Shining a Light on History’s Forgotten People: 2. Hannibal of Carthage

Hannibal's Army in Battle

Born around 248 BC to Hamil Barca (whose family, incidentally give their name to the modern city of Barcelona), Hannibal would go on to distinguish himself as one of the greatest military commanders to ever walk the European battlefields, becoming the scourge of the Roman Republic and, briefly, champion of those Rome sought to subjugate.

Carthage, a large and commercially powerful Republic, with Phoenician origins, had its capital city in modern day Tunisia and lands that stretched from Spain, all along the coast of North Africa almost to modern day Benghazi in Libya and included the islands of Sardinia and Corsica. Constantly engaged with the emerging and overtly militaristic Roman Republic, Carthage, primarily a sea-faring and trade based Republic with less interest in military conquest, found itself, after fighting the Three Sicilian Wars and, between 264 and 241 the First Punic War, very much the dominated state. The latter war was a direct conflict between the two Republics over control of the Mediterranean and was a resounding victory for the Romans, destroying the seemingly more powerful Carthaginian fleet with innovative technology and superior infantry numbers. In the aftermath of the victory, Rome seized both Sardinia and Corsica and levied a huge war indemnity on the North Africans. It was into this that Hannibal was born, into the Barcid family, a warrior family based in Spain and committed to expanding Carthage’s Hispanic possessions.

He grew up a soldier in his father’s army, indoctrinated into hating Rome and pledging his life to their downfall, while all the while learning his trade, steeling his nerves for the battles to come. Following his Father’s death and his brother-in-laws assassination, Hannibal became the Strategus of Iberia, giving him a vast amount of power over the silver mines of the region, thus increasing his ability to keep a well-equipped personal standing army, a scenario which was view suspiciously in Carthage. With two years of expansionist warfare, including defying previous treaties by the retaking of lands held by Rome, he had made quite a name for himself and his fame in Carthage was only matched by his notoriety in Rome. Although the Senate in Carthage didn’t agree with his unilateral expansionist policy, they were powerless to stop him, especially as he was so popular and the Romans so hated. In 218BC Hannibal started his journey into Southern Gaul. His army number around 40,000 soldiers, 12,000 on horseback and around 37 war elephants, unseen before by the Gaulic tribes he came across, some of whom joined him, others chose to fight him and were easily defeated. The passage from Gaul through to modern day Italy along the coast was heavily defended both on land and by sea so Hannibal chose to march his army into Italy through a route the Romans had never thought possible with such a large force. Hannibal’s march through the Alps is probably his most well-known feat so I wish here to concentrate on what he did upon arrival in Northern Italy, in particular three battles against Roman forces.

His first encounter in the field was at the Battle of Trebia against the consuls Publius Cornelius Scipio, whose son was to become Scipio Africanus, and Tiberius Sempronius Longus. Reinforced by a Gallic uprising against Roman rule, Hannibal’s army outflanked the Romans and, with their backs to the river and fleeing, affected a massacre upon their numbers. Historian Sir Walter Raleigh blames the Roman loss on the incompetence of Tiberius Longus claiming that he “made no discovery of the place upon which he fought, whereby he was grossly overreached, and ensnared, by the ambush which Hannibal had laid for him”. The public reaction in Rome was understandably one of shock and fear; they had been beaten on land by a coalition of two of their old enemies; Celts and Carthaginians. With winter coming on and his position in Northern Italy secure, Hannibal settled until spring, whereupon he would once again terrorize the Romans.

Early 1917, two new Roman consuls, Cnaeus Servilius and Gaius Flaminius, were dispatched to block the Eastern and Western routes of Hannibals expected march on Rome, the Romans again presumptuous that he wouldn’t march through the central route at eh mouth of the Arno, a marchland of bog and flooded plain, which of course he did march through, losing an eye to conjunctivitis in the process. Although he lost many men on the march, and all his elephants, he had emerged round the other side of Flaminius’ line and proceeded to harass him into giving battle, a battle which the Roman was reluctant to join. He cut off his retreat passage to Rome, burned villages loyal to him, and, after executing the first recorded turning maneuver in military history, lured him into giving chase past the shore of Lake Trasimenus. The ambush that followed killed Flaminus and a huge portion of his men, drowned or otherwise dispatched, as Hannibal was now free to advance on Rome.

The arrival of Fabius Maximus saw the period of shadowing Hannibal’s army with smaller forces, harassing him and moving away, letting him devastate the countryside, aware that he had no siege engines to attack Rome. In Spring 216 Hannibal captured the supply depot at Cannae, positioning his army between it and Rome, cutting off one of the city’s major supply routes. In response, the Romans, now under consuls Gaius Terentius Varro and Lucius Aemilius Paullus raised an army considered massive for the time, said to be between 80,000 and 100,000 men. The battlefield chosen at Cannae was a clearing in a wooded area, giving advantage to a smaller force. Hannibal spread his line thin and long, with his famed Numidian cavalry on the right. The cavalry proceeded to smash through the Roman flanks as they lead the body of the army in a massive envelopment maneuver, surrounding the Romans so as to leave the bulk of their forces stuck in to centre of the mass, unable to have any effect on the battle. The Carthaginian army then proceeded to massacre the Romans from the outside in, killing or capturing around 70,000 men, including many senators and men of import. Cannae has been called the greatest military defeat in Roman history and led to a massive overhaul of the Roman mindset.

Unfortunately what seemed to be Hannibal’s crowning glory was not capitalized on. The Senate back in Carthage refused to send reinforcements and, after twelve more years of devastating the Italian countryside with a diminishing army and trying to find Roman armies to fight, Hannibal fled Italy for Carthage. The Romans had taken the lessons of their defeats to heart and, when they launch the Second Punic War against Carthage in 203BC they were again a far superior fighting force, with Scipio Africanus defeating Hannibal at the battle of Zama, ending the war in favour of the Romans.

Hannibal left a legacy not only to the people of Carthage but, perhaps more importantly from our point of view, to the Romans. Men like Julius Caesar would have studied Hannibals tactics and used the treachery of the Gauls as a pretext for spreading Roman rule into modern day France and beyond, altering the make-up of European civilization. To most modern Military historians he was a general matched only by Alexander the Great.