Hannibal (20 page)

Although unperceived by anyone at that time, the high water mark of Hannibal’s success had been reached, and—so slowly as to be imperceptible for some years—the inexorable tide of fortune was beginning to withdraw from him. The atmosphere in Rome is well depicted by Livy, who, although writing so long after the events, had earlier and contemporaneous sources to draw upon:

Prodigies in large numbers—and the more they were believed by men simple and devout, the more of them used to be reported—were reported that year: that at Lanuvium ravens [always a bird of ill omen] had made a nest inside the temple of Juna Sospita; that in Apulia a green palm took fire; that at Mantua a lake, the overflow of the river Mincius, appeared bloody; and at Cales it rained chalk, and at Rome in the Cattle Market blood; and that at the Vicus Insteius an underground spring flowed with such volume of water that the force of the torrent overturned the jars, great and small, that were there and carried them along; that the Atrium Publicum on the Capitol, the temple of Vulcan in the Campua, that of Vacuna, and a public street in the Sabine country, the wall and the gate at Gabii, were struck by lightning. Other marvels were widely circulated: that the spear of Mars at Praenestra moved of itself; that an ox in Sicily spoke, that among the Marrucini an infant in its mother’s womb shouted ‘Hail Triumph!’; that at Spoletum a woman was changed into a man; that at Hadria an altar was seen in the sky, and about it the forms of men in white garments….

The year drew to a close with the advantage if anything on the side of the Romans. An experienced old soldier, Torquatus, had successfully put down a Carthaginian-inspired rising in Sardinia; Claudius Marcellus, operating from his base on the hill above Suessula, had warded off Hannibal’s attempts on Nola; and the capture of Philip of Macedon’s ambassadors by the Roman fleet in the Adriatic had put the Romans on their guard against any immediate action arising from the alliance between Hannibal and Philip. On the other hand, the death of Hiero, ruler of Syracuse and an old and faithful ally of Rome, promised a new avenue of the war, for the kingdom was left to his grandson, a youth of fifteen, who opened communications with Hannibal and promised him the whole of the island in return for his assistance.

With the close of the campaigning season, Hannibal once more moved his troops over to the east coast of Italy and took up winter quarters at Arpi in Apulia. Mons Tifata was an admirable summer camp but unsuitable for wintering, and it is probable that he did not wish to inflict his army upon the inhabitants of Capua for a second time running. Capua, whose secession from Rome had seemed such a triumph, was to prove a millstone around Hannibal’s neck, for without his help the city could not defend itself and he was to be called upon constantly for assistance in the ensuing years. Despite the continuing brilliance of his tactics the overall strategy now adopted by Rome was superior, and this year clearly marks the date from which he was compelled to follow a defensive pattern. This hardly suited his aggressive genius, although he was to show that even in this uncongenial role he was a master. It is significant that, although the Romans would continue to follow him wherever and whenever his army moved, they did not attack him when he was on the march. They had seen too much of his exceptional ability in extricating himself from what had seemed untenable positions.

This conflict in the Mediterranean basin and the lands surrounding it—the heartland of western civilisation—was soon to engulf the whole area. Within a year of the beginning of the war Spain had become a cockpit disputed between the two antagonists; Hannibal’s invasion of Italy had brought Carthage and Rome into direct conflict for the first time on Roman soil; Sicily was now to become a major theatre of war; and Philip of Macedon’s alliance with Hannibal was ultimately to draw the states and kingdoms of Greece into the Roman sphere of influence. In this war, the Hannibalic War, the four quarters of the Mediterranean were to one degree or another all to become involved.

The Semitic and African world to the south had challenged the European world to the north—involving the west, from Spain right up to the Rhône valley. The passes of the Alps had been stormed, and the Gauls both of Gaul itself and of northern Italy had been dragged into the conflict. Soon the First Macedonian War would start, when Marcus Valerius would cross the Adriatic and destroy the army that Philip was preparing for the invasion of Italy, and burn the Macedonian fleet. Throughout the Mediterranean, shipyards were permanently busy for the next ten years as, from Spain to Carthage itself, to Italy and to Greece, the powers sought to establish their dominance of the sea—that sphere which can be neglected by no adversary, but especially in a theatre where all are dependent on maritime communications and, ultimately, naval supremacy. For the year 214 the senate decreed that the Roman fleet should amount to 150 warships, the shortage of manpower for the navy being made good by taxing the rich on a sliding scale for the provision of sailors and their pay. Livy writes: ‘The sailors furnished in accordance with this edict went on board armed and equipped by their masters, and with cooked rations for thirty days. It was the first time that a Roman fleet was manned with crews secured at private expense.’

The most important effect of these savage years was the slow but systematic devastation of the whole of southern Italy. As territory changed hands, so the new conqueror—whether Carthaginian or Roman—either plundered it to feed his troops or despoiled it to deny sustenance to the enemy. In 215 Fabius Maximus laid down that all crops of grain must be brought from the fields within the nearest walled cities by early June. Failure to do so would bear the penalty of the destruction of the farm concerned and the forced sale of all the farmer’s slaves. The following year Hannibal, infuriated by the lack of response of the Neapolitan cities to his cause, ravaged all the lands around them and carried off the cattle and the horses. In the same year Fabius destroyed the crops and farms in the territory of the Hirpini and the Samnites, as a warning to all of what might be expected by those who showed friendship for the Carthaginians. In the course of the conflict the whole face of southern Italy was to be changed, the peasant farmer practically eliminated, and the path set for the long future of latifundia—vast estates owned by absentee landlords and worked by slaves.

The strength of Rome lay not only in the stability of her political associations, but also in her manpower. She proved this by putting under arms for the year 214 the better part of 250,000 men—the allies making their full contribution. Hannibal, with his dwindling forces which cannot have amounted, at the unlikely maximum, to more than 100,000—most of them Gauls, Lucanians or Bruttians—was now confronted by no less than twenty legions. It was true that these had to be spread throughout the whole of Italy as well as Sicily, but it was a formidable war effort on the part of Rome which Carthage could never match.

Rome’s fury at the defection of Capua knew no bounds: she was determined to threaten this ‘capital’ of the Carthaginian and to bring the Capuans, duly chastened, back within the fold of the alliance at the earliest possible moment. Appealed to by the Capuans, who were terrified by the threat ready to be applied against them, Hannibal moved from Arpi, brought his army down to the city, skilfully evading the consul Tiberius Gracchus at Luceria, and returned to his headquarters on the plateau of Mons Tifata. Livy writes: ‘Then, leaving the Numidians and Spaniards to defend the camp and Capua at the same time, he came down with the rest of his army to the Lake of Avernus, with the pretext of sacrificing, in reality to attack Puteoli and the garrison which was there.’ The strange thing about this statement of Livy’s is that he implies Hannibal needed a pretext to attack Puteoli. He had already attacked or threatened many of the cities in Italy—and he needed no excuse for any of his other actions, which had already led to the slaughter of tens of thousands of men. Why then, one must ask, this visit to Avernus?

Avernus was one of the most sacred places in Italy. The lake, one and a half miles north of Baiae, was near the important Greek-founded cities and ports of Neapolis and Cumae. It was over 200 feet deep, being formed from the crater of an extinct volcano. Like the sacred lakes of South America, to which human sacrifices descended, Lake Avernus was dark, deep, and—to simple minds—not only mysterious but instinct with a very special
numen.
Surrounded by high banks, covered by a dense and gloomy forest sacred to Hecate (a threefold goddess associated with the moon, but predominantly a deity of the underworld), Avernus was the entrance to that mysterious lower world through which both Odysseus and Aeneas were believed to have passed. Mephitic vapours rose above the waters and legend had it that no bird could fly in safety over the lake, whence its name which in Greek meant ‘Birdless’. The exact entrance to the underworld itself was supposed to be the cave of the Cumaean Sibyl—the last of whom had sold those Sibylline books to King Tarquin which Rome, as now, was wont to consult in moments of the gravest distress. Hannibal’s reason for making his way here was probably rather similar; he had much blood on his hands and he wished also to know what the future held for him.

Men consult oracles when they are a prey to doubt and they wish to obtain some divine indication of what direction they should take, or a confirmation that the course they are holding is the right one. For the first time since he emerged upon the stage of history it seems possible that Hannibal was uncertain. Educated by a Greek tutor, he will have been familiar with Homer from his boyhood, and no doubt there was some prescribed ritual at a temple nearby which will have paralleled that adopted by Odysseus:

With my drawn blade

I spaded up the votive pit, and poured

libations round it to the unnumbered dead:

sweet milk and honey, then sweet wine, and last

clear water; and I scattered barley down.

Then I addressed the blurred and breathless dead…

(Trans. Robert Fitzgerald)

It seemed that Hannibal’s sacrifice in the gloomy regions of the dark lake had borne fruit when a small group of noblemen from Tarentum came to visit him. They told him they represented a party in the city which was favourable to the Carthaginian cause and that, if he would bring his army south within sight of Tarentum’s walls, there would be no delay in its surrender. Not only was Tarentum the largest and richest port in the deep south of Italy; it was also ideally situated to serve as a communications centre, and a base if the Carthaginians could bring a fleet up from North Africa. Furthermore, in the event of Philip of Macedon moving a fleet and army across the Adriatic to invade Italy, Tarentum would serve as a disembarkation port and a supply centre. But the time was not yet ripe, and although Hannibal moved later in the year—after he had seen the corn harvested and safe within the walls of Capua—the provident Romans had forestalled him. The walls were manned against him, and once again Hannibal retired to winter on the Adriatic coast.

XIX

THE FALL OF TARENTUM

Whatever the dark gods at the gate of Hades may have told Hannibal it can hardly have been comforting—if the truth were spoken. Not only did that year see him without the capture of Tarentum, but his forces suffered their first, and only, disastrous blow that they were ever to suffer on Italian soil. Hannibal had sent orders for Hanno with his Carthaginian reinforcements and his newly recruited army from Bruttium to march north and join him in Campania. With this enlarged army he no doubt intended to try conclusions again with Neapolis or Cumae: the absence of an efficient seaport was bedevilling his whole campaign. Fabius, however, had ordered Tiberius Gracchus to advance from his position at Luceria to Beneventum and his son to take over Luceria in his stead. Hanno, who was marching north by way of Beneventum, was forestalled by the arrival of Gracchus and a pitched battle took place in which Hannibal’s general was heavily defeated.

Although the Roman legions were largely composed of slaves (promised their freedom if they fought well), they were more than a match for Hanno’s as yet untrained Bruttian recruits, and a relative handful of Carthaginian infantry and Numidian horse. Hanno himself escaped but the relief army upon which Hannibal had been counting was largely destroyed. Gracchus’ victory was to give new heart to the Romans and led to their blockading and finally retaking Casilinum. Subsequently a number of small towns in Samnium and Lucania were attacked and captured by Fabius, Marcellus and Gracchus: they paid the penalty for their defection to the Carthaginian with many lives and the harsh confiscation of property. Hannibal could command the respect, confidence and admiration of the mixed troops who followed him over the years, but he could not command the wholehearted support or Rome’s Latin confederation. The stern will and discipline of Rome were shown by the fact that, although Gracchus had decisively defeated Hanno, it was felt that not all of the legionaries had fought as well as they should. For the rest of that year they were ordered to take their evening meal standing up.

‘Soft Tarentum’ and ‘unwarlike’ was how the poet Horace was to describe the great southern port years later in the days of the Emperor Augustus. Certainly this city, which in its Grecian heyday had been the most prosperous in all Magno Graecia, was unlikely to provide a strong resistance against a determined attack. Here, at the head of the Gulf of Taranto, the indolent Ionian Sea and the prevailing south wind did not nurture a hardy race. In 281 B.C. when the Tarentines had been resisting the power of Rome, they had done so only with the help of Pyrrhus, king of Epirus, whose activities on Italian soil had given the Romans an early foretaste of what they were to endure at the hands of Hannibal.