Hannibal’s Last Battle
Page 21
While the Romans suffered the depredations of Hannibal and his army marauding through Italy for fifteen years, the Carthaginian elite, safe behind their capital’s massive city walls, watched their strategic situation slowly unravel, first in Spain and then in Italy. When Roman armies began ravaging the North African countryside, the Punic leaders called Hannibal back to defend the homeland. After the defeat at Zama, the Carthaginians realized a prolonged siege of their city was not in their best interest, while Rome, fatigued by nearly two decades of warfare, did not relish the prospect of reducing one of the strongest fortifications in the ancient world. Rome forced Carthage to sign another punitive peace treaty, then treated the vanquished North African civilization as a subject people.
It would be another fifty years (201–149) before Rome mustered the political and military will and resources to tackle the daunting task of besieging Carthage. During these years, Carthage met all of its treaty obligations to Rome, and even provided ships and troops for Rome’s wars in the east. But Rome, egged on by the sophistry of Cato the Elder, finally dispatched an army to North Africa in 149. The Third Punic War lasted three years (much longer than the Romans originally expected) and culminated in the capture of Carthage and the annihilation of Carthaginian civilization in 146. Once again, Rome showed an unrelenting desire to conquer its enemy, though this campaign took on the complexion of a religious crusade, with the only acceptable outcome being the eradication of a longstanding and mythic adversary.
Although Roman imperialism was not created by the three Punic wars, it was perfected during these conflicts. Before 264, Rome had no history of projecting force overseas, but decades of campaigning in Sicily, Spain, and North Africa taught the Romans how to supply their legions far from home, lessons they would use in their wars against Macedon and Syria in the east. The development of these logistical lines helped Rome secure its growing Mediterranean empire in the second and first centuries BCE.423 Rome also continued to perfect its art of war during the Punic conflicts. The Romans had always borrowed weapons and tactics from their opponents, often improving upon them to suit their own needs. The Roman legionary adopted and adapted both the gladius and pilum during these wars, creating a soldier with both missile and shock capabilities and the most lethal fighting man in the classical period. Under the command of capable Roman generals like Gaius Marius and his nephew, Gaius Julius Caesar, these legionaries would routinely defeat foreign armies much larger than their own and become pawns in the civil wars which eventually ended the Republic.
The legacy of the Punic wars is that it transformed Roman civilization forever. When Roman legions crossed the Strait of Messina in 264 BCE, Rome was an Italian power with limited regional aspirations. By the conclusion of the Third Punic War in 146 the Roman state had not only become accustomed to frequent and large-scale foreign wars, it was also becoming accustomed to maintaining a large army and governing foreign provinces. Over the course of these wars Rome was flooded with immense amounts of treasure and slave labour from the conquered regions, transforming the Roman social order. A new class of wealthy plebeians challenged the primacy of the Patrician class, initiating ferocious political competition and the rise of demagoguery. The Roman free farmer, once the backbone of the Roman economy and a traditional source of military manpower, was displaced by the rise of the corporate farm or latifundia. Displaced farmers fled to the cities, swelling the ranks of the urban poor and creating a new political class that would influence Roman politics for centuries.
Conquests continued in the first century BCE, with Rome adding provinces in North Africa, the Levant, Transalpine Gaul, and Egypt to its holdings and greatly expanding the wealth of the Roman elite. In the end, Rome’s republican system would be unable to manage these problems, initiating a century of civil war, dictatorship, triumvirs, and ultimately, the institution of monarchy under Caesar Augustus in 27 BCE. The future Roman Empire was cast in the crucible of the Punic wars.
Notes
Introduction
1.
Victor Davis Hanson, Carnage and Culture: Landmark Battles in the Rise of Western Power (New York, 2001), p. 110.
2.
Nigel Bagnall, The Punic Wars, 264–146 BC (London, 2002), p. 68.
3.
Appian, Libyca, VII.96.
4.
David Soren, Aicha ben Khader, Hedi Slim, Carthage: Uncovering the Mysteries and Splendors of Ancient Tunisia, (New York, 1990), p. 86.
5.
Ibid., pp. 86–88.
6.
Aristotle, Politics, 2.2. Aristotle only gave this praise to one non-Greek civilization.
7.
Soren, Khader, Slim, Carthage, pp. 123–145. This practice was enacted during times of great national crisis.
Chapter 1: The First Punic War
8.
Michael Grant, The Ancient Historians, (New York, 1970), pp. 144–164.
9.
Ibid, pp. 217–242.
10.
J. F. Lazenby, The First Punic War: A Military History, (Stanford, 1996), p. 26.
11.
Polybius, The Rise of the Roman Empire, I.33. See Richard A. Gabriel and Donald W. Boose Jr, The Great Battles of Antiquity: A Strategic and Tactical Guide to the Great Battles that Shaped the Development of War, (Westport, 1994), p. 290, for the estimate of 1,500 Carthaginian troops.
12.
Lazenby, The First Punic War, p. 26.
13.
Ibid.
14.
Mark Healy, Cannae 216 BC: Hannibal Smashes Rome’s Army, (London, 1994), pp. 26–27. Also see Peter Connolly, Greece and Rome at War, (London, 1988), p. 150.
15.
Gregory Daly, Cannae: The Experience of Battle in the Second Punic War (London, 2002), pp. 55–56.
16.
The Roman scutum was oval like the Spanish model, though it was concave, rather than flat.
17.
Gabriel and Boose, The Great Battles of Antiquity, pp. 290–291.
18.
Polybius, III.114.
19.
Polybius, III.14. Also see Livy, The War with Hannibal, 22.46
20.
Gabriel and Boose, The Great Battles of Antiquity, p. 291.
21.
Daly, Cannae: The Experience of Battle, pp. 107–108.
22.
Gabriel and Boose, The Great Battles of Antiquity, p. 291.
23.
Healy, Cannae 216 BC, p. 24.
24.
Ibid. Also see Daly, Cannae: The Experience of Battle, p. 100.
25.
Daly, Cannae: The Experience of Battle, p. 92.
26.
Healy, Cannae 216 BC, p. 24.
27.
John Warry, Warfare in the Classical World: An Illustrated Encyclopedia of Weapons, Warriors and Warfare in the Ancient Civilizations of Greece and Rome (New York, 1980), p. 94.
28.
Warry, Warfare in the Classical World, p. 95.
29.
Gabriel and Boose, The Great Battles of Antiquity, p. 292.
30.
Gabriel and Boose, The Great Battles of Antiquity, p. 292.
31.
Gabriel and Boose, The Great Battles of Antiquity, pp. 291–292.
32.
Simon Anglim, Phyllis Jestice, Rob Rice, Scott Rusch, John Serrati, Fighting Techniques of the Ancient World, 3000BC–AD500: Equipment, Combat Skills and Tactics (New York, 2002), pp. 140–141.
33.
Gabriel and Boose, The Great Battles of Antiquity, p. 292.
34.
Lawrence Keppie, The Making of the Roman Army from Republic to Empire (New York: Barnes and Noble Books, 1984), p. 14.
35.
Ibid., pp. 14–15. For an outstanding study of the history of Roman cavalry from its origins through the Imperial period, see Karen R. Dixon and Pat Southern’s The Roman Cavalry (London, 1997).
36.
Chester G. Starr, The Emergence of Rome, 2nd ed., (Westpo
rt, CT, 1982), pp. 9–10.
37.
Peter Connolly, Greece and Rome at War, p. 95. Also see Connolly’s chapter ‘The Early Roman Army’ in Warfare in the Ancient World, ed. John Hackett, (New York, 1989), p. 36.
38.
Connolly, Greece and Rome at War, p. 95.
39.
Ibid., p. 95.
40.
Peter Connolly, ‘The Early Roman Army’, p. 136; John Warry, Warfare in the Classical World, p. 109.
41.
Connolly, ‘The Early Roman Army’, p. 136.
42.
H. M. D. Parker, The Roman Legions (Cambridge, 1958; reprint, New York, 1992), p. 10.
43.
Warry, Warfare in the Classical World, pp. 109–111; Connolly, ‘The Early Roman Army’, p. 136.
44.
Robert L. O’Connell, Of Arms and Men: A History of War, Weapons and Aggression, (New York, 1989), p. 74.
45.
Michael Grant, The Army of the Caesars, (New York, 1974), p. xxx.
46.
Warry, Warfare in the Classical World, p. 109.
47.
Ibid., p. 113; Connolly, Greece and Rome at War, pp. 220–221; Parker, The Roman Legions, pp. 199–205.
48.
Robert: L. O’Connell, ‘The Roman Killing Machine’, Military History Quarterly, Vol. 1, Num. 1, (1988), p. 38.
49.
Connolly, ‘The Early Roman Army’, p. 138.
50.
Parker, The Roman Legions, 11.
51.
Adrian Goldsworthy, The Complete Roman Army, (London, 2003), pp. 26–27. Also see Warry, Warfare in the Classical World, pp. 112.
52.
Goldsworthy, The Complete Roman Army, pp. 27. Also see Karen R. Dixon and Pat Southern’s The Roman Cavalry, pp. 23–25.
53.
Warry, Warfare in the Classical World, p. 112.
54.
Antonio Santosuosso, Soldiers, Citizens and the Symbols of War From Classical Greece to Republican Rome, 500–167 BC (Boulder, 1997), p. 157.
55.
For excellent illustrated accounts of the organizational changes associated with the reforms of Camillus see the diagrams in Warry, Warfare in the Classical World, pp. 110–113; Connolly, Greece and Rome at War, pp. 126–128; and Goldsworthy, The Complete Roman Army, pp. 26–27.
56.
Goldsworthy, The Complete Roman Army, p. 27.
57.
Ibid.
58.
See Adrian Adrian Goldsworthy’s thoughtful defence of the quincunx formation in his Roman Warfare (London, 2002), pp. 55–60. Goldsworthy maintains the Romans fought in this checkerboard formation because ‘the maniples of the line behind covered the intervals in front’.
59.
Many scholars believe that the distance between maniples was equal to the frontage of the maniple itself (Keppie, The Making of the Roman Army, pp. 33–40; Connolly, Greece and Rome at War, p. 128), but Livy states that the maniples were ‘a small distance apart’ (Livy, Ab Urbe Condita, VIII.8.5, (Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1919).
60.
F. E. Adcock, The Roman Art of War Under the Republic, (New York: Barnes and Noble, 1960), 8–13; Gabriel and Metz, From Sumer to Rome: The Military Capabilities of Ancient Armies (Westport, CT, 1991), pp. 34–35. For an excellent illustration of these manoeuvres, please see Anglim et al, Fighting Techniques of the Ancient World, p. 52.
61.
Polybius, 15.15.
62.
Warry, Warfare in the Classical World, p. 111.
63.
Gabriel and Metz, From Sumer to Rome, p. 65.
64.
Archer Jones, The Art of War in the Western World (Urbana, 1986), p. 27.
65.
Gabriel and Metz, From Sumer to Rome, pp. 34–35. Vegetius tells us that Roman recruits trained both morning and afternoon against wooden posts with shields and swords twice the weight of normal scuta and gladii in order to build strength and endurance (from Roy Davies, Service in the Roman Army (New York, 1989), pp. 77–78).
66.
Gabriel and Boose, The Great Battles of Antiquity, p. 296.
67.
Warry, Warfare in the Classical World, pp. 100–108. For a concise treatment of the Tarentine and Punic Wars see John Boardman, Jasper Griffin and Oswyn Murray, The Roman World: The Oxford History of the Classical World (New York, 1988), pp. 26–33.
68.
Many of these Mamertines once served as mercenaries for the Syracusan tyrant Agathocles.
69.
Lazenby, The First Punic War, p. 48. Two third century BCE Roman legions plus cavalry amounted to 9,000 men, and there would most likely have been an equal number of auxiliaries.
70.
Paul Bentley Kern, Ancient Siege Warfare (Bloomington, 1999), p. 256.
71.
Polybius, I.20. There is some confusion about when and where this ship ran aground, but Polybius clearly states that one ship was used as a template. The name quinquereme probably refers to the five files of rowers from stem to stern, and not the number of banks of rowers.
72.
Chester G. Starr, The Influence of Sea Power on Ancient History, (Oxford, 1989), pp. 55–56.
73.
Polybius, I.21.
74.
Starr, The Influence of Sea Power on Ancient History, p. 56. Also see Lazenby’s The First Punic War, pp. 68–72 for a thoughtful discussion on the various theories on the construction of the corvus and how it was employed.
75.
Polybius, I.26.
76.
See John Warry’s Warfare in the Classical World, pp. 30–31, for an outstanding illustration of various naval tactics utilized by classical navies.
77.
Polybius I.23.
78.
Ibid. Also Lazenby, The First Punic War, pp. 71–72. Lazenby puts forth the idea that Polybius’ fifty ships may be a rounded figure. Other secondary Roman sources put the number of ships lost closer to forty-five.
79.
Polybius, I.26.
80.
Ibid., I.32.
81.
Ibid.
82.
Ibid., I.33. Please see both Goldsworthy, The Punic Wars, pp. 88–91, and Lazenby, The First Punic War, pp. 102–106, for modern reconstructions of the Battle of Adys.
83.
Polybius, I.33.
84.
Ibid.
85.
Ibid., I.34.
86.
Ibid., I.37. See chapter seven of Lazenby, The First Punic War for a detailed discussion on the size of the Roman fleet.
87.
Lazenby, The First Punic War, p. 110.
88.
Ibid., p. 21.
89.
Polybius, I.64.
90.
Ibid., I.59.
91.
Goldsworthy, The Punic Wars, pp. 123–124. Polybius gives the number of ships at 200 (I.59), while Diodorus (XXIV.11) gives the number at 300 warships and 700 transports.
92.
Goldsworthy, The Punic Wars, p. 124.
93.
Please see Goldsworthy’s discussion of the figures given by both Polybius and Diodorus on the number of ships present at Aegates Islands and the casualty figures in The Punic Wars, pp. 124–125.
94.
Ibid, p. 126.
95.
Ibid, p. 128.
96.
Ibid, p. 126.
97.
Polybius called this conflict the ‘Libyan War’ (I.70) because of the central role the Liby-Phoenicians played in the revolt. See Goldsworthy, The Punic Wars, pp. 133–136; and Lazenby, The First Punic War, pp. 173–175, for more on the origins, course and outcome of the Mercenary War.
98.
Polybius, III.10.
99.
There is a controversy concerning whether Hamilcar was chosen by the legislative body for this ass
ignment, or by the suffetes. For more on this controversy see Goldsworthy’s Punic Wars, pp. 136–138.
100.
Ibid, p.137.
Chapter 2: The Early Campaigns of Hannibal
101.
Ernie Bradford, Hannibal, (New York, 1981), p. 32.
102.
Healy, Cannae 216 BC, p. 6.
103.
Polybius, III.11. Polybius refers to the chief god of the Carthaginian pantheon as Zeus, though it was most probably the god Ba’al Hammon.
104.
Ibid., III.13
105.
Soren, Khader, Slim, Carthage, p. 103.
106.
Daly, Cannae: The Experience of Battle, p. 10.
107.
Livy, XXI.7.
108.
Paul Bentley Kern, Ancient Siege Warfare (Bloomington, 1999), p. 272.
109.
Livy, XXI.7. Also see Polybius, III.40 and III.41 as well as Livy, XXI.17. The Roman strategy is also discussed by F. E. Adcock, The Roman Art of War Under the Republic (New York, 1940), 7p. 9.
110.
Livy, XXI.17.
111.
Adcock, p. 79.
112.
Polybius, VII.9.
113.
Daly, Cannae: The Experience of Battle, pp. 10–11.