The Roman and Greek authors, who wrote in a world dominated by Rome, were sure that a deep hatred of Rome was fundamental to Hannibal’s character throughout his life. Polybius tells us that in the 190s BC, whilst an exile at the court of the Seleucid King Antiochus III, Hannibal told the monarch how his father had taken him to sacrifice at the temple of Ba’al Shamin before leaving for Spain in 237. Hamilcar asked the 9-year-old boy whether he wished to come with him to Spain, and then, when the lad had eagerly begged for the chance to go, led him to the altar and made him swear a solemn oath ‘never to be a friend to the Romans’. The story reaches us at best third hand, and was told by the Carthaginian to reassure Antiochus that he was not secretly meeting with Roman agents. As a result it is now impossible to know whether or not it is true, but the Romans certainly believed that the main cause of the Second Punic War was the enmity of Hamilcar and his sons. Only Hamilcar’s death prevented him from completing the revival of Carthage’s military power and launching an invasion of Italy from Spain, but the project continued to be the main ambition of his family and reached fulfilment under his eldest son.5
Debate continues to rage over the real causes of the Second Punic War, but need not concern us here. What is clear is that, whether or not the war was premeditated, Hannibal had developed a definite plan for how to fight Rome and had spent years preparing for this. In the spring of 218 BC he was able to lead out an enormous army, allegedly consisting of 12,000 cavalry, 90,000 infantry and 37 elephants, to begin a march which would take him across the River Ebro, over the Pyrenees, through Gaul and finally across the Alps into Italy. The First Punic War had been fought largely in Sicily and, although they had raided the Italian coast, the Carthaginians had never struck at the enemy’s heartland as the Romans had done when they invaded Africa in 256 BC. Throughout the conflict the Carthaginians had remained remarkably passive, reacting to Roman moves but seldom initiating a major offensive. Their strategy was based on enduring the Roman onslaughts, persevering in their resistance in the hope that the enemy would become tired and then either withdraw or be vulnerable to attack. This approach had worked in the past, wearing down successive tyrants and mercenary leaders hired by the Greeks of Sicily. It failed against the Romans, who consistently returned to the offensive even after serious defeats, and who were both able and willing to devote massive resources to the war.6
Hannibal intended to fight the new war with Rome in a far bolder fashion than the First Punic War. Preparations were made to defend his Spanish base and Carthage’s North African heartland against attack, but the main effort would be an offensive striking directly at the centre of Roman power in Italy itself. This time the Carthaginians would not attempt simply to endure enemy attacks, but would escalate the conflict and press for a decisive result. Carthage still had a substantial navy, although it may not have been as well trained as it had been before 265, but it had lost its bases in Sicily, Sardinia and the lesser islands of the Mediterranean as a result of the earlier defeat. Oared warships carried an exceptionally large crew in proportion to their size and had little space for provisions. As a result their operational range was small and without the island bases it was impractical for Hannibal to launch and support an invasion of Italy by sea. In addition Rome possessed a powerful navy which may have prevented a landing in the first place. Hannibal therefore adopted the logical alternative of reaching Italy by marching overland from his base in Spain. It was an exceptionally imaginative and highly bold plan. It required the army to force its way over great distances, past considerable geographical obstacles, and perhaps overcome the resistance of hostile peoples, before it was even in a position to strike at the real enemy. Only then could Hannibal begin the task of smashing Rome’s armies, capturing her towns and cities, ravaging her fields, and subverting her allies. The Roman Republic had managed to endure huge losses during the First Punic War and still continue fighting, but then the disasters had always occurred at a distance. Now Hannibal planned to inflict as great, if not heavier, defeats in Italy itself.
Hannibal’s plan was bold and more characteristic of Roman than Carthaginian military doctrine. Even the most pro-Roman of our sources recognized his ability as a general, but also tended to depict him as devious and treacherous, traits they considered to be characteristically Punic. Others, including Polybius, repeated the accusations that Hannibal was excessively avaricious and inhumanly cruel. The first charge may in part have reflected his never-ending need for money to fund his campaign and pay his soldiers. Polybius also suggested that some of the more brutal acts attributed to the general were in fact the work of his namesake, Hannibal Monomachus (the duelist), a vicious individual who was supposed to have suggested accustoming the soldiers to eat human flesh to ease the problems of supplying the army. The character of Hannibal remains surrounded by so much propaganda and myth that it is impossible to separate fact from fiction and say much about the real man.7
INVASION, 218–217 BC
The march to Italy was an epic in itself, but its details need not concern us here. When in November 218 the tired and weary survivors of the army came down from the Alps somewhere near modern Turin, there were only 6,000 cavalry and 20,000 infantry left. Though few in number, these were the pick of the army, veterans of years of hard fighting in Spain, who were confident in themselves and their leaders. In time their numbers would be swollen by Gallic warriors from the area, whose tribes had already risen in rebellion against the Romans trying to colonize their territory.
The Roman Senate had not dreamed that the Carthaginians would attempt anything so rash as the invasion of Italy. Two senior magistrates, the consuls, were elected each year to provide both civil and military leadership for the State, and where these men were sent always indicated the Senate’s priorities. In 218 one consul, Titus Sempronius Longus, was sent to Sicily to prepare an invasion of Africa, whilst the other, Publius Cornelius Scipio, was to take an army to Spain and confront Hannibal. In this way the Romans intended to attack Carthage itself and the Punic general who had started the war, putting maximum pressure on the enemy in an effort to force a decisive result. The Senate does not appear to have anticipated that the Carthaginians would do anything other than defend themselves. Ancient states and armies possessed very limited long distance intelligence, and it was some time before the Romans found out what Hannibal was doing. Scipio’s expedition to Spain was delayed when some of his forces were diverted to face the Gallic rebels in the Po valley and others had to be recruited to replace them. When he finally began to ship his army to its destination, he stopped at Massilia (modern Marseilles), the Greek colony in Southern Gaul which was one of Rome’s oldest allies, to gather supplies and intelligence. The consul was shocked to discover that Hannibal’s army was no longer in Spain, but at that moment crossing the River Rhône. A cavalry force sent out to reconnoitre bumped into a similar detachment of Numidian light cavalry from the Punic army and beat them in a brutal skirmish, but failed to discover much information about the enemy. Scipio disembarked his army and marched to confront Hannibal, only to find that he had moved on some days before, which was probably just as well, as the Romans were significantly outnumbered. He returned to the fleet, sent a report to the Senate and, after dispatching the bulk of his forces to Spain under the command of his elder brother Cnaeus, returned to Italy to take command of the troops already fighting the Gauls in the Po valley.
The news of Hannibal’s march towards Italy stunned the Senate, and immediately prompted a change in the Roman plans. Sempronius Longus was recalled from Sicily and instructed to join forces with Scipio in Cisalpine Gaul to confront the invader. It took time to carry out this move and before this Hannibal arrived. Scipio behaved as aggressively as he had on the Rhône and immediately moved to fight the enemy in battle, but he was defeated in a cavalry engagement near the River Ticinus. Scipio’s Roman, Italian and Gallic cavalry were outnumbered and enveloped by the Punic horse. As his troops fled the consul was badly wounded, and only escaped c
apture when his teenage son, also called Publius, led a body of horsemen to his rescue. The Roman army retreated in some disorder, destroying the bridge across the Ticinus and moving back to a position outside the Roman colony of Placentia (modern Piacenza). In December Scipio was joined by Sempronius Longus, who soon afterwards won an action which had escalated from a minor skirmish. Polybius praised Hannibal for accepting this minor defeat instead of feeding more and more troops into the fighting and allowing a battle to develop which was not under his control. Our sources now claim that there was a dispute between the two consuls, Scipio arguing for avoiding battle until the Roman soldiers had received more training, and Longus for an immediate battle. This caution seems out of character with Scipio’s earlier boldness on the Rhône and before Ticinus. Perhaps his wound had depressed him, but it is more probable that his alleged opposition to fight a battle was intended by Polybius to exonerate him from blame for the subsequent defeat.
Sometime near the winter solstice, Sempronius was lured into fighting a battle on the open plain west of the River Trebia. Hannibal’s army had grown to 10,000 cavalry and 28,000 infantry, and thirty or so elephants. The Romans mustered around 36,000-38,000 infantry, but only 4,000 cavalry, many of them demoralized by their recent defeat at the Ticinus. Hannibal had chosen the ground carefully, concealing 2,000 men in a drainage ditch behind the Roman line. The Carthaginian cavalry was divided equally between the two wings, outnumbering their Roman counterparts by more than two to one. The flanks of his infantry line were reinforced by the elephants. In the ensuing battle the legions managed to punch through Hannibal’s centre, but first the Roman cavalry wings and then the flanks of their infantry were overwhelmed and collapsed. The 10,000 Romans who had led the attack in the centre were able to escape in good order, for Hannibal had no reserves to send against them, but the rest were captured, killed or scattered. This first great Carthaginian victory was a major shock to the Romans. Even more importantly it gave momentum to Hannibal’s campaigns and practical support as more and more Gauls joined his army or brought it supplies.
The remaining months of winter, when the weather was poor and it was virtually impossible for armies to feed men and horses in the field, saw the usual period of inactivity as both sides prepared for the spring campaign. It was clear to the Senate that Hannibal’s army must go one of two ways, since it could not ignore the great barrier formed by the Apennines. Therefore the two new consuls were positioned with their armies on either side of these mountains. Cnaeus Servilius Geminus was stationed at Ariminum (modern Rimini) in case Hannibal thrust down along the coastal plain of Eastern Italy, whilst Gaius Flaminius’ force lay to the west of the mountains at Arretium in Etruria. Neither of the consuls was really strong enough to face Hannibal on his own, and it was intended that the two armies would join forces as soon as it was clear which direction the enemy had taken. In the event Hannibal moved faster than the Romans expected and took an unorthodox route. He crossed the Apennines quickly, and then forced his army through the difficult marshy country around the River Arno. Before Flaminius was aware of his presence, Hannibal was past Arretium and heading south. The consul sent word to his colleague and led his army in pursuit.
Flaminius was a ‘new man’ (novus homo), the first in his family to hold Rome’s highest magistracy, which was usually dominated by a small group of aristocratic families. His career had been distinguished, for he had already been consul once before in 223, when he won a victory over the Gauls of the Po valley. It had also been highly unorthodox, and had won him many enemies, all ready to savage his reputation after his death. His disrespect for convention and proper ceremony was demonstrated by his decision to begin his year of office in 217 not at Rome, where consuls normally performed a series of religious rites, but actually with the army. Later he was depicted as dangerously rash, but the enthusiasm and confidence with which he pursued Hannibal’s army was no less bold than that displayed by first Scipio and then Sempronius Longus in the previous campaign. Flaminius shared the anger of his men as they passed devastated villages and farms, burnt by Punic soldiers. Such devastation was normal in the wake of an invading army, but Hannibal had ordered his men to be especially brutal and thorough in their depredations. Rome and its allies were still fundamentally agrarian societies and the laying waste of their farmland was a serious blow, especially since an enemy’s freedom to cause such havoc suggested their own military weakness. Flaminius urged his army on to pursue ever more closely, telling his men that the enemy’s reluctance to face them was the result of fear.
On the shores of Lake Trasimene, the route ran through a narrow plain between the shore and a line of hills. Hannibal’s army marched along this with the Romans just within sight, but in the night it doubled back to take up ambush positions parallel to the road. The next day, 21 June 217 BC, the Roman army left camp at dawn to follow the enemy. Thick mist, common in the area at this time of year, added to the confusion as the Roman column was suddenly attacked in the flanks and rear, which prevented the creation of anything like an organized fighting line. The Romans fought hard, resisting for three hours, but the issue was never in doubt. In the end they were killed, captured or drowned as they tried to swim to safety across the lake. Flaminius was cut down by a Insubrian horseman, a representative of one of the tribes he had defeated in 223. Only the vanguard, some 6,000 men, failed to encounter serious opposition and escaped from the trap, but even these were subsequently rounded up by the victorious Carthaginians. Flaminius’ army of 25,000–30,000 men had been effectively destroyed, but the cost of 1,500–2,500 Punic casualties testified to the struggle that some had managed to put up. The other consul, Geminus, was hastening to join Flaminius and had sent his cavalry on ahead. This force, nearly 4,000 men commanded by Gaius Centenius, was ambushed and killed or captured by the enemy before they learned of the disaster. Without its mounted arm, the second Roman army was for the moment crippled.
‘THE DELAYER’, SUMMER TO AUTUMN 217 BC
The fundamental principle of Roman government was that no one individual should hold supreme power and that all power should be of a limited duration, normally a year of office. This was intended to prevent the emergence of a tyrant or king. Therefore there were two consuls in each year, whose power was absolutely equal. Only rarely was this principle abandoned for a short time and the rare expedient taken of appointing a dictator with supreme authority to direct the state. The dictator held office for six months and had not a colleague but a junior assistant, known as the Master of Horse (Magister Equitum). When the office of dictator had been created in the archaic period, it was considered important that he should fight with the infantry of the phalanx, the yeoman farmers who were the heart of Rome’s military power, and so he was prohibited from riding a horse, leaving his deputy to command the cavalry. Such a restriction was no longer appropriate for the task of commanding the much larger and more sophisticated armies of the late third century BC, and one of the first actions of the newly appointed dictator, Quintus Fabius Maximus, was to gain special permission from the Senate to ride a horse.
Fabius was now 58, rather old for a Roman general, and had served as a youth in the First Punic War, subsequently being twice elected to the consulship. Aided by his Master of Horse, Marcus Minucius Rufus, himself a former consul, the dictator threw himself into reorganizing Rome’s defences. Soldiers were enrolled and organized into new units and, once he had taken over Servilius Geminus’ army, Fabius had an army of four legions, perhaps 40,000 men, at his disposal. It was weak in cavalry and contained a mixture of recent recruits with little training and more experienced men still dismayed by the recent defeats, but the creation of such a large field army in such a short time was an impressive achievement. Flaminius’ defeat was blamed upon his failure to observe the proper religious rites and Fabius ordered that these now be most scrupulously performed.
Hannibal had moved east after Trasimene, crossing the Apennines again and marching into the coastal plain of Picenum,
where he rested the army, for its health had still not fully recovered from the exertions of the last twelve months. For the first time since leaving Spain, Hannibal was able to send a message to Carthage reporting his achievements and requesting support. He remained highly confident and, when Fabius advanced and camped nearby, the Carthaginian immediately deployed his army to offer battle. Fabius declined, keeping his army on the high ground just outside the rampart of his camp and in such a strong position that Hannibal did not want to risk attacking. Battles in this period, apart from such rare ambushes as Trasimene, usually occurred by mutual consent, and even the most gifted commanders could rarely force an unwilling enemy to fight. Hannibal told his men that the Romans were frightened of them and moved on, devastating the countryside as he did so. This might provoke Fabius to risk a battle and if not it would demonstrate that Rome was militarily weak and unable to protect its own or its allies’ fields. From the beginning of the Italian invasion, Hannibal had made great efforts to persuade Rome’s allies to defect, treating allied prisoners very well and continually assuring them of his good intentions. As yet, apart from a few individuals and the Gallic tribes of the North, this policy had not borne fruit.
Fabius continued to avoid battle, but shadowed the enemy, sticking to the high ground and always adopting very strong positions. The Romans tried to ambush Hannibal’s raiding and foraging parties, inflicting some loss, but could not prevent the enemy from moving at will. Hannibal made another of his sudden, unexpected moves, swooping down into the ager Falernus, the rich plain of Campania. Fabius countered by occupying a hill overlooking the pass, which Hannibal was most likely to cross once he had finished plundering. Hannibal tricked him again, drawing off the garrison actually guarding the pass by driving a mass of cattle up the path. It was night, and with flaming torches tied to their horns the animals looked like a marching column. In the confusion, the main army escaped without loss, and even wiped out the small Roman garrison, whilst Fabius’ army remained in camp and did nothing. From the beginning the dictator’s strategy of avoiding battle was unpopular with the army and the population in general. He was nicknamed ‘Hannibal’s paedogogus’ after the slave who followed a Roman schoolboy carrying his books. The humiliation of watching as an enemy devastated the Italian countryside was deeply felt. Most Romans of all social classes continued to believe that bold action was the proper way to fight, desiring open battle, where Roman courage would prove victorious as it had so often in the past. Fabius’ unpopularity grew, and in an utterly unprecedented move, Minucius was voted equal power with the dictator. The Master of Horse took over half the army, but was soon lured into battle by Hannibal, ambushed and badly mauled. Another disaster was only prevented by the arrival of Fabius’ men, who covered the retreat. Minucius voluntarily returned to his subordinate rank, and the remainder of the campaign was conducted under Fabius’ command and according to his policy of avoiding battle. In the late autumn the dictator’s six months’ term of office expired and he and Minucius returned to Rome. The army, which was by now observing Hannibal’s winter quarters at Gerunium, was left under the command of Servilius Geminus and Marcus Atilius Regulus, the consul elected to replace Flaminius.8
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