Destroy Carthage Page 13
The Second Punic War - the War of Hannibal as the Romans called it - remains one episode in Carthaginian history known to everyone, needing slight evocation in these pages. The famous march through the Alps has passed into legend along with many tales of the ordeals encountered there.
Responsibility for the war is arguable. For some time the Romans had encouraged a friendly administration in the Iberian port of Saguntum, perceiving its potential as a bridgehead in eastern Spain. Claiming that the place was under their protection, they threatened war should Hannibal lay siege to it. Two years after succeeding Hasdrubal, he did just that. Saguntum, well to the south of the Ebro, was now the only town in the province which resisted him. It was not in the sphere denied Punic troops by the Roman treaty (i.e., north of the Ebro), nor is there evidence that Rome reserved special rights at Saguntum by any agreement.
But if Rome's ultimatum had no basis in legality, Hannibal's contempt for it scarcely showed aversion for the war he risked. A renewal of the struggle with Rome was implicit not only in his heritage but in his conviction that, from Spain, he could succeed where Carthage had failed before. He would do so by striking at the heart of Rome's power, her dominion in Italy, looking to the Italians to cast off her yoke and take side with him.
By crossing the Ebro in early summer 218, Hannibal anticipated the declaration of war already resolved in Rome. Securing the northeast passage of Spain in a few weeks, he passed the Pyrenees near the coast into southern France, reaching the Rhone late in August. Many Gallic recruits joined his army, the rest of which was mainly of Spaniards and Africans.
Among its best units were the bands of Numidian horsemen whose aggression and endurance were unexcelled. There was also Spanish cavalry. Distinct from the Numidians, who liked to lead remounts into battle and change ponies when one tired, the Iberians commonly rode two men to a horse, one rider dismounting to fight on foot. Of interest in the foot ranks were Balearian slingers, renowned for their aim with lead or stone missiles. Armed with two types of sling - for long range and short range - their fire could be more withering than that of ancient bowmen.
Rome cast her first challenge to Hannibal on the Rhone. Disembarking at Massilia, the Scipio brothers Publius Cornelius (father of 'Africanus') and Gnaeus deployed their forces on the right bank only to find that Hannibal had already crossed the river and eluded them. Rather than ship the army beyond the Alps to meet the enemy, the Scipios now took a gamble.
While Publius sailed alone for Pisa to alert northern Italy, Gnaeus proceeded with the fleet and army to eastern Spain, where Hannibal's young brother Hasdrubal Barca now held command. The Roman invasion of Spain at this moment, if remote from the main drama, would be seen in due course as a telling move.
Hannibal descended from the Alps to the Po lands, seemingly by the Dora Riparia, with 20,000 infantry and 6,000 cavalry. The mountain crossing, though an impressive achievement, was not unique, for the warlike tribes of Gaul had done it many times. Nor did elephants, inseparable from Hannibal in popular imagination, play a major role. Only 37 began the trek, far fewer than those deployed by Carthage in earlier campaigns.
Legend has overdone the hardships. That more than 50,000 men - the traditional estimate - were lost between the Ebro and the Po is inconceivable in the light of Hannibal's competence. The speed and success with which he took the offensive in northern Italy points to a force in good shape and heart, not the remnants of a marathon massacre. Almost at once, the invaders overwhelmed the stronghold of the hostile Taurini Gauls, then, gathering friendly tribes, moved down the Po toward the newly-formed Roman colonies of Placentia (Piacenza) and Cremona.
Scipio, having taken command of two legions in the area, had advanced to a northern tributary, the Ticino. Here, a cavalry skirmish, demonstrating the superiority of the Numid- ians over the Roman horse, led to the injury of Scipio, who withdrew south of the Po to the Trebia. He was now reinforced by some 20,000 troops under his fellow consul Tiberius Sempronius, hot-foot from Sicily and an impending blow at Africa.
It was December. The water was icy as Sempronius threw his legions across the Trebia and into the first major battle for Italy. At the end of the day, no more than 10,000 legionaries scrambled back through the stream to Placentia. The greater part of the Roman force was dead or captured. Sempronius, pleading storm and flood to excuse himself, ignored the fact that he had been out-manoeuvred at every stage on ground picked by Hannibal precisely for its natural snares.
Trebia closed a momentous year with the Carthaginian commanding most of the territory north of the Appenines, through which he could choose his passage the next spring. The campaign had won to his side not only a host of anti- Roman Celts but a number who had formerly served Rome. Above all, it had fulfilled the strategic purpose of averting an offensive against Carthage by concentrating Roman forces in the north. The new year would find Rome on the defensive in Italy.
Two armies were posted to check a Punic advance south, one on the east coast at Ariminum (Rimini), the other across the Appenines at Arretium (Arezzo). Hannibal, having wintered at Bologna, avoided both by what Polybius termed 'a difficult short cut'- probably the Collina pass and the marshes of the Arno, then in spring flood - to appear in Etruria.
While the Carthaginian marched boldly through the northeast, the Roman commander at Arretium, Gaius Flaminius, stood by inactively. Polybius characterises Flaminius as a military nincompoop, but he was perhaps not unwise in delaying an attack on Hannibal until his colleague at Ariminum, Gnaeus Servilius, might join him. Servilius was in fact approaching by forced marches when Hannibal, having swung round Arretium, headed back into the hills as if making to challenge the advancing force.
At last Flaminius felt safe in following. He had reached the north shore of Lake Trasimene, and was marching in morning mist through the narrow Borghetto pass, when he beheld the trap set for him. Hannibal had placed his troops in ambush during the night. At a signal, they attacked from all sides, blocking the pass and swarming down the valley slopes. The Romans, caught in line of march, had no chance. Flaminius was killed, his army massacred.
Servilius, unable to get his main force near enough to help, had sent 4,000 mounted troops ahead. Somewhere near Assisi, the contingent was intercepted by Hannibal's cavalry leader, Maharbal, and wiped out.
News of the defeats produced consternation at Rome. The elderly senator Fabius Maximus was appointed dictator in the crisis, religious invocations were intensified, defences strengthened. But Hannibal avoided Rome. His army was sore and weary. Veering east to the Adriatic plains, the invaders rested during mid-summer, bathing their wounds, then resumed campaigning to the south, ravaging Apulia and Campania.Fabius took the prudent view that Hannibal and his army were too good to be confronted in full array. Instead, the dictator adopted a policy of attrition, dogging the enemy's movements, harassing detachments and supply details. On no account was battle to be offered on equal terms, or on the terms of Hannibal. Roman impatience, aroused by Fabian strategy, was not mollified by the audacity with which the enemy outwitted his shadowers.
In the most famous instance of Hannibalic ingenuity, the Callicula pass engagement, the general extricated his force from ambush by stampeding cattle toward the Romans after dark. By 216, frustration at Rome, expressed in demands for decisive action, was preparing the ground for Hannibal's third, and last, great victory.
Early in June, seeking provisions, the invaders seized a Roman supply base at Cannae, near the Ofanto river. Here, they were approached by the consuls of the year, Lucius Aemilius Paulus and Gaius Terentius Varra, with a Roman army of impressive strength. Even allowing for exaggeration in the traditional estimate of 80,000 men, it probably exceeded Hannibal's 50,000, and certainly preponderated in infantry. In cavalry, the Carthaginians were stronger.
Authorized to give battle by a senate tired of Fabian caution, the Romans took position beside the Ofanto in customary order: cavalry and allied contingents on the wing
s, heavy legions in the centre. Hannibal confronted the enemy with his centre advanced and the line drawn back on either side, a crescent with horns pointing to the rear. To the front were Gauls and Spaniards; on their flanks, Africans. His cavalry engaged the Roman wings.
The exotic variety of the Punic force impressed the ancient scribes. The Gauls, naked from the waist up, wielded great slashing swords; the Spaniards, shorter chopping and stabbing blades. The latter wore tunics of white with scarlet trimmings. Elsewhere, the Libyans appear to have decked themselves with arms captured in previous victories for, according to Livy, 'one might have taken them for a Roman battle line.'
Military interest in Cannae, however, rests not so much in any particular group or armament but in the classic manoeuvre for which it has become famed.Hannibal's tactics were based on the expectation that the dense legions at the centre of the Roman formation would drive the Gauls and Spaniards back through the Libyan lines, which would then turn inwards on the legions from either flank. The crescent would no longer be convex but concave, a pincer with the Roman legions in its jaws. Success depended on Hannibal's horsemen taking out the Roman wings - a safe bet, for cavalry was his strong arm - and, crucially, on the Gauls and Spaniards giving ground without breaking.
The manoeuvre worked perfectly. As a final stroke, the Spanish cavalry, leaving the Numidians to complete the rout of the Roman wings, engaged the rear of the legions to complete their encirclement. Aemilius Paulus and eighty senators fell with 25,000 or more legionaries in the deadly ring. Another 10,000 of their side were killed or captured later. Hannibal's losses, about one to six of the enemy's were mostly in men of the Gallic tribes.
Cannae represented Rome's darkest hour in the Punic wars. Until now, the Italic confederation had remained intact. Neither Trebia nor Lake Trasimene, though alarming, had actually detached components from the Roman alliance. It took Cannae to crack the structure, topple its weakest towers. First Arpi (Foggia), in northern Apulia, defected, then a string of Samnite, Lucanian and Bruttian communities. Lastly, the great Campanian centre of Capua, second city of the peninsula, broke away, promised autonomy - ultimately, the hegemony of Italy - by Hannibal.
At Capua the Punic army went into winter quarters and, as legend had it, surrendered its fighting spirit to the pleasures of the neighbourhood. It is true that Hannibal's spectacular successes were not resumed; that Cannae may be seen as a watershed. But the general's failure to exploit his triumph was due to factors altogether more weighty than the seductions of Campania.
With a single army of limited proportions, lacking siege machines, dependent on the land for supplies, Hannibal could not hope to reduce the defences of Rome itself. The one measure that could conclude the war at a stroke was beyond his means. Instead, he was obliged to attempt further inroads on the confederacy, at the same time protecting the defected cities of Campania and Apulia - a responsibility that diminished his offensive flexibility, substituting defensive needs foreign to his genius.
For their part, the Romans responded to Cannae with grim resilience. After an initial outbreak of panic and some human sacrifice (a number of foreigners and a Vestal Virgin were buried alive), the people showed their remarkable tenacity. Boys and even slaves were enlisted to replace shattered armies; taxes doubled to save a sinking treasury. Auspiciously, the government readopted the strategy of Fabius. This time, it brought results. Rome's capacity at least to win back towns in one theatre while the foe was in another, improved morale. Hannibal was at last seen to have his own difficulties.
High among them was the problem of manpower. In his eagerness to win Italian friends, the Carthaginian promised them freedom from army service. Thus his casualties and sick could be replaced locally only by volunteers, and they were few indeed. Help from Carthage was meagre. The Barcids had planned a land war, and Rome never relinquished command at sea. Nevertheless, after Cannae two expeditions were fitted out in Africa for Italy, one limited to cavalry reinforcements and some elephants.
While the latter, under a commander named Bomilcar, slipped through to Hannibal, the larger force was diverted to Spain at the news of Roman gains there. Other Punic troops landed in Sardinia and Sicily. On the former, they got nowhere. In Sicily, the death of Rome's old ally, Hiero of Syracuse, produced widespread rebellions which the Carthaginians exploited hopefully until the rugged Roman general Claudius Marcellus entered Syracuse.
Hannibal had expected to receive all the reinforcements he needed by land from Spain. The inspired intervention of the Scipios - in some ways the Roman counterpart of the Barcid family - put a stop to that. Gnaeus, with the first expedition to eastern Spain, was not a great soldier but capable of establishing a footing against the new commander of the province, Hasdrubal Barca. In 210 the brilliant 'Africanus' arrived to seize Cartagena (209) and defeat Hasdrubal at Baecula (Bailen) in 208.
Hasdrubal spared no effort but was lacking in maturity. Disengaging from Scipio, he made a brave attempt to join his kinsman in Italy but was vanquished and slain after crossing the Alps by a Roman army forewarned of his intentions. His head was delivered to his brother by the Romans.
All considered, it is a tribute to extraordinary ability that, for a decade after Cannae, Hannibal maintained his undefeated record in Italy, eluding larger forces, snatching local successes, always waiting for the backing that never came. Livy wrote of his achievement:
For thirteen years he waged war far from home, not with an army of his own countrymen but with a miscellaneous crowd gathered from many nations - men who had neither laws, nor customs, nor language in common, differing in costume, arms, worship and even gods. And yet he kept them together by so close a tie that they never fought among themselves or mutinied against him, though he was often without money for their pay. Even after Hasdrubal's death, when he had only a corner of Italy left to him, his camp was as orderly as ever.
Finally, another brother, Mago Barca, forsaking Spain, sailed to Liguria by Minorca (Port Mahon - Mago's Harbour - commemorates the visit) to rally the Gauls to his banner. As a diversion in Hannibal's favour, the bid failed. Scipio did not. Persuading a reluctant senate to allow his invasion of Africa, he landed in 204 and besieged Utica. Carthage, in alliance with Masinissa's rival, Syphax of Numidia, challenged Scipio. He made sport of them. Burning their camps as a preliminary, he routed the Carthaginians at Souk el-Kremis, on the upper Bagradas.
In the autumn of 203, allegedly a bitter man, Hannibal sailed from Italy to the aid of his native land - and to Zama.
22: Economic Revival
As already recounted, Rome and Carthage lived at peace for half a century after Zama. Sedulously, the Carthaginians paid their war debts. Industriously, the people wrought an 'economic miracle.' Like the great flocks of doves which sometimes arrived to join the birds in the temple precincts - the ancients thought they accompanied the gods on their travels - prosperity settled again on the Punic realm.
In the country estates of the landed proprietors, bright flowers blossomed among olive and fig trees, emblems of divine blessing, the supply source of questing bees. Carthaginian bees were valued not only for their honey but for the reputedly superior quality of the wax produced, used in medicine and encaustic art. Little was wasted on the limited growing lands of the chora, the agricultural region of Carthage.
The proprietor, surveying his irrigated orchards, his long- horned cattle, his domesticated gazelles and ostriches, from the cool logia which perhaps overlooked a lagoon in which flamingoes fed, was no absentee landlord in the style of the Roman latifundiary. Like his city brother, the Carthaginian country gentleman was a profit-conscious master dedicated to increasing production. Not the least of the exertions expended in field and orchard were his own.
In the city itself, amid thoroughfares teeming with seamen, traders, factory workers, market-gardeners from the Megara, the same devotion to productivity was evident. Pottery, the chief medium of working utensils, was manufactured and sold on a vast scale
- the thousands of jars and pitchers devoted to the dead representing a constant market, let alone those for industrial and domestic use.
Seldom a 'quality' manufacturer, the Carthaginian potter concentrated on mass production of low-priced articles. Punic kilns, connected with workshops, cellars and storerooms, were much like those still used in Tunisia. One pottery discovered in modern times in a well-preserved condition contained thousands of vessels of various shapes and sizes awaiting sale.
The industry also supplied cheap religious imagery, figurines and even life-size statues, in clay, some cast from Greek models. The devotion of the Mediterranean peoples to divine objects, commonly placed in houses, private chapels and graves, or used as offerings at temples, created a continuous demand for terracotta gods and goddesses which Punic workshops met by the gross. They did a brisk trade, too, in pottery medallions depicting deities.
The largest employers of craftsmen in Carthage, especially in wartime, were the armaments and shipbuilding industries. The number of employees for the Carthaginian arsenal is not known, but it has been estimated that there were about 1,600 metal workers, probably in several workshops, and a substantial force of carpenters making siege machines, shafts for javelins, and so on. It seems likely that the total would have been somewhat greater than that for the provincial arsenal at Cartagena, which employed 2,000 people (according to Polybius).