Hannibal: A Hellenistic Life (21 page)

Renouncing all communication with his country, he marched through hostile or unknown nations, which he was obliged to attack or subdue; he crossed the Pyrenees and the Alps, which were presumed to be impassable, and descended upon Italy, sacrificing the half of his army for the mere acquisition of his field of battle, the mere right of fighting.
(Napoleon Bonaparte on Hannibal)
⁷³

This most symbolic aspect of Hannibal’s life, the crossing of the Alps with a fully equipped army and elephants, is a feat of daring and genius still admired today. The exploit leaves even a modern audience questioning the sanity of taking tens of thousands of soldiers plus horses and elephants across the mountains. When Napoleon campaigned against the Austrians in the north of
Italy in the late eighteenth century he too crossed the Alps with a fully equipped army, an act that modern historians still consider with awe: ‘A move so incredible that it had no modern precedent; a startled world was inevitably put in mind of the one ancient soldier who had done it: Hannibal.’
⁷⁴
Napoleon himself, a student of ancient history and of great military leaders, later discussed Hannibal in his own correspondence and claimed that ‘Hannibal forced the Alps … but we have turned their flank!’ Napoleon offered more insights on Hannibal’s actions and motivations from exile on St Helena at the end of his life. ‘Hannibal is, perhaps, the most surprising character of any, from the intrepidity, confidence, and grandeur evinced in all his enterprises. At the age of twenty-six, he conceived what is scarcely conceivable, and executed what must have been looked upon as impossible.’
⁷⁵

Napoleon’s comments on Hannibal’s motives provide us with the unique view of one military genius on another, separated by two millennia. Napoleon the strategist reflected on the Carthaginian military genius and in the same passage pondered the degree that luck and pure bloody-mindedness must have played in Hannibal’s career:

Will anyone believe that he owed his career and so many great deeds to the fickleness of chance and the favours of fortune? Certainly he must have been possessed of a spirit of the strongest kind, and have had an extremely high opinion of his knowledge of war, this man who, when hailed by his young conqueror, would not hesitate, although he had just been defeated, to rank himself immediately behind Alexander and Pyrrhus, who were, according to him, the two best generals ever.
⁷⁶

The impact of the Alps throughout the ages has placed Hannibal’s crossing in the realm of myth and heroes (Plate 6). He is compared to Jason and the Argonauts, to Aeneas, and ranked alongside Achilles.
⁷⁷
This most heroic deed played a key role in the psychological impact Hannibal had on the Romans and the people of Italy once he arrived. By taking his army across the Alps and into Italy Hannibal reinforced his reputation for divinely inspired leadership. The Alps were high, mighty, freezing and dangerous. Crossing them was an epic feat of heroes.

CHAPTER 6

HANNIBAL THE CONQUEROR
FROM THE TREBIA TO TRASIMENO

By Thrasimene’s lake, in the defiles

Fatal to Roman rashness, more at home;

For there the Carthaginian’s warlike wiles

Come back before me, as his skill beguiles

(
Lord Byron,
Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage
Canto 4, LXII
)
¹

H
ANNIBAL ARRIVED IN
I
TALY
and brought war to Rome. His strategy was to disrupt the Roman offensive against Africa and Iberia and to shift the focus on to Italy and Rome’s allies. Hannibal’s appearance in Italy forced the Romans on to the defensive. They do not seem to have entertained the idea of an invasion of Italy before it happened. ‘In Rome itself,’ Polybius writes ‘… news came that Hannibal was in Italy with his army and already laying siege to some cities. Something that seemed altogether astounding to them’ (3.61.7–9). The Romans felt confident that their consul would intercept Hannibal in Gaul and deal with his army before the Alps were crossed. They were caught off guard, had underestimated their enemy and been slow in their communications.
²
Yet still at Rome they must have been upbeat about their prospects. Hannibal’s successes so far had been against fierce yet divided Iberian and Celtic tribes. Taking on the disciplined might of the Roman legions would be a completely different proposition.

On Hannibal’s appearance in the late autumn of 218
BCE
, the consul Tiberius Sempronius Longus was recalled from Sicily where he had been planning to invade Africa. The Carthaginians had been skirmishing with the
Romans at sea, hoping to reclaim the port of Lilybaeum and disrupt their plans (Polyb. 3.61.9–10; Livy 21.49–51).
³
A comprehensive and coordinated strategy between Hannibal and Carthage seems more apparent at this point than at any other in the war. The withdrawal of the consular army from Sicily alleviated the direct threat to Carthage, a critical objective for Hannibal. Previous invasions of North Africa, by Regulus and Agathocles, had wrought havoc and would have created difficulties for Hannibal in Italy. By grasping the initiative he achieved his aim: the war would be fought in Italy and Roman plans had been disrupted.

Hannibal’s prospects for success lay in disabling the complex Roman system of power in the Italian peninsula. His ability to prise the allied cities away from Rome and isolate the Romans in Italy would be the key to future triumph. Much of Italy had been tied to Rome since the early third century through a structure of legal alliance, colonial foundation and citizenship grants.
⁴
From the north of Italy and the Celtic tribes of Cisapline Gaul to the Greek cities of the south and the central Italian Lucanian and Samnite peoples, the allies were vital. They supplied the Roman army with the auxiliary troops who made up a large proportion of the fighting force. Hannibal’s intention was, where possible, to destablize the existing alliance system. Considering the size of his army at this moment he clearly needed soldiers and supplies quickly. To achieve this he had to appeal to a wide range of peoples and cultures and be seen as a realistic threat to the formidable Roman power base. By causing ‘great alarm’ in Rome with his appearance in the north of Italy and achieving the impossible by crossing the Alps, Hannibal spread confusion and discord among the Romans and their allies.
⁵

The first action in Italy was to attack the main town of the Taurini tribe (possibly modern Turin), who were the enemies of the Carthaginian allies, the Insubres (Polyb. 3.60.8). A sense of Hannibal’s method can be discerned from the early encounters with the northern Italians. An approach was made to ‘solicit their friendship and alliance’ but when this was rejected, Hannibal laid siege and took the town in three days. ‘He put to the sword all those who resisted him’ and, as a result, the ‘neighbouring tribes of barbarians … immediately flocked to him’ (Polyb. 3.60.8–9). This had been standard Barcid procedure in Iberia and worked effectively among the Celtic tribes in the north of the Italian peninsula. Now was not the moment for Hannibal to show clemency, positioned as he was between the towering Alps and a newly arrived Roman army that had moved into the region. He had no choice but to push forward and could not leave hostile forces in his rear. The Romans, by crossing over the Po river, had placed themselves between Hannibal and the
wide-ranging Celtic armies that might otherwise have come to join him. It was now in Hannibal’s interest to quickly gain the upper hand and free those would-be allies from their Roman obligations. Polybius claimed that this was the determining factor in Hannibal’s decision to ‘advance and attempt some action to encourage those who were ready to share in his enterprise’ (3.60.13). He needed a quick win and could not afford to wait until the spring. This would have given the Romans a chance to shore up their defences and tie their allies closer to them.

The first engagement between a Roman army and Hannibal’s forces in Italy took place near to the Ticinus, a tributary that feeds the Po from the north (see
Map 1
).
⁶
Livy provides a sense of the rumour and tales of power that heralded Hannibal’s arrival in Italy by reporting the words of the Roman consul Publius Scipio just before the two sides met. ‘I want to see if this Hannibal really is, as he himself claims, on a par with Hercules on his travels, or rather has been left by his father as a mere tribute – and tax-payer, indeed a slave of the Roman people’ (Livy 21.41.7). The fighting words of Publius Scipio and dismissal of Hannibal’s reputation, although possibly an invention of Livy, reveal the power of the legend. Hannibal’s status had grown with each achievement, first in Iberia with his rapid expansion of territory, then at Saguntum, and finally with the audacity of his march into Italy. The speech also makes reference to Hannibal’s claim to his patron and protector, Melqart/Herakles. The Roman army that awaited Hannibal in the north of the Italian peninsula and even the consul Publius Scipio, for all the bravado, were ‘amazed at his … audacity and daring’ (Polyb. 3.61.6).
⁷

Publius Scipio’s route to meet Hannibal in the north of Italy had been an arduous one. The Roman consul was forced to react to Hannibal; to change his plans and deal with the unpredictable movements of the Carthaginian. It was late September when he left his brother Gnaeus with his army at the mouth of the Rhône. He took a small contingent of troops with him and retreated to Italy. On arrival at Pisa he then marched through Etruria and met up with the two legions under the command of the praetor Lucius Manlius Vulso. These legions had been levied and stationed in northern Italy to contend with the hostile Boii tribe of Celts. It was with this army that Scipio hastened to the Po valley to await the enemy.
⁸

In heavy fog on a late autumn morning Hannibal advanced from the west along the Po and Scipio came from the east – both armies on the north side.
⁹
The two forces marched for a day before they were almost on top of each other. ‘The next morning the two generals led out all their cavalry’ and as they ‘drew near … quickly formed themselves into battle order’. The atmosphere
was tense and both sides were eager to engage. At first the balance between the cavalry charges was maintained but Hannibal’s Numidian cavalry ‘outflanked the Romans and fell upon them from the rear’. The end result of the skirmish was that the Romans ‘broke and fled … and only a few remained with the consul’ (Polyb. 3.65.1–7). Publius Scipio was wounded and in one version of the story he is saved from certain death by his son (of the same name: the future Roman hero Scipio).
¹⁰
A less gallant version of the story has the consul saved by a Ligurian slave (Livy 21.46.9–10). Either way, Publius Scipio managed to lead his soldiers in retreat ‘to a place of safety’ back across the river to the Roman colony of Placentia (Piacenza) (Livy, 21.46.1–10; Polyb. 3.66.2).

Hannibal, with his first victory in hand, pursued the Romans. The significance of this win should not be underestimated for as he moved across the countryside he acquired allies and much-needed supplies. Supporters flocked to his side as the Celtic tribes in the valley ‘declared their backing for the Carthaginians … sending contingents to serve’ (Polyb. 3.66.6–7). The lure of the famous Carthaginian leader and anti-Roman sentiment were strong. The first skirmish had been enough to convince some of the wavering Celts that the ‘prospects of the Carthaginians were now decidedly brighter’ (Polyb. 3.67.1–4).

Hannibal was moving through unfamiliar territory and had to rely on the knowledge of his local supporters. He followed Scipio to Placentia and crossed the Po with his army after a two-day march. The Carthaginians built a bridge of boats to cross the river. Livy mentions how the elephants were used to break the current while the river was forded, which is an intriguing idea, although he dismisses it as ‘unlikely’ (Polyb. 3.66.6; Livy 21.47.5–6). Hannibal ‘drew up his army in full view of the enemy’ and presented the Romans with the opportunity to do battle. The Romans did not take up this invitation to fight. The consul was seriously wounded and they were wary of any engagement. That night the Celtic auxiliary troops in the Roman army staged a rebellion and attacked the Romans from within their camp; ‘they killed and wounded many men’, spreading terror by cutting off the heads of the slain. With this dramatic gesture the Celts in the Roman camp went over to Hannibal. Their desertion was another blow to the Romans. Publius Scipio, wounded and now abandoned by his allies, would not be drawn out. He wisely realized it would be a disaster to engage with the Carthaginian army at that moment (Polyb. 3.66.10–67.3). Hannibal now held the upper hand.

The harsh reality faced by the Roman legions was that, with their allies in rebellion, they could no longer remain safely ensconced at Placentia.
¹¹
Publius
Scipio also grasped that after Ticinus the open country ‘between the Po and the Alps was not a suitable battleground for the Romans given the superiority of the Carthaginian cavalry’ (Livy 21.47.1).
¹²
As a result the consul moved his army that same night, just before dawn and ‘marched towards the river Trebia and the hills in its neighbourhood’ (Polyb. 3.67.9). Hannibal sent his Numidian cavalry in pursuit and the main army followed. In the hills to the east of the Trebia the Romans set up a camp fortified with ‘a trench and palisade’. There, they awaited the arrival of reinforcements in the form of the other consular army from the south (Polyb. 3.68.1–6).

The legions of Sempronius made their way across the whole of the Italian peninsula from Sicily to join up with Publius Scipio’s army. They had been preparing to invade Africa and now faced a completely different challenge. It was a long and rugged journey and differing versions of how the army travelled north have survived (Polyb. 3.68.14; Livy 21.49–51). Livy portrays the consul and legions sailing up the Adriatic coast and assembling at the port city of Ariminum (modern Rimini) (
Map 1
).
¹³
According to Polybius, however, the soldiers were administered an oath by the consul in which they agreed to rendezvous on a certain day at Ariminum, thus alleviating the need to feed the whole mass of troops en route by not having them march together. In this version, the soldiers arrived by foot overland and Sempronius himself marched through Rome with at least some of his army, to the cheers of the people.
¹⁴