2).

  The Battle of Magnesia, 190 BCE, Phase III. Antiochus’s cavalry slams into the Roman’s left flank (1), scattering the infantry (2). The Seleucid horse mounts a pursuit. Events take a very different course on the Roman right, as Eumenes succeeds in breaking the enemy cavalry (3) and driving them from the field (4).

  The Battle of Magnesia, 190 BCE, Phase IV. The Roman legionaries advance against the Seleucid phalanx (1), which is reinforced by elephants deployed between the infantry sections. The pikemen put up a good fight, but the Romans succeed in killing or driving off the elephants (2). They then outflank the less-manoeuvrable formation (3) and annihilate the foot soldiers (4). Having lost their advantage in cavalry and with their elite phalangeal infantry destroyed, the Seleucid army is driven from the field (5).

  Hannibal fled to the remote kingdom of Bithynia in northwestern Anatolia on the eastern edge of the Propontus (the modern Sea of Marmora). But even on the edge of the civilized world, Hannibal could not evade the long reach of Rome. When Bithynia became entangled in a war with its neighbour Pergamum, a client state of Rome, Hannibal was asked to serve the Bithynian king, Prusias. The Punic general agreed and secured a naval victory against Rome’s ally. Curious, the Roman Senate asked Prusias to send envoys to Rome to explain why they were at war with Pergamum in the first place. Although Prusias was willing to keep Hannibal’s presence secret, one of his envoys betrayed him to the Romans. It was 183 BCE, nearly twenty years after his defeat at Zama, and Hannibal’s name still evoked passion in the senatorial chambers. The Senate dispatched the hero of Cynoscephalae, Titus Quinctius Flamininus, eastwards to Bithynia to apprehend Hannibal. According to Livy, Prusias, to court favour from the Romans, dispatched his men to Hannibal’s villa, surrounding the estate with guard posts before approaching the house. Hannibal was sixty-four years old when he took his life with poison. He reportedly said right before his suicide, ‘Let us free the Roman people from their long-standing anxiety, seeing that they find it tedious to wait for an old man’s death’.376 His death denied his old enemies the triumph they had so desperately wanted. No longer would the Roman people fear ‘Hannibal ad portas’ (‘Hannibal at the Gates’).

  Scipio After Zama (201–184 BCE)

  After securing the terms of the peace from Carthage, Scipio set sail for home in 201, stopping off at his base in Lilybaeum in Sicily. Once in Sicily, he sent the majority of his troops ahead by sea, and then crossed over to southern Italy where he made his way north to Rome. Along the way the Roman general was greeted by the grateful subjects of Rome. In Livy’s words, ‘Everywhere he found rejoicing as much on account of the peace as for victory, when the towns poured out to do him honour and crowds of peasants held up his progress along the roads’.377

  Scipio entered the capital and was accorded a triumph unlike any which had ever been seen before. On this special day, Scipio traveled at the head of his conquering legions through the garlanded streets of Rome, preceded by captured Carthaginian war elephants shipped to the city to amaze the Romans especially for this occasion. He brought 123,000 pounds of silver to the treasury, and was granted the cognomen ‘Africanus’ – the first Roman general to be addressed by a name derived from the location of his greatest campaign.378 This celebrity resulted in Scipio being named the chief of the Senate (princeps senatus), a position he held for twelve controversial years.

  Although a national hero, Scipio Africanus’ fame did not long insulate him from the jealousy of his political rivals. The expansion of Rome’s imperium into Spain, southern coastal Gaul and Illyrium created new wealthy classes within Roman society as the spoils of these newly-conquered regions and protectorates flowed back to Italy, while exposure to foreign ideas, especially Greek ideas, was slowly transforming Roman culture. This gradual Hellenization of Roman society began after the conquest of Magna Graecia during the Tarentine Wars of the early third century BCE, but intensified with sustained contacts with Hellenized Sicily and Greece itself in the late third and early second centuries. But not everyone in Rome was happy with this increased Greek influence, and Roman political structures began to divide between those who despised Hellenism, and those who would embrace it. Scipio Africanus and his clan were seen as lovers of Greek art and culture, and the Roman general’s extravagant lifestyle in Spain and especially in Sicily only reinforced these perceptions that Scipio was not respecting the mos maiorum (custom of the ancestors).

  Levelling these charges against the hero of Rome was the leader of this new group of Roman conservatives, Marcus Porcius Cato (Cato the Elder). Cato was a wealthy farmer from Tuscany who attracted broad support in the Senate due to his unwavering integrity and traditional attitudes. Cato’s antagonistic relationship with Scipio began during the Second Punic War just before the African expedition was launched in 205. Cato had followed Scipio to Sicily as a quaestor, where his protest against the Roman general’s spending provoked an official commission from Rome. Later Cato served as commander of Scipio’s supply fleet, and witnessed first hand the defeat of Carthage. Perhaps it was during his time in North Africa that Cato perfected his life-long hatred of Punic culture, and his negative attitudes exerted a powerful influence on the course of republican Rome’s history.

  Cato used his position in the Senate and his powerful political alliances to deny Scipio important military commands and accuse him of misappropriating funds in the Syrian War (192–189) against Antiochus. His brother, Lucius, the victor at Magnesia, was formally charged with the latter count, a charge which sent Africanus into a rage, culminating in the destruction of the campaign receipts on the floor of the Senate. He pointed out that thousands of talents of silver had come into the public treasury through his efforts, and that his victories had given Rome not only Spain, but also Africa and increased Roman influence in Asia Minor. Harassed by insults from his political rivals, Scipio Africanus retired from public life, physically sickened and emotionally embittered that the republic he had saved from the Punic menace would treat him as an enemy. In 184 BCE, just one year before Hannibal took his life in Bithynia, Scipio Africanus, the hero of the Second Punic War, also died in exile at the villa of Liternum in northern Campania.

  Rome Expands in the Mediterranean (201–149 BCE)

  The period between the Second and Third Punic Wars (201–149 BCE) witnessed the expansion of Rome across the northern littoral of the Mediterranean basin, with Roman legionaries eventually garrisoning cities from Spain to Macedonia. After the Syrian War against Antiochus III, the Romans continued to look to the east, but matters in Cisalpine Gaul and Spain took precedence. On the Gal
lic frontier, a Celtic rebellion forced the Romans to intervene militarily. Once the insurgency was put down, the Romans invested heavily in building up the infrastructure (roads and colonies) to finally bring this region under Roman hegemony. Further west in the newly created province of Hispania (modern Spain), attacks by the Turdenati and Celtiberians continued to bother the Romans, bleeding both men and resources westward.

  Troubles continued in the east as well. In Macedonia, Rome defeated Philip V in the Second Macedonian War in 196; but, following Philip’s death, his son and successor Perseus took steps to strengthen his kingdom. He arranged a marriage alliance with Antiochus III and instituted debt relief in his kingdom. This second action undercut Roman profits, which raised the ire of wealthy Romans operating in the region. He also moved militarily, north into Illyrium and south into Greece, in clear violation of the treaty his father had penned with the Romans. All of this proved too much for the Romans, and the Third Macedonian War (171–168) was launched in 171.

  Roman Expansion in the Mediterranean

  Over the next two years, Roman legions plundered Greece, but were unwilling to bring Perseus to battle. Perseus, for his part, was able to regain many of his losses in 169 and took a strong position on the Elpeus River in northeastern Greece, north of the sacred Mount Olympus and near the strategically important port of Pydna. There, he wintered and consolidated his gains. The election of Lucius Aemilius Paullus (later known as ‘Macedonicus’) to consul in 168 changed the complexion of the war when he arrived in theatre and raised an army with the explicit purpose of defeating Perseus. In fact, the army raised by Rome would be ‘the last gasp of the generation of Romans which had fought and defeated Hannibal.’379 The Romans won the Battle of Pydna because of the virtues of Roman small unit tactics and the initiative of individual centurions leading their men through the gaps in the phalanx’s rank and file, attacking the helpless Macedonians in their flanks.

  After his defeat at Pydna, Perseus was brought back to Rome and put on display in Paullus’ triumph. Afterwards, he was exiled to the small Italian villa of Alba Fucens, where he lived out his life in relative obscurity. Unlike after the First Macedonian War, when Rome left the Greeks to govern their selves, the Senate ordered the kingdom of Macedonia split up into four republics, then denied each new state the ability to trade with one another. It seems Rome was very disappointed with how much local support Perseus received from the Balkan states, and wanted to punish their disobedience. Local magistrates were removed from power and shipped off to Rome in chains. Even the kingdoms of Illyrium and Epirus, once loyal subjects of Rome, were not spared and these lands were similarly ravaged and split up. Much of this rage was focused on Epirus. Paullus was authorized by the Senate to sack seventy coastal towns. An untold number of lives were lost and perhaps 150,000 Epirotes were sold into slavery.380

  The Battle of Pydna, 168 BCE, Phase I. Lucius Aemilius Paullus finally closes with Perseus’s Macedonian army near Pydna. Aemilius encamps on higher ground in rough terrain to offset the power of the Macedonian phalanx. The Roman commander holds his position, wanting the afternoon sun to be in his opponents’ eyes. Weary of waiting for the Romans to attack, Perseus orders his army forward. The Macdeonians advance with a shout, moving swiftly against the Romans on the ridge (1).

  The Battle of Pydna, 168 BCE, Phase II. Faced with a wall of bristling pikes, the legionaries are pressed back, though they stay in good order.

  The Battle of Pydna, 168 BCE, Phase III. As the Macedonian phalanx leaves the plain and advances up the ridge, the rough terrain causes gaps to open in their formation (1). The Roman maniples take advantage of their tactical agility and charge into the gaps (2). Most of the Macedonian infantry in the phalanx are killed. Perseus, witnessing the destruction of his best foot soldiers, flees the field (3). The now-leaderless Macedonians melt away as the Romans counterattack (4).

  Despite the overwhelming victory in the Third Macedonian War and the reorganization of the Macedonian kingdom into four republics, Roman troubles in the east continued. Once again the Senate refused to garrison the Balkans and with the appointment of greedy praetors anti-Roman sentiment flared. The situation continued to disintegrate as Cilician piracy plagued the region’s coasts and sea-lanes. By 149, the Romans were forced to intervene again in the Fourth Macedonian War (149–148) when a pretender to the abolished throne of Macedon, Andriscus, reunited the four republics and defeated a small Roman force dispatched to put the rebellion down. Undaunted, the Senate then sent the praetor Quintus Caecilius Metellus to Macedonia, where he quickly crushed the revolt and chased Andriscus from the country. A year later, the Romans officially annexed Macedonia and its recalcitrant neighbour, Epirus, then moved south into Greece to crush another rebellion, this time led by Corinth. Metellus razed Corinth, selling its inhabitants into slavery, and then disbanded the Achaean League. By 146 Greece followed in Macedonia and Epirus’ footsteps, becoming a direct subject of the growing Roman imperium.

  The Third Punic War (149–146 BCE)

  The same year the Roman Senate sent legions to Macedon to deal with the pretender Andriscus it also initiated the Third Punic War (149–146) against Carthage. For half a century tensions had grown between Rome and Carthage, culminating in a war rare in history in that it ended with the eradication of an entire civilization.

  In the years after Carthage’s defeat at Zama in 202 and the close of the Second Punic War, Hannibal was successful in meeting the punitive conditions of the Roman peace, while simultaneously cleaning up corruption in the Carthaginian government and strengthening the economy. When Hannibal finally fled Carthage in 195 for Syria, he left his homeland stronger financially than he found it. Four years later in 191, the Carthaginians offered to pay off their annual reparations in one large payment, but Rome refused, not wanting Carthage to be released from its obligation. That same year, Carthage even sent half of their tiny reconstituted fleet to Rome’s aid in its battle against Antiochus III. Carthage had demonstrated that it was a faithful ally of Rome.

  Rome, on the other hand, kept a wary eye on their North African subject. To keep Carthage off balance, Rome continued to support their Numidian ally, King Masinissa, even encouraging him to seize Punic lands in North Africa. Masinissa launched major campaigns into Punic territory in 193, 182, 172 and 162 BCE, and when Carthage sent ambassadors to Rome protesting the Numidian incursions, the Senate ignored their pleas. These invasions increased in the 150s, as did the Punic pleas for Roman assistance. Rome was content to use Numidia as a counterbalance to Carthaginian expansion, especially at a time when it had its hands full fighting in Spain, Macedon and Anatolia. But a pro-war faction in the Roman Senate, led by Cato the Elder, continued to press for renewed hostilities against Carthage. In 153, Cato led a Roman delegation to Carthage to investigate the impact of Masinissa’s depredations. While touring Carthage and its territories, Cato was awestruck by the wealth of the resurgent Punic civilization.

  When he returned to Rome, Cato’s sophistry was key in the Senate’s decision to resume hostility against Carthage. Plutarch relates how he, while making a speech before the Senate, shook the folds of his toga and dropped some large African figs as if by accident. As his fellow Senators admired the size and plumpness of the figs, Cato reminded his colleagues that this produce could be found just three days away by sail in Carthage.381 This political theatre was designed to illustrate the prosperity of Carthage, a prosperity Cato believed would eventually allow the Punic state to rise again and challenge Rome for mastery of the Mediterranean. Cato’s fear of Carthage can best be illustrated in the strange way he ended all his speeches or rebuttals in the Forum with: ‘It seems to me that Carthage should be destroyed’.382 Cato continued to spearhead this campaign in Rome until war was declared in 149.

  The situation in Carthage changed dramatically in 151 when the city-state paid off its fifty-year debt with Rome and a Punic government came to power that was antagonistic to Roman apathy towards Numidian transgressions.
No longer bound by the treaty that ended the Second Punic War and unwilling to sit back idly and watch Masinissa raid their territory, the Carthaginians raised an army of 25,000 raw recruits in response to the Numidian king’s investment of an important Punic city called Oroscopa, the location of which remains unknown.383 The Numidians easily crushed the inexperienced army, but a witness to this defeat, the Roman tribune Publius Cornelius Scipio Aemilianus (grandson of Scipio Africanus through adoption), reported back to the Roman Senate and his description was construed as a Carthaginian violation of its treaty with Rome. Tensions rose over the next two years as Punic attempts to placate the Romans were refused. In 149 Rome declared war on Carthage.

  Even before war was declared, the important North African harbour town of Utica defected to the Romans, providing Rome with an ideal base for the attack on Carthage. As in the campaign of 205–204, the Romans concentrated their forces at Lilybaeum on Sicily, landing in Utica in 149. The Senate had dispatched both consuls on this campaign. Manius Manilius was placed in command of the army, while Lucius Marcius Censorinus commanded the fleet. The Carthaginians sent a final embassy to the consuls’ headquarters at Utica. Censorinus met the delegation, demanding that Carthage hand over massive amounts of military equipment, including 200,000 panoplies and 2,000 torsion engines (including javelin-throwing ‘scorpions’ and stone-throwing ‘onagers’), as well as large numbers of javelins, arrows and siege ammunition.384 After Carthage reluctantly complied, Censorinus upped the ante, demanding that the citizens of Carthage abandon their capital and move to a new settlement of their choice, providing it was ten miles inland from the coast. The Roman consul told the Carthaginian envoys that their city would then be razed. After being roughly ejected from the Roman camp, the Carthaginian delegation returned to their city and relayed the Roman demands. The Carthaginian government rejected these harsh demands, going so far as to kill any Carthaginian sympathetic to the Roman position in their ranks, as well as any Italian merchants unlucky enough to be in the city that night. Recognizing the intractable position of their enemy, the Carthaginians finally declared war on Rome. The third and last Punic war was now on.