The Ghosts of Cannae: Hannibal and the Darkest Hour of the Roman Republic

by Robert L. O'Connell

  It is generally acknowledged that Carthaginians excelled as traders, and also in manufacturing and selling things made from simpler materials … value added. But here the historical analysis frequently stops or is short-circuited by what appear to be some fundamental misunderstandings.

  The first misunderstanding has to do with the nature and consequences of Carthage’s expansion into the North African interior. Traditionally, this has been interpreted in a political context, landed nobility seen as an antipode to the aristocracy of trade, or in terms of those favoring internal as opposed to overseas expansion.11 Recently, however, there has been a growing understanding of just how integrated Carthaginian agriculture was into the larger sphere of business enterprise.12 By 300 B.C. the lands around the city had been turned into a vast food factory, an inner zone devoted to grapes, figs, olives, almonds and pomegranates, along with an outer band generating huge quantities of wheat—Punic latifundia worked by slaves and restive Libyan peasants and providing a massive component of total exports. This was why the Romans thought to preserve Mago’s text on agronomy; it constituted the state of the art in turning plants into money. Still, the fecundity of Carthage amazed and even frightened the Romans. Livy (31.19.2) tells us that in 200, just a year after the Carthaginians were defeated in the Second Punic War, they nevertheless managed to send four hundred thousand bushels of wheat to Rome and to her troops in Macedonia. Ten years later, much more, including five hundred thousand bushels of barley for the Roman army, was offered as a gift by the obliging Carthaginians, but the Roman senate, plainly put off by such ostentation on the part of the vanquished, insisted on paying.

  But there was more to Carthage as an economic powerhouse than simply a green thumb. Archaeological finds have led commentators to make note of the apparently high volume of imports to Carthage. This is usually viewed as a weakness—Carthaginian artisans are seen as lacking the skill and artistry to satisfy anyone other than the “unsophisticated western barbarians.”13 The fact that Carthaginians preferred Rhodian wine to African, that they favored Campanian ware and persisted in bringing in whole boatloads of Greek art and vases de luxe, is seen as an economic drain, a surrender to style over self-sufficiency. It was probably a sign of neither, but instead a sign of something much more sophisticated. Through a process of trial and error Carthaginians seem to have stumbled upon the principle of comparative advantage—the idea that even if a place could produce everything it needed more efficiently at home, it was still better off concentrating on what it did best and trading with others for the rest. This is not to say there existed a Punic David Ricardo14 or that Carthaginians had a firm grasp of exactly what was going on, only that they tried it and it worked. And it kept on working until they grew incomprehensively wealthy.

  The Carthaginians were good at business and bad at war. Paradoxically, their beatings at the hands of the Romans had the net effect of making them richer—less bellicose and more businesslike. This became most evident after the Second Punic War, when Carthage accepted near total subordination to Rome—literally outsourced warfare—and quickly reached new heights of prosperity, offering to pay off its huge war indemnity (nearly six hundred thousand pounds of silver) after only ten rather than fifty years.15 This sort of thing infuriated the Romans, and because military power was their bottom line, it also frightened them. It was no accident that Cato the Elder, the man who ended every speech with “delenda est Carthago” (“Carthage must be destroyed”), held up as evidence of Rome’s vulnerability a fresh fig reputedly picked in the Punic capital just three days earlier, saying, “Ah yes, we have an enemy this close to our walls!”16 To Roman eyes a Carthaginian fig could never be just a fig; money would inevitably be turned to the ends of Mars. So the city’s doom was sealed.

  The Carthaginians should have known better, that their wealth could not protect them in a world ruled by war. Their cash machine was by its nature vincible. The city itself was protected by massive defenses, perhaps the most elaborate in the ancient world,17 but the manicured countryside practically invited an invader to set up camp and live off the fat of the land. As far back as 310 B.C., Agathocles of Syracuse, besieged at home by Carthage, turned the tables on the Carthaginians and landed in Africa, bringing the city to the verge of ruin before he was forced to withdraw. Not only did he defeat the defenders in the open field near Tunis, thereby isolating the city from its inland empire, but the native Libyans greeted him as their liberator.18 This was critical; the Libyans had already rebelled twice in the preceding century, and would do so again and again subsequently.19

  Carthaginian expansion had been driven by the logic of economics, and as long as these ties were based on trade and merchandising, they appear to have been loose and not very onerous. Penetration into Africa, however, brought with it the usual mechanisms of territorial control—governors, provincial organization, taxes—and in general the grip of Carthage tightened with time.20 While the population controlled by the middle of the third century was likely as large as, or perhaps even larger than, the Italian confederation’s, Carthage was characteristically more interested in tribute than soldiers.21 Unlike with Rome, there was no compensatory attempt to enlist the loyalty of the subject populations, much less to grant citizenship. This was an empire by and for Carthaginians; everybody else was just an economic input. It’s no wonder Hannibal assumed Rome’s allies would desert; loyalty among subordinates was not something Carthaginians cultivated or much understood.

  Among themselves, though, they did stick together. While it is difficult to call a place that periodically relegated large numbers of its offspring to a fiery death a healthy society, it did at least give the appearance of being cohesive and well governed. Carthage was a place of merchant princes and presumably vast economic inequalities, but compared to the vicious internal strife evident in contemporary Greek cities, class conflict here remained muted if not exactly nonexistent. Twice during the fourth century would-be strongmen had tried and failed to stage putsches, and had received little support from the urban proletariat or even the city’s slaves.

  As it happens, a good deal is known of Carthage’s governmental structure, Aristotle having had a good opinion of the scheme, which combined, he said, the best features of monarchy, oligarchy, and democracy (Politics 2.11). He also appears to have understood that it was an evolving system and had changed considerably since the beginning of the fourth century. The center of gravity when he wrote lay with the oligarchic element—a council of elders of several hundred long-term members, perhaps controlled by a body of 104 judges, or by another group of 30 key councilors. The exact relationship among the three is subject to some uncertainty, but with nobody denying they collectively embodied the city’s wealthy.22 The state’s senior executives by the third century were two annually elected suffetes, whom Aristotle doesn’t specifically mention but who were derived from an original monarchy with strongly religious overtones. They too were creatures of the plutocracy, holding supreme religious and civil authority but no command role over the military. Should the suffetes and the elders agree on a proposal, they could implement it without further consultation. But if they did not agree, they had to refer it to the assembly of the people, where any citizen could speak and even make a counterproposal—the democratic component.

  Carthaginian politics are hard to track with any precision; we have only fragmentary references from the various Greek and Roman sources. But clearly there were factions and basic disagreements over policy, especially during the crisis period that began with the end of the First Punic War in 241 B.C. Some historians have attempted to characterize this time as part of a “democratic revolution,”23 which seems overstated; but it does appear that power was shifting in the face of oligarchic failure, and what went on in the assembly of the people took on added significance. For one thing, it is apparent that during the first of the wars with Rome the assembly was electing Carthage’s military commanders.24 But this simply ratified what had always been true: in Carthage,
unlike in Rome, politicians and soldiers had very different career paths, and the former basically saw the latter as employees.

  The number of male citizens in Carthage was always small (probably never exceeding 120,000),25 and consequently the city stopped relying on its own soldiers early in its history. Only in dire emergencies were its citizens called to arms, and even then the forces were limited (during the Mercenary War, 241–238 B.C., a desperate conflict, only ten thousand troops could be raised to fight with Hamilcar26) and not very capable, taking the field as a phalanx, the best formation for amateurs. But until Agathocles retaliated by invading Carthage, the city remained secure in its isolation in North Africa, and could afford to dispense with a standing indigenous ground force. Overseas, it made entirely more sense to rent rather than own, to hire and fire mercenaries as circumstance dictated.

  Consequently, the number of Carthaginians who specialized in soldiering remained very small, limited to those who officered the hirelings, a cadre probably derived from a narrow group of noble families.27 Since there didn’t seem to be any specific time limit on a military commander’s service and he was normally left to his own devices on campaign so long as he avoided defeat, it might seem that accumulated experience would add up to a high degree of professionalism. This was not necessarily so; for one thing, generals seem to have owed their positions as much to wealth and social standing as to competence.28 And if they were given considerable autonomy, this could amount to enough rope to hang—or, more properly, crucify—themselves.

  Corporate Carthage expected positive results from its military managers, and defeat was more than frowned upon. Unsuccessful generals were subject to a strict accounting before the executive board of 104 judges, and the results of a negative performance review could find the recipient mounted on a cross. Crucifixion, it seems, brought an end to more than a few budding military careers, four commanders having met their fate in this manner during the First Punic War alone.29 This sort of negative incentivizing seems emblematic of the segregation of civilian and military expertise in Carthage. The Roman senate, filled with former soldiers thoroughly familiar with the friction and fog of war, proved much more forgiving of unsuccessful commanders, even of Terentius Varro, Cannae’s biggest loser. Lacking any equivalent corporate understanding of land warfare, Carthage instead applied the stick, or rather the cross.

  This brand of military disconnect also helps explain another characteristic Punic military delusion, a reliance on war elephants. Like the Romans, the Carthaginians got their first dose of panzer pachyderms from Pyrrhus, military history’s favorite Epirote, when they fought him in Sicily during his short sojourn there in 278. Unlike the Romans, who simply learned to deal with the elephants, the Carthaginians had their own by 262 and soon became addicted.

  This proved to be a bad habit. Elephants can be panicked easily, not a good quality during warfare.30 When this happened, they tended to treat friend and foe alike, flailing wildly and stepping on anyone in the way, which was often the Carthaginians themselves. Granted, the elephants were terrifying to uninitiated enemy troops, and could disrupt cavalry, since horses found their scent repulsive. But there were simply too many ways they could be thwarted, and their net effect was to add another uncontrolled variable to the battlefield. They do appear to have played some role in defeating the Roman general Regulus when he invaded Africa in 256, but it is hard to find another comparable Carthaginian success with pachyderms. And this must be weighed against the elephantine expense of capturing, training, and transporting them, a negative cost-benefit result by any realistic accounting.

  But Carthage was plainly struck by their jumbo size and power—an ancient ultimate weapon—a mirage the possession of which might render all other military shortcomings irrelevant, a particularly beguiling notion to an acquisitive people not much used to fighting on the ground. Also, elephants were available. Carthaginians, after all, lived in Africa, and so-called forest elephants (Loxodonta africana cyclotis) were likely to be found north of the Sahara. Although they were smaller than the Indian models ridden by the Hellenistic Greeks, they were still plenty impressive, standing nearly eight feet tall at the shoulder.31 Even Hannibal was fooled, making a heroic effort to herd some over the Alps, only to have them die well before he ever reached Cannae. Still, he remained interested, and his disastrous last stand at Zama in 201 featured eighty of the giant beasts. But war is not a circus, and they panicked as usual, marking Hannibal as the last and greatest of the Punic pachyderm true believers.

  Militarily, Carthage was on firmer ground at sea. Shipborne trade was the city’s lifeblood, and the necessary skills and experience were likely to have been widely shared by a whole class of mariners. Undoubtedly many crewed in commercial transports. It also appears probable, though not certain, that Carthage’s navy was largely, if not exclusively Carthaginian manned.32 Since Hellenic navies were rowed by their own nationals, Polybius, a Greek, likely would have mentioned it had it not been the case with Carthage. It has also been suggested that naval service helps explain the political stability of the city, since it would have given the poorest elements steady employment.33

  This was no minor proposition. By 256 B.C. the basic Carthaginian warship, a quinquereme (named after the arrangement of its oars), required a crew of around three hundred to row.34 Archaeological excavation of the famed circular military harbor at Carthage indicates berthing space for around 180 first-line warships. Together this amounts to a requirement of fifty-four thousand oarsmen, a substantial percentage of the total male population. All signs point to Carthaginians taking great pride in their fleet, and this in turn points to wide participation. (Livy reports that when Scipio Africanus burned the Carthaginian fleet at the end of the Second Punic War, the sight caused grief as deep as if the city itself had been aflame.35)

  Arguably this pride and this participation were at the heart of Carthage’s tragic fate. The fleet, as noted above, was a fragile asset, and its military power was hard to apply, but that would not have been apparent, either to Carthaginian or to other eyes. During the first portion of the third century B.C., the force’s squadrons swept around the waters of the western Mediterranean, showing the flag and looking very formidable. In 276, Plutarch tells us, the Carthaginians caught Pyrrhus in the Strait of Messana (modern Messina) and destroyed most of what was probably a convoy of merchant vessels carrying his soldiers.36 When Carthage later went to war with the Romans, the admiral Hanno boasted that he would not even let Romans wash their hands in the sea. Given the circumstances, it sounded realistic, but instead the Romans would turn the waters around Sicily red with Carthaginian blood. For they would fight as if they were on land, and Carthage would find itself locked in a struggle that would consume huge quantities of its wealth. This is generally conceded, but there is something entirely more demoralizing that has been largely overlooked: quite probably large numbers of the citizens who manned the oars of Carthage’s war galleys were killed.

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  Carthage and Rome had a long and not necessarily unfriendly relationship, with Polybius (3.22 ff) citing three treaties between the two states going back as far as 508–7 B.C. There is a lot of scholarly debate over the contents of the first two pacts, yet most agree they were largely about carving out spheres of influence for trade. The Carthaginians were interested in keeping the Romans clear of Libya and Sardinia, but they yielded primacy in Latium and granted the Romans commercial rights in Sicily—fair enough, considering the status and motivation of the parties. The final agreement in 279–8 was specifically concerned with mutual support against Pyrrhus, though nothing much came of it, except perhaps bad feelings. There is a confusing story that had a Carthaginian fleet descending on Pyrrhus’s erstwhile ally, the city of Tarentum, in 272, just as the Romans were besieging it by land. The Carthaginians were offering their help, but this left the Romans suspicious, since no aid had been requested. At any rate, relations continued downhill.

  A group of Campanian mercenaries,
who had earlier worked for Agathocles, seized the city of Messana in Sicily sometime during the 280s.37 Calling themselves Mamertines, after the war god Mars, the Campanians took advantage of the confusion engendered by Pyrrhus’s short stay to plunder the surrounding area and generally make a nuisance of themselves for upward of fifteen years. Then, hard-pressed by the new and vigorous ruler of Syracuse, Hiero, the Mamertines appealed to both Carthage and Rome for help. Both responded, which put them in a competitive position and eventually on a collision course. Many contemporary historians agree with Polybius that the Roman decision to take up the sword in 264 was basically opportunistic, driven by Rome’s fundamental motivators—the potential for military reputation and plunder—Romans acting like Romans.38 Still, it is interesting to note that in the years just prior to the first clash with Carthage, families of Campanian origin were on the political ascendancy in Rome (the Atilii, who held the consulship seven times between 267 and 245, were from Campania), and products from this district—pottery and wine—were in direct competition with Punic wares.39

  The Carthaginians, for their part, had been wrangling over chunks of Sicily for three centuries; in that regard this was nothing new, a continuation of business by other means. But Carthage very likely had no idea what to expect or, in Livy’s words (31.34.6) “what men they had to fight.” After all, Sicily was an island, and Carthage was a sea power.

  Actually, Carthage was at the precipice—the immovable object faced with Rome, the irresistible force. The first struggle would last twenty-three years, the longest continuous war in ancient history. Less than a century later there would be nothing left of Carthage, save smoldering ruins.