In the Aeneid, Virgil tells of Dido’s curse against Aeneas and his Roman descendants. Here Dido prophetically demands her Tyrian brood to “persecute the stock and hate the future race,” echoing Hamilcar’s vow exacted from his son. In the Aeneid, Dido calls from her “ashes” an “unknown avenger.” The idea of rising from ashes or bones suggests a wordplay on the mythical Phoenix, a Phoenician in the wordplay. All have recognized Hannibal as this unnamed avenger, a descendant “to harass [Rome] with fire and sword” exactly as the Second Punic War accomplished.12
Valerius Maximus praises Hannibal’s acts of honorable mercy, although he called him Rome’s “bitterest enemy.” In the anecdotes of Valerius Maximus, Hannibal searched for the body of Aemilius Paullus and did not let it go unburied on Cannae’s battlefield. Likewise, he gave back to Rome the body and bones of the elder Tiberius Gracchus, slain by Lucanians, and sumptuously buried Marcus Marcellus in Bruttia with a pyre, a Punic cloak, and a golden wreath.13
When ruses and tricks were no longer despised as un-Roman, Sextus Julius Frontinus recorded Hannibal’s deeds many times in his Strategemata, a book on historic military stratagems, as good war maneuvers.14 Valerius Maximus said Hannibal “entangled the Roman people with many nooses of cunning.”15 Valerius Maximus also relates the story of King Prusias of Bithynia, who would rather follow the omens of entrails than Hannibal’s advice, and Hannibal’s exclamation, “ ‘Would you rather trust a lump of calf flesh than a veteran general?’ . . . He did not brook calmly that his glory attested in long trial should yield to the liver of a single victim.” Valerius Maximus added to this anecdote:
“And in truth, if it came to exploring war’s stratagems and estimating military leadership, Hannibal’s brain would have outweighed all the braziers and all the altars of Bithynia, let Mars himself be judge.”16
Hannibal’s immediate legacy on Rome—examined countless times from Rome’s own historians—can be measured in part by how much changed in Roman war policy and operations between 218 and 202 and afterward. It is perhaps easy to agree that Hannibal has been called “one of Rome’s best military instructors.”17 His general strategy of surprise has been discussed for centuries, but perhaps can never be overestimated. As one historian said, “In war, it is the unexpected which triumphs. And in preparing for war the unexpected is never given its proper weight.”18
The power of plebeian consuls elected by popular vote to lead armies was diminished after Sempronius at Trebia, Flaminius at Trasimene, and Varro at Cannae were each provoked by a Hannibal who understood their fundamental weaknesses. Second and related to the first, even though the underlying aim of checks and balances between military and political leadership may have been essentially a good idea, Hannibal proved that alternating the battle authority from one strong general on one day to another weak general on the next day was disastrous at these three iconic battles.
After Hannibal showed them to be useful battle ploys, contemporary Romans such as Claudius Nero and Scipio successfully adopted deceit and stratagems in Italy, Spain, and North Africa. As Frontinus noted, Claudius Nero deceived possibly both Hannibal and Hasdrubal: the first by lighting enough night fires in his camp in South Italy so that Hannibal would not know he had departed with thousands of men; the second by arriving quietly at night to the Roman camp of Livius Salinator near Metaurus without first alerting Hasdrubal.19 Scipio also appreciated the great potential of psy-ops, especially when the enemy expected something else, and yet Livy’s disdain for trickery does not in any way poison his praise for Scipio. In a somewhat similar vein to disinformation, Hannibal undermined his enemy by trying to make the Roman Senate suspect the integrity of Fabius Maximus over real estate in Campania that Hannibal captured but left immune from ransacking.20
Professional Roman armies—similar in a way to Hannibal’s trained and battle-hardened mercenaries—would ultimately fill the legions previously levied by Roman citizen militias whose military discipline and training was often suspect, although their loyalty to homeland was guaranteed. Of all the transformations of Roman war policy, one of the most dramatic and important Hannibal-inspired changes was this gradual transition to a more professional army rather than mere conscription or levies from citizen-farmer militias and levies of Latin allies. By forcing Rome to dig deep to find soldiers—even enlisting boys and debtors and exonerating criminals to fill new legions21—Hannibal paved the way for the later change under the Roman general Gaius Marius that even abandoned the property requirement for service “and the idea that possessions guaranteed a man’s loyalty to the state.”22
Polybius had noted after Cannae the battle advantages Numidian cavalry gave Hannibal: “it demonstrated to posterity that in times of war, it is better to give battle with half as many infantry as the enemy and an overwhelming cavalry than to be in all respects his equal.”23 In 218 Hannibal started out from Cartagena in Spain with an enormous advantage cavalry relative to Roman standards, and by the time of crossing the Rhône, he still had nine thousand horsemen, mostly Numidian, an unheard-of quantity of other cavalry.24
Learning from Hannibal, Scipio implemented an enhanced role for mobile cavalry, especially Numidian, the most feared of Hannibal’s cavalry. Scipio derived battle advantages from using them wisely at Zama, where he outnumbered Hannibal in cavalry for the first time: As Hyland notes, “Scipio Africanus was quick to take advantage of Numidian cavalry when he turned the tables on Hannibal at Zama.”25 Successive Roman armies adopted Scipio’s cavalry model that was based on Hannibal’s.26
Hannibal’s peerless tactics of using topography, fighting in winter, night fighting, depriving enemies of water sources, and other environmental factors as a secret weapon eventually became part of the Roman arsenal, beginning with some in the Second Punic War, such as Scipio. Hannibal had made the Romans cross the icy Trebia River in high winter, which froze the legionaries and also deprived them of strength, especially since they had not had any morning meal. He used fog at Trasimene as a weapon.27 Hannibal employed the swampy ground as well as the night cover of darkness at Volturnus and used cattle with lit burning brands to confuse the Romans, as well as making them face the sun and dust at Cannae.28 He likely prevented Romans from watering at the Aufidus River, possibly even tainting the Roman water supply.29 Scipio employed similar tactics when he knew that the shallow “tidal” water at Cartagena could be crossed but attributed the crossing to divine assistance.30 Imitating Hannibal, Scipio exploited the cover of darkness and chaos in his night attack in burning the camps of Syphax and Hasdrubal Gisco near Utica. He commandeered the water sources around Zama before battle there. Demonstrating a new Roman willingness to mirror Hannibal’s tactics, Cornelius Nero in South Italy left camp quietly under cover of darkness,31 taking a page out of Hannibal’s night maneuver book.32
Hannibal made copious use of military intelligence, gathering hard intelligence on the ground by employing Celts from Italy as scouts and informants, and continuing with spies who dressed like Romans and spoke Latin in Roman territory and behind the Roman lines.33 Few understood the need for reliable information better than Hannibal when he had the monetary resources in Spanish silver to acquire it.34 Hannibal’s precedents in gathering military intelligence seemed not to be followed by Romans prior to Scipio.
Not all the changes in Roman policy in the third century BCE and beyond were due to Hannibal, and some of Rome’s changes affected him greatly in ways he could not understand until after Zama. A huge difference in the rules of engagement that Rome followed in the First and Second Punic Wars signaled an evolving outcome: Rome would not quit because she suffered losses. Hannibal had to be one of the first enemies to realize that Rome would never consider itself defeated. Hannibal would also be one of the first commanders to witness Rome’s plans to conquer lands beyond Italian soil: Spain, North Africa, Celtic lands, Greece, and Asia were all part of Rome’s vision of increasing territorial expansion. Rome used Carthage after its conquest as a source of food (and slaves) and a
fortress boundary in North Africa on the perimeter of the known world.35
One of the unintended consequences of Hannibal’s invasion of Italy, where he found on arrival a “collection of fiercely independent and competitive polities bound under Roman hegemony” under bilateral alliance he hoped to disrupt, was that by the end of the Second Punic War, these same communities suffered Roman reconquest under terms that ultimately made them Roman and no longer independent.36 Hannibal’s South Italian allies paid a price when Rome brutally punished and then absorbed them.
Ultimately, Hannibal taught a reluctant Rome how to conduct war. Satirist Juvenal’s ambiguous poetic nod to Hannibal is telling: “Put Hannibal in the scales; how many pounds will that peerless general mark up today? . . . No sword, or stone, or javelin makes an end of a life that once troubled humanity.”37 But he was not without his flaws. D. B. Hoyos is right that Hannibal made “geostrategic, diplomatic, and military miscalculations that are too often underestimated,” even though he is generally regarded as one of ancient history’s three greatest generals alongside Alexander and Julius Caesar.38 Because modern scholarship with full access to sources often considers Hannibal with deeper scrutiny than in the past, one cannot easily judge him in terms of overall greatness as a strategist, however much his tactical genius and historical influence are acknowledged.
Perhaps the leading modern authority on Hannibal, Dexter B. Hoyos, points out how risky Hannibal’s invasion of Italy was, how he mistakenly thought the Romans would give up after his decisive victories, and that no real evidence remains that a hostile Carthage sabotaged Hannibal’s enterprise. Hoyos observes that after both Capua and Siracusa fell, Hannibal was holding a wolf by the ear. He could not let go, nor could he achieve much more. Overall, Hoyos concludes Hannibal had genius and was great, but not quite great enough. Hoyos maintains that Hannibal’s most important decision was not marching on Rome after his victory at Trasimene, a judgment that other scholars share.
Could Hannibal have taken Rome? Could he have won at Zama or victoriously concluded the Second Punic War39? That his was a gifted military mind is not usually one of the lingering questions. If too much ambition destroyed Caesar, perhaps not enough stopped Hannibal.
While it is often popular to attempt to negate his genius, citing the downfall of Carthage at Zama and eventually its fiery end in 146, which he neither precipitated nor hastened, Hannibal’s legacy remains intact: he still inspires immense curiosity after two millennia, demanding scrutiny with his intrepid behavior, and he always will. Hannibal knew that one man alone could not beat Rome, yet perhaps history has unfairly held him accountable for not having the confidence to do so even when it looked unreasonable to him or for lacking the will to try after Trasimene and Cannae. His humanity is not always obvious, and much about him remains a riddle. At times he carefully cultivated the appearance of being terrifying and pitiless to his enemies while staying unflinchingly commanding to his men. This is the Hannibal history preserves.
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
So many people and institutions have been instrumental in the research and writing of this book that it is impossible to name and credit all of them. I am also indebted to visionary institutions whose leadership encouraged the fieldwork that enabled much of my research, including National Geographic Expeditions Council and Stanford University. These institutions helped me assemble and direct excellent teams through departmental student grants and other research grants over several decades, officially between 1994 and 2012 and unofficially to this day. The Archaeological Institute of America has also sponsored my lectures as a National AIA Lecturer to many academic institutions since 2009, where I have been able to learn much through collegial dialogue at universities and museums. I am also grateful to the Liechtensteinisches Landesmuseum (Liechtenstein National Museum) for opportunities to share research via lecture and to multiple Swiss cantons for different phases of fieldwork, including Valais, St. Gallen, and Graubunden, as well as the Soprintendenza Archeologica del Piemonte and the Soprintendenza per i Beni e le Attività Culturali del Valle d’Aosta, both in Italy, and the Commune of Bramans in Savoie, France, among others. National Geographic Learning and its partner Cengage have also been generous in publishing aspects of our fieldwork as well as providing lecture opportunities to share research. The United States Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island, has also been generous in inviting me to lecture on several occasions to military historian colleagues and graduate students there; its Naval War College Review has also published some of my reviews. Both the Society of Military History (of which I am a member and occasional publication reviewer in its journal) and the Royal Geographical Society (where I am an elected Fellow) have encouraged geographical studies related to topography and war. Wiley’s Encyclopaedia of Ancient History and Encyclopaedia Britannica have also provided me a forum for concise written scholarship on ancient history, especially the latter for Hannibal-related entries.
Individuals at Stanford University who have been tremendous personal resources for my Hannibal research include Vice Provost Dr. Charles Junkerman and Associate Dean Dr. Dan Colman (both for postgraduate teaching opportunities), Professor Susan Treggiari (Classics, on Roman life), Emeritus Professor Antony Raubitschek (Classics, on Greek epigraphy), Professor Josh Ober (Classics, on Political Theory and Hannibal), Professor Michael Wigodsky (Classics, on Polybian Greek), Professor Richard Martin (Classics, on the Greeks), Professor Walter Scheidel (Classics, on ancient economy and slavery), Professor Ian Morris (Classics, on war), Dr. Adrienne Mayor (Classics), and Dean and Professor Richard Saller (Classics, on Rome). All have been inspirational. Professor Victor Davis Hanson (Hoover Institution at Stanford) has also been greatly helpful on ancient warfare. Elsewhere, I am indebted to Professor Roger Wilson at the University of British Columbia (for Roman history); Professor Edward Lipiński at Katholieke Universiteit, Leuven (for Phoenician studies); the late Professor Frank W. Walbank, Emeritus at Liverpool University and Fellow of Peterhouse, Cambridge (for Polybian studies); and Professor Andrew Wilson, Oxford University (for archaeological science). Professors Timothy Demy, Michael Pavković, Yvonne Masakowski, and Jeffrey Shaw, all at the United States Naval War College, have also been enormously helpful in providing military history insights. Among my own teachers, I must also thank Professor Anthony Snodgrass of Cambridge University; while he was Sather Professor and briefly teaching the Sather Graduate Seminar at University of California, Berkeley, his knowledge of Greek warfare inspired much of my thinking on ancient war. Along the way, I met and conversed with Professor Frank Walbank, as mentioned, at British Museum colloquia, where I was invited to speak in 1996, and when I was a doctoral student at the Institute of Archaeology, University College London, I met Professor Lawrence Keppie, University of Glasgow, and learned from his Roman military expertise. I was also fortunate to participate in events during Sir John Boardman’s distinguished Eitner Lectureship at Stanford, including hosting him for dinners and related conversations.
Other colleagues and collaborators who have been most helpful for many years include Dr. François Wiblé, Office of Archaeological Research, Canton of Valais, Martigny, Switzerland, and John Hoyte and Sir Richard Jolly—friends, fellow authors, and fellow mountaineers over Alpine passes who brought an elephant over the Alps in 1959 and with whom I’ve had many relevant conversations while we hiked—as well as archaeologists and friends Dr. Irving Finkel (Department of Middle East), Dr. Ian Jenkins (Department of Greek and Roman Antiquities), and Dr. Jonathan Tubb (Keeper, Department of Middle East) at the British Museum in London. I am also grateful to Dr. Jean-Pascal Jospin, Directeur du Musée archéologique de Grenoble and at the Musée Dauphinois in Grenoble, whose work on the Allobroges Celts has been greatly useful; archaeologist Dr. Paolo Visonà on Punic numismatics; Sir John Boardman of Oxford on Roman history, as mentioned; Professor Lionel Casson at New York University on ancient seafaring and travel; Professor Dr. Rainer Vollkommer, Director of the Liechtenste
in National Museum; Dr. Thomas Reitmaier, Archäologischer Dienst Graubünden, Canton of Graubunden, Switzerland; Dr. Martin Schindler, Archäologischer Dienst St. Gallen, Canton of St. Gallen, Switzerland; archaeologist Davide Casagrande of Vercelli on Piemontese archaeology; archaeological scientist Dr. Lorenzo Appolonia of the Soprintendenza of the Valle d’Aosta; historian Geoffroy de Galbert, whose books and hypotheses on Hannibal are important resources; and officers of the Voreppe Historical Society in France, as well as Dr. Samuel Wolff and Professor Lawrence Stager while both were affiliated with the Harvard Semitic Museum and after their Carthage Tophet excavations. Other fellow Hannibal authors whom I know and respect include the insightful Andreas Kluth; John Prevas, a brilliant writer and friend; and Emeritus Professor William Mahaney, indefatigable scientist. Even though we may not agree on minutiae, these individuals have shared a common passion for Hannibal studies. Conversations with Adrian Goldsworthy have always been enormously profitable.
Scholars whose Hannibal work I know and respect greatly have also been enormous assets even though I do not know them personally. These include Dexter Hoyos, Nigel Bagnall, Giovanni Brizzi, Barry Strauss, Richard Miles, Robert Garland, Richard Gabriel, Robert O’Connell, Michael Fronda, Everett Wheeler, Paul Erdcamp, Nic Fields, Eve MacDonald, Peter van Dommelen, and Mark Healy. I also learned from military historians such as John Lazenby, H. H. Scullard, Basil Liddell Hart, and Serge Lancel. All of these authors have made valuable and permanent contributions even while embracing different viewpoints. If I have overlooked or forgotten debts, it is not intentional. And although they are relatively distant, I acknowledge that Napoléon and Carl von Clausewitz were also instrumental in my own Hannibal quests; both were intrigued by his tactics, and Napoléon even attempted to follow Hannibal in multiple Alps crossings—hedging his bets—plus also copying aspects of his marches and maneuvers.
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