Hannibal: A Hellenistic Life (39 page)

Was it Mago’s hope and perhaps Carthage’s dream that he would be able to link up with Hannibal and again try to distract the Romans from the inevitable invasion of Africa?
⁵⁴
Mago may also have been sent to Liguria to recruit much-needed soldiers for Carthage. Carthage faced a shortfall in allies able to supply troops, as the Iberians were now largely serving Rome. There were again two Barcid brothers in Italy, with Mago in the far north and Hannibal deep in the south. It is a matter of some debate to what extent this strategy was being directed from Carthage. Hannibal may again have hoped for greater success in Italy, with Mago’s attack in Liguria part of an overall strategy to bring about a more generous peace, but it doesn’t seem credible.
⁵⁵
The political situation at Carthage and the politics of the Carthaginian state played out behind the scenes as the Barcid power base in Iberia fell to Rome and Hannibal’s military successes faded from view. Hannibal’s opponents in Carthage were in the ascendant and Carthage was now extremely vulnerable to a Roman attack. These two factors must have held the fate of Hannibal in the balance.

Hannibal may have continued to believe that reinforcements would arrive in the south of Italy, either from Carthage (as Livy suggests) or perhaps he believed they would come from the Macedonian king Philip V. This would make him less of a pragmatist than seems likely. It is more realistic to assume that maintaining a presence in Italy was now a policy designed to keep the Romans from invading Africa. Hannibal was determined to keep a foothold on the southern coast of Italy. Although his power was diminished, he was not yet defeated.
⁵⁶
When the consuls of 206 ‘marched their troops into the territory of Cosentia [modern Cosenza] and plundered far and wide’ they were ambushed in a narrow pass. Livy describes more ‘of a brawl than a battle’ but the Roman consuls retreated out of Bruttium and focused on consolidating the territory of Lucania.
⁵⁷
‘Such were Hannibal’s powers’, the Romans still thought better of provoking him and no fewer than four legions were assigned to watch his movements in Bruttium (Livy 28.11.11–12.1).
⁵⁸

One of the most revealing aspects of Hannibal’s remarkable leadership and personality was the loyalty of his army through this period in Italy. Despite being ‘often short of money for pay and short of provisions as well’, the army did not abandon him or rebel. Livy finds it ‘amazing that there was no mutiny in his camp’ and it is a testament to the loyalty the men owed their commander,
and their belief in him (28.12.1–6).
⁵⁹
The description of Hannibal’s army is particularly evocative, ‘not made up of his own countrymen, but a mixture scraped together from all nations … dissimilar in appearance and in dress, with different arms, religious rites and practices, and almost with different gods’. It was Hannibal who bound these men together into a force that remained true to its commander when ‘all else was falling apart’.
⁶⁰
Hannibal’s personal commitment and loyalty to his troops may have been another reason that he did not leave Italy. He was fighting not for Carthage by this time but for his army and remaining allies.
⁶¹

During these years of isolation and hardship, much of Hannibal’s time and energy were devoted to maintaining and feeding his army in a devastated countryside. The rugged and mountainous region of Bruttium had inadequate arable land to sustain his army, and what there was had lain fallow whilst ‘most of the young men had been swept away from agriculture by the war’ (Livy 28.12.7). Hannibal spent a substantial part of 205
BCE
in and around the beautiful city of Crotona. That summer, at the renowned sanctuary and temple of Juno Lacinia, he dedicated an altar to the goddess. The monument was inscribed in both Punic and Greek with the achievements that Hannibal considered worthy of recording. We can only wonder about the details of the text, whether it was truly written as a kind of
res gestae
(as Livy describes), but it must have been a telling statement of Hannibal’s selfassessment. The bilingual inscription was also a testament to the ‘huge ambition’ of the man and how he wanted to be remembered (Polybius 3.33.56; Livy 28.46.16).
⁶²

Hannibal left other evidence of his time in Italy in the form of coinage minted to pay his soldiers. The vast majority of the Hannibalic coins issued in Italy are preserved in hoards found in Bruttium.
⁶³
The coins, based on the Carthaginian shekel standard, preserve recognizable imagery of the Carthaginian type, with the head of a female goddess, in this case perhaps Tanit (or equally Juno) and the image of the horse, or a horse with palm tree. The coin evidence illustrates how Bruttium became almost a ‘Carthaginian state’ during these years.
⁶⁴
It was the only place where Hannibal and his army of the last loyal soldiers still held sway.

The size of the army Hannibal commanded in these years of isolation is unknown. He had devoted soldiers in considerable enough numbers to keep the Romans on their guard.
⁶⁵
Nonetheless, the Carthaginian war effort was waning and support for Hannibal’s position in Italy dissipated. Philip V and the Macedonians made peace with the Roman-allied Aetolian League in Greece in 206
BCE
.
⁶⁶
This developed further into the Peace of Phoenice in
205
BCE
between the Macedonian king and the Romans (Livy 29.12.1–16).
⁶⁷
Clearly Hannibal could now expect no help from that quarter. He may have hoped that his continued presence in Italy would make it impossible for the Romans to concentrate their military strength on Carthage but it was to be events in Africa that would ultimately decide his fate. The narrative at the end of Livy’s twenty-eighth book sees the mighty Hannibal stranded at the tip of the peninsula, clinging to Italy. Hannibal is helpless, Scipio is powerful and the tables have turned.
⁶⁸

CHAPTER 11

HANNIBAL RETURNS

When they considered the worth of Hannibal and the greatness of his acts, it offended them to think that they had been so base as to make humble suit unto Rome for peace, whilst they had such a brave champion alive to maintain their cause by war.
(Sir Walter Ralegh)
¹

T
HERE HAD BEEN A
time when ‘Italy trembled’ at Hannibal as he brought ‘thundering war to Rome’ but increasingly he was a sideshow in a conflagration that had shifted its focus south to Sicily where preparations were being made to invade Africa (Justin 32.4). In the final years of the conflict Hannibal looked on as a spectator while the action relocated to Africa where Carthage and her most important allies, the Numidians, took centre stage. The Numidian cavalry that had fought with Hannibal to such devastating effect in his victories were the Carthaginian allies most frequently referred to by the Roman sources.
²
Their leaders were tied to the Barcid generals and other elite Carthaginian families through bonds of loyalty and marriage.
³
We have seen how the alliances of the Numidians shifted over the course of the war, with the Romans vying to entice allies away from Carthage. The approach taken by Scipio and the Romans in Africa was not dissimilar to that taken by Hannibal in Italy. Carthage, if isolated from her neighbours, would not have the resources to keep fighting.
⁴
The earlier invasions of Agathocles, that of Regulus in the First Punic War and the Mercenary War had proven how vulnerable the city was in the face of an African revolt.

The background to the final stages of the war in Africa is closely connected to the dynastic struggle and inter-kingdom rivalries between the key allies: the
Masaesylian king Syphax and Massylian king Masinissa. Through their alliance with the two competing superpowers the Numidian kings developed their own realms in this period. They used their positions as allies of Carthage and then Rome to gain advantage over each other.
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It was after the battle of Ilipa in Iberia that Masinissa chose to enter into discussions with the Romans about abandoning his alliance with Carthage (Livy 28.16.11).
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The reputation, personal prestige and victories of the Roman army under the younger Scipio may have influenced Masinissa into changing sides but practical considerations about his own role in politics at home must have driven his choice.
⁷
Masinissa met secretly with one of Scipio’s deputies (and perhaps Scipio himself), agreed an alliance with Rome and encouraged the Romans to invade Africa. Carthage would not last long, Masinissa said flatteringly, if the Romans had Scipio as commander (Livy 28.35.11).
⁸
He then dashed off to Africa where his father’s and uncle’s deaths had left his Massylian kingdom in turmoil.
⁹

The alliance between Masinissa and the Romans would be of fundamental importance to the outcome of the war. However, in 205
BCE
the reality of Masinissa’s situation was more complex. His father’s kingdom was now ruled by a distant relative who had made overtures to Carthage and King Syphax.
¹⁰
At this point Scipio must have realized that Masinissa needed Rome as much as or more than he (and the Romans) needed Masinissa.

Things were going badly for Carthage on all fronts. Hannibal and the Carthaginians would have been aware that Scipio had sailed back to Rome from Iberia with ten ships in time for the consular elections for 205
BCE
. It was no secret that Scipio’s plan was to take the war to Africa as soon as he could (Livy 28.38.1). His arrival in Rome with a large fleet ‘loaded down with captives, money, arms and all kinds of booty’ created great excitement (Appian,
Ib
. 38). Scipio’s complete victory in the Iberian peninsula put him in a natural position for political success. He was the man of the moment. Yet, as the head of an important family in Rome he also faced opposition from fellow senators who were perhaps wary of his achievements and the acclaim they brought. Nonetheless, he quite easily won the consulship for 205
BCE
with P. Licinius Crassus as his colleague. Scipio viewed his plan for an invasion of Africa as a natural continuation of his success in Iberia. His colleagues in the Senate were not all in agreement and the proposed invasion faced strong opposition. A long debate took place with the venerable ex-consuls Fabius Maximus and Fulvius Flaccus, both veterans of the war with Hannibal, resisting Scipio’s plans. The older generation argued that with Hannibal still in Bruttium the focus of the war should remain in Italy (Livy 28.40–45).
¹¹
The broader context of
the disagreement was the long-term strategy of Roman military engagement, with the two sides embodied in the conservative Fabius Maximus and the adventurous younger generation of Scipio. Eventually Scipio was given a broad mandate and assumed the province of Sicily as his responsibility. He was also ‘given leave to cross to Africa’ if he felt it was in Rome’s interest (Livy 28.45.9).
¹²

The wealth from the war in Iberia paid for public games and entertainment in the city and the Romans sent two citizens to make a dedication to the god Apollo at Delphi.
¹³
These men ‘bore a gold crown weighing two hundred pounds, and reproductions of the spoils made from one thousand pounds of silver’. These gifts ‘from the spoils of Hasdrubal’ (Livy 28.45.12) give some indication of the vast wealth that had been accumulated in Rome over the previous few years as successive cities fell.
¹⁴
As the people of Rome became accustomed to the flow of the wealth of conquest they were enthusiastic as Scipio began to prepare for his next adventure. An invasion of Africa had been the original Roman plan in 218
BCE
even before hostilities had first broken out. Only now, fourteen years later, would they proceed. Scipio was so popular in Rome that, although he was not granted a troop levy by the Senate, he received 7,000 volunteers eager to follow him into battle and further glory (Livy 28.45.14–46.1).
¹⁵

Throughout 205
BCE
Scipio meticulously prepared for a massive invasion of Africa, with supplies and troop training being key to his plans. He would not, however, embark his forces until the following year.
¹⁶
Instead he sent his lieutenant Laelius on a raiding expedition with sixty ships to reconnoitre the coast of Africa, pillage and wreak havoc in the rich agricultural heartland of Carthage.
¹⁷
For the Carthaginians, Laelius’ arrival combined with the rumours of an imminent invasion to spread fear through the city, ‘first terror and panic gripped their hearts, and then a gloomy foreboding’ (Livy 29.3.9). It was the turn of the people of Carthage to fear the coming invasion. Carthaginians in Africa must have become used to Roman ships raiding the coastal regions over the period of the war. Roman raiders had consistently taken captives and pillaged widely across the countryside but a full-scale invasion was another matter altogether.
¹⁸

The Carthaginians sprang into action and even when they realized Laelius’ arrival was only a raid, not the dreaded invasion of Scipio, they began to prepare for the inevitable. Envoys were dispatched to Hannibal and Mago in Italy encouraging them to do as much as possible to divert Scipio’s attention from his planned invasion. Reinforcements and warships went out to Mago in Liguria but it may have been too difficult to supply Hannibal in Bruttium,
with the consul and fleet now at Lilybaeum.
¹⁹
Mago was encouraged to move his armies farther south but the ten Roman legions that stood in between Mago and Hannibal were an insurmountable problem. The Carthaginians sent an embassy to Philip V asking for military aid and promising to pay 200 talents if he would invade Sicily or Italy. That same year the Romans had signed a peace treaty with Philip, which ensured that no help for Carthage would come from the Macedonians. In the city of Carthage the fortifications were repaired, supplies massed and more troops levied for the defence of Africa (Livy 29.4.1–3).
²⁰