Hannibal: A Hellenistic Life (51 page)

49.
With or without the much-debated treaty of Philinus, the customary sphere of Carthaginian influence would seem to have been infringed upon in this case. If the Carthaginians had broken the treaty first by appearing at Tarentum (Zonaras 8.6) while it was under siege by the Romans perhaps they were the ones who had first stepped beyond the traditional sphere of influence. It is difficult to prove either way but as Eckstein, 2010, 406–407 argues, it has important ramifications for our understanding of Roman and Carthaginian imperialism.

50.
The inconsistency lay in helping the Mamertines when they had just ousted their compatriot mercenaries from Rhegium.

51.
The different views are outlined in most discussions of the First Punic War; see especially Hoyos, 1998, 1–115; Goldsworthy, 2003, 65–75; see also Harris, 1985, 63–64, 108, 113–114, 182–190; and Miles, 2010, 165–167, who takes a more pragmatic approach than Harris; see also Lazenby, 1996a, 31–42, and 2004, 229–230.

52.
Goldsworthy, 2003, 70, who makes the point about each side having clear-cut spheres of influence according to their previous treaties; and Serrati, 2006, again for the details of the treaties. See also Lancel, 1995, 362–364. Eckstein, 2006, 165–66 defends Polybius here, denying the existence of the treaty.

53.
Polybius 1.10.9–1.11.3, for the debate at Rome over whether to take this step and the implications.

54.
The allies listed are the Tarentines, Locrians, Eleans and the people of Neapolis, newly conquered and perhaps not the most stable of allies. See also Walbank, vol. 1, 75 for a discussion of Roman adaptability as a popular Greek topos and the possibility of this being inaccurate or perhaps an understatement of Roman naval abilities at the start of the war. Steinby, 2007, 29–30 also questions Polybius’ version of the Romans being naval novices.

55.
Steinby, 2007, 77; and more broadly Steinby, 2007, 29–84 for an up-to-date assessment of Roman naval power at the start of the First Punic War; see also Murray, 2012; and the always useful Casson, 1995.

56.
On the construction of the navy see also Dionysus of Halicarnassus 20.15; and Harris, 1985, 183–184 for the acquisition of the Sila Forest to provide wood for ships. Exactly how the fives functioned is still debated. They had either two or three banks of oars with five oarsmen on each side. There may have been two different designs for fives (see above n. 20) and further in Morrison, 1996, 255–277. An excellent overview of the development of warships with up-to-date bibliography in reference to the Roman navy can be found in Steinby, 2007, 23–29; see Frost, 1974 on the discovery of a Punic ship off Marsala and the evidence it provides for the mass production of ships.

57.
This brief overview of the First Punic War touches on the key moments in the war down to Hannibal’s birth. A full and detailed account can be found in Lazenby, 1996a, Goldsworthy, 2003, 65–133 and many other excellent histories. Particularly useful are the phases of the war laid out by Rankov, 2011, 149–166.

58.
See Walbank, vol. 1, 67–68 for a plausible explanation of the events outlined in Polybius. The Roman army is well described by Fields, 2007; Potter, 2004.

59.
This is undoubtedly the version of events taken from the pro-Roman writings of Fabius Pictor in Walbank’s view, vol. 1, 67–69.

60.
Following comments in Polybius 1.20.1–3.

61.
Originally founded in
c.
580 by the people of the city of Gela who were in turn Rhodian and Cretan in origin, according to Thucydides 6.4.4. For a summary of the early Greek settlement in Sicily see Holloway, 2000, 43–96. Agrigentum was held by Carthage from the first quarter of the third century.

62.
The Romans, Polybius tells us, had just reduced their troop numbers from four legions to two and were relying on Syracusan forces as backup. For the Carthaginian army in the Punic Wars see Daly, 2002, 81–112 for Hannibal’s time; see Rawlings, 2010 for the navy.

63.
Chaniotis, 2005, 78–101 on professional soldiers and Hellenistic warfare; Hoyos, 2007, 6–12 on the make-up of the mercenaries at Carthage just after the First Punic War. Rome’s citizen army was the exception rather than the rule. For an excellent analysis of the two fighting forces in the period of Hannibal see Daly, 2002, 48–112.

64.
The mercenary element of the Carthaginian army may well have been overemphasized by pro-Roman sources for rhetorical purposes. See Daly, 2002, 81–84, which points out Polybius’ prejudices and lack of knowledge in regard to the Carthaginian forces.

65.
Polybius’ information and detail on the siege of Agrigentum are likely to have come from the lost history of Philinus, who was himself from Agrigentum and considered a ‘pro-Carthaginian’ source, see Walbank, vol. 1, 70.

66.
See Hoyos, 1998, 82–115 for a detailed explanation of the early stages of the war and the motivations of the main players. Hoyos, 2011, 131–147 (in Hoyos (ed.), 2011) provides a general overview of the arguments in ‘The Outbreak of War’. Lazenby 1996a, 43–60 gives a detailed analysis of the early part of the war. Did the victory at Agrigentum shift the direction of Roman policy as Polybius claims or had conquest of Sicily always been the intention? Were the Romans only reacting to Carthaginian manoeuvres and Syracusan policies? With both sides fighting to advantage and the Romans’ rolling successes over the previous
century of expansion, the appetite and economics of continuous warfare were integrated into their political and social systems to such a degree that there was perhaps never a conscious choice. Argued in Eckstein, 2006, 181–243 and the still valuable Harris, 1985, 182–190.

67.
Polybius 1.22.1–11 is a detailed description of the innovation. See Steinby, 2007, 87–104 for the boarding-bridge as a naval innovation and for questions about whether Polybius’ assessment that it was the
corvus
that gave the Romans the advantage. See also De Souza, 2007, 434–460 for an excellent technical explanation of the function of the
corvus
and more generally the tactics employed in naval battles. Rawlings, 2010, 279 observes that Carthaginian naval skills relied more on the ability to outmanoeuvre their opponents than on the boarding tactic. See Murray, 2012, 31–68 on frontal ramming and p. 225 on the
corvus
/
corax
.

68.
The fleet was under the command of Hannibal, who had been commander at Agrigentum. Land and sea armies were commanded by the same individuals. Comparing Polybius’ evidence for the battle of the Aegates Islands in 241 with the archaeological evidence recently uncovered, it is important to look sceptically at the numbers of ships and especially their size – were they mostly quinqueremes? See Tusa and Royal, 2012 and ongoing research at the battle site, which is providing unique information about naval warfare in the third-century western Mediterranean.

69.
Lipinski, 2004, 444, has suggested that 60 ships was a standard designation of a fleet, merchant or military, based on its consistent appearance in sources that note the number of recorded ships. So the loss of 30 ships would equate to that of half a fleet.

70.
Steinby, 2007, 92–93.

71.
Rawlings, 2010 on the Carthaginian navy.

72.
Walbank, vol. 1, 82–85 discusses these numbers in great detail and suggests revising downwards for a range of well-argued reasons. He notes that Polybius’ precise detail suggests that his source was an eyewitness to these events – possibly Philinus. For the numbers of ships, and the manpower needed to run them, oarsmen, marines, etc. see the estimates in Rawlings, 2010, 270.

73.
Goldsworthy, 2003, 96–127 provides a clear and in-depth assessment of the war at sea, including the tactics and deployment at Ecnomus.

74.
See Rawlings, 2010; de Souza, 2007, 434–441; also Steinby, 2007, 94–95.

75.
Polybius claimed that the
corax
/
corvus
was the difference between the two sides and that ‘all would … have been lost [for the Romans] if the Carthaginians had not been afraid of the ravens and simply hedged them in and held them close to the land’ (1.28.11).

76.
Diodorus Sic. 19.106.3 mentions this ritual in relation to an earlier defeat and here I am assuming that the practice continued. See Rawlings, 2010, 270 for the numbers of citizens in the Carthaginian fleet.

77.
Valerius Maximus 6.6.2 and Cassius Dio 11, frag. 43.21a both claim that a Carthaginian leader named Hamilcar sent Hanno to the Romans with a peace proposal at this time.

78.
They followed the same route and tactics that the Syracusan general Agathocles had used half a century previously. Diodorus Sic., 20.8.3–4. See Lazenby, 1996a, 97–110 for Regulus’ invasion.

79.
See Krings, 2008 on the landscape and a comparison between the accounts of Agathocles and Regulus. The later sources who provide these details may be constructing a landscape of prosperity linked to military intervention.

80.
Perhaps implying they were not expecting much of a fight from Carthage.

81.
The site was occupied from the sixth to the third centuries. Its destruction cannot be exactly dated to Regulus’ invasion but is stated to have been roughly mid-third century by Fantar, 1987, 209. Some of this rests in the imagination after visiting the evocative site. It is briefly described in Lancel, 1995, 280–288. Miles, 2010, 78–81 notes the surprising number of bathtubs and proposes the idea of ritual bathing. Excavations at the site, found by accident, took place in the 1950s–1970s: see Fantar, 1987.

82.
Agathocles had used the same tactics against Carthage, taking Tunes, as would the mercenary forces in the war of 241–238. Scipio Aemilianus in the Third Punic War and the
seventh-century
CE
Arabic forces would employ the same tactics – it was understood that Carthage was vulnerable from the land.

83.
We have no idea if he did or did not. His age suggests that he would have been active in military operations at this time and Hamilcar may have learned from the Spartan. We know Hannibal employed a Spartan historian (Sosylus, Cornelius Nepos,
Hann
. 13.3) as his teacher, so there was a Spartan connection. Appian,
Lib.
4 claims that the Carthaginians had Xanthippus and his Spartan companions drowned on their way back to Greece, which might be part of a topos on Carthaginian cruelty. The drowning of Xanthippus is not mentioned by Polybius (1.36.2–4) but he does allude to resentment at Carthage towards the Spartan general and the acclaim his success brought him. The drowning of Xanthippus is repeated in Valerius Maximus 9.6. ext.1 and Zonaras 8.13.

84.
See Lazenby, 1996a, 97–110, Goldsworthy, 2003, 84–92.

85.
For the fate of Regulus see below, note 88.

86.
Polybius’ numbers (1.37.2) are that 80 out of 364 ships survived, other sources such as Diodorus Siculus tell us that 340 ships were lost (23.18.1), later compilers like Orosius (4.9.8) claim that only 80 of 300 ships were saved, and Eutropius again claims that just 80 survived, but out of a total of 464. Once again the numbers are unclear, but that the Romans suffered large losses at sea is not challenged. Some historians have suggested the idea that the
corvus
, so useful for boarding enemy vessels, made the Roman ships more unstable, and especially vulnerable to bad weather; see Goldsworthy, 2003, 115–116, whose view was originally discussed in Thiel, 1954, 274 n.1, and Steinby, 2007, 96 who argues against this view.

87.
According to Thucydides 6.2.6, the Phoenicians settled at Motya, Panormus (Palermo), and Solonte in the
c
. eighth century
BCE
, although archaeological evidence at Palermo, so far, only dates back to the late seventh/early sixth century
BCE
from excavations at necropoleis there.

88.
On Regulus see Lazenby, 1996a, 122, who notes that sending a prisoner of war to negotiate would not have been normal practice for the Carthaginians. Tipps, 2003 outlines the expedition and implications. On the failure of the Carthaginians to capitalize after 249
BCE
see Lazenby, 1996a, 143 and Goldsworthy, 2003, 119–122. Walbank, vol. 1, 93–94 and Lancel, 1995, 369 are among those who object to Appian’s account and note that if the torture had happened then Polybius would surely have mentioned it. See Horace,
Odes
3.5; Appian,
Lib.
4 and
Sic.
2.1; for the career and sources for Regulus see Broughton, 1951, 209–210.

Chapter 3 His Father’s Son

1.
Freud (1931, 194–196) saw Hannibal as the perfect antidote to the anti-Semitic sentiments of his classmates in school. Others before him also related to Hannibal, from Sir Walter Raleigh to Irish mercenaries: see more in chapter 12.

2.
Freud, 1931, 195–196; see Reff, 1963 on Cézanne’s poem and the ‘dream of Hannibal’; Polybius (3.9.6) on the ‘anger of Hamilcar’ as the cause of the war, which was picked up on by Livy 21.1.5–2.2, Cornelius Nepos,
Ham.
1.4, 4.2, Valerius Maximus 9.3.2: ‘how passionate was Hamilcar’s hate of the Roman people’. The son following the father’s plans is likely a topos, i.e. Polybius in his discussion of the cause of war links Alexander’s actions with the plans of Philip (3.6.1–14).

3.
Cornelius Nepos,
Ham.
1.1, calls Hamilcar a young man. Hoyos, 2005, 21 gives a rough age of 30, but also notes that Cicero at 40 referred to himself as ‘young’ so there is a fair bit of leeway here.