From 230 to 220 BCE, there would have been a steady procession of mule trains down into Cartagena from the rusty red hills of the peninsula to its immediate east: sturdy pack animals on whose backs the piled silver ingots came by the hundreds. Carthaginian accountants and quartermasters kept a close watch on the bullion, and the Cartagena mints were busy stamping out silver coins, probably most of them with Barcid dynasty images. Hannibal could have become incredibly wealthy from this glut of Spanish silver but instead chose to focus his economic policy on military matters. The few surviving Punic silver coins found to have been minted in Cartagena—since the Romans later took them out of circulation and melted them down partly to avoid reminders of Hannibal’s victories—seem to show the older, bearded face of Hamilcar Barca or the younger, beardless Hannibal on one side. The peering profiles look as if these gifted Punic generals could see to the edge of the world and had their eyes on the future. On the reverse side of the portrait profile, some of these new Barcid family silver mints often portrayed an army elephant brought from Syria, where they had been bred for generations. Hannibal’s apparent first victorious use of elephants was in Spain against the Carpetani tribe, when he employed forty pachyderms stampeding along the Tagus River to trap and crush resistance after an uprising. These animals might have been many of the same elephants he took with him two years later to Italy.
Hannibal’s elephants are perhaps the most enduring image of his intrepid story. These huge beasts are what nearly everyone visualizes on the march—the picture made all the more impressive by the crossing of the Alps, where elephants are a visual oxymoron. Many famous depictions show the elephants with Hannibal’s army in the snow, often surrounded by rocky peaks.
Hannibal marched with elephants because they were so frightening and destructive. The best war elephants were trained to enhance their natural instincts to gore with their wicked ivory tusks, often sharpened or tipped with razor-sharp metal. They could lift and toss with these tusks, using them as we use pitchforks. They also had very thick outer skin, often one and a half inches or even thicker, especially in places where skin folds or calluses occur—hence the descriptive Greek name for them, pachyderm, meaning “thick skinned.” Often airborne projectiles such as spears and arrows could barely penetrate their skin unless used at very close range (and who would want to be that close?). Furthermore, nearly all cavalry horses—even the Numidian horses with Hannibal—hated the beasts’ unique smell and often stampeded away even when trained for battle.
The Celtiberians and later the Gauls were seeing elephants for the first time. Polybius says that the ragged Gauls in the snowy Alps avoided Hannibal’s elephants at all costs, never attacking or ambushing anywhere near them.
Everyone wants to know what kind of elephants Hannibal had. None of the ancient sources, primarily Polybius and Livy, record this detail. Instead, these historians tell us only that Hannibal crossed Gaul and the Alps with about thirty elephants (the historic estimates range from twenty-seven to thirty-seven). To this day, no one knows for certain which species Hannibal employed, but the primary candidate is the Asian or Indian elephant, Elephas maximus. Four or five subspecies of this elephant have been bred and used for millennia in labor and battle in Asia and Southeast Asia. The Asian elephant is highly trainable—although never really tamed. It had to be forcibly trained in warfare to charge and trample enemies either singly or in ranks. A herbivore, the adult can easily eat 10 percent of its weight in vegetable matter (up to five hundred pounds) and drink, on average, thirty gallons of water daily. Its maximum pace is generally about fifteen miles per hour unless charging, although it generally prefers a lumbering walk of about two to three miles per hour.
Historically, the Asian elephant was probably first encountered by Alexander the Great when he fought with the Persians at the Battle of Gaugamela in 331 BC and again farther east on the Indus River frontiers of India around 325 BC in his battles with King Porus—where he faced almost a hundred war elephants at the Battle of the Hydaspes River. Asian elephants were subsequently imported from India and bred in Syria by Alexander’s Seleucid successors and also used in Macedonia by King Pyrrhus of Epirus in 280 BC.9 In the third century BCE, elephants were expensive but fairly common imports from Alexandria to Carthage, where they were also bred for war.10
In antiquity, there was a smaller species of elephants inhabiting the Atlas Mountains in North Africa, Loxodonta africana pharaoensis, now believed to be extinct. It is possible that this elephant species also was used by the Carthaginians, given its geographical proximity, and some historians think this may have been Hannibal’s elephant.
For two years, from 221 to 219 BCE, Hannibal slowly strengthened his leadership and trained his men into the best fighting unit in the world, a great achievement considering their multicultural backgrounds and the different languages they spoke, although their different commanders would have all spoken sufficient Punic to be able to relay commands from Hannibal downward. In the meantime, a waiting Hannibal stockpiled weapons and silver for his next step toward ultimate revenge against Rome, whether his allies in Spain or back home in Carthage understood or even guessed his long-term goal.
SPAIN’S CELTIBERIANS
Some of Hannibal’s knowledge was acquired by his direct observation from military campaigns, with other information coming from a network of paid informants and intelligence gathered from his scouts in outposts, and some from merchants who doubled as spies.
Hannibal’s trained ability to make accurate assessments and observations was no doubt instigated and encouraged by his father when Hannibal was a young adolescent in Spain. He would apply this lesson throughout his subsequent engagements for the next decade as he marched through Gaul and into Italy. Hannibal reasoned rightly that if he could harness their strengths and address their weakness, these Celtiberians and their kin could make able allies or, at worst, could be the frontline buffer for his troops against the Romans. If he could both win their trust and simultaneously exploit their desire for independence while adding to their suspicions of Roman intents, Hannibal could amass an unusual military force that would more than give the Romans pause. Some of these very Celtiberians who came over to the Punic side would later accompany Hannibal into Italy and form a vital core of his most resolute veterans.
What Hannibal could glean from Celtic culture—especially weapons of good Spanish steel and their bravery in war—would also be a huge boon in his burgeoning dealings with far more of their kind as he moved ever closer to Roman Italy. That Hannibal was far more successful than the Romans with the Celts and their close kin in Spain and Gaul—observing and learning how best to deal with them in war and peace—is likely proof that his time spent in Spain was a necessary step toward invading Italy.
Hannibal’s continued successes in Iberia worried some Romans but did not much faze the Senate, which was more concerned at the time with Illyria. The aggregate people making up the Illyrians included the territories of modern Croatia, Serbia, and Albania on the Dalmatian coast. The Romans had to quickly deal with the Illyrians on their northeastern flank as a higher priority than this young Carthaginian upstart in Spain. Increasing Illyrian piracy had made the Adriatic Sea unsafe for Roman shipping for several years, and the Roman recourse to this danger was to invade Illyria with sufficient legions at the expense of any other interests. Roman ambitions for Spain were mostly postponed for the time being. This overcommitment to the Illyrian distraction would also prove to be a severe Roman mistake in 219 BCE regarding Saguntum.
Four
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SAGUNTUM
The Romans had demanded that the Carthaginians respect the Ebro River as a boundary. The town of Saguntum was many leagues to the south of the river, outside the Roman boundary and roughly midway between Cartagena and the Ebro. Saguntum, however, was also a Roman ally, commercially tied to the Roman colony of Massilia in Gaul. By 219 BCE, the Romans were apparently using Saguntum to keep an eye on Hannibal and possibly to divide Spai
n. As far as we know, Saguntum had not even been mentioned in the Ebro River boundary treaty between Hasdrubal and Rome, but the Romans evidently believed they could grandfather it.
Whatever the case, Saguntum provided the spark to the Second Punic War. Even as Rome engaged with the Illyrian pirates in the Adriatic Sea in 220 BCE, it paid a little attention to Spain.
SAGUNTUM AS ROME’S ALLY
Polybius says that the Saguntines had placed themselves under the protection of Rome long before Hannibal’s time.1 It is uncertain what Polybius meant specifically about Saguntum being under official protection, as he was likely biased toward Rome. The nature of Saguntum’s relationship to Rome and when it commenced has been long debated—whether it was a formal alliance ( foedus, in Latin) or a dependency for protection (deditio in fidem). Polybius calls it an alliance (symmachia), while Livy says that Saguntum and Rome had the obligations of allies ( fides socialis). The connected question is whether Saguntum’s alliance began before or after Rome’s Ebro River declaration of 226 BCE, because Saguntum’s location outside the Roman boundary would provoke Punic interests.2
Around 220, Rome inserted itself into a political fracas in Saguntum, claiming that it had been invited to arbitrate between the Saguntines3 and a tribe, the Turboleti, that lived in the montane highlands to the west. The Turboleti traded with the Carthaginians to the south and probably favored them over the coastal Saguntines.4 The Romans, now decisively involved south of the boundary they had earlier set up with Hasdrubal the Fair, continued the expansionist policy they had adopted with Sicily in 264 BCE and Sardinia just after 240 BCE. This full Roman intrusion into Saguntum could mean only one thing to Hannibal: with Carthage burned two times over losing Sicily and Sardinia, he wasn’t about to let it happen again. It didn’t take a soothsayer to predict that Rome would challenge Carthage over Spain. If Hannibal chose to intervene in Saguntum, he could claim that he was merely defending the interests of his Turboleti trade allies. According to Polybius, Hannibal had multiple incentives to act: depriving Rome of further Spanish conquests, inspiring terror in the Iberian tribes, and amassing and distributing booty that would raise his troops’ morale and pacify Carthage back home.5 According to one historian, this was the turning point of Hannibal’s life6: Would he accept Roman interference at Saguntum or call the Romans’ bluff?
HANNIBAL’S SIEGE OF SAGUNTUM
Once he consulted with his commanders, whose men were on winter leave, Hannibal acted fairly swiftly in the early spring of 219 BCE and assembled an army, marching from Cartagena on Saguntum in about a week. The distance would have been about 140 miles if he took the more direct route north from Akra Leuke (modern-day Alicante), or about 200 miles if he followed the coastal route northeast and then north along the Gulf of Valencia.
The Saguntines must have heard from their scouts that an army was entering the plain of Valencia. Watching from their high walls, they would have seen with trepidation the dust of the thousands of troops along with horses and supplies. No doubt Hannibal added some local troops en route and also stocked up on food and supplies taken from local people. The Saguntines, however, well defended behind their natural cliffs with added stone ramparts, had already driven all their farm animals, livestock, and horses into the citadel. As the army loomed closer on the plain, they would have just had time to send news northward to allied Massilia and onward to Rome itself, fully expecting Rome to march to their aid. Hannibal wasted no time cutting off the fortress from its surrounding agricultural territory and the well-watered valley of the Palancia River immediately north of the plateau.
In laying siege to Saguntum in 219 BCE, Hannibal surely knew there would be no turning back. Polybius suggests that this act was a casus belli, or “cause of war,” as the Romans interpreted history. But as far as Hannibal was concerned—and Polybius acknowledges this was a somewhat valid Carthaginian interpretation7—the Romans having taken Sardinia without a treaty was his primary justification. Many modern scholars agree that Rome initiated relations with Saguntum in order to block further Barcid expansion in Spain.8
By choosing to force the Romans’ hand over Saguntum, Hannibal knew he would have to act boldly if he were to influence the Celts in Spain and Gaul even as he gambled on the Roman response. Could he make the Romans look weak to the Celts if Rome—already engaged in Illyria—didn’t send an army to stop him? Could he thus prove that the Romans would not abide by their treaties with enemies such as Carthage, but if they abandoned Saguntum, they would also prove unfaithful to their allies?9
In 219 BCE Saguntum was a fortified oppidum (hill fort) of about twenty acres on top of the plateau about two-thirds of a mile from the shore, where the steepest cliffs rise almost vertically coastward but are much shallower on the landward approach from the west. Like any good fortress, Saguntum’s deep wells and cisterns could provide water in a siege for a few months during dry seasons and possibly longer during winter rains when water collection was possible in the cisterns. Its later stout silhouetted battlements such as El Ciudadillo and Castillo are still very much in evidence from when the Moors ruled Spain as Al-Andaluz between 711–1492 AD/CE. With its many terraced vestiges of ruined walls going back millennia, Saguntum is as unforgettable today as it was when it was built.
The siege of Saguntum lasted about eight months, if Polybius and Livy are right. The siege was prolonged because the upper walled city was mostly impregnable on three sides—east, north, and south—and the walls were formidable on the western sloping side. Food would be the greatest issue, since Hannibal had marched and attacked just after spring planting. The winter’s larders or food supply would already have been thinner than was optimal for a long survival.
The Saguntines probably had a type of defensive fire-throwing weapon, the falarica, which projected heavy iron javelins smeared with gobs of burning tar. The sharpened tips were a meter long and rained down on Hannibal’s surrounding siege army from various wall ramparts. Some later Roman writers on Saguntum, such as Silius Italicus, maintain that the falarica missiles were “launched by catapult.”10 While the Saguntines found it impossible to escape or bring in food supplies under the eyes of the enemy troops, the daunting high walls were apparently unassailable for more than a half year. Hannibal himself was said to have been wounded in one foray by a javelin in his thigh.
ROME’S RESPONSE TO THE ONGOING SAGUNTINE SIEGE
Once they had word of the siege and had debated in the Senate how to handle it, the worried Romans sent envoys by ship to land on the Spanish coast. They demanded immediate cessation of all military engagement against Saguntum and claimed that Hannibal had breached the Treaty of Lutatius, which banned all hostilities against Roman interests. Hannibal appears not to have even received them personally, but his word came via adjutants that he was merely righting wrongs against Carthaginians and that Saguntum had never been mentioned in any previous treaty. Polybius allows that Hannibal was wrong in attacking Saguntum because the Treaty of Lutatius purportedly protected allies as well,11 but, as discussed, Hannibal would not have seen it that way. When told by the Romans not to get involved in Saguntum, Hannibal also—apparently in the heat of anger—retorted that the Romans had already broken trust by executing a few Saguntines and locals who were friends of Carthage and that they had contravened their own Ebro River boundary treaty.
Having been snubbed outside Saguntum, the diplomatic envoys sailed straight to Carthage. Hannibal had prepared for this situation by sending advance word to the pro-Barcid faction of the Gerousia, laying out the real Roman agenda for Spain. In Carthage, the Hanno faction voted to stop Hannibal as a warmonger, but the Council of Elders was decidedly pro-Barcid for the time being—possibly influenced by Spanish silver. The Roman envoys were sent packing to their ships.
Back in Rome, the Senate debated what to do for its Saguntine amici populi Romani, or “friends of the people of Rome.”12 The Illyrian campaign was just concluding at considerable expense and casualties, and the conservative Fabii c
lan was always loathe to pursue another war. Two opposing families, the old Aemilii and another great patrician family that would become glorious through the Punic Wars, the Scipiones, wanted action. While Saguntum suffered, Rome dithered.
During the summer of 219, Hannibal took a brief respite from the long siege to put down a revolt, marching a small part of his army northeast to Manchegan and Castilian territories, where portions of the Oretani and Carpetani tribes had rejected Punic recruiting attempts. It is also likely at about this time, as some argue,13 that Hannibal received an invited envoy from Gaul over the Pyrenees. These were Celts from the Volcae tribe near Roussillon. The Celts would have observed for themselves what was happening at Saguntum, and they would later remember it. It appears that Hannibal was already thinking long term and preparing for the future, wanting to assess loyalties and to understand how the Romans were perceived in Gaul. He seems to have been already looking for allies when the time came to challenge Rome directly.
The siege went on for month after month, the spirits of the Saguntines flagging as their resources dwindled. Hannibal concentrated his efforts on the west of Saguntum, massing his troops there. This was Saguntum’s most vulnerable flank because the plateau rises gradually there. Today the ruined towers of the much-later western Moorish citadel can still be seen, some of which were later exposed to Napoleonic cannonry. No doubt Hannibal’s final assaults took place from more than one location, but the strength of the famine-stricken Saguntines was decisive. When the volley of stones flung from the fort at Hannibal’s army gradually began to peter out, Hannibal knew the city could not last. The successful final attack occurred during early fall 219.
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