SIRACUSA AND ARCHIMEDES
After Hieron of Siracusa died, his successor Hieronymus struck a deal with Hannibal to realign with Carthage if in return Siracusa could be strengthened to dominate eastern Sicily; the Romans kept a watchful eye on developments there. In 214 the Senate realized that Sicily could be key to the prospects of Carthage and Hannibal, so it turned some of its attention back to Siracusa. The city was one of the richest in the Greek world. Siracusa could host Carthaginian and Macedonian fleets, both enemies of Rome, in its great natural harbor, so the Senate decided to act to prevent a new Punic supply base from strengthening Hannibal and his allies. Rome sent Claudius Marcellus to Sicily for his third consulship. Marcellus was a good commander, loved by his troops for his dedication as well as his toughness. Plutarch says that in his opposition to Hannibal, Marcellus was Rome’s sword to Fabius as Rome’s shield.1 Plutarch says some of the Roman soldiers under Marcellus had survived the infamy of Cannae. They were desperate to prove their worth again, and his was a redemptive leadership for them.2
A Roman fleet and army under Marcellus sought to blockade Siracusa and wear it down by sea and land until it could be conquered. Carthage sent Himilco with twenty-five thousand infantry, three thousand cavalry, and a dozen elephants. After landing near Heraclea Minoa, they captured Agrigento (Akragas) on the south coast of Sicily. These Punic reinforcements would soon suffer from fever in the marshy Anapus River just to the west—thousands of Carthaginian soldiers and two generals died—and with decimated ranks became unable to assist Siracusa.
Laying siege to Siracusa from the autumn of 214 onward, Marcellus was up against not only the walled city but also one of the greatest engineers and mathematicians in history: the polymath Archimedes, whose military inventions kept the Romans at bay for almost two years. This defense amazed the Romans, especially the naval forces, which were unable to approach too close due to the mysterious arsenal Archimedes invented. Among these weapons were a fusillade of rapid-fire mechanical projectiles, known as fire ballistae; perhaps also a mysterious parabolic mirror that could burn ships from a distance3—not at all unlikely, given he had authored treatises on parabolas; or “the Claw,” which could plummet into a Roman ship and catch it with a grappling hook, lift one end high, and then release it with a violent capsizing drop (described by Polybius4). Archimedes earned the respect of the Roman besiegers.
The inner harbor was guarded by the fortified insular peninsula of Ortygia, with its freshwater spring, Arethusa. From the raised citadel of Ortygia, originally named for the quails that nested on the island, Archimedes could protect both the seaward outer harbor and the great inner harbor with his machines. Legend even credits him with early biological warfare by dropping baskets of venomous snakes into Roman ships. Clearly, this time Rome was up against a different kind of genius than Hannibal.
Marcellus finally had an opportunity to take the city with a land force on the north side in 212. When the Siracusans celebrated a nocturnal feast of Artemis, the Greek goddess of nature, wild animals, and childbirth with more relaxation and wine than was wise, Marcellus had his men successfully attack a weakly fortified northern gate at the Galeagris Tower, far from the populated town center. The Roman troops quickly descended into the surprised city and slaughtered Siracusans on all sides. Marcellus commanded his army to spare the life of Archimedes, possibly hoping to employ his military genius against Hannibal. Plutarch quotes Marcellus as jokingly even calling Archimedes a “geometrical Briareus,” the mythical giant son of Uranus, who had a hundred arms and fifty heads and who could hardly be defeated.5 Archimedes was apparently not celebrating like most of the city but instead pondering calculations traced in the sand when a Roman soldier entered his house and commanded him to stop. Legend says the annoyed mathematician replied, “Do not disturb my circles.” The Roman soldier ran him through with a sword or spear. Livy says the soldier did not know the man was Archimedes and that his death distressed Marcellus.6
The Carthaginian fleet escaped from the inner harbor. The admiral, Bomilcar, had been mostly ineffective in aiding Siracusa and had escaped any major conflict, as was his pattern.7
After the Siracusan citadel at Ortygia was taken—betrayed by a deserting Spanish officer—the Romans were astonished at the city’s wealth, but history suggests that Siracusa’s greatest treasure was Archimedes himself.
With Siracusa taken, Hannibal lost not only an ally but also his best hope for resupplying his Italian campaign from Carthage. Without Siracusa, there would be little opportunity to profit from Tarentum or to chase the Romans from the Strait of Messina. Agrigento would also fall in 210, ending forever any chance of a Punic Sicily.
THE FRUSTRATIONS OF CAPUA
Once it had turned against Rome in 215, Capua was too rich and large for Hannibal to abandon easily. He hoped great things for populous Capua as a capital city of his war against Rome, likely believing that other cities would rally around it as a power base. But this did not happen in a fractious region where no city reigned over the others, a legacy of the old Greek city-states and their colonies. The ancient Capuans were also seemingly notorious for indolence and luxury and were now mostly paralyzed due to their dependence on Hannibal to defend them.
Fairly soon after Capua went over to Hannibal, Roman forces began to assemble armies against it, partly because it was one of the largest cities in Italy after Rome and, as such, a potential threat to Roman dominance. In 214 a force of four armies comprising six legions set out to blockade Capua. This action required Hannibal to protect Capua’s citizens and infrastructure. The Roman troops surrounded Capua with berms and palisades (staked wooden walls). Not only were the Capuans trapped inside their walls, no one could easily come to their aid. The ensuing sallies and retreats between Hannibalic and Roman forces resembled a chess match, with no clear victor yet in sight. Hannibal, who was far to the southeast near Tarentum, sent his lieutenant Hanno from Bruttium to Benevento. Hanno eluded two Roman forces under the consuls Gaius Claudius Nero and Tiberius Gracchus, and set up a fortified grain depot not too far from Capua. He requested that the Capuans send wagons, hauling oxen, and whatever other animals they could muster to collect the grain they needed to withstand a protracted Roman siege. At first, the Capuans could find only four hundred wagons, and Hanno is supposed to have remarked, “The Capuans cannot even be stirred by hunger, to which dumb beasts respond better.” He ordered more transport for the grain, but the Capuans were slow, and the Romans found out by the time they had finally managed 2,000 wagons. In Hanno’s absence, the Romans attacked his grain supply camp and carried away all the grain along with the wagons and whatever was in the camp. Hanno escaped the debacle and returned back to Bruttium in disgust at the Capuan inertia. Hannibal then dispatched 2,000 Numidian cavalry to help Capua. Their successful stealth avoided the Roman noose around Capua; after getting inside the city at night, the Numidians were joined in a sortie to leave the city in the morning and attack the unwatchful Romans, who were trying to gather up the grain and supplies without concern for a Carthaginian counterattack.
The surprised Romans suffered 1,500 casualties and retreated back to their own siege fortifications outside Capua. They suffered another blow when Tiberius Gracchus was ambushed and killed while advancing from the east to assist the blockade of Capua. Hannibal gave him a proper burial as a worthy adversary. The Romans did not engage Hannibal when he returned to Capua faster than they thought possible, pulling back before him in Fabian fashion. But Hannibal soon departed the city, which still lacked sufficient supplies to house his army. He followed the army of Appius Claudius Caudex moving in a southeasterly direction. It must have appeared either to Hannibal or his scouts that Claudius planned to attack toward Lucania. Hannibal’s withdrawal eastward from Capua allowed the Roman force that had moved north under the command of Quintus Fulvius Flaccus to return to Capua and renew the siege. Claudius’ move was only a feint because somewhere in Campania’s eastern hills and valleys, he eluded Hannibal and r
eturned to Capua. This was an outcome of Fabian strategy—a game of cat and mouse that the Romans soon mastered, avoiding direct open-field combat with Hannibal out of respect for his genius at battle but attempting to divide and draw his energy and resources elsewhere whenever possible. A Capua under perpetual Roman siege would require an investment that Hannibal could ill afford.
The year 212 was a watershed year for Rome: somehow, despite scarcity of resources, it was able to put two hundred thousand soldiers in the field and seventy thousand sailors on ships, amounting to almost 10 percent of the available population,8 something mercantile Carthage could never mobilize. Capua may have seemed so promising when it defected to Hannibal, but it was ultimately a double-edged sword. The city hoped for its own hegemony in the region, thus discouraging further defections that Hannibal needed because other South Italian city-states feared its expansion.9
HANNIBAL’S MARCH ON ROME
In the prolonged siege of Capua from 212 to 211, Hannibal tried to trick the Romans in a match of wits. Attempting to draw the besieging Roman armies away from Capua, he suddenly marched north toward Rome itself. Livy says this diversion was on impulse and a possible dream of accomplishing what he had not done after Cannae.10 Word of Hannibal’s progress northward—with raids, seizures, killing fugitives, and devastating farmland, according to Livy—reached Rome. A furious Senate debate ensued between Publius Cornelius Asina, who recommended that all Roman soldiers leave Capua and come to the aid of the capital, and the ever skeptical Fabius Maximus, who said astutely that Hannibal’s intent was not Rome itself but the relief of Capua. Valerius Flaccus suggested a compromise, and so a Roman force of fifteen thousand soldiers and a thousand cavalry under Fulvius Flaccus left Capua and quickly marched north a day behind Hannibal along the mostly coastal Via Appia. Their crossing of the Volturnus River was delayed because Hannibal had burned a bridge made up of floating boats lashed together with planks crossing them. Fulvius, however, may have possessed two advantages Hannibal did not: the Via Appia was shorter than Hannibal’s route, and he did not have local opposition as he raced to Rome.
Although it is difficult to establish Hannibal’s route, he left his fires burning near Capua to give the appearance of still being there. He arrived east of Rome along the Anio River. His route is uncertain, but we do know that Fulvius arrived in Rome ahead of Hannibal. He entered a panic-stricken city via the Porta Capena. To expedite matters, the Senate had granted Fulvius authority equal to the consuls so that he could enter the city with his army but without the usual loss of imperium when a commander entered Rome with forces.11 His forces camped between the gates of the Porta Esquilina and the Porta Collina, perhaps on the Viminal, while the troops of the city praetor, C. Calpurnius Piso, camped near the Capitolium and the Arx citadel on the west side of the city. Other troops under consuls camped near the Porta Esquilina and Porta Collina, where Hannibal was expected. According to Livy, the whole of Rome was full of fear, packed with peasant farmers who had fled into the city, along with their livestock, at the news of Hannibal’s approach. The Senate sat in session around the clock to be available for advice. Guards bristling with weapons were posted in the heights of the city and along the city wall to watch.12
Being close enough to be observed by Romans stationed on the walls, his combined forces of Carthaginian, Numidian, and other African troops alongside the wild-looking Celts, now accompanied by Bruttians, were closely watched. The Romans were no doubt trying to count the assembled forces of their worst enemy.
Hannibal then marched from the Anio to the Porta Collina at the northern edge of the city. He inspected its gate with two thousand cavalry and conducted a reconnaissance of a section along the city’s walls. This must have been unnerving to many raw Roman recruits watching a living legend before their eyes.
For Hannibal too, this moment must have been exciting. He knew from long and often bitter experience—from Saguntum, to Naples, to Brundisium, to Rhegium—that fortified cities were impossible to take without siege equipment. He also knew that Rome’s high perimeter walls were fortified for their length of fifty miles and his troops were far too few to break through even one gate like the Porta Collina before him. Further complicating a possible siege of Rome was the necessity of suppyling his army with food while surrounded by hostile territory, with other Roman armies in the field away in Italy capable of mobilizing back to Rome. Roman armies did not need food raids and broad scavenging forays as his had to do. Says one scholar, “Rather than showing the shortcomings of Hannibal, his avoidance of a siege shows that Hannibal was a sufficiently great general not to try and undertake the impossible.”13 Although Rome had more armies in the field in 212, Hannibal could now see for himself that his decision not to march on Rome after Cannae was the right decision. Was this ephemeral moment at the gates of Rome Hannibal’s greatest, or was it the beginning of a long sigh of resignation?
Hannibal had little time to appreciate his proximity under Rome’s walls because Fulvius quickly sent out a large body of Roman cavalry—likely from another gate such as the Esquiline, where no Carthaginians lurked. A group of 1,200 Numidian horsemen who had deserted to Rome at Nola descended through the city from the Aventine Hill of Rome to join the Roman cavalry. Livy says the sight of them caused added panic in Rome, as it was thought by some that Hannibal’s forces had breached the city.14 The skirmish between Hannibal’s small force and the Romans was mostly a standoff, and both enemies soon went back to their positions inside the city or on the Anio. Hannibal then plundered the countryside and drove a large number of animals into his camp.
Twice in the next several days, Hannibal’s army and the Romans squared off for full battle, but each time, a fierce torrent of heavy hail prevented it. Was this spring storm from Jupiter or Baal? Both of these gods were storm deities, but it was possibly a worse omen for the invaders. Centuries later, St. Augustine even claimed that it was the gods themselves who terrified Hannibal with lightning and tempest.15 The hailstorm may have shaken Hannibal’s resolve, although he knew this city could not be taken even if he slaughtered the army facing him. Hannibal turned around with his troops and headed south again. Livy claims that Hannibal was acting on irrational emotions. Polybius says Hannibal had amassed sufficient plunder on the march and felt he had achieved his objective. He thought he had forced the siege of Capua to be lifted as the collected Roman armies, including that of Appius Claudius, had to come to the aid of their capital.16
But this was one of Hannibal’s few haunting miscalculations. The fall of Capua came soon after in 211. Not only had the Romans under Publius Claudius Pulcher not lifted the siege—only Quintus Fulvius Flaccus had come from Capua to Rome’s assistance—but the fickle people of Capua thought Hannibal had abandoned them, and they quickly surrendered, opening their gates to the Roman army, hoping for mercy. Instead Rome was brutal, inflicting a heavy lesson for Capuan infidelity. Many of the town leaders were beaten severely with rods and then beheaded. The bulk of the population was sold into slavery along with adjacent towns that had resisted. While the town’s structures were left intact, the city lost its independence and became the property of Rome. By the time Hannibal arrived back in the region, the people of South Italy were reeling from the treatment of Capua, thinking their fate would be similar: that Hannibal would ultimately desert them, and they would pay harshly to Rome. This was just what Rome intended. Hannibal marched back south to Bruttium, and, like dominos, the towns of southern Italy submitted to Rome.
Tarentum, too, soon fell back to Rome, betrayed yet again in 209. Deploying his army as bait, the Roman general Marcellus had drawn Hannibal away from Tarentum. Plus, Hannibal had needed to round up eight thousand marauders let loose by Rome—mainly Bruttian deserters and Sicilian criminals, to do damage around Caulonia17—and Fabius Maximus had moved in with an army. As before, the city gates were opened by a traitor, and Carthalo the Carthaginian officer and his men were slain along with many Bruttians and Tarentines, including the original co
nspirators Philemenus and Nico. Livy says Fabius Maximus wanted to give the impression that the city had been taken by Roman force, not Tarentine treachery.18 Tarentum was utterly plundered, and thirty thousand Tarentines were sold into slavery to underscore the ultimate unprofitability of joining Hannibal. Rome captured the Tarentine fleet that Hannibal had hoped would help to resupply him from Carthage and also secure a landing for Philip V of Macedon. Where Hannibal had treated Tarentum fairly, the Romans dealt in swift reprisal with the harshest blow. Although not all was lost, Hannibal must have realized that the tide had turned against him.
THE LOSS OF TWO ROMAN CONSULS IN ITALY
In 208, after losing Tarentum in 209, Hannibal caught by surprise a legion that had marched from Tarentum toward Locri, a city allied with Hannibal. The Romans were hoping to join a siege force. Unknown to Rome, Hannibal had gone to relieve Locri but was still far in advance of any Roman troops he knew were coming, so he concealed his men beneath the hill of Petelia on either side of the road. The unsuspecting Romans thought he was up north and blundered right into the trap, enveloped on two sides. Some 2,000 Romans were slaughtered and another 1,500 were captured, with the rest fleeing back to the safety of Tarentum. Such successes were now rare for Hannibal, but an even greater victory beckoned. Hannibal moved back toward Venusia, where a larger Roman army under Marcellus was camped.
The beloved Claudius Marcellus had been elected consul for the fifth time and was now about sixty years old. The other consul general was his lieutenant from Siracusa, Titus Quinctius Crispinus. Between them, they had four legions. Although Hannibal was outnumbered, he camped close enough for the Romans to know he had arrived and was waiting for battle. A wooded hill lay between the two camps, and Hannibal saw that it wasn’t large enough to set up another camp but could be used to spy on the Romans if they hadn’t already set up scouts there, which they should have done. Hannibal then concealed several Numidian cavalry detachments on the hill overnight. Deciding too late that they should occupy the hill, Marcellus and Crispinus went up the hill to reconnoiter it with hardly any backup: fewer than 220 men. They would scout out the hill themselves and then bring up a sufficient force to take it, thus gaining an advantage over Hannibal. This reconnaissance in woods where the neutral territory was not open to distant view should not have been undertaken by such senior commanders.19 The action reveals a weakness in Rome’s armies: a lack of junior officers who could make responsible field decisions.
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