Hannibal's Dynasty

by Dexter Hoyos

  Greek historian Polybius judged Hamilcar the outstanding general of the first

  war, and plainly reckoned Hannibal inferior to none in the second except

  Scipio Africanus who finally defeated him (and whose family later befriended

  the historian).

  This impact on Greeks and Romans was much to the Barcids’ posthumous

  benefit. Almost nothing survives of Carthaginian records—a few quotations,

  paraphrases and references in later authors—and little of contemporary

  Roman or Greek ones either. But all were used, in varying degrees of detail

  and prejudice, by later authors whose accounts do remain. These record

  much about Hannibal, a good deal about his father Hamilcar, and rather less

  on the other notable Barcids. At the same time they can be problematic.

  Some do not survive in full: for instance Polybius’, Diodorus’, Livy’s and

  Dio’s histories of the period. Others are short, like Nepos’ biographies of

  Hamilcar and Hannibal, Plutarch’s of Fabius Cunctator and Marcellus, the

  treatments by Appian of Roman wars in North Africa, Spain, Sicily and

  against Hannibal, later epitomes of past history like those by Eutropius,

  Justin and Orosius, and those—late Roman and Byzantine respectively—of

  Livy and Dio. The farther away from the period, the more necessarily reliant

  these authors were on previous sources, while their own knowledge of the

  details of politics, society and warfare (even on the Roman side) varied from

  extensive to imaginative. Most applied a pro-Roman tint to their narratives

  because the bulk of their sources had it, or because they accepted a teleology

  of Roman triumph and Carthaginian defeat. More crucially still, nearly all

  were writing to illuminate not Punic history but Roman. Features of Punic

  government, society and economy could be ignored except when some detail

  was needed to clarify a situation; and then the detail—even if taken from an

  early and informed source—might not be too accurately relayed.

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  I N T RO D U C T I O N

  To interpret the Barcids, and even to reconstruct what they did and how it

  was done, calls then for careful detective work. Hamilcar’s first decade in mil-

  itary affairs (for instance) is known in some detail, but less clearly his political

  and social connexions. Then for his and Hasdrubal’s empire-building in

  Spain we have to rely on an array—a small one at that—of disconnected

  notices in Polybius, Diodorus and others. And while the military history of

  Hannibal’s war on the Romans is a well-recorded saga, its technical details

  (especially in his famous early victories) tend to attract more interest and

  analysis than the next decade and a half, the years first of Carthage’s maxi-

  mum extent of power and the Barcids’ own zenith, and then of decline in

  both. Hannibal’s own deserved reputation as military leader, which loses

  nothing in Polybius’ and Livy’s telling, can prompt over-easy generaliza-

  tions—dogged Romans and unsupportive home authorities—about why he

  and his city finally failed. In all these areas, and others, established dogmas

  and issues still under debate both need a fresh look.

  As usual in such analyses, much depends on what the ultimate sources

  were or may have been for the accounts that survive. Yet identifying them

  solves only part of each problem, for like the survivors even the earliest

  accounts were partisan to one degree or other. The limited evidence for

  much of Hamilcar’s and most of his successor Hasdrubal’s doings com-

  pounds the difficulty. The activities of Hannibal and his brothers, while more

  fully reported, largely come filtered through Roman historical tradition rather

  than direct from Barcid informants, with much resulting distortion suspected

  by moderns—and sometimes proved. Even Polybius, our earliest surviving

  source and a writer not only conscious that objectivity was difficult but still

  keen to achieve it, needs to be assessed with care. Admiring both the Romans

  and the Barcids does not guarantee invariable impartiality, clear exposition or

  persuasive analysis, and one or other of these qualities goes missing rather

  often in his narrative.

  The issues that arise over the Barcids and Barcid-era Carthage are there-

  fore important and taxing. Judgements have to be made according to the

  quantity of evidence, the coherence of one source compared to another’s

  where different sources make differing claims, how well the various solutions

  to a problem fit in with factors otherwise known, and occasionally even on

  how a textual passage is to be read. Much of the time an author has to settle

  for probable answers rather than certainties, and inevitably they will be sub-

  jective to an extent, however great his effort, Polybius-like, for objectivity.

  For the reasons mentioned earlier, the effort is still worth making.

  Citations and references

  Hannibal, his family and Carthage interest not only specialists in ancient his-

  tory but, rightly, a broader range of readers too. In the main text therefore

  sources are quoted in translation, with the Greek and Latin originals given in

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  I N T RO D U C T I O N

  the notes when it seems useful. The notes supply detailed references to

  ancient sources and important modern discussions, with the latter cited by

  author’s name and date of publication (or a few by initials like CAH 2). Tech-

  nical points too complex to fit comfortably in the text are likewise discussed

  in the notes, apart from some that need detailed treatment—these have been

  reserved to the Appendix. Full details of the abbreviations used in the notes,

  and all the ancient sources, are included in the Bibliography. All dates, unless

  accompanied by ‘AD’, are BC.

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  I

  T H E H E I G H T S O F H E I RC T E

  A N D E RY X

  I

  The safest time to sail along an enemy coast is at night, so that was probably

  when the Carthaginian ships entered the little Sicilian bay between its two

  steep and massive headlands. They anchored close to shore and Hamilcar the

  general gave the order for his troops to disembark.

  The Carthaginians knew this area well. Not far to the south-east on its

  coastal plain, the city of Panormus had once been the jewel of Punic Sicily

  but for seven years now had lain in the Romans’ hands, along with most of

  the old Punic province. In the pass leading down to the little bay between the

  two mountain headlands stood the fort of Heircte, still held for Carthage.

  The Romans had once tried to capture Heircte and failed. After that they

  ignored it—something they would now rue.

  Probably as dawn broke the troops climbed the tracks up the steep-sided

  mountain that loomed above Heircte and the bay on the western side, to gain

  the summit. This was a broad, undulating plateau with a rim measuring 100

  stadia—more than 11 miles, or 18 kilometres. The heights had broad mead-

  ows, no dangerous creatures, healthy winds from the sea and access to

  plentiful water. There were only two paths up on the land side and one from

  the shore; much of the summit was edged by cliffs, the rest easily fortifi
able.

  A hillock on the plateau gave the occupiers a panorama of north-western

  Sicily and the Mediterranean beyond: to the east Panormus and its fertile

  plain bounded by uplands; over to the west a deeply indented coast backed by

  serried hills; on the south yet more heights, plateaux and valleys dotted with

  small villages and scattered stone-walled towns. The heights offered a bastion

  in the heart of Roman-held Sicily, yet one that was virtually impregnable.

  The year was 247, the eighteenth of the longest war in Carthaginian his-

  tory. The war was at a stalemate. Hamilcar, recently appointed to command

  in Sicily, was trying something new.1

  II

  The Carthaginians had not wanted to fight the Romans in 264. Nor had a

  Punic war been on the Romans’ minds. For two and a half centuries the two

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  T H E H E I G H T S O F H E I RC T E A N D E RY X

  states had had trade and treaty relations, and they had recently renewed these.

  In 264 the Romans meant to intervene in Sicily against the reviving might of

  Syracuse and in search of easy plunder in the island’s east.

  But when they made allies of Syracuse’s enemies and the Carthaginians’

  own protégés the Mamertines of Messana, the Carthaginians abruptly turned

  against both. They allied with the king of Syracuse to keep the Roman

  legions out of Sicily. But the legions did cross and King Hiero soon came to

  terms with them. From mid-263 the Carthaginians were faced with Roman

  dominance over eastern Sicily and no certainty about their ultimate aims.

  The Roman republic had come a long way from the medium-sized central

  Italian state which had made those earlier treaties. By 264 Roman territory

  covered a third of peninsular Italy, and the republic dominated the rest.

  Etruscans, Samnites, the Greek colonies of the south and all the other once-

  independent peoples of the peninsula were its obedient allies. Most of this

  expansion had taken place in the last forty years and it was barely complete

  when the Mamertines’ troubles with Syracuse gave the Romans an opening

  into Sicily. The prospect alarmed the Carthaginians; they had not wanted war

  with the Romans, but did not want them in the island either. By mid-263,

  with Hiero out of it, the war was purely Carthage versus Rome.2

  The Romans in turn, to judge from their actions, had had no wish to make

  war on the premier sea-power of the western Mediterranean. But just as the

  Carthaginians would not stand for Roman influence in eastern Sicily, so too

  the Romans would not accept a Punic threat to their alliance with Messana and

  taming of Hiero. Neither side made a peace move. Instead the war broadened.

  Over the years it cost both sides heavily. Sicilian towns and cities were

  sacked, like historic and splendid Agrigentum (Greek Acragas) which suf-

  fered first at Roman hands and later at the Carthaginians’. Each raided the

  other’s coasts in Italy and Punic Africa. Overall the war went badly for the

  Carthaginians. An unpleasant surprise befell them four years into the war:

  not only were their enemies militarily superior on land but now they created a

  major war-fleet for the first time in history, and between 260 and 255 inflicted

  one naval defeat after another on the one-time masters of the western seas.

  In Sicily the Carthaginians lost strongpoint after strongpoint, despite some

  intermittent successes. After 252 they held on to only the heavily fortified

  west-coast ports of Drepana and Lilybaeum.

  The Romans, in spite of their territorial successes, suffered repeated blows

  too, especially from 255. An invasion of North Africa in 256–255 ended in

  catastrophic defeat. Two powerful fleets then foundered in storms off North

  Africa, with huge loss of sailors’ and soldiers’ lives. In 249 came their worst

  and the Carthaginians’ finest hour. A fleet under one consul was defeated just

  off Drepana, and soon afterwards the other consul’s fleet was manoeuvred

  by a second Punic commander into a shattering gale off Cape Pachynus

  south of Syracuse. The losses, both in men and ships, were catastrophic

  again. All told, the figures reported for losses at sea between 255 and 249

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  T H E H E I G H T S O F H E I RC T E A N D E RY X

  were 550 ships and more than 200,000 men, numbers gigantic in any age—

  and almost ruinous when the total population of the Italian peninsula hardly

  exceeded 3 million. Small wonder that the Roman census of 247 recorded a

  drop in registered male citizens of 50,000 compared to the last prewar

  census.3

  Even so the Romans refused to abandon their sieges of Drepana and Lily-

  baeum, begun not long before. They had taken the decision long before, after

  capturing Agrigentum in 261, to drive the Carthaginians out of Sicily and

  they held to it. This was not so much because they wanted to exploit the

  island for themselves: during the war the Sicilian communities, even apart

  from Hiero’s niche realm of Syracuse, enjoyed a good deal of autonomy, and

  afterwards the Romans would pay them only limited attention for nearly 15

  years. But from the Roman viewpoint even a loose hegemony in Sicily could

  not coexist with a continuing Carthaginian presence—not even if this stayed

  in the western region of the island where it was three centuries old. How

  many times, after all, had the Carthaginians sallied forth from there to make

  war on Sicily’s Greeks and come near to making satellites of them all?

  The Carthaginians were no more inclined to compromise. By contrast with

  the island’s Greeks, Sicels and Elymians—their sparring partners or intermit-

  tent allies over those centuries—the Romans were uncomfortable neighbours,

  as the other communities of Italy had found. Entrenched Roman influence in

  even a corner of the island (the Mamertines had become members of the

  republic’s network of alliances) would be a permanent threat. As early as 263,

  cities in the Punic-dominated west had made overtures to the newcomers:

  Segesta for instance, which claimed a shared Trojan ancestry, and Halicyae its

  neighbour. The Carthaginians could expect some of these ties to have been

  strengthened in the decade and a half since. Besides, the Romans held a notori-

  ous interest in war-booty—it had been one of the enticements proffered by

  those urging a Sicilian intervention in 264—and this alone would make any

  neighbour of theirs nervous. If the Carthaginians wished to stay in Sicily, they

  had to ensure that the Romans left.

  Their resolve on this did not waver, it seems, even when the position was

  most desperate. When the consul Regulus’ invasion army was carrying all

  before it outside their walls, they sought his terms but then rejected them as

  too harsh. Regulus demanded (according to our limited evidence) an indem-

  nity and Punic withdrawal from Sardinia and Sicily. An indemnity could be

  haggled over, and Sardinia with its Punic territory in the fertile south was a

  secondary though valuable possession; if any demand really was too harsh

  for the Carthaginians, it must have been the one for Sicily. Close to ruin

  though they were, they went on fighting. They soon turned the tables on Reg-

&
nbsp; ulus too.4

  It is a surprise, then, that they did so little to follow up the smashing suc-

  cesses of 249. Good commanders were on hand—Adherbal and Carthalo,

  the victors at Drepana and Cape Pachynus, and the soon-to-be-appointed

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  T H E H E I G H T S O F H E I RC T E A N D E RY X

  Hamilcar. The enemy was disheartened and short of money. Yet it proved

  impossible to break the sieges of Drepana and Lilybaeum or Roman mastery

  of the countryside; and the only other Punic move was a raid on the Italian

  coast—perhaps near Rome—that fizzled when Roman defenders approached.

  The probable reason for this anticlimax was lack of funds. A few known

  items point to this. Around 250 (according to a late source, Appian) the

  Carthaginians had sought a loan of 2,000 talents, equivalent to 12 million

  Greek drachmas or 120 million asses in third-century Roman money, from

  Ptolemy king of Egypt. He politely rebuffed them. In 248, following

  Carthalo’s abortive expedition to Italy, his troops mutinied for lack of pay. He

  took drastic measures, such as marooning some of them on deserted islands

  and sending others (ringleaders probably) to Carthage under arrest, but the

  rest were still rebellious when his successor Hamilcar arrived. Not paying

  your soldiers, when they constituted more or less your entire overseas

  army—and numbered little more than 20,000—was an unwise policy: the

  Carthaginians had to have good reason for it.

  Another pointer to money woes is the decrease in the number of Punic

  ships on active service. The powerful fleet of 170 quinqueremes was moth-

  balled, apart from the force used for raiding the Italian coasts and keeping

  Lilybaeum and Drepana supplied. Nor was the docked fleet maintained in

  fighting trim at Carthage: when relaunched many years later for fresh fight-

  ing, it was undermanned and such sailors and marines as it had were newly

  levied and poorly trained. Plainly not much money had been spent on it. This

  economy was safe enough at first: Roman losses had been so heavy in 249—

  by one calculation, they were left with a mere 20 quinqueremes in

  service—and Roman resources so depleted that the Carthaginians had little

  naval opposition to face. The best the Romans could do in these years was to

  lend individual ships to citizens to launch privateering raids on North Africa’s