Hannibal’s Last Battle Read online

  The Battle of Drepana, 249 BCE, Phase I. A 123-ship Roman fleet under the consul Publius Claudius Pulcher attempts a surprise attack (1) against the main Punic fleet’s anchorage in the harbour (2) near Drepana on the west coast of Sicily. The Roman quinqueremes are spotted by Carthaginian lookouts and the Punic admiral, Adherbal, gives orders for the fleet to sortie.

  The Battle of Drepana, 249 BCE, Phase II. Claudius’nears the southern harbour entrance but they are too late to prevent the Punic force, roughly equal in size, from slipping out to the north, coming about, and forming a line of battle to engage the Romans.

  The Battle of Drepana, 249 BCE, Phase III. Adherbal orders his fleet forward (1). Inexpertly handled and pinned against the shore, the Roman fleet fails to form a cohesive line and loses ninety-three ships (2). The Carthaginians lose no ships in what would prove to be their last major naval victory.

  It seems the Senate had been preparing for this coup de grace by rebuilding the Roman navy, slipping 200 quinquereme hulls into the water for the upcoming campaign. The new Roman consul Gaius Lutatius Catulus kept his sailors well drilled and provided with the best food and drink in anticipation for the battle to come.91 By the spring of 241 the Roman fleet was in excellent condition. The Carthaginians, on the other hand, did not use the military capital won after the victory at Drepana and the Roman losses to weather. In fact, it took Carthage some time to muster the 250 ships and crews to send to Sicily and for the first time in the First Punic War the Roman sailors were probably better trained and equipped than their North African counterparts.92 This became evident when the two fleets made contact on March 10 near the Aegates Islands just west of Sicily.

  The Carthaginian fleet, laden with supplies and lacking a large contingent of marines, was blessed with a strong westerly wind, and made a run for the port city of Eryx. Seeing this action, the Roman consul and commanding admiral Catulus had to make a difficult decision – move to intercept the Punic fleet despite the heavy swells facing his rowers, or risk a successful running of the blockade and resupply of his enemy. Catulus chose to fight. He ordered his ships to take on more legionaries and, to make space, remove their masts. Catulus then formed his quinqueremes into a line in the high seas and rowed toward the Punic fleet. In response the Carthaginians lowered their sails and unstepped their masts in preparation for ramming. The Romans faired very well at the beginning of the battle, sinking fifty enemy ships and capturing another seventy. Contemporary authors provide relatively low figures for the Punic prisoners captured considering the number of ships taken, perhaps owing to how many sailors drowned in the rough seas.93 Luckily for the Carthaginians, a change in the direction of the wind allowed many of their ships to raise mast and sail away.

  The Battle of Aegates Islands, 241 BCE, Phase I. A Punic supply fleet of approximately 250 ships arrives at the westernmost of the Aegates Islands and awaits a favourable wind to take it to the vicinity of Mount Eryx. There the Carthaginians intend to resupply their land forces, embark a large marine force, and engage the Roman fleet. The Roman consul, Caius Lutatius Catulus, receives word of the Punic force and orders fleet to sail from Lilybaeum (2) to another of the islands to intercept the enemy (3).

  The Battle of Aegates Islands, 241 BCE, Phase II. A westerly wind springs up and the Punic fleet begins their run towards Eryx (1). Catulus orders his captains to unstep their masts to make room for more marines and the Romans deploy to engage the approaching ships (2). Hanno, the Carthaginian admiral, orders his ships to lower sail and unstep masts to prepare for combat.

  The Battle of Aegates Islands, 241 BCE, Phase III. The constant drilling imposed upon the fleet by Catulus pays off in the rough waters as Roman seamanship proves superior to Carthaginian. The quinqueremes, packed with marines, engage and board the poorly-handled Punic vessels, overwhelming the undermanned crews (1). An easterly shift of the wind manages to save some of the Punic fleet, as they re-step their masts and escape (2). Without masts, the Romans are unable to pursue. Carthaginian losses total 117 ships versus around thirty Roman vessels sunk. The battle proves decisive, destroying much of the Punic fleet and preventing the resupply of Hamilcar’s hard-pressed army in western Sicily.

  The Roman victory at the Aegates Islands decided the war. After twenty-three years of campaigning, Rome’s pursuit of an aggressive strategy of attrition and exhaustion finally bore fruit. The Carthaginians were either unable or unwilling to build another fleet to challenge Rome for command of the sea, and without adequate resupply from North Africa, Hamilcar Barca could not continue the defence of western Sicily. Wanting to disassociate themselves with the disaster at the Aegates, the Carthaginian Council of Elders gave Hamilcar full authority to sue for peace in 241. The First Punic War was over.

  An Unequal Peace and the Mercenary War

  The costs of the First Punic War were enormous for both sides. Polybius claims that the Romans lost about 700 warships to the Carthaginians 500, though modern historians believe this number is inflated.94 The Romans defeated the Carthaginians using the same strategy which won them the Italian peninsula – ruthless determination and a willingness to accept a high price in men and materiel. Rome continued the war despite heavy losses suffered in the storms of 255–254, the defeat at Drepana and devastating storm of 249. Rome’s wealth and seemingly bottomless manpower reserves allowed it to continue to fight when other nations would have sued for peace. The Romans were also masters of exploiting the weaknesses of their defeated enemies. Carthage was no exception.

  The Romans initially asked for the surrender of Hamilcar’s Sicilian army and the punishment of all Roman and Italian deserters, but this demand was quickly rejected. The mercenary army was able to leave Sicily, their arms and honour both intact.95 In all other areas the Romans were able to dictate an unequal peace. Rome demanded:

  The Carthaginian evacuation of Sicily and all islands between Sicily and North Africa

  Neither side was to make war on the other’s allies, nor were they to recruit soldiers or raise money for the construction of public buildings in the other’s territory.

  The Carthaginians were to give up all Roman prisoners freely, while paying a ransom for their own.

  The Carthaginians were to pay an indemnity to the Romans of 3,200 talents, 1,000 payable immediately, and the rest over a ten-year period.96

  Rome had broken Punic naval mastery of the western Mediterranean, while acquiring a substantial navy of its own. The western half of Sicily was absorbed into the Roman sphere of influence and became in essence Rome’s first province outside of Italy. Soon it would be providing the city of Rome itself with grain, making many in the equestrian class very wealthy. Yet despite securing Sicily and forcing war reparations, Carthage remained a major power and strategic counterweight to the rise of Rome, possessing sizable possessions in Africa and Spain and, for the moment, Sardinia.

  Carthage’s power was further weakened by what came to be known as the Mercenary War (240–237) in Africa.97 When Hamilcar’s army of 20,000 men prepared to return to Africa, he organized them into smaller detachments and sent them to Carthage to receive their arrears of several years’ back pay. This scheme was designed to lesson the burden on the Carthaginian treasury and prevent the presence of so many mercenaries in the capital. But the Punic authorities ignored this arrangement and refused to pay anyone until all of the troops had arrived on African soil, probably hoping the soldiers would eventually accept a lower payment. The increasingly unruly mercenaries were finally sent to the city of Sicca, where they encamped and began to negotiate with Carthage. This well-equipped veteran army of Libyans, Gauls, Spaniards, Greeks, and runaway slaves soon realized their own strength and increased their demands. The army broke down along ethnic lines and the largest contingent, the Libyans, turned mutiny into open revolt. Many Libyan and Numidian towns joined in rebellion against their Punic masters, their young men swelling the ranks of the mercenaries. The revolt was principally led by three men – the Libyan Mathos, an escaped Itali
an slave named Spendius, and the Gallic chieftain Autariatus. Fortunately for the Carthaginians, none of the rebel commanders had experience commanding large armies, whereas the Punic command, shared by experienced generals of Hamilcar and Hanno (later ‘the Great’), consistently outmanoeuvred the larger rebel armies. Finally, in 237, the mercenaries were defeated, but not before the war brought Carthage to the brink of destruction, further reducing its treasury and weakening its ability to deal with Rome as it transgressed on Punic territory on Sardinia, nearly starting another war.

  Sardinia would be brought under Roman hegemony in 238 when Punic mercenaries mutinied and seized the island, only to be expelled two years later by the native population. The mercenaries then went to Rome for assistance much like the Mamertines had at the beginning of the First Punic War. Similarly, the Romans used this cry for help as reason to send an expedition to occupy the island. When the Carthaginians objected, Rome threatened them with a conflict they were in no position to fight. Adding insult to injury, the Senate demanded and received another indemnity of 1,200 talents, further spoiling the already poisoned relations between Rome and Carthage. Polybius maintains the Sardinian revolt was the ‘greatest cause’ of the Second Punic War.98

  With Sicily and Sardinia now lost and Punic possessions in Africa unstable after the Mercenary War, Carthage decided to move west and expand further into Spain. The Carthaginian government picked the greatest general of the day, Hamilcar Barca, to take over operations in Iberia.99 Hamilcar crossed the straits near the Pillars of Hercules (modern Gibraltar) and arrived in 237. As military governor of Spain, Hamilcar enriched himself and his allies and secured Punic control of the coastal strip of southern Spain while pushing up into the ancient Baetis (modern Guadalquivir) River valley and the fertile territory of the Contestani, in what is now Murcia. For nine years Hamilcar campaigned continuously until he was ambushed and killed while fording a river by a Celtiberian tribe known as the Oretani in 229.

  Hasdrubal, his son-in-law and second-in-command, succeeded him as commanding general and governor, his position seconded by his army and then again by the authorities in Carthage. Hasdrubal seems to have accomplished more through diplomacy than through war, going so far as to marry a Spanish princess to cement an alliance.100 Hasdrubal is also noted for founding the city of New Carthage (modern Cartagena) on the coast of southeastern Spain, a well-fortified location with a deep harbour that would serve as the Punic capital in Iberia. Hasdrubal was assassinated by a Celtic slave in the late summer or early autumn of 221, with his brother-in-law Hannibal Barca (the oldest son of Hamilcar) assuming command.

  Chapter 2

  The Early Campaigns of Hannibal

  Hannibal’s Early Life and the Origins of the Second Punic War

  Hannibal Barca was twenty-six years old when he took command of the Carthaginian forces in Spain. Hannibal had grown up on the Iberian Peninsula near his father and learned the family business from the greatest Punic and mercenary leaders his father’s wealth could buy. What Hannibal remembered of the towering temples, gardens and harbours of Carthage is conjecture, but we can assume that he claimed Spain as his homeland, having been raised there in his father’s military camps since his childhood. Like other adolescent Punic aristocrats, Hannibal was taught Greek by a Greek tutor, and he would keep two Greek secretaries with him on his staff throughout his campaigns.101

  Though a young general by modern standards, he already had years of invaluable practical experience fighting against various Iberian tribes, experience which would pay great dividends in the war with Rome. Like his father, Hannibal also possessed an amazing knack for commanding diverse peoples and their tactical systems. He understood how to manipulate the motivations of each of the nationalities in his army and exploit their military strengths on the battlefield, leading to spectacular victories against difficult odds.102 Like Alexander the Great before him and Julius Caesar after, he also shared in the physical privations of his soldiers on campaign, endearing him to his men. Hannibal was intimately familiar with not only the Carthaginian art of war, but also the machinations of Punic politics. He realized that military success generated political currency, and he wasted little time securing his political position and building a military reputation.

  Polybius informs us that Hannibal inherited his father’s master plan for the recovery of Carthage as a regional power and that the conquest of Spain was central to this plan. By controlling Spain, Hannibal could build up trade, pay off the heavy Roman indemnity, augment his army and set up a staging area for an invasion of Italy. But there was more to this plan than securing Carthage’s future. Hannibal possessed a deep-seated personal hatred for Rome that dated back to his childhood. In a rare glimpse of Hannibal’s private motivations, Polybius relates a story the Punic general told near the end of his life at the court of a fellow Rome-hater, King Antiochus III of Syria:

  At the time when his father was about to set off with his army on his expedition to Spain, Hannibal, who was then about nine years old, was standing by the altar where his father was sacrificing to Zeus [Ba’al Hammon?]. The omens proved favourable, Hamilcar poured a libation to the gods and performed the customary ceremonies, after which he ordered all those who were present at the sacrifice to stand back a little way from the altar. Then he called Hannibal to him and asked him affectionately whether he wished to accompany the expedition. Hannibal was overjoyed to accept and, like a boy, begged to be allowed to go. His father then took him by the hand, led him up to the altar and commanded him to lay his hand upon the victim and swear that he would never be a friend to the Romans.103

  This famous anecdote cuts to the heart of Hannibal’s life-long hatred of Rome and illustrates an unwavering devotion to his father’s cause of warring with the Romans.

  Within months of Hasdrubal’s assassination, Hannibal consolidated his power base, attacking the Olkades tribe of the upper Guadiana River, the Vaccei of north-central Spain (around Salamanca), and the Carpetani near the modern city of Toledo.104 After putting his Spanish house in order, he returned to New Carthage for the winter of 220–219, only to find a Roman embassy waiting there with a warning – do not push farther north and threaten territories north of the Ebro. The Romans were there on behalf of their ally Massalia (modern Marseilles).

  The Massaliotes were Greeks who founded Massalia in the seventh century BCE. Over the centuries their influence spread along the littoral of southern Gaul westward into Iberia, where they founded numerous colonies, most prominently Emporion near modern Barcelona. Massalia had long sparred with Carthage over trading rights in the western Mediterranean, and this friction forced the Greeks into an alliance with Rome. Hannibal’s recent campaigns worried the Massaliotes, who already had to abandon some of their trading centres because of aggressive Punic expansion.

  The Romans were also concerned with a powerful Carthaginian presence in eastern Spain. It was no secret to the Senate that domination of Iberia was part of Carthage’s revitalization strategy, and a resurgent Carthage could threaten not only Roman hegemony in southern Gaul, but Italy directly. The Romans were also aware that an invasion by Hannibal coordinated with a Gallic insurrection could precipitate open revolt among Rome’s allies throughout the Italian Peninsula. Forest tribes like the Boii, Insubres and Taurini in Cisalpine Gaul (northern Italy) had threatened Rome’s new northern border, periodically raiding across the Apennines and striking Roman colonies. Their last foray was only defeated in 225 BCE, having reached Telamon, halfway between Pisae (modern Pisa) and Rome.105

  Friction increased when Rome interfered in 220 on behalf of Saguntum, a Spanish town south of the Ebro and a recent ally of Rome. From the time of Hasdrubal’s command, Rome had sought a counterbalance to the growing Punic presence in eastern Spain, courting Saguntum into an alliance in 226. But because this city was clearly within Carthage’s sphere of influence, Hannibal disregarded the Roman threat and laid siege to the city. Saguntum, initially divided between those who supported Rome and th
ose who supported Carthage, eventually sided firmly with Rome and put to death pro-Carthaginian citizens, while threatening local tribes in league with Hannibal. Seeing these injustices as a pretext for war, Hannibal reduced the city after a bloody eight-month siege lasting probably from May 219 to late December or early January 218.106

  Hannibal was seriously wounded in the thigh manning a battering ram while attacking the city’s walls.107 Like Alexander the Great before him, Hannibal shared in the personal dangers of combat, actions that endeared him to his men. But warfare was changing in the third century BCE, and generals were embracing a more managerial style of command, one where heroic leadership from the frontlines was being replaced by giving orders from the rear, allowing for adjustments to strategy and tactics once the battle was joined.108