Hannibal's Dynasty

by Dexter Hoyos

  of the generalship. Nor do the functions of the Punic senate seem impaired

  in the glimpses we get of it over the next quarter of a century, so it is unlikely

  that Hasdrubal mooted any measure affecting it either. Any proposals he had

  would aim elsewhere.

  Polybius writes (disapprovingly) that by 218 ‘among the Carthaginians the

  people had already acquired the most power in deliberations’. Since there is

  no evidence of this in reality, arguably he viewed the elected and popular

  Barcid supremacy as embodying popular supremacy. But arguably again there

  was rather more to it. Not a full-blown democratic revolution as sometimes

  claimed for 237 but, at some date before 218, adjustments to the working of

  the citizen assembly (greater freedom over its own agenda, for instance) or

  indeed to the citizen-body itself. It could be attractive, for example, to make

  Punic citizenship more accessible to deserving foreigners, especially ones

  sponsored by the supreme general. The Roman poet Ennius not many

  decades later portrayed Hannibal promising his men that whoever showed

  valour would for him be a Carthaginian, whatever his origin, and Livy very

  similarly reports the promise of citizenship just before his first battle in

  Italy. In other words, citizenship was something likely to appeal to non-

  Carthaginians in Carthage’s service, and could be a valuable patronage tool to

  a political leader.7

  One other institution might well attract Hasdrubal’s attentions. The tri-

  bunal of One Hundred and Four existed to scrutinize how generals had

  behaved at war, and Hamilcar quite possibly had risked being prosecuted

  before it in 241. But after that nothing is ever heard of this function. When

  the unlucky general Hasdrubal, son of Gisco, fell foul of his countrymen in

  203 or 202 he had a death sentence decreed—and afterwards repealed—by

  the people, or so it seems in our only source, Appian; and according to

  Appian again the hapless man was later on hunted down and murdered by

  citizens after a tumultuous assembly-meeting.

  Livy does record the power and arrogance of an ‘order of judges’ domi-

  nating the Punic state by 196—a period when the republic, now shorn of

  practically all war-making capacity, would have had minimal work for the

  Hundred and Four in their original rôle. As remarked earlier, it is an obvious

  though tentative inference that the tribunal still existed in 196, was still

  powerful (especially after the disaster that Hannibal’s war inflicted on Barcid

  interests), but by then judged non-military issues. Already by Aristotle’s time

  it may have widened its functions, but the loss of its supervision of generals

  must have come later.

  To Hasdrubal, the Hundred and Four could seem potentially irksome even

  if they had no power to investigate him until—if ever—he stepped down

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  from command. Many of them would have joined the tribunal before 237

  and even some of the recent entrants need not have been too submissive to

  Barcid blandishments. Unlike other senators, who still had careers to pursue

  and so had to stay on Hasdrubal’s sunny side, the Hundred and Four as a

  body could afford to be relatively independent, just as Livy portrays them

  in 196.

  So Hasdrubal might have sponsored, for instance, a scheme to take away

  their jurisdiction over generals. His opponents and unfriendly Romans, in

  turn, could easily paint such a proposal as overturning the laws and pointing

  to one-man rule. But abolishing this rôle would surely have sparked opposi-

  tion too overt to make him merely suspicious of his opponents. There were

  other ways of bringing the tribunal safely to heel: for instance a measure that

  would stack it with Barcid supporters, or one to widen its competence in

  administrative areas and so deflect its focus from politics.8

  The first seems less plausible than the second, for a court progressively

  stacked with supporters over the next quarter-century should not have been

  that hostile to Hannibal in 196. By contrast, widening its competence could

  be presented as a good thing. The return of prosperity and the growth of the

  empire must have increased judicial activity, whereas there was no prospect of

  the Hundred and Four investigating the current general’s doings for a long

  while at best. If such a modification seemed reasonable to most Carthagini-

  ans and not just the Barcid faction, its opponents would certainly be as

  circumspect as Fabius Pictor implied, working behind the scenes rather than

  publicly attacking it.

  Fabius implied or stated that Hasdrubal failed to get his proposals

  through. Yet, as noted earlier, nothing suggests that Barcid dominance at

  Carthage was dented. So Fabius may simply be wrong, just as he is wrong to

  imply that Hasdrubal was independent of the Punic state. Or maybe the gen-

  eral did decide that the time was not ripe and shelved his proposals—only to

  revive and enact them quietly later on. Either way, critics could later mis-

  represent him as suffering a defeat and retreating to Spain to act in virtual

  independence.

  That sophistry meant in turn that the sole blame for the Second Punic War

  could be laid on his successor and imitator in wilfulness, exonerating the rest

  of the Punic oligarchy. According to Livy these began blaming Hannibal

  even before the war was over: the same view that Fabius was to urge on his

  readers. Fabius’ source was very probably Carthaginian and maybe not all

  that far from the circle around Hanno the Great. Hanno’s basic attitude to

  any proposal put up by Hasdrubal does not have to be guessed.9

  IV

  Hasdrubal, his political supremacy at home confirmed, sailed back to his

  province, likely enough in spring or summer 227. He had another important

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  project to carry out in the service of its development and the Barcids’ glory.

  Like Hamilcar he founded a city.

  This was ‘a city by the sea’, Diodorus writes, ‘which he named New

  Carthage’: today’s Cartagena, 60 miles (100 kilometres) south of Alicante.

  This was the site, as noted above, of an earlier Iberian town called Mastia.

  New Carthage was in reality the Greek and Roman version of the name, and

  here Polybius is more informative: it was ‘called by some Carthage, by others

  New City’ (he normally uses this second version himself). In Punic ‘New City’

  was a single word—Qart-hadasht. Hasdrubal’s new city was in fact another

  Carthage.10

  This might look like a challenge to old Carthage, or a declaration of in-

  dependence from it. Some at the time probably did see it so: we remember

  Fabius Pictor’s later claim that after returning from North Africa Hasdrubal

  ‘governed Spain according to his own judgement, paying no attention to the

  Carthaginian senate’. Some modern historians see it in the same light—the

  visible evidence of a virtually separate Barcid kingdom, Hasdrubal’s more or

  less private domain.11

  The inference is not warranted, even though the governmental palace that


  Hasdrubal built there did strike some at the time as betraying royal ambitions.

  We have seen that like his predecessor he kept a firm grip on affairs in North

  Africa as well as Spain—and as Carthage’s generalissimo, not as king. Equally

  we cannot read too much into his new city’s name. A new Carthage it cer-

  tainly was: but it was not the only Qart-hadasht in old Carthage’s territories.

  Fifty miles (80 kilometres) by air from Carthage, just north of the gulf of

  Hammamet, stood the coastal town of Neapolis (Nabeul today), a Greek

  name which in Punic can have been no other than Qart-hadasht again. On

  the coast to the south lay another town called Neapolis by Greeks, then

  known in Roman times as Macomades, a Phoenician name (Maqom-hadasht)

  meaning very similarly ‘new place’—no doubt its original name persisting.

  Nor was this the only Macomades in the region; there was another in

  Numidia and a third to the east of the famous city of Lepcis Magna, halfway

  between Carthage and Egypt. Lepcis Magna itself was also called Neapolis

  according to various Greek geographers, including one in the fourth century

  BC. The geographer Ptolemy even mentions an ‘old Carthage’, which would

  be yet another Phoenician or Punic ‘new city’, in north-eastern Spain, in the

  land of the Ilercavones around the mouth of the river Ebro.

  Ptolemy’s item must be a mistake or misunderstanding: it was probably a

  town that Strabo records as Cartalia. But names like New City and New Place

  are typical enough for colonies. The Phoenicians had so named the town in

  Cyprus afterwards called Citium. We recall that Aristotle in the fourth cen-

  tury reported the Carthaginians periodically sending out citizen colonists.

  They went normally to an existing centre, but their numbers and dominance

  might sometimes prompt a renaming (formal or informal). At Carthage itself

  a new quarter existed by the fourth century which Diodorus names Neapolis,

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  another ‘New City’. The Carthaginians presumably called it Qart-hadasht

  too, or else Maqom-hadasht. Obviously the duplication or near-duplication

  did not bother them.12

  Hasdrubal’s reason, then, for naming his new foundation after his home

  city was not a declaration of independence but a natural enough, almost a

  traditional, choice. An alternative would have been to keep the old name

  Mastia, but this surely had little resonance for Carthaginians. Calling it Qart-

  hadasht had extra propaganda value, symbolizing the Barcids’ linking of

  Spain with Africa and the strength of the Carthaginians’ stake in their new

  province. More subtly it advertised to a suitably impressed world the renewed

  power of Carthage: not one but two strong and rich Qart-hadashts would

  sustain and reinforce it. The people Hasdrubal most wanted to impress were

  surely the Romans. He succeeded.13

  New Carthage was impressive from the start. It stood on four hills domi-

  nating a safe southward-facing harbour at the head of a deep gulf of the

  Mediterranean, just short of Cape de los Palos where the Spanish coast turns

  northwards. The westernmost hill was crowned by Hasdrubal’s citadel and

  palace. On its north side lay a broad lagoon, linked to the sea by a canal that

  protected the city’s western flank. An ideal site for commerce and fisheries,

  its wealth was multiplied by the rich silver deposits in the hills to the east.

  Communications with the rest of the Punic province were rather shorter

  than Acra Leuce’s, and those with North Africa and Ebusus not much

  lengthier. Altogether it was an inspired choice as the site for a capital.14

  According to Diodorus, Hasdrubal founded another city too, though he

  does not give its name. The early Byzantine geographer Stephanus lists an

  otherwise unknown city called Accabicon Teichos, or Fort Accabicon, which

  he claims the Carthaginians founded by the straits of Gibraltar; this has been

  suggested as Hasdrubal’s other creation. But such very late evidence is obvi-

  ously dubious when no other trace of the supposed city exists. Even if

  genuine, ‘Accabicum’ may have been a Punic epithet for a known city.15

  Diodorus’ words do not rule out an addition to an existing town—rather

  as New Carthage itself seemingly was to old Mastia—though this time the

  old name might have persisted. Hasdrubal may have chosen a site inland, for

  instance to reinforce his control in the Baetis valley. Or, another possibility,

  he was the founder or refounder of the small town of Tiar or Thiar, known

  to have stood near the coast between New Carthage and Ilici to its north.

  Tiar seems unusual as an Iberian name-form, but instead could be similar

  to the names Gadir, the Phoenician and Punic form of Gades, and Tharros, a

  Phoenician (or Punic) colony in Sardinia. If so, Hasdrubal’s aim would have

  been to protect New Carthage’s communications up the coast to Acra Leuce,

  now that the eastern side of his province was growing in population and

  wealth. The notable salt-marshes of Torrevieja and La Mata, valuable for

  fisheries and 30–40 miles (50–60 kilometres) north of New Carthage, may

  have been another attraction.16

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  V

  These creations, of course the new Carthage above all, impressed Spaniards

  and non-Spaniards with Barcid achievements to date and ambitions for the

  future. The Romans paid particular notice. According to Polybius, it was

  because of the new city and Hasdrubal’s powerful military forces that they

  ‘made haste to busy themselves with the affairs of Spain’ which they had

  hitherto ignored.

  They had other worries which reinforced their concern. Their activities in

  the north of the Italian peninsula had upset the Gauls of the Po river-lands,

  dangerous warriors whose ancestors had sacked Rome itself a century and a

  half before. As the year 225 approached, a massive Gallic army gathered to

  invade Italy. As a result, along with their military preparations the Romans

  sent an embassy to Hasdrubal, very likely early in 225.17

  Polybius does not fully explain why a looming northern invasion of Italy

  should prompt an approach to the Carthaginian generalissimo in Spain. He

  certainly implies that, without the invasion, the Romans themselves would

  have imposed demands or even made war on Hasdrubal; but he claims that

  instead they decided on ‘petting and conciliating’ him. Logically, if they had

  simply decided not to make demands or war they need not have approached

  Hasdrubal at all, so Polybius fails to account properly for why they did. His

  thinking has to be inferred from what he claims later: that not only did the

  Barcid generals plan a revenge-war against the Romans but (by implication)

  the Romans suspected so. If they did, it would be natural to try to conciliate

  Hasdrubal in such a critical moment.

  We saw earlier that not only is there nothing to suggest a real Barcid war-

  plan, but nothing points to Romans at the time believing there was one. Still,

  Polybius did not jump to a simply unwarranted inference about the Romans’


  anxieties. Besides readying troops against the Gauls in the north and to pro-

  tect the City itself, they sent substantial forces—four legions altogether—to

  Tarentum, Sicily and Sardinia. The only sensible explanation for this dispersal

  of strength must be that they aimed at deterring misbehaviour from the Illyr-

  ians across the Adriatic (whom the Romans had recently warred on) and

  from the Carthaginians.

  As events between 241 and 237 had shown, the Romans paid their ex-foes

  real attention only when unusual happenings cropped up. The rape of Sar-

  dinia suggests too that they had been worried lest the victorious Carthaginians

  be tempted, at some stage, to recover their lost Sicilian ground. The military

  arrangements in 225, plus the military promise they coaxed from Hasdrubal,

  point to a similar type of worry: that the Carthaginians (and Illyrians) might

  try to take advantage of the Gallic distraction.

  In Carthage’s case this could mean having a go at Sardinia and Sicily, but

  there was another calculation bothering the Romans. In the accord he made

  with them Hasdrubal guaranteed that he would not move militarily north of

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  the Ebro river. This points to them feeling concern that he might lead an

  expedition, not just into north-eastern Spain (which from their strategic

  viewpoint in 225 was neither here nor there) but into the south of Gaul or

  even into north Italy, which the Romans called Cisalpine Gaul. Not specifi-

  cally as an ally of the Gauls; there is no evidence that he had any Gallic

  contacts, and even in 218 the Romans were not aware—until too late—that

  Hannibal had just developed some.

  But should the Gauls bring chaos down on Roman Italy, who could prevent

  an ambitious Punic leader from moving to take advantage—either as self-

  imposed peacemaker and arbiter or simply as opportune exploiter? Looked at

  coldly, of course, the odds on any such event were small to vanishing. But the

  Romans, viewing their chances against the Gauls alone as balanced on a knife-

  edge, were scarcely disposed to look at the odds coldly. At all events they

  judged it worthwhile to send envoys to sound out the Carthaginian comman-

  der-in-chief in a friendly manner.18