by Dexter Hoyos
H A M I L C A R I N S PA I N
commanding them to choose between war and peace. This tale was obviously
concocted from the famous ultimatum on war and peace presented at
Carthage in 218 by another Fabius, then a Roman envoy. Again, in an episode
Zonaras dates to 230 the Romans are represented as marching to fight the
Ligurians (of northern Italy) via Punic North Africa; a charitable excuse
might be that somewhere along the line a copyist wrote Carthaginians where
he should have written, for example, Boii—a Gallic people of north Italy—
but incompetently inventive malevolence by some propagandist might be the
explanation instead.
Another story directly involves Hamilcar. In 231, again according to Dio,
the Romans sent over envoys to see what he was up to in Spain. Hamilcar
received them cordially and explained that he was seeking the means to pay
the indemnity imposed by Lutatius’ peace. The envoys, Dio affirms, could
not find anything to criticize in this. The tale is hardly the stuff of high drama
(Zonaras did not think it worth including in his précis of Dio) but basically is
another confrontation story from the same source as the others. It arouses
suspicion. No other writer knows it, and the nub of it is one side making a
neat response when pressured by the other—just as in the other confronta-
tions. Dio concedes that the Romans had previously had no interest in
Barca’s doings and implies that they left him alone again after this. In sum,
the embassy story is no more believable than the other confrontations.
The Romans no doubt knew about Hamilcar’s expansion. Not only did
they trade with Spanish ports as well as North African, they were on good
terms too with Massilia, which had its own wide-ranging trading network.
Even if their embassy to Hamilcar had taken place it would have been the
only recorded official contact between the two powers after 237 and before
225—that is, in a dozen years. This does not square with sustained or anxious
suspicion. Rather, the Romans were prepared to let their ex-enemies do as
they wished in their quarter of the world, so long as they themselves could
get on with doing as they wished in and around Italy.7
Some Romans even then may have admired Hamilcar, as we know Cato
the Censor (a younger contemporary of his son) did later. But after a time—
maybe even within Hannibal’s lifetime, once the story of his boyhood oath
became known—Romans and Greeks came to believe that Hamilcar’s doings
were the start of a carefully worked-out scheme for a fresh war against Rome.
Infuriated by the defeat of 241 and then by the rape of Sardinia, he and his
countrymen supposedly built their new empire in Spain for this purpose,
with the war finally being launched by Hannibal. Polybius states this as a fact
and nearly all other ancient sources follow suit.8
This was not the predominant view among the Romans at the time.
Certainly the Sardinia crisis had shown that concern about Punic moves
might flare if these looked like coming close to Italy and Sicily, and no doubt
some members of the Roman Senate did feel a continuing antipathy for their
ex-enemies. The same thing was to happen in 225, as we shall see. No doubt
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too critics of Barcid activity and Roman unconcern made themselves heard
from time to time. But the Romans’ general inattention to Barcid affairs and
to Carthage for nearly 20 years until 220—only the brief business of the
‘Ebro treaty’ in 225 was to punctuate it—reveals that any such criticisms
failed to affect Roman policy-making.
Fabius Pictor, the Barcids’ senatorial contemporary, blamed the war in
general terms on ambition and greed in Hasdrubal and Hannibal his protégé,
not on a war-scheme handed on from Hamilcar. One line of thought, surfac-
ing in Appian’s history, even limited the blame to Hannibal himself, as a
device for turning the tables on his hereditary enemies at home—though
how far back that idea went we cannot say.9
Hamilcar surely had little liking for his old enemies, as the oath he adminis-
tered to Hannibal shows. He may well have believed too that, one day,
another war would come. But his programme was to rebuild Punic strength
and wealth, a pragmatic and defensive aim. If the Romans should choose to
bring on some new confrontation, a possibility no Carthaginian leader could
dismiss, the Punic state had to be able to stand up to them as it had not been
over Sardinia. But that was quite a different aim from a revenge-war.
Another war would call for large resources to match those of the Romans,
and also a set of alliances with states around Italy, either to support the war-
effort or at least to distract the Romans. Of course Hannibal was to invade
Italy with a small army and few allies—but no long-term planner would ra-
tionally aim at waging war on those terms. Hamilcar made no such alliances.
Nor did his successor Hasdrubal; and Hannibal was to seek them, with the
Gauls of north Italy, only on the eve of war itself.
Planning a new war would also require readying a fleet. True, neither
Hamilcar after 244 nor his successors showed any enthusiasm for naval war-
fare. But even negatively a fleet was a plain necessity, for the Romans could
be counted on to launch their own powerful navy for invading North Africa
and Spain as soon as war came. Arguably, of course, building one might
invite as hostile a Roman reaction as preparing to retake Sardinia had done,
and this might explain the Barcids’ avoidance of it. But if they were seriously
bent on war it was a necessary risk.
In any case suspicion could be disarmed by putting off the actual fleet-
building until the war was fairly near. It had taken the Romans only a few
months to construct their first-class war-fleet, 200 quinqueremes strong, in
243 or 242. So we could expect Hannibal to start laying down keels at any rate
during 220 or 219, when a clash over Saguntum became predictable. Some
naval craft should already have been available: the warships used during the
African war plus any built (as some surely were) for the aborted Sardinian
expedition afterwards. Yet the Punic war-effort at the start of 218 had avail-
able only 105 quinqueremes and a few smaller ships, with just 87 of the
quinqueremes properly equipped. Their enemies launched 220.
It could hardly be that the Carthaginians had defective information about
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Roman naval strength. When the Romans warred on the Illyrians across the
Adriatic in 229 they equipped 200 ships, and the second Illyrian war ten years
later (again involving both consuls with fleet and army) no doubt saw a simi-
lar armament. Anyone intending to bring on a new war against them had to
count on a Roman navy of some such size and aim to counter it. Hamilcar
did not. After him Hasdrubal—despite having been his father-in-law’s naval
commander—did not; nor again did Hannibal. The only persuasive inference
is that their plans never included a Roman war.10
V
Hamilcar’s next reported measure was
to found a city, a very large one
according to Diodorus. He does not state where it was but its name was Acra
Leuce, meaning ‘White Fort’ or ‘White Cape’. The Carthaginians had
founded a few colonies in past times, like the one on the island of Ebusus off
the east coast of Spain, but founding cities had not been a habit of past Punic
leaders, not even the Magonids. On the other hand it was a notable character-
istic of monarchs of Hamilcar’s own era, starting with Alexander the Great
himself whose most famous creation, Alexandria in Egypt, stood on Africa’s
Mediterranean coast like Carthage itself. The Roman republic too was a
notable city-founder within Italy, its Latin and citizen colonies planted at
strategic locations on the coasts and in the countryside of the peninsula.
Hamilcar, generalissimo and chief executive of a republic, founded a
centre with resemblances to both types. Unlike Hellenistic rulers with their
Alexandrias and Antiochs, it did not perpetuate his own name. Like their
foundations and Roman ones, it held a site important strategically and eco-
nomically. Unlike Roman creations, it advertised the success and the promise
of his political mastery of Carthage, and no doubt others would have fol-
lowed had he lived.
Archaeological finds starting from the later half of the third century show
towns, especially in the upper Baetis region, improving many of their fea-
tures—both private homes and public structures like walls and sacred
shrines. Hamilcar and his successors quite likely encouraged these upgrades.
Better amenities could claim to advertise the new prosperity and security
under Punic rule. Improved urbanization in turn could help to make that rule
more effective, at any rate so long as the dominant levels of Spanish society
were won over. Hamilcar, who achieved much using diplomatic tactics as well
as military, would not find that difficult to do.11
Acra Leuce is generally identified as the south-eastern coastal city which
the Romans called Lucentum, today’s Alicante. Rising over this is an impos-
ing headland of bare rock, a natural (and long-used) citadel. If the
identification is correct, Acra Leuce formed a new power-centre on the east-
ern side of Carthage’s new province, to balance—and even outshine—old
Gades on the western.
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This identification has been disputed. No Punic remains have been
unearthed at Alicante, though there was a Phoenician trading-post at nearby
Tossal de Manises. That the Roman name Lucentum derives from the verb
for showing light, lucere, has been questioned—and thus any connexion with
Acra Leuce.
These objections are not compelling. Archaeological finds at, or rather
under, existing cities are erratic, all the more so if the Punic character of a
place lasted three or four decades at best: and 30 years later Acra Leuce was
in a Roman province. At New Carthage (as the Romans were to call it),
founded later on by Barca’s son-in-law farther down the coast, Hasdrubal
built a splendid hilltop palace for himself which Polybius saw, but of which
no trace now survives.
The Greek name Acra Leuce described the site, according to Diodorus—
wherever it was. It does not suggest that a Greek colony or trading-station
already stood there. True, Massilia in Gaul had founded three very small
colonies on Spain’s east coast, but Strabo the geographer, who tells us so, also
implies that they lay between Cape de la Nao and the river Sucro, today’s
Júcar. That zone lay well north of any district Hamilcar can have reached.
The Greek name may simply translate the Punic one, just as the Punic may
have translated a native one. Hamilcar himself may well have encouraged
both the Punic and Greek forms. Hippou Acra is the Greek name of a North
African port whose Punic name may have been Hippo Zarytos. In turn
Roman Lucentum might conceivably derive not from the Latin for light but
from Leuce, with a Latinized ending.12
There are more objections. Hasdrubal’s more southerly creation, the
modern Cartagena, stands on a harbour much better than Alicante’s and had
a rich hinterland including silver mines. That Hamilcar should ignore the
advantages of such a site in favour of lesser ones farther north may seem too
much to swallow. On this argument, since he did not site his city at Cartagena
he cannot have sited it at Alicante, and we should look elsewhere for it.
All this is close to a non-sequitur. Hamilcar may well have had reasons for
preferring the more northerly position, even if we discount mere oversight of
the site of Cartagena. The Alicante site has a good harbour and would give a
shorter run to and from the island of Ebusus, a prosperous Punic colony
with busy connexions to Carthage. Again, the Cartagena site housed or at any
rate belonged to the people of Mastia, mentioned as long ago as 348 (in the
second Punic treaty with Rome) as being within Punic-protected waters.
They would contribute a contingent to the Punic war-effort in 218. Hamilcar
may not have judged it politic to force an old Spanish ally to give up its rich
territory and harbour to new residents (even if Hasdrubal later did). Nor of
course need we imagine that to found New Carthage Hasdrubal would have
had to give up Acra Leuce, were this at Alicante, and the territory in
between—another objection offered.13
Another alleged difficulty is linked with how Hamilcar eventually died. He
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was besieging a city Diodorus calls Helice; with winter coming on he sent
away the bulk of his forces, elephants included, to winter-quarters at Acra
Leuce—a fatal move, as it turned out. Helice is generally identified with the
Roman Ilici, today’s Elche famous for its fourth-century BC Iberian noble-
woman’s statue and equally for its broad palm-groves, the most extensive in
Europe, that surround the city. But Elche is only 13 miles (21 kilometres)
south-west of Alicante. It is hard to believe that Hamilcar could safely found
a major city in the farthest region of his new province with a powerful hostile
centre standing so near—blocking, in fact, direct land-communication with
the rest of Punic Spain. Elche incidentally has warmer winters than Alicante.
These arguments might suggest that Acra Leuce really lay somewhere else
in Hamilcar’s province—closer to the heartland or close to the inland fron-
tier. Livy names a site, seemingly near Castulo in the eastern Sierra Morena, as
the place where Hamilcar died, and its generally supposed name Castrum
Album (‘White Fort’) could obviously mean much the same as Acra Leuce if
this meant ‘White Citadel’. This might seem to clinch the matter: Hamilcar’s
city would be not on the coast at all, but at a strategic strongpoint in silver-
mining territory and pointing the expansionist way to the plains of La
Mancha and central Spain.
But Hamilcar did not die at Acra Leuce. Diodorus’ account shows him cut
off from there as he retreated from Helice. And the argument from Livy
turns out to be circular.
In all Livian manuscripts the name is Castrum Altum,
‘High Fort’. Text-editors supposed a connexion with Acra Leuce and
changed Altum to Album—even though Acra Leuce was identified with Ali-
cante while Livy is plainly narrating events inland. In other words ‘Castrum
Album’ is only a mistaken inference from Acra Leuce and cannot be used as
evidence for it. What Livy does imply is that Hamilcar’s Helice is not Elche
but some place farther off, as we shall see.14
Acra Leuce, then, can remain identified with Lucentum and Alicante. Its
foundation should date to the last years of the 230s: Hamilcar would have
taken time to come round to that region, very likely via the coast, and his next
recorded move was into the inland mountains of the south-east.
The settlers probably were a mixture: loyal natives, people from Gades and
other Phoenician towns, a sprinkling of outsiders (for instance from
Ebusus), and no doubt an element of Carthaginians in the governing élite.
The town’s position at the eastern end of the Punic province, and its use as a
base for further operations, suggest that Hamilcar had only recently con-
quered the area. It protected the productive south-eastern coastlands and,
with Gades, Malaca, Abdera, Mastia and the other Phoenician or allied
Iberian ports, completed a semicircular chain of secure points around the
province. And with the interior of the south-east a harsh tangle of moun-
tains and valleys and even some deserts, Acra Leuce was an anchor for the
vital coastal roadway that linked the south-east to the rest of Punic territory.
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VI
It is not certain that Hamilcar treated Acra Leuce as a new capital for Punic
Spain, but likely enough. Gades was a very small town on an offshore island
and the Gaditanes, though allies, were an independent state; besides, Gades
lay inconveniently far off in Spain from Carthage itself. His new city had
none of these drawbacks. This then was probably where he and his two
eldest sons were based in the last years of his life, although he, his son-in-law
and eventually the boys must have spent much of every year on the move
around their territories, campaigning and administering.
Hamilcar’s second son Hasdrubal came to Spain before his father’s death.
