Hannibal's Dynasty

by Dexter Hoyos

  with the verdict that the general all the same acted too soon. Livy by contrast

  exemplifies Roman ambivalence: he offers the famous character-portrait at

  the start, with virtues vividly specified and then a list of generalized vices, fol-

  lows it with a narrative noticeably respectful towards the foe, and accords

  him a stoically pathetic speech before his suicide. Cassius Dio’s character-

  portrait, a lengthy collection of generalizations for an energetic and

  awe-inspiring commander, is almost entirely friendly. Poets too, like Horace

  and Silius, reflect the Romans’ hate-and-love complex.11

  What fascinated them, like Romans and Greeks generally and moderns too,

  was Hannibal the general, the breaker of armies and, most vividly of all,

  crosser of mountains—not the Hannibal who, it can be held, restored his

  country’s prosperity later on and with it at least a modicum of democracy.

  Those achievements endured for nearly half a century but they lacked the

  éclat of war. Historical irony all the same ensured that the unforgettable mili-

  tary exploits, after a decade and a half of excitement and success, left his state

  toppled as a great power and its enemies poised to rule the Mediterranean.

  Once the Barcid era had ended, many Carthaginians might ruefully feel that

  their city could have fared better without it and its short-lived grandeur, had

  Carthage been left quietly to cultivate its garden in Africa instead.

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  Yet this would probably have been impossible, no matter who directed

  Punic policy after 241. To have Hanno the Great and his circle in charge, for

  instance, and favouring expansion within North Africa—not that we know

  of them favouring this—would not have guaranteed an untroubled existence.

  There was plenty of trade between North Africa and Italy and the Romans at

  times showed themselves aggressive in protecting their traders’ interests (or

  using protection as a pretext), as in 240 towards the Carthaginians themselves

  and ten years later towards the Illyrians. A much-expanded Punic empire in

  North Africa and accompanying prosperity could have fuelled revanchist

  Punic designs on Sicily; even if not, the Romans’ behaviour in 237 and 225,

  over Sardinia and when facing the Gallic invasion, suggests they would soon

  have begun suspecting just such designs.

  Again, it is scarcely believable that Hanno in charge of affairs could have

  averted the mercenary and Libyan revolt; and it was this catastrophe that

  prompted Punic expansion into Spain, where richer resources beckoned than

  in Africa at the time. In turn the expanding Spanish empire would still have

  regularly risked Roman inquisitiveness, with unforeseeable results.12

  The Carthaginians had thus been locked into a very narrow range of

  choices from 241 on: and that being so, the Barcid ascendancy, which

  brought them new wealth and power and, for a while, the chance of western

  Mediterranean supremacy, was probably their best course. An ultimate Barcid

  defeat was not inevitable either for, as we have seen, some crucial decisions

  (especially some of Hannibal’s) could have been made differently to bring the

  opposite result.

  As it turned out, though, the most permanent achievement of the Barcid

  era was fame and a glorious memory. Carthage went down to fiery destruc-

  tion in 146—just over a century after Hamilcar first stepped into the light of

  history—but even if there were no Carthaginians left to remember it, the

  time of the Barcids was stamped on the memories and traditions of their

  enemies, partly in hostility (but this cooled over the centuries) and partly in

  admiration. As a result, imperfectly in places and extensively in others, we can

  in our own time appreciate the impressiveness of their achievement and the

  drama of their fall.

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  X V I I I

  S O U RC E S

  I

  What we know of the Barcid era is uneven. Much, though not enough, about

  Hamilcar’s campaigns in Sicily and then North Africa, but barely anything of

  his years in Spain; again only an outline of Hasdrubal’s time as general there;

  while by contrast the wars of Hannibal and his lieutenants are copiously—

  which does not always mean reliably—recorded. The most glaring deficiency

  of all is in the record of domestic Carthaginian affairs, for all we have are

  occasional glimpses (during the negotiations with Scipio in 203, for instance)

  and passing comments. The surviving sources are all literary, in other words

  are works composed by educated writers for similar readers. These all lived

  later than the events they record, some much later; were all Greeks or

  Romans; and all had interests of their own to illustrate, centred on the Hel-

  lenistic Greek world and the Romans’ achievement of Mediterranean

  dominance. Works on the Carthaginian aspect of the same events once

  existed too, but disappeared probably before the Roman empire did.

  The first important source, all the same, predates them and survives. In his

  analysis of city-state political systems Aristotle includes the Carthaginian, his

  sole non-Greek example. He judges it a well-balanced structure though not

  free from stresses, largely oligarchic but with an important though limited

  rôle for the ordinary citizen; mentions the tribunal of One Hundred and

  Four and notes both its power and that of the (undefined) pentarchies; and

  emphasizes as well as criticizes the weightiness of wealth in public life. His

  comments may amount to little more than a sketch and raise plenty of fur-

  ther questions, and he is describing the Punic polity of a century or more

  before the Barcids: but it is all we have apart from passing and sometimes

  ignorant remarks in other writers.1

  The very first writers to treat of the Barcids were the Sicilian Philinus of

  Agrigentum, and the Roman Q. Fabius Pictor. Philinus wrote a history of the

  First Punic War, a fairly substantial one since he began the war itself only in

  his second book. There is no convincing sign that he went past 241 and he

  seems to have composed his work in the years following. By then Sicily was

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  under Roman rule, which did not improve his attitude towards the people

  who had sacked and ravaged his home city. By contrast Fabius, the first

  Roman historian—who also wrote in Greek—dealt with the whole of Roman

  history, paying special attention to its legendary opening centuries and to his

  own time. He had held a praetorship and, after the disaster of Cannae, led an

  embassy to consult the oracle at Delphi. His narrative reached 217 at least

  (Livy cites his Roman casualty figures for the battle of Lake Trasimene), and

  probably the end of the war. The papyrus fragment of Polybius’ time, on

  some events in North Africa in 203, is possibly from an epitome of it.

  Both writers took partisan stands on Roman–Punic relations. Philinus gave

  a questionable account of the start of the first war and very probably bathed

  Hamilcar’s Sicilian campaigns in the eulogistic light that Polybius’ own verdict

  reflects—Fabius can hardly have done so, and the
se two are the only primary

  sources known. Fabius in turn accused Hasdrubal, Hamilcar’s successor, of

  greed and power-lust, claimed that Hannibal copied the same vices, and

  denied the latter the support of any leading person in his attack on Saguntum

  and the ensuing war against the Romans. All the same they both recorded

  events in detail and, a useful feature, from opposing points of view; both also

  convinced Polybius of their honest intent even if this had flaws in practice.2

  Hannibal himself was a source. In 205 he had an account of his campaigns

  inscribed in Punic and Greek in the temple of Hera at Cape Lacinium; so at

  any rate Livy describes the contents, though Polybius cites them for nothing

  more than the Punic army statistics of 218. The Greek text of his treaty with

  Philip V of Macedon does survive in Polybius’ verbatim quotation—the

  nearest we can come to anything composed by Hannibal himself.3

  Just a little is known of other contemporaries. Hannibal’s Greek friends

  and admirers, Silenus from Cale Acte in Sicily and Sosylus of Sparta, both

  wrote accounts of his doings as war-leader and may (either or both) have

  continued down to 195. But a papyrus fragment on a naval battle in Spanish

  waters, maybe the battle at the Ebro’s mouth in 217, is all that remains of

  Sosylus’ Hannibalica, and the famous story of the general’s dream en route to

  Italy is Silenus’ only substantial item still surviving.

  Polybius is not enthusiastic about them. He sees Sosylus as capable of

  relaying gossip worthy of a barbershop (a sharp verdict, but not disproved by

  the plausible battle-narrative); and is contemptuous of writers who supplied

  Hannibal with gods and heroes to guide his way across the Alps, which hits

  very near to Silenus. On the other hand they recorded events from Hannibal’s

  side in detail, and not his operations alone: Sosylus’ Spanish sea-battle, and

  Silenus’ figures (cited by Livy) for military booty captured at New Carthage in

  209, show that both narrated the war as a whole and—on military matters

  anyway—soberly enough. No doubt they portrayed their friend and patron in

  the best light at all times. How much they reported, or even understood, of

  his enemies’ military and political systems, or the constantly changing details

  of Roman commanders and magistrates, can only be guessed.4

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  Various other early writers are mentioned in our surviving sources, most of

  them just names: like the Chaereas whom Polybius brackets with Sosylus as a

  purveyor of barbershop tales, one Eumachus of Naples, and a Xenophon.

  Less misty is the Roman L. Cincius Alimentus, praetor in 210 and later on a

  prisoner of Hannibal’s: he too eventually wrote a history of Rome which

  included his own times, in Greek like Fabius Pictor. As a high-ranking captive

  he was treated to conversations with the general at least on military matters,

  though his one recorded slice of information—figures for Hannibal’s losses

  en route to Italy and army strength on arriving—is at best the product of

  misunderstanding or a confused memory. The innovative and pugnacious

  Cato the Elder, a veteran of the war, consul in 195 and the first to write his-

  tory in Latin, likewise dealt with the era in later sections of his seven-book

  Origines, but only a few extracts survive thanks to quotation by later writers.

  One of them is the earliest known version of Maharbal’s famous remark to

  Hannibal, uttered supposedly after Cannae but arguably in fact the day after

  Trasimene.5

  With history-writing an established genre at Rome, a long succession of

  Latin as well as Greek authors covered the Punic Wars as part of their general

  narratives, but what they contributed to the surviving accounts cannot be

  identified. In the late second century, on the other hand, L. Coelius Antipater

  invented the Latin historical monograph with seven books on Hannibal’s

  war. Although it too failed to survive it was much consulted by Livy and

  others, and Cicero rather grudgingly praises Coelius’ efforts at literary stylish-

  ness. Coelius made use of Silenus, and maybe other pro-Barcid writers, as

  well as Roman sources; consulted not only historical works but items like pre-

  served funeral orations; and drew his conclusions on debatable issues from

  careful consultation of the evidence available, for instance on how the consul

  Marcellus met his end in 208. An interest in literary style and dramatic scenes

  led him to cite Silenus’ account of Hannibal’s famous dream, and sometimes

  prompted more dubious touches—like running Scipio and his army through

  a near-disastrous storm on their voyage to Africa, whereas all Livy’s other

  sources recorded a calm sea and prosperous voyage.6

  Two first-century historians of Rome also loom large among Livy’s fitful

  references to predecessors whom he consulted on the Punic-wars period and

  after. Claudius Quadrigarius and Valerius Antias, conventionally dated to the

  time of Sulla the dictator, gave much space in their lengthy works to the

  Punic wars. For such general histories, standard practice was to recount

  events year by year (as Livy and others do): hence the term annalists applied

  to the writers. Livy found these two particularly appealing, and not only on

  the Punic wars, for the quantity of detail they offered and their claim to have

  digested a broad range of earlier sources. Not so appealing as to blind him to

  some of their shortcomings, notably Valerius’ feckless exaggeration of ene-

  mies slain and booty taken; yet he cites them a good deal more often than any

  other predecessors.7

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  II

  Polybius is the oldest extant source. His lengthy history of recent times is

  incomplete: only Books 1–5 in full, plus excerpts—fortunately, many are

  lengthy—of most of the other 35. For Polybius recent times began in 220,

  when in his view all the affairs of the Mediterranean world began an interac-

  tion ( symploke) that was to culminate in Roman domination from east to west.

  But to clarify how the interaction originated he provides a sketch, in Books 1

  and 2, of the main events preceding it: the First Punic War and the Mercenar-

  ies’ War, followed by events in Greece, Roman expansion into northern Italy

  in the 230s and 220s and interwar Roman–Punic relations. His work as a

  result spans the era 264 to 146.8

  Polybius is not only the earliest source but an acute, analytical and argu-

  mentative one. Thanks to 17 years at Rome from 167 (as a comfortably

  housed state hostage), he became an admirer of the Romans—their civic

  qualities, political system, military structure, imperial success—and a friend

  of the much younger P. Scipio Aemilianus, grandson of Hannibal’s oppo-

  nent. When Aemilianus outdid his grandfather by sacking, burning and

  depopulating Carthage in 146, Polybius was at his side. Long before this he

  had decided to write an account of ‘how, and through what type of political

  system, almost the entire world was subdued in not quite fifty-three years and

  fell under the sole rule of the Romans’. The 53 years were from 220 to the

>   overthrow and partition of Macedon, a state which itself had once con-

  quered much of the world, in 167. It was a later decision to extend the

  narrative down to 146 to show, in not always favourable detail, how the

  Romans used their hegemony.

  The history is not a plain narrative but also supplies regular comments, dis-

  cussions, digressions and even extensive thematic essays: the most famous

  being his treatment of the Roman political and military systems in Book 6.

  To explain events required impartiality, perceptiveness and clarity, all of

  which he was confident he possessed. Likewise experience of warfare and

  politics, which again were no problem. And he had available a wide range of

  sources, all of them contemporary or near-contemporary with their times,

  from written accounts of the First and Second Punic Wars to participants

  and eyewitnesses of recent events.9

  Book 3 ends with the Roman catastrophe at Cannae, and when the Punic

  war narrative resumes after Book 6 we have only the excerpts, most of them

  from the tenth-century Byzantine compilation authorized by the emperor

  Constantine VII. While some later sources, Livy above all, do follow Polybius

  as their own source when reporting the decades after 216, it is hard to be sure

  what is Polybian in their versions and what they take from other writers. The

  blending that took place can be seen plainly enough in Livy’s telling of the

  first three years of Hannibal’s war, where his Books 21 and 22 run parallel to

  Polybius’ Book 3; not to mention in passages later in his work where he can

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  be matched with a Polybian excerpt, for instance the accounts of Zama and

  its aftermath.10

  Polybius’ Roman and Greek focus widens to include Carthaginian matters

  only where these are relevant—or to him seem relevant—to his grand theme.

  The Punic Wars obviously do; so too the Mercenaries’ War in Punic Africa, in

  his view an awful demonstration of the dangers such employees could pose

  to a state when they broke from control, and also a vital factor in the causes

  of Hannibal’s war. He much admires Hamilcar and Hannibal: the father to

  the extreme of judging him the finest general of the First Punic War, and the

  son for his leadership and military genius, despite conceding he was not free