Hannibal: A Hellenistic Life (36 page)

Scipio arrived at New Carthage with an army of 25,000 men and pitched camp to the north while Laelius and the fleet sailed into the harbour, blockading the city from the sea.
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The sudden and simultaneous appearance of a fleet and an army was timed to take the city by surprise. Scipio knew that, apart from the garrison who occupied the citadel, a large part of the population were artisans, merchants and sailors who could not be expected to defeat highly trained, battle-hardened Roman soldiers (Polyb.10.8.4–5). New Carthage must have had a certain sense of security about it for despite years of war no real threat had presented itself since its foundation twenty years earlier.

New Carthage was well -fortified and situated on difficult terrain, including the high points of the two hills on which sat the citadel with the temple to Eshmun and the so-called Barcid palace.
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The Carthaginian garrison
commander sent out his forces to face the Romans to the north of the city – a tactic often employed to keep attackers away from the city walls to try to limit the positioning of scaling ladders.
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These troops were pushed back towards the walls and then skirmished at the city gate with the Romans. The Carthaginians fought bravely but were eventually overwhelmed by the superior numbers of the Roman forces. There was little chance for the thousand men of the garrison and 2,000 citizens hastily recruited for the defence of the city.
⁸³
At low tide, when the lagoon that surrounded the port to the west was passable on foot, Scipio ordered men to cross there and scale the city walls. The Romans found the defences deserted on the lagoon side and they were able to access the west section of the city walls ‘without striking a blow’ (Polyb. 10.14.1–15).
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New Carthage was taken in just one day. Once inside, Scipio ‘let loose the majority of his troops against the inhabitants, according to Roman custom; their orders were to exterminate every form of life they encountered, sparing none, but not to start pillaging until the word was given’ (Polyb. 10.15.4–5). The large population inside the city meant that the ‘carnage was especially frightful’. The Carthaginian commander had remained in his citadel stronghold with a clear view of the slaughter. He surrendered the citadel and accepted that the city was lost. Once the looting and pillaging started it continued through the night, with Livy reporting that the Roman forces captured ten thousand male citizens and a huge volume of booty (26.47.1–2). New Carthage, the capital city of Punic Iberia, had fallen to the Romans.
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CHAPTER 10

OVER THE ALPS, AGAIN

To Carthage no more shall I send proud messages:

ended is all hope of mine, and ended

the fortunes of all my family,

since [my brother] Hasdrubal’s destruction.

(
Horace,
Odes
4.4)

H
OW HANNIBAL REACTED TO
the news of the loss of New Carthage is not recorded but his frustration with his brothers, who had left the city undefended, must have been keenly felt. There had been no strategy to preserve the city and secure it from attack. Their supplies, baggage and, even more importantly, hostages who had been held at New Carthage were now in Roman hands. These captives were made up of family members of the Iberian leaders who served with the Carthaginian troops and were kept as security in exchange for Iberian loyalty. The ‘baggage’ included the wives, children and belongings of the soldiers fighting with the Carthaginians. It is entirely possible that Hasdrubal and Mago (and even Hannibal) had wives and families in New Carthage (although no mention is made in the sources).

By taking New Carthage, Scipio acquired the treasury of the Carthaginians amounting to 600 talents, as well as the relatives of key Iberian allies and the families of the Carthaginian military. There were members of the government from Carthage in the city as well, ‘two of them being … of the council of elders and fifteen members of the senate’ (Polyb. 10.18.1–4). Scipio was now
in control of the war in Iberia and the Carthaginian commanders were placed firmly on the defensive. Hannibal’s treatment of Roman allies after both Trasimeno and Cannae may well have influenced Scipio in the crucial period after the city had fallen. He restored the Iberian hostages to their families and thus immediately undermined the Carthaginian position with their allies. Winning the allegiance of the Iberians as well as triumphing on the battlefield were the keys to Roman success in Iberia. Scipio had again applied the lessons provided by his Carthaginian teacher (Livy 26. 49–50; Polyb. 10.16.1–20.7).

The loss of New Carthage unfolded just as the Romans were applying more pressure to Tarentum in Italy. Pro-Hannibalic forces in the city continued to hold out in the spring of 209
BCE
but throughout that period the garrison of Roman soldiers (and pro-Roman Tarentines) had maintained their precarious position at the citadel. There had been moments when the Carthaginian/Tarentine alliance looked capable of ousting the Roman soldiers. In 210
BCE
, with supply lines cut and the garrison starving a fleet sent to provision them was sunk by Tarentine ships in a fierce engagement off the city (Livy 26.39.1–19). Despite the continued pressure from the Carthaginian and Tarentine forces the besieged managed to cling on to the citadel. Once Syracuse and then Capua fell to Rome, Hannibal’s forces were increasingly outnumbered by troops released from those theatres. Thus the net around Tarentum gradually tightened. By the time Fabius Maximus, again the consul for 209
BCE
and in his last campaign of the war, took Manduria just to the east of Tarentum, he had succeeded in encircling the city (Livy 27.15.4).
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The superior Roman manpower eventually decided the fate of Tarentum. Two Roman armies were sent to distract Hannibal so that he was forced to relieve the siege of Caulonia, an allied city in Bruttium about 300 kilometres from Tarentum. Fabius Maximus then boldly ‘established his camp right at the harbour entrance’ of Tarentum (Livy 27.15.4–5). The ease of this manoeuvre illustrates just how ineffective the Carthaginian garrison was at this point. The Romans were now unopposed from outside the city. Carthaginian ships that had been stationed in the harbour had moved over to Corcyra (Corfu) in aid of Philip V whose Macedonians were attempting an attack on the Aetolian League. Without fear of reprisals from the sea, the way was clear for Fabius Maximus to take the city.

Tarentum eventually fell from within and the saga involved a romantic tale of star-crossed lovers. The Carthaginian garrison that held Tarentum at the time was partially manned by Bruttian soldiers. Their commander was ‘deeply in love’ with a Tarentine woman whose brother served with Fabius’ Roman
army. With the consent of Fabius Maximus the brother posed as a deserter and went into Tarentum where his sister introduced him to her lover, the garrison commander. The love-struck Bruttian was eventually persuaded by the siblings to betray the city to the Romans and a plot was hatched. Fabius Maximus’ troops scaled the part of the city wall where the Bruttian and his unit were on watch. These men gave the Roman army access to the city. Fierce fighting broke out but the undermanned Tarentines could not match the Roman forces. Romance aside, this story of the betrayal of Tarentum reflects the reality of life for the population in southern Italy who were caught between the two opposing powers (Livy 27.15.9ff.).
²

In the battle for the city both the Tarentine and Carthaginian commanders were killed, including Carthalo who was one of Hannibal’s lieutenants. Livy describes how Carthalo had laid down his arms and been on his way to ‘the consul [Fabius Maximus] to remind him of the ties of hospitality between their fathers’ when soldiers struck him down (27.16.5). In this interesting aside Livy notes a close link between the Carthaginian commander and a Roman senatorial family. These connections between elite Carthaginian families and the Roman senatorial class have been largely buried under the tales of war but may have been more prevalent than we are led to believe.
³
Widespread slaughter followed the fall of Tarentum and the Romans sacked another famous city of the Greek south of Italy. The estimate of the loot taken includes thirty thousand slaves, massive amounts of silver and 3,080 pounds of gold, along with statues and paintings ‘almost to rival the artwork of Syracuse’ (Livy 27.16.7–8).
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When the news reached Hannibal that Tarentum was under attack he raced from Caulonia on a forced march. Livy recounts how he almost made it to the city and was only a few kilometres away when a messenger brought the report of Tarentum’s fall (27.16.9–10). Now, with his options limited, Hannibal had to halt the march and turn back, retreating westward towards Metapontum. By the end of 209
BCE
Hannibal’s mystique had been greatly diminished. He had lost both Capua and Tarentum, his two most important allies in Italy, and his allied cities in Apulia and many in Lucania had been captured. The rebellion in Sicily lingered on but was all but over with the fall and brutal suppression of Agrigentum in 210
BCE
.

The sack of Syracuse, the fall of rebel Capua and the destruction of the wealthy port city of Tarentum sealed an eventual Roman victory in Italy. The epic stories of these years involved a cast of great characters and their achievements. Feats of magnificent engineering skill, betrayals, assassination, espionage and plague all played a part. As the famous cities of Italy along with their
wealth fell one by one, their stories became woven into the Roman legends of the war with Hannibal. The accumulation of wealth in Roman hands allowed them to further strengthen the manpower resources that eventually wore Hannibal down and isolated him. Hannibal brought a war to Italy that forced the Romans to realize their potential for power and conquest. The struggling Roman economy was rebooted by a reorganization of the coinage (
c.
211
BCE
). The new silver coinage, based on the denarius, was struck on a revived accumulation of precious metal and is symbolic of the renewal of the fortunes of the Roman state.
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Hannibal’s choices in Italy after 209
BCE
were now further diminished, yet he fought on. He was still undefeated in battle and continued to best his opponents when given the chance to draw them into combat. A number of victories are recorded but he found himself largely confined to the lands of the Bruttii and Greeks of western Magna Graecia for allies and support.
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In Bruttium, which roughly corresponds to modern Calabria, there were a number of cities including Cosentia (Cosenza) from which Hannibal could operate. On the coast he still maintained the support of the port towns of Locri and Crotona. Despite his greatly reduced circumstances, Hannibal did not retreat to Carthage but continued to fight the war in Italy for another six years.

Did Hannibal have any realistic expectations, at this point, about his ability to threaten Rome’s hegemony in Italy or was his continued presence in Italy part of a larger Carthaginian strategy? By remaining in Italy Hannibal ensured that at least some of the Roman forces were occupied there as long as there were regions still allied to him. He must have felt a deep sense of responsibility for his followers, allies and those cities that had chosen to remain with him. Hannibal had certainly not given up hope and there was still fight left in him. Perhaps his scope was narrower than it had been ten years earlier but he could still put pressure on the Romans. In this way he could make sure that not all of the Roman military might was brought down on his brothers in Iberia, or ultimately on the city of Carthage in North Africa.

In the Iberian peninsula, Hannibal’s brothers were struggling. Livy’s report, that they did not show undue concern about the loss of New Carthage, does not ring true. Their first instinct may have been to suppress the rumours of the fall of their capital city. Perhaps they believed they could win it back quickly and not disrupt their allies. Livy claims they ‘made light of it but in their hearts knew full well what a weakening of their strength, in every respect, the loss of New Carthage represented for them’ (26.51.1). Hasdrubal Barca had doggedly defended Carthaginian territory from the Romans for almost a
decade and the fall of his capital must have come as a personal catastrophe for him and the army in Iberia. With news of the loss of New Carthage coming so closely on that of Syracuse and Capua and followed by the loss of Tarentum in the same summer, the Barcid family must have felt their fortune (
tyche)
and even divine patronage slipping away. The momentum lay squarely with the Romans and to change that Hannibal needed bold measures and quick success more than ever.

Our sources tell us nothing of Hasdrubal Barca’s plans or Hannibal’s thinking directly after the fall of New Carthage. In Iberia the Carthaginian allies were deserting to the Romans. Iberian claims of gross mistreatment at the hands of the Carthaginians allowed Scipio to take full advantage of this erosion of support. There was discord between the Carthaginian generals, with Hasdrubal Barca, his brother Mago and Hasdrubal Gisgo at odds over how to proceed. We can imagine that the three men blamed each other for squandering their advantages by allowing the reinvigorated Roman fighting force to shift the paradigm (Polyb. 10.37.2).

Early in the following year and at the start of the campaigning season (208
BCE
) Hasdrubal Barca chose to engage Scipio in battle near the town of Baecula. Spanish archaeologists working near the town of Turruñuelos claim to have recently identified the site of this battle. The location, just south of the river Baetis, is in a region known as the High Guadalquivir, lying to the east of the Carthaginian strongholds of Castulo and Illurgia (
Map 2
).
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The discovery of distinctive Numidian javelin tips, lead projectiles and Carthaginian coins of the correct type and date at the battlefield has led excavators to identify the site as Baecula.
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Here Hasdrubal was in command of an excellent position when Scipio approached from the south, eager to engage the Carthaginians and ‘try their strength’ in open battle. Hasdrubal remained in position while Scipio assessed his choices. The sources emphasize that Hasdrubal’s superior position made any engagement difficult for Scipio, who had to be careful not to get trapped by the arrival of the other Carthaginian armies (Polyb. 10.38.7–10). Confident in his and his army’s abilities, Scipio drew up in formation and attacked Hasdrubal’s superior numbers by putting his light troops first into battle, then using his heavy infantry to challenge the flanks.
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Hasdrubal’s troops were caught out of position and forced back. His advantageous situation was not enough and Hasdrubal pulled up when he saw his forces thrown into chaos by the Romans. He turned and retreated north across the river (Polyb. 10.39.1–9).
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