Hannibal, meanwhile, soldiered west into fertile Campania for the second time, looking for more new friends. His first target, the seaport of Neapolis (modern Naples), rebuffed him, but there was something far better in the offing—Capua, the second city in the Roman confederation and a place notorious for its wealth and luxury, symbolized by its perfume market, the fabled Seplasia. But Capua was far more than a fleshpot; its leadership class was deeply intertwined with Rome’s through marriage and economic ties. It was a vital and valued Roman ally.2 Yet, despite every inhabitant holding Roman citizenship, the lower classes since the Battle of Trasimene had been restive and increasingly inclined toward secession. In the wake of Cannae and Hannibal’s approach, the pressure in this direction increased dramatically, until the only thing holding back the flood was the hesitance of the local nobility.
In particular, three hundred young cavalrymen from the city’s best families were serving alongside the Romans in Sicily, a position that would leave them hostages if Capua changed sides. Their parents, amidst the political turmoil, managed to have a delegation sent to the surviving consul, Terentius Varro, for an assessment of the military prospects. Seen through Livy’s eyes (23.5.4–15) Varro proved no better diplomat than general. “Legions, cavalry, arms, standards, horses and men, money, and supplies have vanished either in the battle or in the loss of two camps the next day. And so you, Campanians, have not to help us in war, but almost to undertake it in our stead.” In other words, you’re on your own.
But not for long. The Capuans’ next move was to send the same delegation to Hannibal. Needless to say, he was entirely more accommodating, agreeing that in return for their allegiance the Capuans would continue to rule themselves, would be under no obligation to supply him with soldiers, and were to be given three hundred Roman prisoners to exchange for their horsemen in Sicily (an unlikely prospect, as we have seen).3 To seal the deal Hannibal sent the Capuans a defensive garrison, and then entered the city in triumph, telling their senate that Capua would soon be “the capital of all Italy.”4 Intoxicated by the moment, his new allies responded by burning their remaining bridges to the Tiber, arresting the Romans in the city and shutting them up in a bathhouse, where they suffocated. Capuans would live to regret their enthusiasm, but in the shadow of Cannae the alliance must have seemed an obvious recognition of a new political reality. The Campanian city would take its place at the head of a realigned southern Italy, and Hannibal had a cornerstone upon which to begin constructing a stable edifice of control. Even more alluring, at least for the moment, he had a destination.
The Carthaginian army’s winter sojourn in Capua is the stuff of ancient legend. As French archaeologist and historian Serge Lancel explains, those three proverbial symbols of dissipation in classical antiquity—wine, women, and warm water—(not to mention soap and perfume) turned Hannibal’s fine-tuned instrument of destruction into a bunch of skulking hedonists, at least according to Livy in his famous passage on their epic sleepover.5 He even has Marcellus, no slouch as a luxury lover, let on that “Capua was Hannibal’s Cannae.”6
None of this should be taken literally. For one thing, only a small portion of the army could have been quartered there without fatally alienating the population. Besides, this was a force destined to fight successfully in Italy for more than a decade longer.7
Yet Livy’s point should not be dismissed. Every alliance comes with a price tag. By succumbing to the allure of having stable friendships—bases, a steady source of supplies, political allegiance—Hannibal took on the burden of protecting them. It would prove a heavy load for a military vagabond. Life on the road had been hard and uncertain, but it had afforded Hannibal the strategic advantage of being able to show up anywhere, a maddening possibility if you were Rome. With assets to defend, he was now tied down—cut off, for instance, from the Gauls far to the north and their supplies of fresh king-size fighters.
Not only was the fox forced to guard the henhouse, but the hens themselves had considerable strategic limitations, having been politically contaminated by their former hegemon. As mentioned earlier, Rome’s system of treaties tied allies directly to it and not to one another. Removing this dependency left no common bond, no basis for larger amalgams, and this condition was only compounded by the fierce internal factionalism of the south, especially among the Greeks.8
With this came an equivalent reluctance to contribute troops, especially for duty outside of home territory. This left Hannibal reliant on his own field army to fend off a succession of Roman forces drawn from their own very deep manpower base. Over time some numbers of Italians were successfully integrated into the Punic force structure, but the structure’s core remained Libyan, Numidian, Spanish, and Gallic. As the Carthaginian traveling force was gradually eroded by casualties, by the need for garrison troops, and eventually even by age, what Hannibal needed was reinforcements.
That was to have been Mago’s job, the point of his triumphant return to Carthage. To set the stage, Hannibal’s youngest brother ordered that the baskets full of golden rings pried off the fingers of senators and equestrians at Cannae be poured out in the vestibule of the meeting hall of the elders. Addressing the elders, he spoke glowingly of victories achieved, consuls humiliated, casualties inflicted, captives held, allies won over, of Italy in revolt, and above all, as victory grew near, he spoke of aiding Hannibal with all the resources at the state’s disposal—more troops, but also money for pay, and food for the soldiers who had already served so well in Carthage’s name.9
The speech evidently went over well; it’s hard to be pessimistic in the face of such good news. Nevertheless, Hanno, by now undoubtedly aged, and still apparently at the head of the anti-Barcid faction, found reason for doubt. He wondered aloud why, if Hannibal had killed so many Romans, he needed more soldiers. Why, if he had accumulated so much booty, did he need more money and provisions? Why, if Italy was in revolt, had no Latins come over to the Carthaginian side? Still more pointedly, Hanno asked Mago if the Romans had sent any ambassadors to treat for peace. When Hanno received no satisfactory answers, he concluded, “We have on our hands, then, a war as entire as we had on the day Hannibal crossed into Italy.”10
Still, if not exactly a voice in the wilderness, Hanno was plainly in the minority. Most were apparently inclined to believe that at least moderate exertions could bring the war to a speedy conclusion. The elders voted for a small force of four thousand Numidians to be sent to Hannibal, along with more money and that Punic panacea, forty elephants. Yet Livy (23.14.1) points out that these resources were raised in a dilatory fashion. Nor would Mago be joining them. Instead, he was sent to Spain to recruit a larger force, but by the time he was ready to depart for Italy, the situation in Iberia had deteriorated and he was needed there to fight. Meanwhile, sometime in the summer of 214 the admiral Bomilcar finally delivered the Numidians and elephants at Locri on the coast of Bruttium.11 It was to be the only time during the entire war that the city of Carthage would send Hannibal reinforcements in Italy. The elders showed entirely more interest in Spain, Sardinia, and especially Sicily.
This did not amount to a ringing endorsement for Hannibal’s great adventure. Most modern authorities seem to see this lack of enthusiasm as largely a matter of circumstance and not reticence. Still, the reluctance of Hanno appears to represent more than just Hanno. We have already seen that Carthage had been badly hurt by the First Punic War and the subsequent revolt of Hamilcar’s mercenaries. Many of Carthage’s citizens must have recognized that in terms of demographics Carthage was no match for Rome, especially in a land war. No matter how impressive Hannibal’s initial successes might have seemed, some in the Carthaginian power structure—particularly the remaining old ones who had seen Rome’s staying power in the first war—would have continued to view Hannibal’s invasion as reckless and futile. These men seem to have convinced the others to pursue the war by concentrating on areas outside of Italy, particularly those of traditional Carthaginian interest. In Spain the
motives of the Barcids and the skeptics at home coincided, less so in Sicily and Sardinia. But ultimately, Hannibal was left high and dry in Italy, and was finally forced to look only to his two brothers for reinforcement. And that would cost both their lives.
[2]
Back in Rome it remains an open question whether any of this was fully understood. What must have been overwhelmingly clear was that Rome’s strategy of trying to end the invasion with one knockout blow had not worked. Never again would the Romans leverage their massive manpower resources into one huge host. Armies would be raised (and frequently lost), but in the future, bets were to be hedged. It followed that, after Cannae, pitched battles became less frequent, and were fought less to destroy the adversary’s maneuver units than to defend or threaten population centers, now the key pieces on the field of play. Rome had an advantage here, because Hannibal could not allow himself the luxury of becoming stationary for a long siege. Raids and skirmishes became the most typical form of combat, in part because most of the campaigning transpired along the rugged spine of central Italy, the Apennines, terrain where it was nearly impossible to force a set-piece battle on an unwilling foe.12
All of this calls to mind the strategy of Fabius Maximus, and in the shadow of Cannae, Romans had little alternative. The consular elections of 215 marked the beginning of a three-year period when Fabius, his son, and his family (“Beanmen” all) dominated politics. Their strategy of delay was given free rein, and one, not coincidentally, when Hannibal’s Thunderbolt accomplished relatively little.13
Yet the approach had changed, had altered with circumstances, amounting to Fabian II. Fabian I had simply consisted of dogging Hannibal—avoiding battle while seeking to starve him by weakening his foragers. The updated version was more positional. Battle was still avoided and foragers attacked, but more attention was paid to geography and local politics. After Cannae and the defection of Capua, a military front was developed along the line of the Volturnus River and extended across Italy through northern Apulia between Luceria and Arpi; if at all possible Hannibal would not be allowed to stray farther north. Within this band Fabius attempted to reinstitute his “scorched earth” policy, threatening to pillage the area himself if this was not done.14 This was likely to have been more bluster than substance with regard to those who remained loyal, but Fabius and the Romans were deadly serious with regard to the less steadfast.
Defectors would be punished. Siege craft among the Romans had not reached the level of technical sophistication it was to achieve later, but Hannibal had to be wary of trying to relieve an invested ally, since the process was inherently casualty producing, and his manpower was precious. Besides, it could leave him pinned down and tactically vulnerable. His problem would only grow worse if more than two targets were under assault simultaneously and he was faced with the prospect of splitting his force. So the manpower-rich Romans had an inherent edge in this form of warfare. Targeted allies who strayed learned to their regret that Hannibal could not protect them, while the terrible price they paid kept the others in line. On the other hand, Fabius remained careful not to give confederates reason to revolt by pressing them too hard for men and money, or by overreacting to rumors of contemplated desertion.15
Nevertheless, the scale of operations maintained by the Romans was truly immense. Even in 215 they were able to field fourteen legions.16 Adrian Goldsworthy estimates that in the ten years following Cannae, more than twenty legions were regularly in the field (a high of twenty-three legions was reached in 211 and 207), supported by an equivalent number of allied troops.17 Some legions may have been undermanned and used for garrison duty, but the sheer numbers give pause. Using a conservative pre-Cannae figure of forty-five-hundred troops for each legion and each alae, this amounts to on the order of 180,000 troops raised year in and year out. This is an extraordinarily large figure for a preindustrial military, and does not even consider the manpower requirements of the Roman navy, which remained substantial throughout.
Plainly, this sort of war was expensive, and even if the study of ancient economics remains murky, it is apparent that after Cannae the primitive Roman financial system was showing signs of massive strain. As we saw at the end of the last chapter, in order to pay the soldiers (though not the Cannenses), the tax on Roman citizens, the tributum, had to be doubled in 215. This statistic, however, must be balanced against the chronic devaluation of the Roman currency. In 217 the bronze as—the basic coin, if you can call it that—weighed one Roman pound; three years later it was one sixth as heavy. This devaluation prompted the creation of a new medium of exchange based on the silver denarius, which itself had to be devalued before the war was over.18 Exactly how this economic ax cleaved Roman society is hard to say. Military contractors surely did well, and also, because there were monetized property qualifications for service in the Roman army, currency devaluation would have broadened the draft pool. But somebody had to pay the bills, and as the fighting dragged on, reconquered defectors were obvious targets. Marcellus’s epic fleecing of Syracuse and Fabius’s enslavement and sale of much of Tarentum’s population provided the archetypes. Fabian II meant war truly on a societal scale.
The updated Fabian strategy also called for better leadership. The time for amateurish generals had passed, as had single-year commands for truly competent ones. In the face of Hannibal, quick leadership turnover had to be sacrificed, even if it meant electing the same men to the consulship over and over, and extending the imperium indefinitely to efficient proconsuls and propraetors.19 This extended imperium had already been in place for the Scipio brothers in far-off Spain, but now it took hold in Italy. In particular, a group of men in their fifties and sixties, who’d reached their maturity during the First Punic War, came to dominate the Second, particularly after Cannae. In addition to Fabius Maximus himself, there was Marcellus and Quintus Fulvius Flaccus, all of whom held the consulship at least four times, which was unprecedented. On a slightly less elevated tier were Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus (twice consul, once master of horse), Marcus Livius Salinator (twice consul), and Gaius Claudius Nero. Not all of these men subscribed to the Fabian style of warfare—Marcellus and Nero were exceedingly aggressive—but all were excellent soldiers and capable of working together. Hannibal’s days of picking off prima donnas were not quite over, but for the most part he now had to face Team Roma, a grim and determined bunch.
[3]
Cannae’s reverberations shot out from Italy’s coasts in all directions. Hannibal’s war had already been trans-Mediterranean, given the Barcid power base in Spain and Carthage’s complicity, but now the roster of contestants broadened in the wake of Rome’s perceived vulnerability. In the rollicking world of Hellenistic geopolitics, piling on was a frequent handmaiden of defeat, emblematic of the system’s very cynicism and, in its meddling with Rome, myopia.
There were few more enthusiastic practitioners of piling on than the young king of Macedon, Philip V, a perennial kibitzer in the affairs of Greece, and any other place he thought he saw an opportunity for self-aggrandizement. According to Polybius (5.101.6–8), ever since Philip had heard of the debacle at Trasimene, he had been eying Rome’s protectorate on the east coast of the Adriatic. The protectorate had been established in 229 to thwart the Illyrian pirates, and was a continuing thorn in the side of Macedon’s monarchs, who resented the presence of outsiders but were afraid to do anything about it. Now with word of Cannae, Philip’s horizons broadened, his fear of the Romans evaporated, and the possibility of an alliance with Rome’s apparent subjugator loomed large.
Philip’s diplomacy may have been adroit, but it was hardly discreet. According to Livy, the delegation he sent to Hannibal was captured twice by the Romans.20 On the first occasion they were let go, having given the excuse that they were actually on their way to negotiate an alliance with the senate. The second time, they were caught red-handed with Carthaginian officers and a text of the treaty, which was delivered to the Roman archives, where Polybius found and prese
rved it.21
An odd combination of Greek and Old Testament–like diplo-speak, the treaty mentions as signatories not only Hannibal but Carthaginian elders Mago, Myrkan, and Barmocar. The presence of these names has been sometimes seen as indicating that the metropolis and not the Barcid was in charge, even in Italy.22 But if this was the case, why didn’t Philip send the delegation to Carthage rather than to Hannibal to seal the alliance? If nothing else, Hellenistic monarchs had an eagle eye for who held the initiative. And in that regard this was a document typical of the “great game” mentality, promising very little up front beyond bland assurances of mutual support, and getting specific only about transfers of Greek properties to the Macedonians once the war was won. Most significant, the treaty foresaw the continued existence of Rome, even in defeat. While Livy’s (23.33.10–12) far less convincing rendition of the treaty envisions a Macedonian invasion of Italy, probably Hannibal looked upon the whole thing as a potentially useful way of distracting the Romans, another problem for them to cope with that would drain their strength. The treaty—Polybius’s version at least—is worth considering, since it is about as close to a first-person look at the motivation of Rome’s enemies as we have left. What emerges is more calculating than deadly serious. The Romans, for their part, were utterly committed to the war, and they would neither forgive nor forget this alliance of convenience.
The Ghosts of Cannae: Hannibal and the Darkest Hour of the Roman Republic Page 22
