Hannibal

by Patrick N Hunt

  HAMILCAR’S RETURN TO CARTHAGE

  A bitter Hamilcar Barca came home from Sicily, reluctantly obeying the recall mandate from Carthage, and the troops soon followed. So many mercenaries were unpaid, however, that they rebelled in 239 BCE, and the weak city elders hesitated to make any restitution. Carthage itself was now under siege from its Libyan and other alien mercenary veterans who rightly demanded their promised back pay. After brutal decimation of men on both sides, including generals such as Gisco, who had led some of Carthage’s armies in Sicily, Hamilcar defeated the rebellious mercenaries, some of whom had even fought with him in Sicily. As the battle advantage fluctuated between the rebels and the city, many died a cruel death by crucifixion. Both rebels and Carthaginians were tortured and nailed in public view along roads and on city walls. Hamilcar finally prevailed and trampled the rebel leaders with war elephants. The general’s popularity rose due to his leadership, which broke the siege and saved Carthage.

  About this same time in 238 BCE, young Hannibal lived through a new crisis when Rome annexed the island of Sardinia. This was not one of the territories ceded to Rome in the Treaty of Lutatius of 241, yet Rome took advantage of Carthage’s siege and a Punic economy weakened by the rebel war. Rome had long been uneasy about the island of Sardinia, with its centuries-old Phoenician colonies such as Tharros. One Roman description even referred to Sardinia “as a long ship anchored against Italy’s side.”8 But when Rome seized Sardinia, Carthage could do nothing except send ambassadors to Rome to protest. The Senate of Rome responded that any hostile action by Carthage would be considered an act of war. Making matters worse, Rome added a new clause to the treaty. Long after the fact, it demanded an additional fine against Carthage of 1,200 more silver talents. Even the pro-Roman Polybius writes in his histories that Rome made Hamilcar Barca more of an implacable enemy by this cavalier action, and that the results would be nothing short of calamitous for a soon desperate Carthage.9 The frustration in Hamilcar’s voice must have now carried through his house as he raged against both Rome and the shortsightedness of his own people. The general also unleashed tirades against his rival Hanno for leading the Carthaginian Senate into appeasing a Rome that would never be satisfied.

  When young Hannibal, now between the ages of around five and eight, watched quietly or heard his family’s heated conversations between 241 and 238 BCE, he would have formed opinions likely modeled after his father’s. Weighing most heavily on Hamilcar’s mind was revenge against the Romans. Young Hannibal would have heard such sentiments frequently.

  HANNIBAL’S VOW TO HIS FATHER

  In 237 BCE, at age nine, Hannibal’s life was altered irrevocably. Hamilcar had finally persuaded the Carthage Council of Elders to let him go to Spain, where Carthage could more quickly raise money to pay the penalties Rome had imposed. Spain’s silver mines were fabulously rich, and the more democratic Hamilcar was fed up with the ruling oligarchy under Hanno and more than ready to leave Carthage. The Hanno faction, meanwhile, saw an opportunity to keep a popular opponent at a distance where he could not stir up trouble against Rome so easily. Like many boys, young Hannibal must have adored and worshipped his father. Surely his parents would have talked about Hamilcar’s and the family’s options. If his father had talked about not wanting to return to Carthage, the boy would not have wanted to wait in futility. Hannibal would have done anything in his power to accompany his father.

  According to Polybius and the later Roman historian Livy, Hamilcar took young Hannibal with him to a place that could forever haunt the boy. Some of the sacred precincts of Carthage, including the Temple of Baal, a place of possible ancient human sacrifice, and the sacred cemetery called the tophet, often were interpreted as a repository for human sacrifice. Whether Carthaginians still practiced human sacrifice is a contentious subject. That there could be original Canaanite or Phoenician antecedents of likely child sacrifice—as the modern scholar Brody maintains from fairly recent Iron II (1000–550 BCE) tophet contexts at the tombolo (sandy “mound”) of Tyre10—does not necessarily mean full continuation into Punic culture in the West. The Semitic word tophet as a cremation burial place itself may even relate to a Greek word, taphos, meaning both funerary rites or a tomb and burial place.11 The debate about tophet practices still embroils scholars in heated arguments and equally acrimonious counterarguments. This story of human sacrifice is hardly new, because historians such as Diodorus Siculus had made this assertion long ago, although more than a few interpret it mostly as propaganda against Punic religion.12 While Polybius says nothing about the element of human sacrifice, he does emphasize this event as the defining moment of young Hannibal’s life.

  Hamilcar and Hannibal went to the precinct of the Temple of Baal, entering through the gates and doors where priests waited. Beyond the sacred threshold of a temple, a quiet hush would have surrounded the visitors. Hannibal’s name may be a clue to what happened next, if the story is true. We are told in Hannibal’s own words—repeated much later in his life—that his father brought his young son to the place of sacrifice. Hamilcar likely made his son ascend the altar and there place his hand on the sacrificial victim in order to make a vow. As the animal tied to the altar breathed away its last few minutes, Hannibal would have felt the warm flesh rise and fall. Placing his hand on the sacrificial victim—the exact words of Polybius13—in making his vow, this physical act would have fused a clear connection in the boy’s mind between himself and the victim. Hannibal would have known that such vows made before gods such as Baal were unbreakable. That a living creature died in witness of a vow to the gods was the most serious part of this sacrifice ritual.

  Thus, Hannibal’s own destiny was both “sacrificed” and consecrated to Baal, his god. Hannibal must have soon realized that his own life owed all to the god’s mercy; he must have comprehended that an animal died while he lived in order to make this vow.

  At the climax of this momentous event, Hannibal’s father asked him to swear undying hatred to Rome, and Hannibal did so. Even though the boy might not have grasped the meaning, its sense would grow on him throughout his life. If Polybius and others have related this story accurately, Hannibal would remember the details until the end of his life, telling it to Antiochus III, another enemy of Rome in the East, only a few years before his death. In a way, the child Hannibal died that day. He would increasingly come to know thereafter that he lived only to see Rome’s destruction.

  Livy claimed later that Hannibal was impious and nulla religio, “without religion.” This is not true. While Hannibal respected Roman oracles later in his military campaigns—naturally taking advantage when the Roman omens were against Roman victory—he was certainly also religious with respect to Carthaginian gods. Apparently the Romans would never fully understand what Hannibal’s devotion meant. They did not comprehend the implications of Hannibal’s childhood vow.

  A few months later in the same year of 237 BCE, Hannibal prepared to accompany his father in their departure from Carthage. Hannibal was about to leave his mother, older sisters, and younger brothers behind. Hasdrubal and Mago were too young to make this hard journey to Spain, but they would come years later. Perhaps his mother had too many ties to Carthage, including her other children and relatives, as she did not accompany them. We hear nothing about her again.

  HANNIBAL MOVES TO SPAIN

  In 237 BCE, either during spring when the sea-lanes reopened after winter or in summer when the land was dry enough to march across, Hamilcar and his young son left Carthage accompanied by a small retinue of loyal soldiers, junior officers, and slaves. Dawn was usually the best time to begin traveling as many possible miles in a day. The city was probably not yet awake except along the harbor markets where the fishnets were already being hauled in with their morning catch. The Barcids were also followed by an unknown number of thousands of Carthaginian troops, proud cavalry from Numidia, the adjacent kingdom (mostly modern-day Algeria) allied to Carthage, and many Libyan and other mercenaries—as well as pack
animals, traveling metalsmiths, cooks, suppliers, civilian quartermasters (paymaster and supply officer), and camp followers, as well as the usual stragglers and hawkers of wares and human vices.

  Several routes to Spain lay open to the army, including by land or sea. Hamilcar and Hannibal could have taken a ship out of the bay and sailed along the Maghreb coast west toward Spain, as Diodorus Siculus claims. Polybius, on the other hand, implies that they marched overland in Africa with the army toward the coast opposite Gibraltar.14

  Young Hannibal, perhaps excitedly wide awake the first night due to the novelty, must have enjoyed the traveling spectacle of the noisy army, uncountable soldiers of every size and garb, with tribal and clan outfits alongside recognizable Carthaginian armor. It was certainly unusual for a general to take along his ten-year-old son. Hannibal would have heard coarse jokes, camp songs, and daily reports to his father, and been amazed at the spectrum of decorum and behavior. Most of all, the boy would have seen and soaked up the army’s respect for his father as chief general at the pinnacle of his soldierly world.

  Finally leaving Africa by sea, they would have crossed the Strait of Gibraltar and the legendary Pillars of Hercules, where headlands rose to windblown cliffs. As would have been customary, after landing on the Spanish shore, Hannibal likely followed his father and a few of his chosen guards up a path to one of the windy and rocky points—maybe up Gibraltar Rock itself—where an altar to the god Melqart stood in this forlorn but sacred place. Hamilcar’s journey required the blessing of Melqart, once the city god of Tyre in the old Phoenician homeland and now also the god of new ventures. In addition, Melqart was Hamilcar Barca’s personal god—the deity his father’s own name honored.

  Whatever guarded thoughts Hamilcar had, he knew there was no turning back. From high up on Gibraltar, the boy would have enjoyed a magnificent view of the blue Mediterranean in one direction eastward and the often gray Atlantic Ocean in the other direction westward. Doubtless, Hannibal would have looked back toward Africa, which he would not see again for a long time. Hannibal could have also seen where the silver-rich Sierra Morena Mountains beckoned northward, now a blue horizon in the shimmering distance across the water and the curving coastline.

  Two

  * * *

  YOUNG HANNIBAL

  It is no wonder that the “indignant” Hamilcar, “unvanquished in spirit” by the war’s outcome in Sicily, as Polybius tells,1 had been ready to leave contentious Carthage for a new land where he could do almost as he wanted and better use his military acumen. Carthage, like its Phoenician parent, was not highly militarized but a commercial society dependent on mercenaries.2 Spain on the other hand, was a mountainous land, possessing an incredibly rich bounty in precious metals such as silver and additional wealth in game in its forests and abundant fish along its long coastline. Its deep soil was fertile and full of agricultural promise for its Punic colonizers.

  Hannibal must have been just beginning to understand how important this fact of Spanish resources was to his father. Although he might not have seen all the implications for Carthaginian independence from the penalties of the Roman indemnity assigned by the Treaty of Lutatius, he would not have been able to avoid hearing about the potential for independence in Spain’s wealth.

  Historians in antiquity had mentioned Spanish mining wealth since the sixth century BCE. If Hannibal visited the silver mines near the Sierra Morena with his father, as he probably did, he would have seen that they continued for miles in all directions. The boy would also have heard the clang of iron and bronze on rock, hammers and picks seeking the glint of silver. Wooden ladders descended down into the pits all around, each of them echoing with ringing staccato blows and a din of voices. Man-made hills of ore would have been piled everywhere and the air filled with rock dust. The keen eyes of Hamilcar Barca would have missed nothing, as he likely calculated the time and labor required to amass a treasure of silver bullion.3

  If in a few short years after 237 BCE Hamilcar was able to revive the old Phoenician silver mining operations, it would have been because he was intensely driven to pay back the Carthaginian indemnity to Rome as well as to build a new war chest against Rome. Even if he might not live to see it, he would make sure that Hannibal would. Hamilcar traversed Andalucia from east to west not just to reinvigorate the mining of silver but also to visit the Celtiberian tribes, which had a fragile alliance with Carthage.

  The Phoenicians had been exploring this southern region of Spain for centuries. At first beaching their ships where wide rivers flowed out along the steep and cliff-indented coast, the Phoenicians had carefully scouted the land. Trading with the Iberian tribes that had slowly been processing the ubiquitous iron, the Phoenicians were always looking for metal and indigenous mining operations they could assimilate. Phoenician merchants had expanded their network of small trading posts, bringing finished products such as Near Eastern and Greek pottery, colored glass beads, and luxury items such as Egyptian ivory, spices, ostrich eggs, purple-dyed textiles for the ladies, and rough but practical textiles along with farming tools for the men in exchange for Iberian mineral and other goods. The Phoenicians were careful not to arm the Iberians with weapons that could be turned against them. The local agricultural products and the teeming fisheries off the coast of Andalucia were also part of the Iberian network of natural wealth. Many fish-processing villages lined the Gulf of Cádiz coast. The island of Ibiza had been the site of a huge fishing industry since the seventh century BCE.

  Posidonius the Greek philosopher wrote that the Phoenicians founded the colony of Gadir (also known as Gades, or Cádiz) around 1100 BCE. In Hannibal’s day, it was a thriving city, the center of all Phoenician mining trade in the region. Offspring of Phoenicians here were as proud of their early Temple of Melqart as their Carthaginian cousins were of the Temple of Eshmoun towering above Carthage on Bursa Hill. Along the coast, the local Iberians had also borrowed or adopted the gods of their masters the Carthaginians or joined them to their own deities. Symbols of the Carthaginian goddess Tanit could be seen painted on tombs or pebbled into pavements, her triangular skirt easily recognizable as a Punic religious icon, seen later in a mosaic at Selinus in Sicily.

  On the frontiers of Andalucia were the hostile tribes of the Turdetani or Turdulli, who would give Hamilcar much grief. The Celtiberian north was still filled with fierce tribes and clans that were always threatening to muster enough men and weapons for raids on Phoenician outposts. Hamilcar had well-armed groups of trained veterans placed in forts and towns along the frontier that would communicate any unusual tribe movements to him on a regular basis. Messengers regularly went back and forth between the command centers such as Gades and the outposts, since communication was vital and protecting the mines was crucial. Sooner or later Hamilcar would have to move deeper into the interior and deal with the Celtiberian tribes.

  Within two years after he left Carthage, Hamilcar Barca founded the Carthaginian colony of Akra Leuke on the Mediterranean coast of northern Andalucia, northeast of the city of Murcia. Akra Leuke sat below looming white plateaus, and its Greek name, meaning “white high place,” later became Alicante in Arabic during the medieval Moorish kingdom of al-Andalus.

  In Akra, his new base of operations, from 235 BCE onward, Hamilcar seems to have assigned another teacher to his preadolescent son. While Sosylos continued to teach Hannibal about the ancient Greeks, a new tutor would have trained Hannibal in manly weaponry. Hannibal’s new tutor was most likely a grizzled veteran with only one job: to instruct him in swordsmanship and archery with real weapons instead of toy ones.

  Because he went everywhere with his father, Hannibal was already saddle hardened and tanned from the sun. As a soldier in training who had been partly raised in military camps, Hannibal probably rode a horse with skill and ease. A legendary leader who knew his men extremely well, Hamilcar knew that Hannibal must have been ready to fight very early.

  HANNIBAL LEARNS WAR

  Although Livy does not agr
ee with the epithet, he sarcastically mentions Hamilcar’s reputation among his admirers as a “second Mars” as a war commander.4 Hannibal would have learned an officer’s sense of authority and how the chain of command worked both in peace and in war. Hamilcar’s force was usually a mobile, well-trained force, and divided into experienced officers on horseback and many hundreds or thousands of foot soldiers. Hamilcar would have surrounded himself with handpicked Carthaginian veterans and have chosen Numidian cavalry officers, among others. The Numidians were famous horsemen and were allies of Carthage. Hannibal would have learned to think of himself as a unit with his horse, learning both on horseback and on foot how fast an army could march in different terrain—and he would have done it himself to test and develop his youthful stamina. He would have learned from the Numidians how to pretend to retreat but instead fight even harder facing backward in a surprise feint when the enemy least expected it. Hannibal eventually earned his own battle experience, including slight wounds from grazing arrows or skirmishes.

  Most of all, Hannibal would have learned from his father how to lead by example and how to be fair with every soldier; when to encourage and when to express justifiable anger. Judging from later military experiences, young Hannibal seemed to have picked up quickly not to be impetuous or to let anger rule him, when to engage and when to disengage, how to choose the terrain on which to fight, and how to lead men to respect him not only because of his father but also due to his own developing sense of strategy and battle logic. Hannibal’s childhood passed into adolescence far from his mother and family females to coddle him.