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

by Robert L. O'Connell

  Finally, Scipio turned to the Spanish tribal people who had been held hostage within the city, more than three hundred individuals. Besides giving them gifts, he urged them to write to their relatives at home informing them of their safety and of Scipio’s willingness to repatriate them should their tribes side with Rome. When a Spanish noblewoman begged that the female hostages be treated “with more proper consideration than the Carthaginians had done,” he first missed her meaning, and then assured her he would look after them “as if they were his own sisters and children.” Around this time, his soldiers tried to present Scipio, who was known to like women, with a young girl of surpassing beauty, but instead of bedding her, he delivered her back to her father or her local lover, depending whether you believe Polybius or Livy.15 Whoever it was, this was exactly the sort of gesture that won over a population, and epitomized Scipio’s sagacity and self-control.

  The sudden descent on New Carthage, carried out under the noses of three enemy field armies, proved a master stroke. In a single blow Scipio transformed the entire cast of the war in Spain. New Carthage had been the powerhouse of the Barcid Iberian empire, the repository for three decades of looting and confiscations, and their own personal military-industrial complex. Now all this gold and silver and industriousness was Roman. Given this setback to the Barcid family power and prestige, it is also possible to hypothesize a parallel shift among Carthaginians, with the subsequent financing and direction of the war in Spain sliding more toward metropolitan Carthage and relative newcomer Hasdrubal Gisgo, and away from the Barcid brothers in Spain, Mago and Hasdrubal. Whatever the case, it was completely apparent that the initiative now lay with Publius Scipio.

  Nor was he about to let it go. He turned New Carthage into a hive of activity, constantly exercising his navy and rigorously training his troops in repeated five-day cycles that combined long marches with sword and javelin practice and weapons maintenance.16 He also may have begun instituting the new infantry tactics he would spring on the Carthaginians the following year.17 Meanwhile, under skilled foremen and his own supervision, he set the rest of the population to work in what Polybius (10.20.6–7) called “a workshop of war,” with “everyone busily engaged upon the preparations of weapons.” Yet he was still facing three hostile armies. Putting his own force in the best possible condition addressed the purely military dimension of the problem, but this was Spain, and adroit diplomacy with the tribes might prove equally corrosive to his enemies.

  So as the winter of 209–8 approached, he returned to Tarraco, where he called together deputies of Rome’s native allies, both old and new. It proved the beginning of an avalanche of tribal defections from the Carthaginians, sweeping along, not unexpectedly, the ever pliable Indibilis, who made a career of switching sides.18

  Watching group after group slip out of his camp with the intent of joining the Romans, Hasdrubal Barca decided to make a fight of it with Scipio before his army entirely melted away. If he won, he would have the time and security to plot his next move. If bested, he was prepared to give up on Spain, head across the Alps with the survivors, fill up on Gallic mercenaries, and then join Hannibal.19

  For his part, Scipio not only was ready to rumble, but was ready specifically to fight Hasdrubal, who was closest, before the other two Carthaginian armies could converge on him. He even drew the crews from the fleet into his legions, in an effort to ensure he would not be outnumbered. He left Tarraco in the spring of 208 and, as he moved south, linked up with Indibilis and his contingent, finally locating the Carthaginians at a place called Baecula (the modern town of Bailén).

  Upon hearing of Scipio’s approach, Hasdrubal moved to a very strong defensive position on a flat-topped hill protected by steep banks in the front and on the sides, and by a river to the rear. Some have argued that this position indicated that Hasdrubal didn’t really want a fight, but it seems more likely he was hoping Scipio might hesitate long enough for Mago or Hasdrubal Gisgo to arrive. Or perhaps he was hoping to lure the Roman commander into a problematic uphill slog, which was exactly what happened.20

  Scipio waited two days, perhaps hoping the Carthaginians would come down off their hill, but then, worried about the imminent arrival of the other Punic armies, Scipio resolved to attack. The choice was hardly as rash as it might seem. The force structure he wielded was a far different instrument from the traditional three-line bulldozer militia of even the recent Roman past. Scipio had raised the training to a much higher level, one sufficient for major components to break apart and maneuver truly as independent units, but still in a coordinated fashion.21

  The Romans began the attack with a direct assault in the center by the velites, whose enthusiasm and apparent training set the conditions for success. The velites worked their way up the hill under a barrage of missiles, gained a foothold at the top, and then routed the Punic covering force. This initial move seems to have surprised Hasdrubal, who began to form up his heavy troops near the ridgeline.

  It was too late. Scipio had already divided his own heavy forces, leading one half himself and giving the other to Laelius, and set them off on a flanking maneuver on either side of the hill. They raced to the top, deployed from column into line, and then executed a pincer movement against the Carthaginian formation before it was fully formed. It was a rout, but in an almost melodramatic turn of events (think Professor Moriarty, or Dr. Fu-Manchu, or Ming the Merciless slipping through the righteous clutches of Flash Gordon), Hasdrubal managed to exit stage left with his treasure chest, his elephants, and a goodly portion of his heavy troops, heading off toward Italy with the hope of joining his elder brother.

  The Barcid’s latest disappearing act caused Scipio biographer H. H. Scullard to label Baecula a tactical victory but a strategic defeat.22 In one sense this is certainly true. It was the singular achievement of Scipio’s father and uncle to have prevented Hannibal’s reinforcement from Spain at a truly parlous time for the state, but they had also ended up dead because of tactical miscues in the face of superior forces. Had Scipio taken off after Hasdrubal, he might have eventually found himself sandwiched between this retreating force and the forces of Mago and Hasdrubal Gisgo. Besides, the situation in Italy was now far more to Rome’s advantage than it had been earlier, when Hannibal had truly been on the loose. Meanwhile, even with the middle Barcid brother gone, Scipio was still outnumbered in Spain and had to be careful.

  So he set himself up in the security of the captured Punic camp atop the hill and set about reinforcing his position. First he disposed of his battle prisoners, sending the Spaniards home without ransom, and ordering the Africans to be sold as slaves.23 (Livy tells us that during this process the quaestor came across a particularly handsome youth, who claimed to be of royal Numidian blood. He was sent to Scipio, who discovered him to be the nephew of Masinissa, who had helped run down his father and uncle. Another might have exacted familial revenge, but Scipio, looking to the future, had the boy sent back to his uncle under armed guard.24) Next, Scipio presided over a procession of nearby tribal leaders ready to pay their obeisance to Rome, paving the way for further incursions toward the valley of the Baetis River and the remaining Punic strongholds. The Spaniards, including the shifty Indibilis, could barely contain their enthusiasm, saluting Scipio as “king.” The prudent Scipio replied that while he appreciated the sentiment, such a title was bound to set teeth on edge in Rome, so he suggested instead “imperator,” a title that had already been bestowed upon him by his troops. In fact this was the first chronicled example of such a title being given to a victorious Roman general. It would not be the last.25

  [2]

  Back in Italy, Marcellus was looking to crown his storied career by at last getting rid of the Punic incubus. Plutarch (Marcellus, 28) reports, “No man ever had such a passion for anything as he had for fighting a decisive battle with Hannibal. This was his dream at night, his one subject for deliberation with friends and colleagues, his one appeal to the gods.”

  Upon returning to
Rome after Sicily, Marcellus was notably more aggressive than the other Roman commander, an approach that was bound to put him somewhat at odds with Fabian II and its namesake. Yet the differences between Marcellus and Fabius should not be exaggerated; for the time being both continued to operate within the context of the overall plan—Fabius acting as Rome’s shield and Marcellus as its sword.26

  The year 209 proved to be a watershed for this partnership and also for the Roman confederation, which after nearly a decade of war was showing signs of fraying, and not just at the edges. Apparently, many of the survivors of the Second Battle of Herdonea the year before, those subsequently exiled to join the ghosts of Cannae indefinitely on Sicily, had been Latin.27 Now twelve of the thirty Latin colonies announced to the Roman consuls that they could no longer furnish their quota of fighting men or the money to support them. They were bitter and tapped out. Manpower was at the heart of the Roman military advantage, and Latins were at the heart of the alliance—the next best thing to being a full citizen—so this was a significant warning. Wisely, the senate did nothing beyond refusing to talk to the Latin colonies’ envoys—a Roman version of the “silent treatment”28—but the signal did not go unnoticed. Progress, real progress, had to be made soon.

  One key was to recapture Tarentum, the rich Greek port city on the inner side of Italy’s heel and, besides Capua, Hannibal’s most prized acquisition since Cannae. The plan was for Fabius Maximus to besiege the place by land and sea, but to do this safely it was necessary to keep Hannibal off his back. This was where Marcellus came in.

  Before he realized what was intended for Tarentum, Hannibal moved up into Apulia as far as Canusium, where he tried to stir up the inhabitants against Rome. But instead he was intercepted by Marcellus with a large army, including the 18th and 20th legions, and Caius Claudius Nero commanding one of the alae, Marcellus having been ordered out of winter quarters with the object of picking a fight with Hannibal.29

  After some initial maneuvering, this is exactly what he did. If we are to believe Livy, who may have made the episode sound more decisive than it actually was, the first day ended with the Romans being pushed ingloriously off the battlefield. But Marcellus’s après-combat harangue so humiliated the legionaries, that after a night of rest and contemplation they retook the field determined to prevail. Then, at a key point the Romans managed to stampede Hannibal’s elephants—always the weak link—back into the Punic lines and drive the Carthaginians into their camp.30 Suspiciously, however, when Hannibal characteristically slipped away under the cover of darkness, Livy tells us Marcellus had too many wounded to follow. Whatever the actual tactical outcome, the Roman commander had certainly stood up to Hannibal, as he had done on several occasions previously, and in doing so he had accomplished the strategic purpose of the operation.

  For back in Tarentum, Fabius Maximus had succeeded, through a plot with a Bruttian member of the Punic garrison, in gaining entry into the city. Once inside, the Roman troops ran wild, slaughtering Carthaginians, Tarentines, and even some of the Bruttians indiscriminately. Hannibal raced to the scene, marching day and night, but by the time he arrived, it was too late. He then concocted an elaborate plot to draw Fabius into combat, one that Fabius might have fallen for, had it not been for bad auspices.31 Instead the Delayer stayed to concentrate on looting the place, recovering immense quantities of gold and silver and selling some thirty thousand Tarentines into slavery. This was the windfall Rome needed to recoup its public finances, and it was a fleecing so exorbitant that Livy tried to defend Fabius on the grounds that, unlike Marcellus at Syracuse, Fabius at least left some of the statues.32

  Meanwhile, as the year drew to a close, Marcellus, “Rome’s sword,” returned home to face critics who charged that after Canusium he had spent too much time licking his wounds. These critics even threatened to take away his imperium. Marcellus not only blunted this effort, but managed to get himself elected to his fifth consulship. The politics and factions behind this maneuvering remain obscure,33 but the overall message seems clear: Marcellus and his consular colleague, T. Quinctius Crispinus, were expected to behave even more aggressively. Rome once again was looking beyond the strategy of Fabius Maximus and contemplating outright victory over Hannibal.34

  After some preliminaries, the year 208 found the two consuls and their armies joined in Apulia near Venusia, determined to fight the first full-scale confrontation with Hannibal since Cannae. The Carthaginian commander was stationed a few miles off, and the ground separating the opposing forces was dominated by a large heavily wooded hill. Such an eminence was a likely site for a secure camp, but instead Hannibal, ever the trickster, saw grounds for an ambush. He seeded the hill with concealed Numidians lying in wait. Obligingly, Marcellus and Crispinus decided to take a small mounted force to reconnoiter the place. There is some disagreement between Livy’s version and Polybius’s fragment regarding the details of the event, but the outcome was perfectly clear. Marcellus was run through and died on the spot, and Crispinus was mortally wounded, though he escaped.35

  Hannibal gave Marcellus an elaborate funeral, but then used his signet ring to try to get a band of deserters disguised as Romans into Salapia, the place where Hannibal had earlier enjoyed the company of a local prostitute. Crispinus managed to foil this plot before he died by warning the neighboring communities not to trust any message supposedly sent by his colleague. Still, it was pretty obvious that the Punic fox had lost little of his edge and remained full of schemes. It was equally clear that Marcellus, whom Polybius cruelly labeled as having acted “not so much like a general as like a simpleton,”36 had not been up to beating him. Modern historian J. F. Lazenby considers Marcellus a kind of archetype of conventional Roman generals, “brave, hard and competent,” admirable qualities but, when faced with a military genius, plainly not enough.37 Against a force so protean, Rome would have to fight fire with fire.

  [3]

  For the moment things were looking grim, even desperate, along the Tiber. And it was not just a matter of restive Latins; there were ominous reports of unrest in Etruria (Tuscany today), the rich area in the northeast. For reasons beyond historical comprehension, Terentius Varro had been again invested with the imperium and sent to Etruria to bring some hostages back to Rome. Upon his return, he delivered such an alarmist report that he was given a legion and ordered to return. This marked the start of Etrurian troubles that would only grow worse with the arrival of a new Barcid menace.38

  Hasdrubal Barca was on the move, and his progress had been monitored with increasing alarm along the Tiber. Envoys from Rome’s friend Massilia reported that Hasdrubal had crossed into coastal Gaul, and later Rome’s own agents sent back word that the Carthaginian intended to traverse the Alps in the spring of 207. Next, the praetor L. Porcius Licinus dispatched news that the Barcid was again mobile, having recruited eight thousand of the northern tribesmen known as Ligurians. Finally, and most shocking, the Romans learned that Hasdrubal had been given a friendly reception by the Alpine Gauls, had slid through the mountains more easily and directly than his brother, and was now in Italy laying siege to Placentia earlier than anyone had thought possible.39

  These trip reports were potentially devastating psychologically. The Romans had waged war on their own territory at great cost in casualties and devastation for upward of a decade, and although Hannibal had been effectively cornered in the south, he obviously remained capable of flummoxing even their most experienced commanders. Now the Romans were faced with a second Gaul-fortified Barcid visitation from out of the Alpine mists, one potentially even more disastrous, should Hasdrubal manage to join forces with his diabolical brother, a true nightmare scenario. (“Not even the first invasion caused as much terror and confusion in Italy,” reported the ever hyperbolic Silius Italicus. “Men said that here was a second Hannibal, … and the two generals, gorged with Italian blood … were doubling their strength; the enemy would come in headlong haste to Rome.”)40

  Fortunately, those in ch
arge saw through the situation and acted accordingly. In fact, Rome was now battle-hardened, far stronger, and more militarily capable than when Hannibal had first entered Italy. For the year 207, fully twenty-three legions were to be fielded. This was the greatest number in the war and was equaled only in 211 during the relentless siege of Capua. But after Rome lost two consuls simultaneously to Hannibal, the perception must have been that the senate needed to make sure the right men now assumed command. The obvious choice for consul was the very dynamic and experienced C. Claudius Nero. He had been among the conquerors of Capua, had nearly put an end to Hasdrubal in Spain, and had been with Marcellus at Canusium when, at the very least, they had kept Hannibal away from Tarentum.41 Yet his very boldness left a sense of unease and sparked a desire by the leadership to balance him with a more prudent soul as colleague.

  Marcus Livius Salinator was hardly a conventional choice. After sharing the consulship in 219 with Lucius Aemilius Paullus and successfully fighting the Illyrian War, Salinator had been convicted for mishandling the booty and had withdrawn in disgrace to his estates for more than a decade, letting his hair and beard grow long, and wearing only shabby clothing. Still, his leadership skills and cool head were not forgotten, and in 209, Marcellus and Laevinus convinced him to return to the senate, where he said very little and remained his unkempt self, at least until the censors forced him to cut his hair and put on a clean toga. Further complicating matters, Salinator and Nero, perhaps for temperamental reasons, were notorious enemies. But the perceived emergency was pressing, and under the auspices of Fabius Maximus the senate reconciled these two strong personalities—fire and ice—and they formed a notably effective consular team.42