Hannibal's Dynasty
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by then the new law’s and the sufete’s enemies would long have rallied their
forces to repeal it. The law surely came into force directly—meaning that
elections for the entire membership of the tribunal had to be held during the
current official year, so that the new Hundred and Four could take their seats
when the next year started.
With public support strongly on his side Hannibal could count on many
Barcid supporters winning membership, perhaps indeed a majority, in the
new Hundred and Four—at least for 195. This would give both a positive
start to the reformed court and also protection to himself after he laid down
his office—an important extra benefit he might reckon on needing by then.
We shall see that his calculations were probably accurate. As for the hapless
‘quaestor’, once his term expired his fate was probably sealed, for the same
reasons.7
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III
The reforming sufete now turned his attention to the republic’s woebegone
finances. As we saw, these were most likely in trouble not because of any eco-
nomic downturn, still less pressure from the Romans’ yearly indemnity (this
was a victim of the trouble, not a cause), but because too many fingers
dipped into them between collection and deposit at the treasury. The obvious
solution was to ensure that transmission from the one to the other became
faultless—as faultless as possible in ancient conditions, at any rate. This Han-
nibal achieved, though no one tells how.
Livy does insist on the waste and theft by which the republic was defrauded,
and the survey Hannibal made of revenue-sources and commitments. Nepos
merely reports him imposing ‘new taxes’ that enriched the state, either misun-
derstanding his cleanup measures (which were themselves new) or meaning
new taxes not on his fellow-Carthaginians but on their allies and subjects. A
principal reason for the Carthaginians’ outrage and probably the main stimu-
lus to Hannibal’s election had been the threat of a new general tax, so he had
no motive to bring in one himself. Nor any need, if Livy is right to imply that
simply stopping the existing leaks was enough to make the Roman indemnity
easily payable. But Nepos stresses that the new taxes enabled the treasury to
build up a surplus, and we shall see that this very likely did happen.8
As seen earlier, rough-and-ready calculation gives Hannibal’s city a postwar
annual revenue of 1,400–1,500 talents . The new indemnity of 200 talents a
year was then well over 10 per cent of this—but a much larger percentage of
what actually reached the treasury. It is not surprising then that the
Carthaginians were having trouble amassing the sum in 196. Hannibal carried
out a thorough investigation into state revenues and expenditures, estab-
lished what they ought to be (no doubt allowing for trade fluctuations and
varying agricultural output, at least to some extent) and worked out—most
tellingly of all—how and where the funding-diversions occurred. It seems he
announced the results, or a résumé of them, at another public assembly: at
any rate he told his listeners that removing the abuses would provide plenty
of funds to pay the indemnity, and he promised to remove them.
How a sufete, or even both sufetes, could take charge of finance is not
known. Sufetes are nowhere recorded with finance among their responsibili-
ties, though this may only be due to the state of our sources. Maybe
Hannibal’s brisk way with the ‘quaestor’ had prompted the other finance offi-
cials to co-operate in practice, even if they did not have to do so in law; or
maybe he put his measures to the citizen assembly for ratification. Maybe
both, for no amount of ratification could guarantee the success of financial
reforms if the officials who had to implement them remained opposed.
It is not certain, even if sometimes claimed, that he also made the pecula-
tors disgorge all that they had taken. Livy writes that having completed his
survey of income and embezzlements ‘he collected all the outstanding funds
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and cancelled the tax on private citizens’. If ‘the outstanding funds’ covered
embezzlements going back over years or decades, then Hannibal would
indeed have wrought a social revolution as occasionally claimed. After all,
most such sums would not have been kept idle in strong-boxes, so a strict
inquisition would have been needed to identify goods and properties bought
with the stolen money, plus other investments such as loans and trade ven-
tures; then all these would have to be either confiscated by the state or sold
off by owners, inevitably at a loss, to meet the state’s claims. The whole pro-
cess would have been open-ended and dangerously destabilizing not just
economically but politically, even if the inquisition went back only (for
instance) to the end of the recent war. It would be likely to drag in Barcid
kinsmen and supporters as well as enemies, especially if it probed beyond
201. On all these grounds any such measure was surely inconceivable.9
Much likelier, Livy means—or is compressing a source who meant—that
Hannibal succeeded in plugging the revenue-leaks so that the sums due in the
current year were all received. Perhaps too he forced those who had made off
with funds earlier in the year, before his reform had gone through, to repay
them: that would be logical and relatively feasible.
The methods of the reform can only be surmised. Carelessness ( neglegentia)
and direct theft were behind the losses, Livy writes briefly, no doubt com-
pressing his source again. In this context carelessness would surely mean, as a
rule anyway, not physically mislaying bags of money or losing them off
wagons en route to the treasury, but overseers’ and officials’ insouciance—
probably often collusive insouciance—over pilfering by lesser functionaries
and other persons while funds were collected; insouciance too over supervis-
ing state contracts and supplies, and (pretty inevitably) over rendering proper
accounts when these fell due. The remedy was obviously to impose reliable
supervision and stricter auditing, which in turn required officials whom the
sufete (and future sufetes) could trust. How Hannibal achieved it is not
reported, but the election of the new and more compliant One Hundred and
Four may have helped, if only by reminding existing functionaries that they
now risked real penalties if caught out.10
Preventing outright peculation may have been an easier task, again basically
calling for proper supervision (which the sufete could exert himself); maybe
too Hannibal was able to get reliable men elected or selected for office at
least for the coming year. The reforms would be better protected if he could
enact more structured supervision-methods (a board or committee chosen
from among each year’s One Hundred and Four, for instance): but Livy
merely generalizes that ‘he kept his promise’ to improve the revenues.
All the same, the financial improvement survived Hannibal’s sufeteship.
Five year
s later the Romans were once more at war, this time with King Anti-
ochus, and the Carthaginians offered to help by paying over in one lump sum
their entire remaining indemnity: forty years’ worth, in other words no less
than 8,000 talents or 48 million denarii. This was equivalent to around three
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and a half years of the Roman republic’s own average revenues—and more
tellingly, more than six years of Punic revenues as estimated earlier. So from
being unable in 197–196 to pay 200 talents unless a special tax were levied,
the Carthaginians by 191 had accumulated funds at an average rate of 1,600 a
year. At the same time they offered to donate massive quantities of wheat
and barley, up to double what they had supplied in 200. The Romans for
political reasons refused these Punic largesses, but plainly the offers were
genuine.
This was an amazing turnaround. Indeed it seems too much even for the
reformed revenues on their own. This makes Nepos’ already-mentioned
report of ‘new taxes’ noteworthy. Conceivably enough the sufete raised the
Libyans’ taxes (an old Punic device to improve revenues) and those of subor-
dinate cities like Lepcis. This would win him no friends among such folk, but
none had the vote at Carthage, and Hannibal was hardly a sentimentalist
when it came to his own city’s interests.
Carthage’s economic revival, too, should have increased the intake from
customs and harbour-dues and promoted other pursuits in which Carthagini-
ans were skilled—shipbuilding, for instance, and not just for Punic
customers—which might in turn be taxed one way or another. The city after
all now had two safe and usable artificial ports, for, with the navy abolished,
the circular inner port was as free for peacetime craft as was the outer haven.
Archaeological evidence shows the inner port remained much in use, in fact
was thoroughly refurbished, during the second century and this despite the
absence of a war-fleet. With no navy save ten ships, no army to speak of (and
few if any mercenaries), commercial and agricultural life reburgeoning, and
extra tax revenues flowing in, it need not surprise that the state soon began to
accumulate money.11
IV
Even these measures may not have been Hannibal’s sole activities as sufete.
Of course he had to devote much energy and time to them, for along with a
probable involvement in the first election of the new-look tribunal of One
Hundred and Four he had his inquest into the public finances to carry out
followed by his remedies for the ailing treasury. Nor in turn could he afford
to ignore the elections for the following year’s magistracies and the next Hun-
dred and Four. Continuity of policy was vital for his reforms to be effective:
since he and any allies of his in office could not seek re-election, or chose not
to—and an entire new tribunal of judges had to be created—it would be
common sense to try to get as many fresh supporters as possible elected
instead. He must have had some success, for the Barcid faction was to remain
politically powerful for some years to come.
But he may have found time for other important work too, if the suggestion
is correct that he initiated a major urban redevelopment which archaeologists
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have uncovered on the southern slopes of the Byrsa hill, datable through pot-
tery to the early second century and so sometimes nicknamed ‘Hannibal’s
quarter’ of the city. This was a well-designed residential and commercial pro-
ject that replaced an area of iron foundries: broad stepped streets and
handsome apartment blocks were laid out on the hillside, notable for Hellenis-
tic features like peristyles and bathroom facilities. The development’s date and
its novel and seemingly uniform plan have prompted the suggestion that it
was another project of Hannibal the sufete. This may be right, for the Barcids
had a tradition of city-building—even brother Mago supposedly had estab-
lished a settlement in the Balearic islands in 205, today’s Mahón—and
Hannibal himself was later to found one or even two cities in the east for royal
patrons. With the Byrsa project, though, he can have done little more than
draw up the plans and view the initial stage of work, for even by mid-195 not
all the funds needed can already have been available.
Whoever was responsible, the development was probably a response to the
revival of prosperity and pressures for new living space. Priests and officials
have been suggested as its likely beneficiaries. To them could be added the
small shopkeepers and craftsmen who rented or bought premises in the new
district. Some of the grand Hellenistic-style mansions discovered down by
the shore may have been established at this time too: they would be city resi-
dences for members of the aristocracy, perhaps including Hannibal himself.12
V
When his sufeteship expired he was plainly once more the first man in the
state. As noted earlier, it looks as though he and his supporters were again in
the ascendancy, whoever the supporters were, even if some proved to be fair-
weather friends only, and even though the senate—whose membership had
not been touched—probably remained evenly balanced.
The sources’ picture is consistent even if sketchy. During his sufeteship
Hannibal had carried all before him and his enemies were reduced to intrigu-
ing with their friends at Rome against him. Afterwards, Livy makes clear,
political feelings were high but his supporters remained many and strong.
When the Roman embassy in 195 delivered a tirade against the fugitive leader
in the Punic senate, no doubt via the most senior envoy Cn. Servilius Caepio,
the senators simply replied that they would do whatever the Romans thought
proper: there is no sign of them enthusiastically seconding the accusations, as
might have been expected had Hannibal’s enemies regained control by now
(these after all had intrigued to have the embassy sent), nor does the ensuing
proscription of him prove anything but that the senate was obeying or antici-
pating Roman wishes, as promised.13
The glimpse Livy later allows of Carthage in 193 is just as suggestive.
When Hannibal’s undeclared emissary Aristo of Tyre attracted notice, a
debate in the senate showed opinion to be polarized: senators demanding
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action on Aristo were matched by those opposing it and deadlock ensued.
Rather contradictorily, Livy then depicts the senate as a whole as hostile to
Aristo whereas ‘the leading men’ are willing to meet with him, and mutual
suspicions are only worsened by ordinary citizens’ equally dim view of the
senate. It all produces internal wrangles serious enough to encourage
Masinissa to encroach meantime on Punic lands. The contrasts are over-
drawn—as another example, Livy himself records Aristo as having talks with
Barcid supporters only, not all the ‘leading men’—but it is reasonable to con-
clude from this evidence that many aristocrats were still pro-Barcid in 193
and a sizeable segment of ordinary citizens likewise, while the senate was
more or less evenly divided in sympathies. Even if by then anti-Barcid sena-
tors were more numerous, they were not strong enough to overbear their
opponents on a controversial matter, and the resulting standoff so paralysed
Punic politics that it gave Masinissa ideas.
On the other hand Aristo’s circumspect behaviour at Carthage, and ulti-
mate flight to avoid an inquisition, suggest that no kinsmen or friends of
Hannibal were then in high office, though many no doubt were senators and
in the One Hundred and Four and could hope for sufeteships and other posi-
tions in future. In other words the Barcid resurgence Hannibal had achieved
can still be traced, though in weaker condition, three years later.14
When he stepped down from office Hannibal must have been aware of his
opponents’ moves to have the Romans act against him. Carthaginian
grandees had been writing to their guest-friends, ‘the leading men of Rome’
according to Livy, to press the allegations about him being in touch with the
Seleucid king and to warn in vague and general terms that Hannibal in charge
of Carthage was no good thing for Rome. This had been going on since the
finance-reforms, so pretty certainly Hannibal too learned of it in time. But he
could do little except keep himself informed and make a few prudent prepa-
rations in case of emergency.
Roman reaction was held up ‘for a long time’ by, of all people, Hannibal’s
military nemesis Scipio Africanus, who plainly viewed the accusations as slan-
der. That an embassy was finally decreed in 195 may have been due to
prodding by one consul, the combative M. Cato (not yet away in Spain) who
was no friend to Scipio and, in later years anyway, showed notorious animos-
ity towards the Carthaginians. How deep in collusion the Roman authorities
were with Hannibal’s enemies is shown by the deceptive way the envoys
introduced themselves—stating on their Punic cronies’ advice only that they
had come to mediate in the dispute with Masinissa. Hannibal, not to be taken
in by a palpable ruse, disappeared during the night and rode to his coastal
estate near Thapsus, where he had a fully equipped ship waiting to take him