This son of Hamilcar was the most dangerous enemy the Romans ever had to
face. He was not only, like Pyrrhus, a brilliant soldier and general: he
was much more than this. He was a genius in all the arts of war, and in
the leadership of men; great as Napoleon and Julius Caesar were great.
He had the power to fill the hearts of his followers with a devotion
that asked no questions; they were ready to die for him, to endure any
and every hardship. No Roman general of the time was a match for him:
few in any time. Yet he was defeated. The reason was simple. He was
defeated not by this or that Roman general but by the Roman people. His
genius broke against their steady endurance, grim patience, and devotion
to Rome. Hannibal could and did win battles, but no victory brought him
nearer to his great object, that of dividing Italy and breaking the
dominance of Rome. Except for the southern tribes and Capua the Italians
stood solid; in Rome there was never any talk of giving in. When Varro,
after a rout, partly due to his own recklessness, which left the road to
Rome open to Hannibal, brought his remnant back to the city, the
senators came out to meet him, and instead of uttering reproaches or
lamentations, thanked him because he had not despaired of the Republic.
This spirit Hannibal could not break. Behind him there was nothing of
this kind. He had his genius and the soldiers he had made; but the
people of Carthage only gave him grudging support.
Hannibal's invasion of Italy failed: but it is one of the most wonderful
stories in the whole history of war, and he is one of the great men of
history.
His father, Hamilcar Barca ('Barca' means 'lightning'), was a brilliant
general; that the Carthaginians lost their first war with Rome was their
fault, not his. Of his three sons, Hannibal, Hasdrubal, and Mago,
Hannibal the eldest was the dearest to him and most like himself in
strength of will, in the power to form a purpose and hold to it unshaken
by all that happened to him or that other people said. Soon after the
war with Rome was ended Hamilcar left Carthage, taking his sons with
him. Before he left he made young Hannibal, then nine years old, swear
on the altars never to be friends with Rome. They sailed for Spain.
Spain, Hamilcar saw, could be worth more than Sicily, if the people were
trained as soldiers and taught the arts of agriculture and mining. The
country was rich in metals. His sons helped him, and he meantime taught
them not only everything connected with war and the training and
handling of men, but languages and all that was then known of history
and of art, so that although their boyhood was spent in camps they were
as well taught as the noblest Roman.
At the age of six-and-twenty Hannibal was chosen by the army to command
the Carthaginian forces in Spain. Although young in years Hannibal's
purpose in life had long been clear to him: since his father's death he
had lived and thought for nothing else. He had trained the army in Spain
for this purpose; his captains knew and shared it; and they and the men
were filled with a passionate love for and belief in their young
commander. Hannibal could make himself feared. The discipline in his
army was strict, though he never asked men to do or suffer what he would
not do or suffer himself. It was not through fear, however, that he made
men devoted to him. They followed him because they believed in him,
believed that he had a clear plan and the will to carry it through, and
because they loved him. He was the elder brother and companion of his
soldiers, and never forgot that they were men.
Three years after he had been made general in Spain Hannibal's plans
were complete. Everything was ready. He knew what he was going to do.
Suddenly he laid siege to Saguntum (219), a town in Spain allied to
Rome, and took it. This was a declaration of war on Rome. A few months
later news came to Rome; news which at first could hardly be believed.
Hannibal had left New Carthage, his great base in Spain, with a large
army. He had defeated the northern Spaniards and was preparing to cross
the Alps and descend on Italy. The Roman army sent to stop him on the
Rhone arrived too late to do so. But to cross the Alps with troops and
baggage when the winter snows were beginning to fall upon the mountain
passes and the streams were freezing into ice was believed to be
impossible: no army had ever done it. The paths were precipitous, at
places there were no tracks at all. Wild fighting tribes of Gauls held
the passes. There was no food: not even dry grass for the animals.
Fierce storms of hail and snow swept the mountain tops.
Nevertheless, before winter had fully set in Hannibal had brought his
army over. The losses of men and animals had been severe; but a thing
thought impossible had been done. The season was still early for
fighting: Hannibal could let his suffering troops rest in the fertile
North Italian plains. Livy describes the last stage of the journey:
_Hannibal's March: the Sight of the Promised Land_
On the ninth day they reached the crest of the Alps, pushing on
over trackless steeps, and sometimes compelled to retrace their
steps owing to the treachery of the guides or, where they were not
trusted, to the random choice of some route through a valley. For
two days they encamped on the top, and the soldiers, exhausted by
marching and fighting, were allowed to rest. A number of baggage
animals, too, that had slipped on the rocks, reached the camp by
following the tracks of the army. Tired as the men were, and
wearied by so many hardships, a further dismay was caused by a
fall of snow, which the setting of the Pleiades brought with it.
They started again at dawn, and the army was slowly advancing
through ways blocked with snow, listlessness and despair visible
on the faces of all, when Hannibal hurried in front of his men and
ordered them to stop on a ridge commanding a wide and distant
view, from which he pointed out Italy and the plains of the Po
lying at the foot of the Alps. 'Here', he exclaimed, 'you are
scaling the walls, not merely of Italy, but of Rome; the rest of
the way will be smooth and sloping; one or at most two battles
will make you masters of the fortress and capital of Italy.'
Livy, xxi. 35. 4-9.
Just across the river Ticinus a Roman army came to meet him under
Cornelius Scipio (218). It was defeated; a month later the other consul,
Sempronius, was out-generalled and defeated on the river Trebia. These
two victories meant that Italy north of the Po was in Hannibal's hands.
Moreover the Gauls had risen and joined him. Hannibal at once set to
work training them, and filling the thinned ranks of his own army with
fresh men. His hope was that not only the Gauls--poor allies, for they
could never be trusted--but the Italians generally would rise and join
him. He counted on their being eager to shake off the yoke of Rome.
[Illustration: GREAT ST. BERNARD PASS]
In Rome men were anxious and excited, but not dismayed. There were two
main parties among the people and among the soldiers, led by men of very
differing type. On one side stood those who believed that the way to
treat Hannibal was by a waiting game. If Rome stood fast they could wear
him out as they had worn Pyrrhus out. He was far away from his base of
supplies. His new troops could not be so good as his old. The Italians
would not rise to help him in any great numbers. The centre of Italy was
safe, anyhow. So long as he stayed in the north the south would not
rise; if he moved south the Gauls would soon tire of fighting. The
leader of this party was Quintus Fabius, a member of one of the proudest
Roman families, and a man of what was already beginning to be called the
old school. That the common people might suffer if the war dragged out
for years did not disturb him much.
On the other side stood men like Caius Flaminius and Terentius Varro,
younger both in years and in mind, eager, impatient for action.
Caius Flaminius had opposed Fabius before. He had been elected a tribune
of the people--one of those magistrates appointed at the time of
Coriolanus to speak for them. He was a man of great ability and warm
enthusiasm, a man with more imagination than Fabius. He was as truly
devoted to his country, but to his mind the greatness of Rome depended
not only on conquest and fine laws and honesty and honour in its leading
citizens. These were all good things. But there was another question to
ask. Were the ordinary common people happy? Fifteen years before
Hannibal's invasion, Flaminius had brought in a Bill intended to help
the poorer Romans by making land settlements for small cultivators in
the north. Fabius and most of the old patricians were hot against this.
Fabius said to give land to the poor people of Rome encouraged men who
could find work in the city but did not take the trouble. They would not
cultivate the land if they got it: they would sell it and come back for
more. Flaminius denied this. There were men in numbers, he said, men who
had served in the armies, who wanted to work but could not do it because
they could not get land. To put more men on the land would enrich the
whole country. His law was finally carried. Another work done by
Flaminius stands to this day as a memorial of him. It, too, shows the
imagination of the man. This is the Via Flaminia, a magnificent road
that ran right across the Apennine Mountains from sea to sea. It took
twenty years to build, but when built it stood for centuries, useful in
time of war, even more useful in time of peace.
Flaminius, already popular on account of these achievements, dreamed of
doing yet more striking things as a soldier. This was his danger. In the
year after the battle of the Trebia he was put in command of one of the
two new Roman armies. He was all for a bold policy and believed that he
could defeat Hannibal and thus add military glory to himself. He did not
know Hannibal. Hannibal, however, had made it his business to know his
enemies; he did know what Flaminius was like and used that knowledge for
his undoing. Flaminius's views and character are given by Livy.
_Flaminius before Trasimene_
Flaminius would not have refrained from action even if his enemy
had been inactive; but when the lands of the allies were harried
almost before his eyes, he thought it a personal disgrace that
Hannibal should range through the heart of Italy and advance
unopposed to attack the walls of Rome. In the council all the rest
urged a safe rather than an ambitious policy. 'Wait for your
colleague,' they exclaimed, 'and then, joining the two armies,
carry on the war with a common spirit and purpose; meantime use
the cavalry and light-armed infantry to check the reckless
plundering of the enemy.' In a rage he flung himself out of the
council and, bidding the trumpet give at once the signal for march
and battle, he cried, 'Rather let us sit still before the walls of
Arretium, for here is our country and our home. Hannibal is to
slip away from our hands and devastate Italy and, plundering and
burning, to reach the walls of Rome, while we are not to move a
step till C. Flaminius is summoned by the Fathers from Arretium,
as Camillus of old was summoned from Veii.' Amid these angry words
he ordered the standards to be pulled up with all speed and leapt
into the saddle, but the horse suddenly fell and threw the consul
over his head. While the bystanders were alarmed by this gloomy
omen for the beginning of a campaign, a further message arrived
that, in spite of all the standard-bearer's exertions, the
standard could not be pulled up. Turning to the messenger, he
said, 'Do you also bring a dispatch from the Senate forbidding me
to fight? Go, tell them to dig out the standard if their hands are
so numbed with fear that they cannot pull it up.' Then the advance
began; the chief officers, apart from their previous disagreement,
were further alarmed by the double portent; the soldiers were
delighted with their high-spirited leader, as they thought more
about his confidence than any grounds on which it might rest.
Livy, xxii. 3. 7-14.
[Illustration: TRASIMENE]
When Flaminius took the field he found that Hannibal, despite the
melting snow that flooded the fields and made them into marshes and the
rivers into torrents, had crossed the Apennines. It had been a terrible
crossing: men, horses, and animals fell ill and died. Hannibal himself
lost an eye. But he had crossed the mountains and marched right past
Flaminius, who was not strong enough to attack him, on the road to Rome.
This was done on purpose to lure Flaminius on; for Hannibal knew that he
longed to fight before the other consul, Servilius, could join him with
his army and share the glory. Hannibal had learned a great deal about
the country and he succeeded in misleading Flaminius as to his
movements, drawing him on into a deadly trap. Along the high hills
standing round the shores of Lake Trasimene he posted his men one night
on either side of the pass that closed the entrance. In the morning the
heavy mists concealed them absolutely. Flaminius marched his army right
in, unsuspecting. Hannibal's soldiers swept down the slopes and closed
the Romans in on every side. They were doomed. There was no escape: they
were entrapped between the marshes and the lake; only the vanguard cut
their way through, and they were surrounded later. Fifteen thousand men
perished, among them Flaminius himself, who died fighting. As many were
taken prisoners. Hannibal's losses were far less. Livy comments:
_After Trasimene_
Such was the famous battle of Trasimene, one of the most memorable
disasters of the Roman people. Fifteen thousand men were slain on
the field; ten thousand, scattered in flight all over Etruria,
made for Rome by different ways. Two thousand five hundred of the
enemy fell in the battle; many afterwards died of wounds. Hannibal
released without ransom the prisoners who belonged to the Latin
allies, and threw the Romans into chains. He separated the bodies
of his own men from the heaps of the enemy's dead and gave orders
for their burial. A long search was made for the body of
Flaminius, which he wished to honour with a funeral; but it could
not be found.
Livy, xxii. 7. 1-5.
After this disaster old Fabius was called to the helm and he carried out
his own totally different policy; a policy of endless waiting. During
the whole of the rest of the year Hannibal could not force Fabius to
give battle. Hannibal moved gradually south, along the western coast.
But the Italians did not rise in any great numbers. Hannibal believed
that a crushing defeat of Rome would make them do so, and prepared to
that end. This is Livy's account of Fabius's plan of campaign, and of
some of the difficulties he met with in carrying it out: difficulties
not only from Hannibal but from his own captains. Thus Varro, his master
of the horse, was constantly stirring up discontent.
_The Strategy of Fabius_
The dictator took over the consul's army from his deputy, Fulvius
Fleccus, and marching through the Sabine land came to Tibur on the
day which he had fixed for the gathering of the new recruits. From
Tibur he moved to Praeneste, and by cross roads to the Latin way.
Thence, after very careful scouting, he led his army against the
enemy, determined not to risk an engagement anywhere if he could
avoid it. On the day that Fabius first encamped within view of the
enemy, not far from Arpi, Hannibal at once formed his army into
line and offered battle; but when he saw no movement of troops and
no stir in the camp, he retired exclaiming that the ancestral
spirit of the Romans was broken, that they were finally conquered,
and that they admitted their inferiority in valour and renown. But
an unspoken anxiety invaded his mind that he would now have to
deal with a general very unlike Flaminius and Sempronius, and that
the Romans, taught by their disasters, had at last sought out a
leader equal to himself.
Thus Hannibal at once saw reason to fear the wariness of the new
dictator, but as he had not yet put his determination to the
proof, he began to worry and harass him by constantly moving his
camp and pillaging the lands of the allies actually before his
eyes. Sometimes he would hurriedly march out of sight, sometimes
he would wait concealed beyond a bend of the road, in the hope
that he might catch him on the level. Fabius, however, led his
troops along the high ground, neither losing touch with his enemy
nor giving him battle. The soldiers were kept in the camp unless
some necessary service called them out. If fodder and wood were
wanted, they went in strong parties that did not scatter. A force
of cavalry and light-armed infantry, formed and posted to meet
sudden attacks, protected their own comrades and threatened the
scattered plunderers of the enemy. The safety of the army was
never staked on one pitched battle, while small successes in
trivial engagements, begun without risk and with a retreat at
hand, taught the soldiers, demoralized by previous disasters, to
think better of their own valour and the chances of victory. But
he did not find Hannibal such a formidable enemy of this sound
strategy as the master of the horse, who was only prevented by his
subordinate position from ruining the country, being headstrong
and rash in action and unrestrained in speech. First with a few
listeners, afterwards openly among the soldiers, he described the
deliberation of his commander as indolence and his caution as
cowardice, attributing to him faults that were akin to his
virtues, and tried to exalt himself by depreciation of his
superior, a detestable practice that has become common because it
has been too successful.
Livy, xxii. 12.
In the following year, Varro, this same master of the horse, was made
consul, sharing the command with Aemilius Paulus. Aemilius was an
experienced soldier; but he was on the worst of terms with Varro, and
Fabius did not mend matters by warning him that Varro's rashness was
likely to be more dangerous to Rome than Hannibal himself.
The Roman army was the largest yet put in the field and especially
strong in infantry. The Plain of Cannae, where Hannibal was encamped,
was not favourable for infantry, Aemilius therefore wanted to put off
battle. Varro was eager for it. They could not agree. In the end they
decided to take command alternately. As soon as Varro's day came the
soldiers saw, to their delight, the red flag of battle flying from the
general's tent.
[Illustration: HELMET found on the field of CANNAE]
The battle of Cannae (216) was Hannibal's greatest victory and the most
terrible defeat for Rome in all its history. The Roman charge drove
right through the Carthaginian centre: too far, so that the
Carthaginians turned and attacked on all sides. The slaughter was
terrible. Of 76,000 Romans who fought in the battle the bodies of 70,000
lay upon the field, among them Aemilius himself and the flower of the
noblest families in Rome. It was said that a seventh of all the men of
military age in Italy perished. Of the higher officers Varro was the
only one who escaped; with him was a tiny handful of men, all that was
left of the mighty army.
The news of Cannae came to Rome and the city was plunged in mourning.
Yet despite the hideous losses and the extreme danger no one gave way to
weakness or despair. The strife of parties died down. Men and women
turned from weeping for their dead to working for their country. Rome
still stood and to every Roman the city's life was more important than
his own. Not a reproach was uttered against Varro, even by those who
before had distrusted and blamed him. After the battle he had done well.
With great courage and energy he collected together and inspired with
new faith the scattered units that remained, and at their head he
marched back to Rome. The Senate and people went in procession to the
city gate to meet him and the scattered remnant of travel-worn,
bloodstained men who had escaped with him from Cannae. Before them all
Varro was thanked because he had not despaired of the Republic. Well
might Hannibal feel that even after Cannae Rome was not conquered. It
was not conquered because the spirit of its people was unbroken. Rome
stood firm. The rich came forward giving or lending all they had to the
State; men of all classes flocked to the new armies; heavy taxes were
put on and no one complained. If the ordinary man was ready to give his
life, the least the well-to-do could do was to give his money. The
people of Central Italy stood by Rome. In the south rich cities like
Capua opened their gates to Hannibal; some of the southern peoples
joined him. But there was no big general rising. Nor did the help
Hannibal needed come from home, Carthage, or from his other allies in
Sicily and Macedonia. The people of Carthage were not like those of
Rome. They were sluggish and a big party there was jealous of Hannibal
and would do nothing to support him.
Marcellus, the general who took the field after Cannae, was a fine
soldier who believed with Fabius that the way to defeat Hannibal was to
wear him down. In Marcellus Hannibal found an enemy he must respect.
When Marcellus was killed at last and brought into the Carthaginian camp
Hannibal stood for a long time silent, looking at his dead enemy's face.
Then he ordered the body to be clothed in splendid funeral garments and
burned with all the honours of war. He had the ashes placed in a silver
urn and sent to Marcellus's son. He had in the same way buried Aemilius
with all honourable ceremony.
Time was on the Roman side. Yet for eleven years Hannibal, with a small
army, kept the whole might of Rome at bay. He was driven further south,
that was all. His great hope was that though the Carthaginians would not
stir, his brothers Hasdrubal and Mago would send him help from Spain. In
Spain after his own departure the Romans had reconquered most of the
country, but four years after Cannae Publius Scipio (defeated on the
Ticinus) and his brother Cneus were both defeated and killed, and during
the next few years Hasdrubal won nearly the whole of Spain. In 208 he
was able to move north. He crossed the Pyrenees; spent the winter in
Gaul; and in the spring, as soon as the snows melted, crossed the Alps
by an easier pass than that taken by his great brother. Before any one
expected him he was in Italy. The danger, if he could join Hannibal, was
extreme. So serious was it indeed that Fabius, now a very old man, went
to the two consuls, Livius and Claudius Nero, and begged them to act
together. They hated one another. Fabius had learned how dangerous such
quarrels might be to the State, and what harm his own advice had done
between Varro and Aemilius Paulus; he now used all his great influence
to get the consuls to put an end to personal strife. They agreed and
joined their armies. Together they were much stronger than Hasdrubal. On
the river Metaurus he was defeated (207). There Hasdrubal himself,
fighting like a lion, was killed with ten thousand of his men.
Unhappily the victorious Nero showed in his treatment of his dead enemy
a spirit very different from that of Hannibal. He threw the bloody head
of Hasdrubal in front of Hannibal's lines. It was the first news he had
of the fate of his brother. He had lost not only a man dearer to him
than any on earth but, with him, his last hope of success. He knew that
all was over; the fortune of Carthage was at an end. For a moment he hid
his face in his mantle. What deep bitterness and pain held his heart in
that moment none may guess.
Two later Roman writers, Livy and Horace, have described the battle of
the Metaurus, which was, indeed, the turning-point of the war: for
Hannibal a fatal turning.
_Metaurus, and After_
Hasdrubal had often shown himself a great leader, but never so
great as in this, his last battle. It was he who supported his men
in the fight by words of encouragement and by meeting danger at
their side; it was he who, with mingled entreaty and rebuke, fired
the spirit of his troops, weary and despairing of a hopeless
struggle; it was he who called back the fugitives and in many
places restored the broken ranks. At last, when fortune declared
itself in favour of the enemy, he would not survive the great host
that had followed him, but spurred his horse into the thickest of
the Roman legionaries. There he fell fighting, as became the son
of Hamilcar and the brother of Hannibal.
The consul, C. Claudius, on his return to the camp ordered the
head of Hasdrubal, which he had carefully brought with him, to be
thrown down in front of the enemy's sentries, and he exhibited
African prisoners in chains. Two of them he freed and sent to
Hannibal to inform him of everything that had happened. Hannibal,
stricken with grief at such public and personal loss, exclaimed,
as we are told, 'I recognize the doom of Carthage.' Then he
withdrew to Bruttium in the southern corner of Italy, with the
intention of concentrating there all the allies, whom he could not
protect if they were scattered.
Livy, xxvii. 49, 51.
_Despair_
What thou owest, Rome, to the house of Nero, let the Metaurus be
our witness, and Hasdrubal's overthrow, and that bright day that
scattered the gloom of Latium, the first to smile with cheering
victory since the dread African careered through the cities of
Italy, like fire through a pine forest or Eurus over Sicilian
waves. After this the manhood of Rome gained strength from
continued and successful effort, and temples desecrated by the
unhallowed violence of the Carthaginian saw their gods restored.
And the treacherous Hannibal at length exclaimed 'Like stags, the
prey of ravening wolves, we essay to pursue those whom it is a
rare triumph to elude and escape.... No more shall I send
triumphant messages to Carthage; fallen, yea fallen, is all the
hope and greatness of our name with the loss of Hasdrubal. Naught
is there that the hands of the Claudii will fail to perform, for
Jupiter protects them with beneficent power, and prudent
forethought brings them safe through the perils of war.'
Horace, Od. iv. 4. 36-76.
For four more years Hannibal stood at bay in South Italy. No Roman
general drove him out, no Roman army could defeat him or the soldiers
who stood by him with a matchless devotion only given to men who have,
as Hannibal had, what we call the divine spark burning within them. When
at last, after fourteen years in Italy, he sailed home, it was to try to
save Carthage, the city which had betrayed him, and now called him to
save them from the war the Romans had carried into their own country. He
knew that he could not do it. The Carthaginians had signed their own
doom when they failed to send him help. When they in their turn called
to Hannibal the enemy was at their gates. In the great battle of Zama,
outside Carthage, Scipio defeated Hannibal. This defeat was the end of
Carthage as a great power. The Roman terms had to be accepted. The power
and might of Carthage was over. The city still stood: but its empire was
gone. All its overseas possessions were added to the Roman dominions.
[Illustration: A COIN OF VICTORY]
Six years after Zama Hannibal was banished from Carthage at the bidding
of Rome, although Scipio protested in the Senate, declaring it to be
unworthy of Rome to fear one man in a ruined state. Hannibal took refuge
in the East. There, some years later, he and Scipio met. Of the
conversation between them many stories were told. Scipio asked Hannibal
whom he thought the greatest general in the world. Hannibal replied that
he put Alexander first, then Pyrrhus, then himself.
'And where would you have placed yourself had I not defeated you?'
'Oh, Scipio, then I should have placed myself not third but first.'
In saying this Hannibal put his thought in words that might give
pleasure to his listener but were not quite true. Scipio had defeated
him at Zama; but no one knew better than the victor that the real
triumph was not his. The forces that had defeated Hannibal were greater
than those in the hand of any one man.
Had Hannibal defeated the Romans, the whole course of the world's
history might have been changed. Looking back now it seems impossible
that he could ever have thought he could do so. But part of the secret
of a truly great man is that he believes nothing to be impossible on
which he has set his will. The power to set the will firmly, clearly,
with knowledge, on some action to be done, of whatever kind it be; to
sacrifice, for that end, one's own wishes; to crush down the desire
every human being feels for rest, enjoyment, comfort at the moment, and
go on when the chance of success seems far away; this power is the
instrument by which extraordinary things are brought about. Because of
this power behind him Hannibal was a real danger to Rome, and Rome knew
it. If he could have made the people of Carthage feel as he did, he
would have conquered. But he could not. His will was set on defeating
Rome: the will of the Carthaginians was set, not on this, but on a life
of ease and comfort for themselves. And because the Carthaginians were
built thus, and not like Hannibal, and he could not, by his single
force, make them like himself, it would have been a disaster for the
world if Hannibal had won. The Romans defeated him because they, and not
the Carthaginians, had in them something of the force that moved
Hannibal: they, as Polybius said of them, 'believed nothing impossible
upon which their minds were set'.