Carthage Must Be Destroyed (43 page)
Read Carthage Must Be Destroyed Online
Authors: Richard Miles
By now it was October and winter was fast closing in, and as the Carthaginian army prepared its ascent through the valley of the Arc, probably after marching through the Isère valley, it lost its friendly guides, who returned home.
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Despite Polybius’ claims to the contrary, the Alps presented possibly the most formidable barrier on the European continent. One later Roman historian described how in the spring season men, animals and wagons slipped and slithered on the melted ice towards precipitous ravines and treacherous chasms. In the winter, conditions were even worse. Even on the level ground, lines of posts were driven through the snow so that travellers knew where it was safe to tread to escape being swallowed up by the treacherous voids which lurked just under the surface of the snowfall.
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Ominously, other Allobrogian chiefs, sensing easy pickings to help them through the harsh winter ahead, had started to muster their tribesmen on the high ground, ready for an attack on the vulnerable Carthaginian column below.
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Despite Polybius’ claims to the contrary, the Alps presented possibly the most formidable barrier on the European continent. One later Roman historian described how in the spring season men, animals and wagons slipped and slithered on the melted ice towards precipitous ravines and treacherous chasms. In the winter, conditions were even worse. Even on the level ground, lines of posts were driven through the snow so that travellers knew where it was safe to tread to escape being swallowed up by the treacherous voids which lurked just under the surface of the snowfall.
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Ominously, other Allobrogian chiefs, sensing easy pickings to help them through the harsh winter ahead, had started to muster their tribesmen on the high ground, ready for an attack on the vulnerable Carthaginian column below.
Now Hannibal showed that he was as skilled in mind games as in armed combat. Finding out from his scouts where the Alpine tribesmen were planning an ambush, he and a group of select men occupied a nearby site while the complacent Allobroges slept in their village. When the tribesmen started to attack his army, Hannibal and his troops rushed down and drove them off, killing many of them. He then stormed the Gallic settlement, and not only freed a number of his men and animals who had been captured the previous day, but also seized the contents of the tribesmen’s corn store. A few days later, Gallic chieftains came forward and offered friendship, hostages and guides. Hannibal, suspicious of their motives, accepted their overtures while at the same time preparing for treachery. Two days later, as the Carthaginians travelled through a narrow pass they were ambushed by a strong force of Gauls. Fortunately Hannibal had prepared for this eventuality by moving his vulnerable baggage train and cavalry to the front of the column, and positioning heavy infantry at the rear where the tribesmen attacked. The tribesmen were eventually repulsed, but nevertheless they continued in small groups to make isolated attacks on the column, rolling boulders down the steep slopes on to the men and animals below.
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Finally, nine days into their march, the Carthaginians reached the top of the pass. After waiting two days for stragglers to catch up, Hannibal rallied his exhausted and dispirited troops by showing them the panorama of Italy below and, according to Livy, delivering a spirited exhortation.
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Such encouragement was sorely needed. It was now late October, and the winter snows had begun to fall. What was more, the descent into Italy was even steeper than the past ascent. The track was precipitous, narrow and slippery, and it was almost impossible for men or beasts to keep on their feet.
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Such encouragement was sorely needed. It was now late October, and the winter snows had begun to fall. What was more, the descent into Italy was even steeper than the past ascent. The track was precipitous, narrow and slippery, and it was almost impossible for men or beasts to keep on their feet.
Eventually the army reached what at first looked like the premature end of their odyssey. In front of them was a steep precipice, which a recent landslide had turned into a vertical drop of some 300 metres. Livy dramatically describes the attempt to bypass it:
The result was a horrible struggle, the ice affording no foothold in any case, and least of all on a steep slope. When a man tried by hands or knees to get on his feet again, even those useless supports slipped from under him and let him down; there were no stumps or roots anywhere to afford a purchase to either hand or foot; in short there was nothing for it but to roll and slither on the smooth ice and melting snow. Sometimes the mules’ weight would drive their hooves through into the lower layer of old snow; they would fall and, once down, lashing savagely out in their struggles to rise, they would break right through it, so that as often as not they were held as in a vice by a thick layer of hard ice.
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The situation was now critical, and Hannibal ordered that snow be cleared high up on the ridge so that camp could be pitched. It had been decided that the only way of proceeding down the sheer slope would be by cutting a stepped route through the rock. The means by which this was achieved became one of the most famous tales in the Hannibalic canon:
It was necessary to cut through the rock, a problem that they solved by the ingenious application of heat and moisture; large trees were cut down and logged, and a huge pile of timber was built up; this, with the opportune aid of a strong wind, was set on fire, and when the rock was sufficiently heated the men’s rations of sour wine were flung upon it in order to render it friable. They then proceeded to work with picks on the heated rock and opened a sort of zigzag track, to minimize the steep gradient of the descent; they were, therefore, able to get the pack animals and even the elephants down it.
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Many aspects of this story of course appear fanciful, and it may reasonably be doubted whether the Carthaginians were able to acquire such quantities of wood, let alone to heat rock to a sufficient temperature. Nevertheless, the dissemination of such tales from the Carthaginian camp served a vital agenda. Quite simply, the heroic creation of a new Hannibalic way through impermeable Alpine rock was a brilliant piece of propaganda. Through the production of such heroic tales, Hannibal ensured that his name would be indelibly linked with the great mountain chain that he had successfully crossed. Despite Polybius’ denigration of this stupendous achievement, it would not be until the reign of the emperor Augustus (31 BC–AD 14) that a Roman would traverse the Alps.
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Indeed, Hannibal’s Alpine adventures would remain a source of wonder for both Greek and Roman writers, producing a vast number of different theories on the actual route that the Carthaginian troops took through the mountains.
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Even 600 years later the section of the mountains through which Hannibal passed was still called ‘the Punic Alps’.
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THE DIE IS CAST28
Indeed, Hannibal’s Alpine adventures would remain a source of wonder for both Greek and Roman writers, producing a vast number of different theories on the actual route that the Carthaginian troops took through the mountains.
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Even 600 years later the section of the mountains through which Hannibal passed was still called ‘the Punic Alps’.
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The great Alpine trial was now at an end, and the plains of northern Italy stretched out before the Carthaginian army. Yet heroic grandeur and the element of surprise had come at a high price. The journey that had taken the Carthaginian army from Spain to northern Italy had been epic in every sense, including the scale of human loss. Hannibal had left the Iberian peninsula with 50,000 foot and 9,000 horse, but by the time he had reached the river Rhône those numbers had dwindled to 38,000 and 8,000 respectively. The crossing of the Alps had cut those figures down to just 20,000 infantry and 6,000 cavalry.
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Whether or not the original size of the Carthaginian army was exaggerated, the collateral damage of Hannibal’s Alpine crossing was as breathtaking as his feats of valour. Like many armies on epic journeys, however, the majority of soldiers were lost not to enemy steel, the cold, hunger or, in this case, even the steep precipices of the Alpine peaks. Many, confronted by extreme hardship, exertion and danger, had simply deserted. But, for all the losses, there could no doubt that this daring enterprise had been a glittering success. After all, new troops could now be recruited and supplies gathered. More importantly, if the Hellenistic world and the Italian city states had not taken the young Carthaginian general seriously before, they certainly would now.
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Whether or not the original size of the Carthaginian army was exaggerated, the collateral damage of Hannibal’s Alpine crossing was as breathtaking as his feats of valour. Like many armies on epic journeys, however, the majority of soldiers were lost not to enemy steel, the cold, hunger or, in this case, even the steep precipices of the Alpine peaks. Many, confronted by extreme hardship, exertion and danger, had simply deserted. But, for all the losses, there could no doubt that this daring enterprise had been a glittering success. After all, new troops could now be recruited and supplies gathered. More importantly, if the Hellenistic world and the Italian city states had not taken the young Carthaginian general seriously before, they certainly would now.
Before the battle for Italy began, however, Hannibal engaged in a little housekeeping. The loyalty, or at least the compliance, of the Celts could not be guaranteed by blandishments and expensive gifts alone. An example had to be made so that the price of hostility to the Carthaginian cause could be gauged and understood. Once the Roman armies were successfully engaged, there would be little time to keep the northern Celts in check. The Taurini, a tribe who had attempted to resist the Carthaginian advance, were picked out as the poor unfortunates who would provide the painful lesson. Their capital was besieged and soon taken, and its inhabitants–men, women and children–were massacred. Thus a brutal, bloody message which spelled out the consequences of resistance was sent out to the Gallic tribes. However, the massacre also served another purpose, for, as the final act of the great Alpine crossing, the slaughter of the Taurini stood as a further reminder of Hannibal’s claim to the lionskinned mantle of that great hero who had first tamed the wild peoples of this barbarous land.
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In Rome, the news that Hannibal had successfully crossed the Alps was met with grave alarm. The consul Tiberius Sempronius Longus was recalled from Sicily to assist his colleague Publius Cornelius Scipio, who was now marching towards the river Po in order to confront the Carthaginian army.
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Before the first confrontation between the two armies, at the river Ticinus, a tributary of the Po, Hannibal, in order to prepare his army psychologically for the hardships that undoubtedly lay ahead, took the unusual step of offering his Gallic prisoners the opportunity of freedom if they emerged victorious from a series of bouts of single combat. Previously he had ensured that these young men had been ill-treated and starved, in order to create the maximum impact when they were led out in front of his assembled troops. To exaggerate further the contrast between the present miserable plight of the captives and the possibilities which both triumph and defeat would offer, Hannibal also brought forth some suits of armour, rich military cloaks and horses as rewards for the victors. All the prisoners clamoured to take up Hannibal’s offer, for both victory and, through death, defeat offered release from their present servitude. After the bouts, the Carthaginian troops found themselves pitying those who had not been chosen for combat but remained captive even over those who had been killed. Polybius gives an account of what happened next:
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Before the first confrontation between the two armies, at the river Ticinus, a tributary of the Po, Hannibal, in order to prepare his army psychologically for the hardships that undoubtedly lay ahead, took the unusual step of offering his Gallic prisoners the opportunity of freedom if they emerged victorious from a series of bouts of single combat. Previously he had ensured that these young men had been ill-treated and starved, in order to create the maximum impact when they were led out in front of his assembled troops. To exaggerate further the contrast between the present miserable plight of the captives and the possibilities which both triumph and defeat would offer, Hannibal also brought forth some suits of armour, rich military cloaks and horses as rewards for the victors. All the prisoners clamoured to take up Hannibal’s offer, for both victory and, through death, defeat offered release from their present servitude. After the bouts, the Carthaginian troops found themselves pitying those who had not been chosen for combat but remained captive even over those who had been killed. Polybius gives an account of what happened next:
When Hannibal had by this means produced the disposition he desired in the minds of his troops, he rose and told them that he had brought the prisoners before them with the purpose that, clearly seeing in the person of the others what they might themselves have to suffer, they would better understand the present crisis. ‘Fortune’, he said, ‘has brought you to a pass, she has locked you into a similar battlefield, and the prizes and prospects she offers you are the same. For either you must conquer, or die, or fall captive into the hands of your foes. For you the prize of victory is not to possess horses and cloaks, but to be the most envied of mankind, masters of all the wealth of Rome. The prize of death on the battlefield is to depart from life in the heat of the fight, struggling until your last breath for the noblest of objects and without having learned to know suffering. But what awaits those of you who are vanquished and for the love of life wish to flee, or who preserve their lives by any other means, is to have every evil and every misfortune as their fate. There is not one of you so dim and unreflecting as to hope to reach his home by flight, when he remembers the length of the road he traversed from his native land, the numbers of the enemies that lie between, and the size of the rivers he crossed. I beseech you, therefore, cut off as you are entirely from any such hope, to take the same view of your own situation that you have just expressed regarding that of others. For as you all considered both the victor and the dead fortunate and pitied the survivors, so now should you think about yourselves and go all of you to battle resolved to conquer if you can, and, if this be impossible, to die. And I implore you not to let the hope of living after defeat enter your minds at all. If you reason and decide as I urge upon you, it is clear that victory and safety will follow; for none ever who either by necessity or choice decided on such a course have been deceived in their hope of putting their enemies to flight. And when the enemy has the opposite hope, as is now the case with the Romans, most of them being sure of finding safety in flight as their homes are near at hand, it is evident that the courage of those who despair of safety will carry all before them.’
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Later, just before the battle, Hannibal called his men together for some final words of encouragement. He promised land, money, Carthaginian citizenship and freedom to the massed ranks of his troops if victorious. Then, as a sign of the inviolability of his oath, Hannibal picked up a lamb in one hand and a stone in the other and sent up a prayer to Baal Hammon and the other gods that they should kill him if he broke his word. He then dashed the animal’s brains out.
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The battle itself ended in a complete rout of the Roman forces. Hannibal, realizing the great advantage that he possessed in both numbers and quality of cavalry, had recalled the Numidian prince Maharbal and his squadron of 500 horsemen from a raiding mission. Perhaps overconfident in the ability of his javelin-throwers to keep the Carthaginian cavalry at bay, Scipio had placed them in front with his own horse in reserve, but the Roman cavalry were called quickly into action when the javelin-throwers retreated behind them. Eventually a party of Hannibal’s Numidian horse managed to outflank the Roman cavalry, and rode down the foot soldiers behind, who panicked and fled. The Roman horse soon followed. Matters were made worse for the Romans by the fact that Scipio was badly wounded, and Livy reports that the general’s 17-year-old son Publius, fighting in his first battle, saved the life of his father, although the historian also alludes to an alternative version of the events, in which Scipio suffered the indignity of being rescued by a Ligurian slave.
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In pain, and lacking confidence in his inexperienced troops, Scipio immediately ordered a Roman withdrawal from the area. Although the Romans managed to delay the Carthaginians’ advance by destroying their pontoon over the river, Hannibal quickly found a suitable place on the Po for his engineers to build another bridge. Meanwhile Scipio, feeling increasingly insecure after the desertion of a large contingent of Gallic troops and the betrayal of the town of Clastidium by its Italian commander, withdrew once more, across the river Trebia, and set up camp on high ground overlooking the east bank, where he waited for reinforcements.
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