Hannibal: A Hellenistic Life (30 page)

Campania was one of the key theatres of the war. The Romans were determined not to lose any more territory and garrisoned key towns in the region. Over the years 215–205
BCE
the Romans were usually able to commit four to six, but sometimes seven, two-legion armies in Campania alone.
³⁰
In the crucial year of 212
BCE
, the Romans raised twenty-five legions in all theatres, the largest number in the war (Livy 24.11.1–2; Polyb. 2.24.1–16).
³¹
This is a huge number of active soldiers, amounting to well over 200,000 men. If we consider that two centuries later when Rome controlled much of the Mediterranean their armed forces totalled twenty-eight legions under the emperor Augustus, it seems even more impressive.
³²
Much of the detail and emphasis on Roman manpower comes from Polybius, and one of the themes of his work lies in convincing his audience that the Romans were dominant just because of these population resources: ‘how great was the power which Hannibal later ventured to attack’ (2.24.1). In every scenario suggested, Hannibal was vastly outnumbered and almost inevitably the brilliant victories
of 217–216
BCE
turned into a stalemate and the erosion of his capabilities. A war of attrition was always going to favour the Romans.
³³

Through the winter of 216/215
BCE
Rome was again fraught with political turmoil. Its fate in the balance, Rome turned to its veterans. Plutarch describes them as those who ‘in their youth campaigned against the Carthaginians over Sicily: in their prime they fought the Gauls for the defence of Italy itself and as veterans they found themselves matched once more against the Carthaginians’ (
Marc.
1). The consuls elected for 215
BCE
at Rome were Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus and Lucius Postumius Albinus. Albinus was killed fighting the Boii Gauls near modern Modena in the Po valley before he could even take up his post in March 215. A replacement consul was elected and it was the tough old soldier M. Claudius Marcellus, veteran of many battles, who had just successfully defended Nola in the autumn. As the election result was announced, a clap of thunder was heard. To the superstitious Romans this annulled the result and ‘Marcellus withdrew from office’ (Livy 23.31.13). The position of consul was then open for Fabius Maximus, who held the title for the third time (Livy 23.31.14).
³⁴
Marcellus was riding a wave of popularity for his spirited defence of Nola in the previous months and took up the command of his army in the south as
propraetor
(Livy 23.39.8). The other consul, Gracchus, was given the army of the newly raised slave volunteers and freedmen along with 25,000 allied troops. Gracchus would command these forces in Campania and Apulia for the following three years, first as consul and then with proconsular
imperium
(Livy 23.32.1).

The family and associates of the Fabii clan, headed by the venerable Fabius Maximus, held at least one of the two consulships for the subsequent three years. The Fabii were scions of the conservative patrician families at Rome. Their domination of consular elections over the next few years raises questions about the manipulation of the electoral process. It is possible that Fabius Maximus, as head of the college of priests, had declared Marcellus’ election invalid and engineered the annulment but then promised him the position the next year. Fabius Maximus would be elected to his fourth consulship in 214
BCE
, with Marcellus as his colleague, and his son would be consul in 213
BCE
. The Roman leadership during this period focused on continuity and control over the fighting rather than on the tradition of alternating yearly magistracies. There were exceptional appointments that allowed for successive consulships and our sources allude to conflict between the great families of the Republic over the distribution of the magistracies, although irregularities are explained as being necessitated by war.
³⁵

Hannibal’s strategy to cut Rome off from as many allies as possible was also directed towards inflicting serious damage on the finances of the city. It was both manpower and wealth that drove the Romans’ ability to rearm and repopulate their legions. In the spring of 215
BCE
the Roman state faced a serious financial crisis and money and supplies were requested from all the theatres of war (Livy 23.21.1). Titus Otacilius, commander in Sicily, wrote that ‘his soldiers and crews were not being paid or receiving their grain rations on time and there were no resources to make this possible’.
³⁶
Otacilius turned to the Syracusan king Hiero for a loan of silver and grain. He received both rations and pay for his forces in Sicily. Money earmarked to repay Hiero then had to be diverted to the fleet on the east coast of Italy (23.38.12). Extreme financial distress saw the doubling of the tax paid by Roman citizens (the
tributum
) and the debasement of the coinage: there is evidence of a reduction in the standard weight of the bronze coinage (in 215
BCE
).
³⁷
The extreme measures taken by Rome to increase revenue and manpower included the lowering of the wealth qualification needed for a citizen to be recruited into the army, and the recruitment of slaves and the urban poor to replace them in the fleet. New sailors were provided and paid for by individual citizens as a kind of tax based on income.
³⁸
The Roman state existed on various forms of credit, including contributions by wealthy individuals that went to support orphans and widows, and some members of the army went voluntarily unpaid.
³⁹
The death toll and state of continual warfare had stretched the capacity of the Roman state to breaking point in these three years when the Romans were operating on a vast scale in many theatres.

Over half a century earlier Pyrrhus had compared the Roman people to the Lernaean Hydra, a multi-headed mythical beast whose ability to regrow a head each time one was cut off meant it was almost impossible to defeat (Plutarch,
Pyrrh
. 19).
⁴⁰
Hannibal, said to have been a keen student of Pyrrhus, must have understood this comparison more profoundly each year that he passed in Italy.
⁴¹
Despite inflicting crushing defeats on the Romans and causing massive upheaval at Rome and throughout Italy, Hannibal could not get the Romans to agree to negotiate peace. In fact, even when the Romans were facing both manpower and financial crises they never failed to turn out substantial armies in Italy and in other theatres of the war. Hannibal’s forces probably numbered their highest in 215
BCE
when he may have been able to field four armies; but regularly only three were in operation.
⁴²
The only mention of reinforcements for Hannibal from outside Italy comes in 215
BCE
when recruits along with elephants from Carthage were landed at a port in Bruttium (Livy 23.43.5–6). Estimates put the number of Hannibal’s main
army at 40,000 plus a division in Bruttium. The Roman forces active in Italy may, on an annual basis, have been double that number plus allied divisions.
⁴³

The disparity in the number of troops available between Hannibal and the Romans only magnifies how important it was for his forces to be resupplied and for his support base to be broadened. The opportunity for alliances outside Italy came to Hannibal in the period after Cannae. His victory had resounded around the Mediterranean, and Hellenistic monarchs in the east and in Sicily reached out to him in friendship. As early as 217
BCE
, when Philip V of Macedon heard of the Roman defeat at Trasimeno, the exiled Illyrian ruler Demetrius of Pharos immediately began agitating for Philip to expand his horizons (Polyb. 5.101–2).
⁴⁴
As the news of Cannae spread to the courts of the Hellenistic monarchs, Philip’s own ambitions may have increased as Hannibal’s status rose and a Roman defeat looked imminent (Livy 23.33.1–4). The Hellenistic world loved a charismatic and daring military commander and Hannibal’s bold victories had placed him in hallowed company (Livy 35.14.5–12; Plutarch,
Pyrrh.
8.2).
⁴⁵

The ambitious young king Philip may have then taken the first step and made contact with the Carthaginians (Livy 23.33.4). Hannibal, in need of allies both inside and outside Italy, would have welcomed and perhaps been flattered by the approach from a king whose direct line reached back to Alexander the Great. The realpolitik behind Philip’s actions lay with the on-going Roman involvement in Illyria that conflicted with Macedonian interests along the Adriatic coast. The Illyrian king Demetrius had joined Philip’s court as a refugee from Roman conflict in Illyria in 219
BCE
and his presence at the Macedonian court turned Philip’s focus to the Adriatic Sea and Roman affairs.
⁴⁶
The Macedonian kings took a dim view of Roman interference in Illyria, a region they considered to be under their hegemony (see
Map 1
).
⁴⁷
The Roman-imposed client ruler in Illyria had become a bone of contention with Philip. In 217
BCE
the Romans had requested that Philip deliver up Demetrius of Pharos but he had refused (Livy 22.33.3–5). The Macedonian king then built a fleet to support his increasing interests in the Adriatic, perhaps with the intention of placing Demetrius back in control as a client king by ousting the pro-Roman leader.
⁴⁸

In the summer of 215
BCE
direct negotiations between Philip and Hannibal took place when the king sent an Athenian envoy named Xenophanes on a mission to Italy (Livy 23.33–34; Polyb. 7.9). The Macedonian ship had managed to avoid the Roman-controlled ports of Brundisium and Tarentum by landing in the Hannibal-friendly region of Bruttium near Locri and the Temple of Juno Lacinia (Livy 23.34.2). Xenophanes brought an offer of
friendship and alliance from the Macedonian king to Hannibal. No doubt Hannibal welcomed him warmly. The alliance was concluded between the two parties and formalized by an oath that is described as a ‘sworn treaty of friendship’ (Polyb. 7.9.1). Xenophanes left Hannibal to return to Philip accompanied by Carthaginian representatives named as Gisgo, Bostar and Mago.

As the Macedonian ship set off from the south coast it was noticed by a Roman fleet under the command of Publius Valerius Flaccus, who was patrolling the waters along the coast of Bruttium perhaps from the Roman base at Rhegium. Flaccus sent ships from the fleet to intercept the vessel. When the Roman marines boarded the ship they found a collection of Carthaginians and Macedonians on board and were understandably wary. Livy describes how ‘the Carthaginian dress and appearance raised suspicions … and when they were interrogated their accent gave them away’ (23.34.5–6). Searching further, the Roman soldiers discovered the document meant for King Philip sent directly from Hannibal.
⁴⁹

As a treaty the document is a general declaration of ‘friendship and goodwill’ with a pledge of mutual support against Rome and an agreement to restore Philip’s ally Demetrius in Illyria to the territory that had been conquered by the Romans. The treaty also gives a clear idea of Hannibal’s strategic aims. It presumes that Hannibal has been victorious in Italy and that the power of the Romans is reduced, so that ‘when the gods have granted us victory in the war against the Romans and their allies, if the Romans shall request the Carthaginians to make terms of peace, we … shall include you too’ (Polyb. 7.9.12–13). Hannibal assumed in the treaty that he would be able to limit the power of the Romans to interfere in Carthaginian affairs. Philip aimed to keep the Romans out of his sphere of influence and future Macedonian–Carthaginian allied projects were discussed.
⁵⁰

A close study of the text of Polybius’ document has shown that the original language was Punic and that it had been translated into Greek. The treaty’s wording reflects the essential Punic/Phoenician nature of the document ‘… in the presence of the gods who fight on our side, and of the sun, the moon and the earth; in the presence of rivers, harbours and waters … in the presence of all the gods who rule Carthage; in the presence of all the gods who rule Macedon and the rest of Greece’ (Polyb. 7.9). The act of invoking lakes and streams and also the gods of other states and nations was formulaic in Near Eastern treaties and indicates a mode of treaty-making alien to Greek or Roman traditions.
⁵¹
This document shows us that, in international relations, Hannibal and the Carthaginians used legal traditions rooted in their Phoenician heritage.

The document was Hannibal’s personal oath of friendship to Philip.
⁵²
Whilst Hannibal’s oath played an important part in the agreement so too did the state of Carthage. The wording of the text implies that the oath was made on behalf of Carthage: ‘this is a sworn treaty between Hannibal the general, Mago, Myrcan, Barmocar, such other members of the Carthaginian Senate as were present with him’ (Polyb. 7.9.1).
⁵³
Technically, the treaty was the kind of agreement issued by a Carthaginian general in the field when treating with another individual.
⁵⁴
Philip, as an important king of a major power in the Hellenistic world, would have expected a more formal treaty to follow on from these negotiations. On other occasions Hannibal referred the final negotiation of his treaties with foreign cities, for example with Tarentum and Syracuse, to the Carthaginian Senate for ratification. Perhaps the presence of Carthaginian senators in Hannibal’s camp made such further referral unnecessary.
⁵⁵

The new alliance between Hannibal and Philip had the desired effect on the Romans, who worried that ‘they could see on the horizon a war of massive proportions with Macedon, at a time when they could barely cope with the Punic War’ (Livy 23.38.5). Rome immediately went on the offensive and engaged the Macedonian navy in Illyria where they easily dominated. Roman naval supremacy during the whole Hannibalic War played a crucial, yet unsung, part in the ultimate victory. Carthaginian ships were continually bettered by the Roman navy in battles off the coasts of Sardinia, Iberia and eventually Sicily.
⁵⁶
Through their naval superiority the Romans were able to contain any real advantage that Hannibal’s alliance with Philip might offer.
⁵⁷