Hannibal

by Patrick N Hunt

  One can only imagine the elation of the hidden, disciplined Numidians to see the highest Roman officers coming uphill toward the dark wood, their polished armor gleaming under their scarlet cloaks. In the shadows, the Numidians had probably separated a distance from their horses to not give themselves away. Seizing the unprecedented opportunity, they waited until the entire small Roman force was within their grasp and attacked from all sides with war cries, also blocking retreat from the rear. Likely focusing their attention on the two consuls, the Numidians aimed to do the utmost damage. Totally surprised, Marcellus fell at once from his horse with a lance running through him and took his last breath. Crispinus too was struck and wounded mortally by multiple javelins, losing blood but managing to escape on horse along with the son of Marcellus, also wounded. At least forty-three soldiers were killed either in the ambush or trying to escape. The shouts and screams alerted both camps. Livy not only wonders at the consuls’ surprising lack of caution but also blames the Etruscan guards, who fled without trying to help.

  Hannibal, who had been not far off, was apprised immediately and came to the bloody scene. He took away the body of Marcellus for respectful cremation. He also took Marcellus’ consular signet ring, hoping to use it for a further ruse. He honorably sent back Marcellus’ ashes to the Romans and to his son, since he had respected Marcellus like few other Romans. Crispinus, having retreated to the mountains, although now dying, realized Hannibal must have the signet ring and, before he succumbed to his grave wounds, arranged to alert the surrounding allied cities to be vigilant of any trickery. Roman signet rings conveyed authority and were used for wax seals and on important documents.

  Rome was greatly discouraged by the needless deaths of their two consuls, especially the heroic Marcellus, who had been so successful in the war. After their wise general’s refusal to engage directly with Hannibal after Cannae,20 hadn’t the Romans learned never to underestimate Hannibal? Using the signet ring Hannibal sent men dressed as Roman soldiers to the city of Salapia, which was allied with the Romans. But the Romans in Salapia had been warned. They let in only the advance party before they sealed the gates and killed the messengers inside the city. Hannibal had been waiting not far off but left as soon as he found that his subterfuge had been discovered.

  Hannibal’s few minor victories after Cannae continued to show his dominance in the battlefield when any Roman army was foolish enough to meet him head-on. Although Hannibal would move around Bruttium and Calabria mostly at will but as a virtual prisoner of this extreme southern territory, his stalemate with the Roman armies ensued. Hannibal’s South Italian allies fell one at a time, while Carthage’s assets in Spain also began to crumble. The old campaigns to hold Spain would eventually prove too costly for Carthage. For all Hannibal’s audacity and leadership ability, his protracted diplomatic negotiations with South Italians—always sensitive—were never equal to his military brilliance against Roman armies.21 Such diplomacy needed time and a skill set that, even after so many years, Hannibal never mastered.

  Eighteen

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  WAR IN SPAIN

  While Hannibal’s invasion slowed down and eventually mired in South Italy for nearly a decade after Cannae, with no major battles—which would have allowed him to further undermine Rome’s hold over the rest of Italy—between 216 and 208 nothing stood still elsewhere in the war. Events in Spain, especially during the better part of that decade, would bring the invasion little relief. In order to catch up to what was happening in Italy and in some way shaping it, the focus shifts west to Spain and other Punic and Roman engagements there.

  Rome’s overall situation continued to improve the longer the war dragged on. The Romans added more legions in the field as the number of Hannibal’s trained soldiers dropped. His troops who had crossed the Alps and his older Celtic veterans were much depleted after Trebia, Trasimene, Volturnus, Cannae, and countless skirmishes since. Support for his Italian campaigns also diminished precipitously after the fall of Capua in 211, Salapia in 210, and Tarentum in 209, especially when South Italians saw what harsh punishment befell cities that had befriended Hannibal if Rome won them back. Recruits from Italy made up the bulk of his rag-tag army, but their incentives after 209 were hardly as promising as the mercenary promise of Roman booty that had brought his original army into Italy in 218. Hannibal now faced up to a hundred thousand Romans in increasingly better-led armies than his approximately fifty thousand men, most of them inferior South Italian allies.1

  It should not be forgotten that when new taxes and forced tribute had been burdensome to Italy between 216 and 213, a great strain was placed on Rome’s resources. Many cities complained that their resources had been so depleted by the war effort, they had nothing more to give. Rome had also been able to augment its needed war chest through its victories in Siracusa and Tarentum, whose enormous wealth booty provided needed tax relief, but twelve out of thirty Roman colonies in Italy revolted against further taxation and levies. The Senate even taxed itself to bring in family jewels and private wealth to continue. On the other hand, the Roman leadership knew that Hannibal could not be everywhere at once. Along with a Fabian strategy of nonengagement, which took away any possibility of Hannibal’s best policy of quick and decisive victories,2 the Romans now had another masterful tactic working well to keep him running to put out fires among his shrinking allies. Having to protect so many South Italian allies who seemed incapable of defending themselves taxed his resources in ways hard to measure,3 but it was a drain he could not afford as he became cut off more and more from Carthage and Spain. No Spanish silver for mercenaries and little to no troop reinforcements from Africa would be disastrous for augmenting the fractious Bruttians and Lucanians, who were just as ready to attack anyone other than Rome and to loot neighboring cities that Hannibal was trying to amalgamate under his alliance against Rome.

  Hannibal had tried to lure Fabius Maximus out of Tarentum shortly after Fabius had taken it by betrayal when Hannibal was away chasing Marcellus north to Venusia. Hannibal set up an excellent prospective ambush near Metapontum, west of Tarentum. He enlisted the help of its leading citizens who came to Fabius and promised they would betray their city if he would come. It could have worked had Fabius not been true to character. Conservative through and through, in religion as well as character, the cautious Fabius took omens. They were probably not auspicious for a sally out of Tarentum, so he dragged his feet, probably pondering that Metapontum, up to this point, had supported Hannibal for quite a while. Maybe he also wondered where Hannibal was. His delays forced the Metapontines to return and inquire why he had not entered their city, raising just enough suspicion that it was a trap. All surprise was lost, and Hannibal, realizing Fabius was not going to budge, gave up the ambush idea.

  As long as Hannibal could be kept at arm’s length and relegated to the southernmost region of Italy, Rome believed it was much safer with its combined forces greatly outnumbering Hannibal’s. That didn’t mean Rome ignored him: consular armies continued to avoid open battle and nipped at his heels, often forcing him to be on the move from spring to fall from 211 onward. Philip V of Macedon was now also thoroughly engaged in western Greece against the Aetolians north of the Gulf of Corinth, whom Rome supported in order to keep him occupied: Philip V was no longer a threat to sail to Italy and join forces with Hannibal as long as he was engaged at home. Spain would prove to be costly for Carthage if it could not resupply Hannibal in Italy.

  THE EVOLVING CONFLICT BETWEEN CARTHAGE AND ROME IN SPAIN

  After Hannibal had left Spain a decade earlier, much transpired between Roman aims for expansion and Punic aims for trying to maintain some control south beyond the Ebro River4—the provisional territorial boundary initially claimed by Rome in 219. Roman fleets kept Carthage at bay, especially since Gnaeus Servilius had chased a Punic fleet back to Carthage in 217 and had also retaken the island of Kossyra (Pantelleria) halfway between Carthage and Sicily, demonstrating full Roman naval superiority
.5 The Romans now concentrated on keeping any further reinforcements from reaching Hannibal via Spain and aimed to break the supply chain from Spain to Italy, as Polybius asserts.6 Publius Cornelius Scipio had recuperated from his severe wounds received in the Battle of the Ticinus against Hannibal, having also witnessed the Roman disaster at Trebia, both in 218. Because he still had full support, in 217 the Senate gave him a proconsulship, and he sailed a Roman armada to Tarraco (Tarragona) on the Spanish coast, about fifty miles north of the Ebro. He brought with him a force of eight thousand Roman soldiers and joined up with his brother Gnaeus Cornelius Scipio Calvus. Keeping tradition, their father, L. Cornelius Scipio, had been a consul in 259 during the First Punic War and a censor in 258. They commanded the first Roman force ever to cross the Ebro and negotiated hostages from Saguntum before wintering back at Tarraco. From 217 onward, the two Scipio brothers began to effectively cut off Hannibal’s resupply from Spain around the Ebro River. Carthage had commanded Hasdrubal to join his brother Hannibal in Italy but the Romans under the two Scipios managed to keep Hasdrubal Barca occupied in Spain instead. Several battles demonstrated and reinforced Roman strategy under the Scipios.

  First, the Battle of the Ebro River took place in 217. There the Roman fleet of thirty-five quinqueremes under Gnaeus Scipio Calvus were reinforced by twenty Massilian allied ships, and the ensuing surprise naval and land battle overwhelmed the combined and slightly outnumbered Cartha-ginian forces of Hasdrubal on land and the admiral Himilco’s forty-two ships on sea. The Romans and Massilians were better trained, whereas this Punic navy had 25 percent new crews, many of them Iberian. The Punic ships had anchored near the estuary, and their unprovisioned crews were searching for sufficient food onshore; the Roman fleet arrived in a surprise and many of the newly assembled and not fully trained Punic crews were disorganized as they quickly tried to reboard and disembark. The smaller Punic fleet was caught unprepared and not even fully manned as it tried to escape the estuary. The Roman ships lined up in an arc, with the Massilian ships behind them, and the Roman quinqueremes rammed the first Punic ships, sinking four and then capturing two more. Gnaeus Scipio’s Roman legionaries on board the Roman fleet also overran Punic ships when they grappled together. The rest of the Punic navy abandoned its ships and tried to row back to safety to join Hasdrubal on land. The Romans quickly captured twenty-three deserted Punic ships. Hasdrubal retreated back to Cartagena to levy more troops against increasing Roman incursions into Spain, as the two Scipio brothers led many raids across the Ebro to harass Carthaginian interests in Iberia while Hasdrubal worked hard to subdue the rebellious Turdetani tribe in 216.

  Second, the Ebro River again proved to be an important front line dividing Punic and Roman control of Spain. On the south bank of the Ebro, the Battle of Dertosa followed in 215 and was another decisive Roman victory. Hasdrubal had marched north again to the Ebro with an army of 25,000 infantry, 4,000 cavalry, and 20 elephants, meeting the Roman forces again led by Publius and Gnaeus Scipio, who commanded 30,000 infantry and 2,500 cavalry. Although Hasdrubal’s army outnumbered the Romans, his troops included more allied Iberians in both infantry and cavalry alongside Libyan and mercenary infantry and Numidian horsemen, whereas the Roman forces consisted mainly of Italian soldiers.

  Even with numerical superiority, the Carthaginian cavalries on the flanks were unable to displace the Roman cavalry from the battlefield. The Libyan infantry was actually pushing the Romans back and had gained an advantage. But while the Iberian infantry in the Punic center pulled back similarly to Hannibal’s Celtic infantry at Cannae (more likely one of Hannibal’s strategies), the Iberian front collapsed and then fled in retreat, which completely changed the momentum. Unable to outflank through their skirmishes and seeing their own infantry center break, the Carthaginian cavalry then also turned and retreated, leaving now-isolated Libyan infantry surrounded.

  Although the Libyans fought hard as long as possible and caused significant Roman losses, combined Roman infantry and cavalry overwhelmed them. Hasdrubal had been forced to retreat with his Iberians in full flight and made it to safety, as did his cavalry and most of the elephants, but his Libyan infantry was decimated. The two Scipio brothers overran the Punic camp but did not pursue Hasdrubal. A disturbing trend for Carthage was that war elephants were becoming useless as the Romans learned how to neutralize them, avoiding their charges or using fire arrows to alarm them.

  Hasdrubal retreated all the way back to Cartagena and did not venture to the Ebro again, needing to replenish his troops by levying new armies in the south of Spain. Roman recruitment of Celtiberians now began in earnest, as Rome owned the Ebro, and many of the tribes that had supported the Punic side now gave Rome more respect after the two victories at the Ebro and Dertosa near its delta. Barcid control of Spain ended as Hasdrubal was forced to accept coleadership in Spain with Hasdrubal Gisco, who now commanded his own army.

  Although they maintained their year-round base at Tarraco, Publius and Gnaeus Scipio continued many raiding sorties and encroachments south of the Ebro to Saguntum and inland for several years. The net result for Carthage from the losses at the Ebro and Dertosa—one mostly naval and the other on land—was that any new armies raised that had been meant to reinforce Hannibal in Italy at a crucial moment when momentum had swung his way after Cannae were unable to reach him. Instead of going to Italy, now full armies were needed to keep Spain under as much Punic control as possible south of the Ebro after 215, as the Scipio brothers increased their successes in enlisting Celtiberian mercenaries to fight Carthage because Rome looked like it was growing stronger.

  Hasdrubal Barca’s brother Mago now also commanded a third Punic army in Spain—which would have been better deployed in Italy had Hasdrubal not lost at both the Ebro and Dertosa—but this did not turn out to offer any advantage for long. With trouble brewing near home, stirred up by Rome to also relieve pressure in Italy from Hannibal, Hasdrubal was recalled from Spain to North Africa. His mission was to bring relief in 213 when Syphax, king of the Massaesyli western Numidians in what is now Algeria, fulfilled a bribe to support Rome made in 218. After Roman military advisors trained his forces, he brought an army east and attacked eastern Numidian allies of Carthage, especially the Massylians under their King Gala.

  Hasdrubal Barca and his army in North Africa successfully fought Syphax, killing thirty thousand western Numidians and forcing the king to flee back to his territory in the west. Brought up in Carthage as a glorified hostage, Massinissa, son of eastern Numidian King Gala, brought an army of three thousand cavalry to assist against Syphax—when he was under twenty-five years old7—and then before 212 returned with Hasdrubal to Spain with Numidian cavalry fighting against the Roman forces of the Scipio brothers.

  Between 213 and 211, Hasdrubal Barca continued his battles with the Scipio Brothers all over Spain as he ventured out from Cartagena and they set forth from Tarraco. Both the Romans and the Carthaginians worked to bring as many Celtiberians to fight with them against the other. Hasdrubal’s access to the silver of Cartagena gave him some advantage in bribes, but the Romans were formidable in their tenacity, and each Roman victory, however small, persuaded more Celtiberians to either declare sides with Rome or switch allegiance from Carthage to Rome.

  THE DEATH OF TWO ELDER SCIPIOS IN SPAIN

  A rare positive note for Carthage also sounded from Spain in 212. As the Romans worked their way deeper into Spain from their base in Tarraco, the Carthaginian forces, rather than confront the Romans, attempted to keep their Celtiberian allies under control because many had rebelled after the Ebro Battle debacle. Two successive battles followed where the brothers Publius Cornelius Scipio and Gnaeus Scipio Calvus had separated their armies to pursue the different Punic forces. The two Scipio brothers thought that because the Carthaginians were divided into different forces, this was a weakness they could exploit.

  Having spent seven years keeping Hasdrubal Barca and other Punic forces from leaving Spain to relieve Hannibal in Ita
ly, the Scipio brothers were far south of their usual exploits, penetrating all the way to Andalusia in clear Carthaginian territory inland and southwest of Cartagena. They had hired 20,000 Celtiberian mercenaries to augment their armies of 30,000 Romans. The Campaign of the Upper Baetis (Guadalquivir River), encompassing both the Battle of Castulo and the Battle of Ilorca, was the place of double entanglement where the Scipio brothers met their fate. Splitting their armies, Publius decided to attack Mago Barca’s army of 10,000 near Castulo with his 20,000 Roman and added Celtiberians. The Numidian prince Massinissa harried Publius from the front with his cavalry near Castulo, and then the Spanish chieftain Indibilis blocked his rear with 7,500 Iberians. Publius Scipio left 2,000 soldiers in his camp and, after a night march, surprised the 7,500 Iberians with his 18,000 soldiers at dawn. But although at first it looked like it would be a quick Roman victory, the Iberians fought well and long enough for Massinissa to arrive with his cavalry of 3,000 Numidians in relief on the flanks. This dual battle occupied Scipio’s Romans until, to his alarm, the combined armies of Mago and Hasdrubal Gisco also arrived and began to butcher the outnumbered Romans. The Battle of Castulo ended with some Romans fleeing, including those guarding the Roman camp, but the majority of Romans lay dead—with Publius Cornelius Scipio among them. The Battle of the Upper Baetis (Guadalquivir River) in 212 was the last major Carthaginian victory in Spain.