Hannibal: A Hellenistic Life (33 page)

The campaigning season of 213
BCE
started disastrously when news arrived that Arpi, the very first of the towns to ally with Hannibal after Cannae, had fallen to an army led by Q. Fabius Maximus junior, the dictator’s son (Livy 24.46.1–7). The summer saw Hannibal in the southern regions of Apulia known as the Salentine peninsula, the heel of the boot of Italy. Here Hannibal had close access to Tarentum and was also in a region where he could look east towards his allies in Macedon if any reinforcements were to be forthcoming.
¹⁷
He spent that season gathering support and subduing cities in the Salentine peninsula, essentially providing an environment in which Tarentum could throw off its Roman garrison. In the winter of 213–212
BCE
, Hannibal set up his camp three days’ march from Tarentum in Apulia.
¹⁸
He now seems to have set his sights on taking the city, perhaps to provide an option beyond Campania and looking outwards for support from his allies across the Adriatic.

Hannibal must have received news of events at Rome that would be instrumental in a shift in the relationship with Tarentum. The captives from the cities of the region held at Rome had attempted an escape. These men were captured on the way south and brought back to the city. There, in front of the assembly, they were sentenced as traitors. Their punishment began with a flogging and they were then thrown to their deaths from the Tarpeian Rock on the south-east slope of the Capitoline Hill (Livy 25.7.10–14). These young men were the sons of the Tarentine and southern Italian elites and their
execution generated a great deal of ‘ill-feeling in the two most famous Greek city-states in Italy’ (Livy 25.8.1–2 referring to Tarentum and Thurii). The deaths of the hostages moreover removed any Roman hold over Tarentum.

The events around Tarentum and the cities of Magna Graecia are characteristic of the shifts of momentum in these years. Just when things looked impossible for Hannibal, the execution of the Tarentine prisoners led some of the Greek cities to change sides and he found himself with new allies and options.
¹⁹
That winter Hannibal was ready nearby as a group of thirteen young men from Tarentum conspired to overthrow the garrison. By night the young Tarentines left the city and sought out Hannibal in his camp. With the Roman garrison stationed at Tarentum precautions had to be taken to conceal any nocturnal forays and the men posed as hunters. Hannibal received them graciously and granted them an audience. Together they sketched out a plan to take the city and agreed to meet again. When the two sides met anew, Hannibal promised that the Carthaginians would ‘neither exact tribute nor impose any other burdens on the people of Tarentum’ (Polyb. 8.25.2).
²⁰
From then on the conspirators regularly met Hannibal by night and the ground was prepared for a surprise attack on Tarentum.

The day chosen for the attack, early in 212
BCE
, was during a festival when it was known that the Roman commander at Tarentum would be attending. By this time the guards at the city gates were well used to the leading conspirator, whose name was Philemenus, leaving the city to hunt or forage, and did not suspect anything on the day. The plan to take the city needed careful execution. Hannibal emphasized to his commanders that they must ‘carry out his orders to the letter’ (Polyb. 8.26.9). The elaborate plot involved a party of Numidians foraging in the countryside to distract Roman attention while Hannibal and 10,000 hand-picked troops marched towards the city led by the hunter Philemenus and a decoy wild boar (Polyb. 8.26; Livy 25.9–12).

Hannibal approached the city from the east and advanced towards the Teminid gate. He had chosen to enter the city here because, unusually for an ancient city, Tarentum had an area within the city walls that was used as a cemetery just inside the eastern quarter (Polyb. 8.28.6–7).
²¹
Lighting signal fires from within and without the city, the attackers converged in silence and took the guards completely by surprise. The Roman commander, Gaius Livius, had been sleeping off a day of revelry. When he was woken by the chaos and noise of the attack he made for the port, where he jumped into a boat and proceeded to the citadel of the city, which guarded the deep southern port at the end of a promontory. There was intense street-to-street fighting and in the end the Roman garrison was confined to the citadel. The attack was
successful but only partially and left the urban centre open to surprise attacks and reprisals. It also meant that it was impossible to leave Tarentum unguarded. Without the manpower to mount a siege on the citadel Hannibal set about trying to starve the garrison out through a blockade.

Hannibal must have frequently requested support from Carthage for backup from the sea. Tarentum could not be held without help from the navy and the Tarentines needed extra manpower to counter the Roman naval supremacy. When the Carthaginian admiral Bomilcar was forced to flee Syracusan waters near the end of the siege there he chose to sail on to Tarentum (Livy 25.27.12). Without support from the sea Hannibal could not control access to the citadel at Tarentum and the Romans would be free to supply their garrison. There are few recorded instances of coordinated Carthaginian movement by sea and land over the course of Hannibal’s years in Italy. While there must have been frequent attempts to link up and communicate, there is a frustrating gap in our knowledge of the relationship in these years between Carthage and Hannibal.

Hannibal returned to his camp outside the city and left the Tarentines and a garrison of soldiers to blockade the Romans holed up in the citadel. It was an incomplete conquest but the fall of Tarentum was enough to disturb the whole region. Soon after, the cities of Metapontum and then Thurii and Heraclea followed the Tarentines in declaring allegiance to Hannibal. Hannibal found himself with new allies in the deep south of Italy willing to join the Carthaginians against Rome (Appian,
Hann.
6.35). There is little doubt that almost the whole area was turned by the change of Tarentine allegiance, reflecting its regional influence and the importance of the alliance for Hannibal.
²²
In Magna Graecia, apart from the garrison at Tarentum, by the summer of 212
BCE
only the city of Rhegium remained under Roman control (
Map 1
).

In the meantime Hannibal’s extended absence from Campania had left the city of Capua at risk and the Roman consuls of 212
BCE
had taken the opportunity to tighten the knot around the city with a total blockade.
²³
Capua was already suffering crippling food shortages, being cut off from its fields, and the Roman consuls intended to starve the city into capitulation (Livy 25.13.1). Inside the city the Capuans loyal to Hannibal and a garrison of Carthaginian troops were left to provide resistance against Rome. Hannibal received a desperate message from Capua requesting food and relief from the siege. He sent his commander Hanno from Bruttium into Campania with orders to bring provisions to the town. Hanno and his army were near the strategic town of Beneventum collecting grain and supplies when the consul Fulvius
Flaccus approached with his army. The Romans attacked and took the Carthaginian camp while Hanno was absent. Livy reports losses of over 6,000 men with 7,000 taken prisoner.
²⁴
Hanno had to race back to Bruttium with the remainder of his army, abandoning the starving Capuans to their own devices (Livy 25.13.3–14.14).

Once again messengers from Capua were sent out to Hannibal: they reported that the consuls were at Beneventum and implored him not to leave ‘the people abandoned and undefended’ (Livy 25.15.1–2).
²⁵
The Roman consuls had seized the opportunity created by Hanno’s defeat to attack Capua with six legions. They sent for the proconsul Tiberius Gracchus, who was nearby with his army in Lucania to protect Beneventum (which lay on a key route through the Apennines from Apulia into Campania). Suddenly, just as Gracchus made his way towards Beneventum, he was killed. Events leading to the death of the illustrious proconsul are so confused that even Livy laments ‘the uncertainty surrounding where and how such a famous and distinguished man met his end’ (Livy 25.16–17). Gracchus was either betrayed by the Lucanians in his command to the Carthaginian general Mago (known as ‘the Samnite’) and ambushed, or, in a far less gallant version, he was surprised while bathing. Legend has it that the body of Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus was brought to Hannibal. Hannibal buried his enemy, with whom he had battled numerous times over the years, with full military honours.
²⁶
When Gracchus died, his army, made up of slaves conscripted after Cannae, ‘deserted its standards’, the troops’ loyalty being more to the commander than the cause (Livy 25.20.1).

Hannibal, as he finally approached Capua, was faced with a serious dilemma. The citadel at Tarentum was still in Roman hands and the city of Capua was now almost completely cut off. As the crow flies, the cities lie some 300 kilometres apart and Hannibal could not be in both places at once. So much of the war relied on his personal command that he found himself stretched across the south of Italy. Politically he had little choice but to try to help his allies at Capua. He must have understood that Rome intended to make an example of the Capuans to lay bare Hannibal’s inability to protect those who became his allies.
²⁷
His only real hope of relieving the city was to attempt to draw the consuls into a battle and defeat them. The Romans, however, were much less likely to stand and fight on Hannibal’s terms than they had been four years earlier.

Hannibal knew that the Romans found their blockade of Capua more difficult to maintain if he was nearby. When he attempted to approach the city, he was quickly lured away by the consuls, Appius Claudius and Flaccus.
They marched off in different directions to draw Hannibal away and then circled back to Capua.
²⁸
Hannibal chose not to follow and instead went into Apulia where his remaining allied towns were under pressure from the praetor C. Fulvius Flaccus (the brother of the sitting consul). Fulvius and his army, in Livy’s estimation, had become over-confident; following recent successes in Apulia, they were ‘so laden down with booty that they had become neglectful and apathetic’ (25.20.6–7). Still well informed, Hannibal probably received news of Fulvius’ attitude and may have turned away from Capua when offered a chance to draw him into battle. The Carthaginian forces approached the army of Fulvius and Hannibal chose the ground for the encounter near the town of Herdonea. In a set-piece he destroyed the Roman army and took their camp. Only 2,000 of the 18,000 men survived (25.21.1–10). Livy writes with dismay of how, after so many defeats, a Roman commander could still walk casually and unprepared into a battle with Hannibal. This, the so-called First Battle of Herdonea, was Hannibal’s largest battlefield victory since Cannae. These events, combined with the death of the proconsul Gracchus, illustrate just how far Hannibal was from being defeated. He remained a formidable force and most of the Roman commanders were wary of approaching.
²⁹

The victory at Herdonea must have buoyed the Carthaginians and their allies but in the meantime the Romans had completed their heavy fortification of the area around Capua. As Syracuse fell to Marcellus near the end of 212
BCE
, the barrier around Capua tightened, with more troops becoming available to seal off the city (Livy 25.23.1).
³⁰
Capua was encircled by a ditch and rampart. Roman supplies came from their grain stores and supply post at Casilinum and two other camps nearby. The city was completely blockaded and made a new series of pleas to Hannibal for help.

By 211 we find Hannibal impotent in the face of the Roman blockade and increasingly desperate. Hannibal returned to Campania and set up a camp on Monte Tifata but faced an implacable barrier between his forces and his allies inside the town: ‘he could not force his way into Capua nor could he lure the Romans out of their camp’ (Polyb. 9.3.4–5). The Romans were especially determined to make an example of Capua, whose defection to Hannibal they viewed as a profound betrayal. They dedicated nearly half of the legions stationed in Italy to the siege and despite a few brave coordinated attempts with the Capuans, Hannibal could not crack their defences.

The situation exemplified Hannibal’s continuing predicament in Italy; he was essentially stuck. He could ill afford to lose Capua but neither could he let himself be trapped in Campania where the Roman forces were massed. The scorched-earth policy meant Hannibal could not sustain his army for long in
the region anyway.
³¹
To alleviate the siege of Capua and distract the Romans from their task, Hannibal hatched a dramatic and somewhat reckless plan. Before he executed it he paid a Numidian soldier to take a letter to the Capuans explaining his actions. In the letter Hannibal implored the people in Capua not to lose heart and tried to reassure them that he was not deserting the field, but trying to relieve their suffering (Livy 26.7.6–8; Polyb. 9.5.1–6). His idea was to attempt to draw the Roman armies away from Campania and thus ease the pressure on the city. The strategy was always going to be risky. The Romans had become far less gullible and less likely to be drawn into Hannibal’s stratagems in the years after Cannae. Nonetheless, Hannibal must have felt it was worth an attempt so he gathered up his army and turned north, marching the 195 kilometres from Capua to the gates of Rome (Livy 26.7–26.11; Polyb. 9.4–9.7).

Two different scenarios are reported: Polybius’ account puts Hannibal outside the walls of Rome unannounced but, according to Livy, the consul Flaccus had already sent a dispatch to Rome alerting the Senate (Livy 26.8.1; Polyb. 9.6.1–5).
³²
In the Senate, Hannibal’s long-time opponent Fabius Maximus argued that this was a ruse to raise the siege of Capua (Livy 26.8.3). In the city, however, sheer panic spread through the people when the messenger arrived with the news of Hannibal’s approach. ‘The women’s lamentations [were] heard coming from private homes: all over the city married ladies poured into the streets, and ran around the shrines of the gods. They swept the altars with their dishevelled hair; they fell to their knees with hands held palm-up to heaven and the gods, and they begged the gods to rescue the city …’ (Livy 26.9.6–8). The senators may have become wiser to the reality of the threat represented by Hannibal but he retained the power to spread deep alarm among the population at Rome.