Hannibal (15 page)

The plain of Capua into which he had led his army was not only rich and fertile but also difficult of access. On the west lay the Tyrrhenian Sea and on the other sides lay lofty mountain ranges through which there were only three main passes, one from the territory of Samnium, the second to the north from Latium, and the third to the south, from the country of the Hirpini. Hannibal hoped that by threatening Capua, the richest city in Italy after Rome, he might draw Fabius down into the plain and engage him in a setpiece battle. He knew that there was in ancient Capua a party hostile to Rome and seeking independence from the Latin confederation. He felt confident that, if only he could destroy the Roman army, not only would Capua secede but also the rich seaports around the gulf of Naples. The peoples of these coastal areas were largely of Greek stock and he may well have hoped that they would prefer independence in the form of city-states to their present position as allies of Rome. In this he was to be disappointed, for he was to find that the mercantile citizens preferred the security that Rome afforded, while at the same time the Greeks had never forgotten their hatred of their Semitic competitors, the Phoenicians, and their descendants, the Carthaginians.

Hannibal now encamped on the northern bank of the Vulturnus (Volturno) and gave every impression that he intended to stay there, enjoying the richness of the land which his Numidian cavalry were sent off to harry with fire and the sword. The indignation which had been steadily growing in the Roman camp as they saw district after district of summer Italy going up in flames began to reach explosion point. In all their campaigns the Roman practice had always been to seek out the enemy, to march to meet him, and then by the combined skills of their arms and discipline to bring him to his knees. Yet here, in the very land of Italy itself, they found themselves—four legions of them—compelled by the orders of Fabius to trail slowly behind this Punic invader. Minucius, the Master of the Horse, a somewhat typical cavalry officer of the impetuous, fire-eating style, was leader of the dissidents. No doubt, having heard how badly the Roman cavalry had fared against the Carthaginians in previous actions, he was eager to prove himself and his men, and re-establish the proud supremacy of the ‘cavalry type’ over that of the low-born, pack-carrying infantryman. (Such distinctions had been common enough in Greece and were naturally not unknown among the Romans—nor among other European armies in the centuries to come.) Not only had Fabius to contend with the opposition in his own camp but he also had his detractors in Rome, and it was even rumoured that the dictator had been bought off by Hannibal (who had been canny enough to leave alone some property and land belonging to Fabius, while harrying the area around it so as to implant this suspicion). Nevertheless he could not be moved from his wise policy and did no more than follow Hannibal to Campania, encamping in the foothills of Mons Massicus where he could guard the pass through which the Carthaginians had come, and yet avoid any pitched battle with the enemy. An unsuccessful cavalry engagement, led by a young officer who belonged to the ‘action at any cost’ school, was turned into a rout by the Numidians. This proved the wisdom of Fabius’ tactics, even if the lesson was not fully absorbed by all under his command.

Fabius had in fact acted with extreme discretion and great common sense in his approach towards Hannibal, and for once it looked as if the latter had fallen into just such a trap as he loved to set for others. Fabius had garrisoned the town of Casilinum behind the Carthaginian army, blocked the Via Latina by strengthening the troops already there, and held the Via Appia. The pass by which Hannibal had entered the plain was now guarded by four thousand men and was also overlooked by the greater part of Fabius’ own troops from their camp on a hill in front of it. It was late summer and Fabius knew that Hannibal would soon have to move, for the land around, although rich and fertile, provided no suitable place for winter quarters. It was reasonable to conjecture that Hannibal would retire towards die east coast. The Carthaginian army, furthermore, was encumbered with slaves and prisoners, bag and baggage, loot and provisions, and thousands of cattle. When Hannibal approached and made his camp under the hill where the Romans watched and waited, Fabius felt confident that at last he had his enemy in a position from which there was no escape. He refused the pitched battle which he was clearly being offered and, as Polybius recounts it, ‘thought that at least he would be able to carry away their booty without their disputing it and possibly even to put an end to the whole campaign owing to the great advantage his position gave him.’

Fabius, for the first time in his long pursuit of the Carthaginian, was allowing himself a little optimism and, to quote again from Polybius, ‘He was in fact entirely occupied in considering at what point and how he should avail himself of local conditions, and with what troops he should attack, and from which direction.’ His offer of battle having been ignored, Hannibal was not the man to waste any time, nor allow the Roman a chance to I complete his dispositions and attack according to a careful plan of action. He summoned his commander Hasdrubal and ordered him to get together as many faggots and made-up firebrands as possible and drive some two thousand head of cattle to the front of the army. Before the night came , down he pointed out to Hasdrubal a rise in the ground, above the pass through which he intended to lead the army, and told him to detail off sufficient army servants to manage a carefully coordinated cattle-drive. The wooden torches were bound to the horns of the cattle and then after dark, they were driven up the ridge which lay above the pass on the far side from the bulk of the Roman army. Hannibal sent some of his invaluable pikemen to accompany this strange task force and then, having ensured that his forces had all eaten and were ready for a night march, waited for the execution of his orders. As soon as the cattle were up on the higher ground he took the lead at the head of his heavily-armed troops, putting the cavalry behind, then the captured cattle, and placing the Celts in the rearguard together with his reliable Spanish troops. Suddenly the slope began to twinkle with lights and the silence was broken by the cries of men as they shepherded the beasts up and along the ridge. With firebrands burning on their horns the cattle ran wildly through the night in front of their herdsmen. Hannibal gave the order for his army to move forward and begin their march.

The Roman troops guarding the head of the pass saw the lights advancing over the ridge above them and naturally thought they were being outflanked. Despite the orders of Fabius that no one should on any account attempt to make a move against the Carthaginians, they set out to meet the threat.

…As soon as they saw the lights advancing up the slope, thinking that Hannibal was passing on rapidly in that direction, they left the narrow part of the pass and advanced to the hill to meet the enemy. But when they got near the oxen they were entirely puzzled by the lights, fancying that they were about to encounter something much more formidable than the reality.

The moving army that the Romans expected turned out to be no more than cattle-their drovers escaping into the night in the confusion. As they blundered about along the scrub-covered hill, seeking for a real enemy, the pikemen rose up amongst them. Out of the dark, out of the rough and boulders, the formidable Carthaginians, wielding the pikes that (as had already been shown) outmatched the legionary’s sword in individual combat, moved in to kill.

Fabius and his staff, roused by the noise and the moving lights on the slope, were uncertain what to make of the whole issue. But of one thing Fabius was sure: he would not be drawn into any form of action until daylight, when he could see for himself exactly what was required. He, too, who had seemed to have eclipsed his predecessors by avoiding the traps set by the wily Carthaginian, had in his turn been tricked and deluded. He had set a snare for Hannibal and had been taken in by an aspect of it that he had never envisaged. Hannibal had taken the measure of his cautious and wily opponent and rightly presumed that the Roman dictator would never make a move during the night. He had also accurately conjectured that the troops who were guarding the head of the pass would never allow themselves to be outflanked by what they would reckon to be the passage of the Carthaginian army. Whereas before he had allowed the impetuous natures of Sempronius and Flaminius to lead them into situations from which there was no escape, he had calculated on Fabius’ caution and arranged for it to work against him. While the main body of the Romans stayed in their camp, the army of Hannibal marched out in silence through the darkness.

With the light of day the Romans looked down and saw how they had been deceived: no Carthaginian army lay encamped at their feet. Before they could fully appreciate what had happened, Hannibal sent back some of his Spaniards to give assistance to the troops who had been engaged in the night operation. A sharp clash developed on the slopes where those weapons of deception, the long-horned cattle, were now grazing. The Spaniards and the lightly-armed pikemen were more than a match for the heavy legionaries on the awkward terrain and, after killing about a thousand Romans, made their escape and joined up with Hannibal’s rearguard. The invading army, with its swollen baggage-train, its cattle and its prisoners, passed on in confidence.
 

XIV

THE DIVIDED COMMAND

Hannibal’s successful evasion of the trap set for him by Fabius had solved his immediate problems, but had not affected the long term issue: the Roman army still remained intact and undefeated. This was clear enough to the Carthaginian and clear enough also to Fabius—if not to his men and his officers. To most of the army, and to most Romans remote from the battle area, Hannibal’s escape was yet another example of the failure of the dictator’s policy.

Hannibal now proceeded in a leisurely manner up the valley of the Vulturnus as far as Venafrum whence he appeared to threaten the eastern approaches to Rome. He hoped, no doubt, to induce Fabius to make some explicit move. When nothing was forthcoming he moved into Samnium, across the Apennines to Sulmo, plundering the land as he went, and finally storming Geronium, a rich grain depot, where he established a fortified camp. Yet, in a year which so far had been one of unequivocal success, Hannibal had not achieved what he had set out to do. Despite the fact that, in military terms, he had clearly demonstrated to the Romans and their allies that Italy was open to him to ruin and ravage as he would, and despite his proven superiority in arms and generalship over the Romans, not a single town had come over to the Carthaginian cause. The Roman confederacy remained as solid as a rock.

Fabius, true to his principles, had done no more than follow Hannibal across the Apennines into Apulia, and had camped not far away from the Carthaginian base at Geronium. His strategy remained the same: to cut off stragglers, harass the enemy’s foraging parties, but to avoid action on the battlefield. In the autumn of that year he was recalled to Rome, officially to attend to some religious duties incumbent on him as dictator, but probably also to face the critics of his military policy. Before he left he is said to have enjoined Minucius and the other senior officers on no account to enter into any major action.
 

Marcus Minucius Rufus, the Master of the Horse, although as eager to get to grips with the enemy as some of his predecessors, was an able soldier and well capable of seeing the advantages of Fabius’ methods. He decided, however, to improve upon them and, having noticed that Hannibal and his men had grown casual through contempt of the Romans, took advantage of their relaxed foraging methods. Observing that something like two-thirds of Hannibal’s forces were scattered throughout the countryside and only one-third left behind in their base at Geronium, he sent out his cavalry and light troops to attack the foraging parties. A great many of the plunderers were killed and Minucius was sufficiently emboldened to make a direct attack on the Carthaginian camp itself. For the first time since he had entered Italy Hannibal found himself in an embarrassing and disadvantageous position, from which he was only extricated by the return of a large party led by his commander Hasdrubal. If Hannibal had learned a lesson—more caution and less confidence—Minucius could rightly feel that he had given the Carthaginian a taste of his own medicine. The news of this victory, for such it seemed to be, was rapidly relayed to Rome where it had the desired effect. It was the first success that the Romans and their allies had had since the beginning of the war, and it appeared to show that an aggressive policy, when conducted with intelligence such as shown by Minucius, would pay dividends where the shaming, hesitant tactics of Fabius allowed the land to be devastated.

Romans of all classes seem to have felt that they had endured as much contempt from these invaders as could be tolerated and the news of Minucius’ ‘victory’ inspired them with fresh hope. By an unprecedented decision it was agreed, at a meeting of the People, that Minucius should have equal powers with Fabius. This division of the dictatorship completely nullified its whole concept, and in effect-as least when it came to the direction of the army—reduced Fabius and Minucius to the same situation as if they had been two consuls. However, since the dictatorship was divided, this meant that there was an option open for each man to take two legions under his sole command, or to act as if they had been consuls with each man in command of all four legions on alternate days. The latter was refused by Minucius, with the result that when Fabius returned from Rome in the autumn of 217 B.C., there arose the absurd position of two ‘dictators’ in command of two divided Roman armies—and both men were of different persuasions as to the conduct of the war. It cannot have taken long for Hannibal to have found out what had happened, if only from the fact that the two halves of the Roman army were now in separate camps. Such a situation was made for him to exploit, and he did not waste time in deciding on a course of action.