HANNIBAL A FUGITIVE AND AN EXILE.
B.C. 200-182
Hannibal's conquests.--Peaceful pursuits.--The danger of a spirit of
ambition and conquest.--Gradual progress of Scipio's victories.--Severe
conditions of peace exacted by Scipio.--Debates in the Carthaginian
senate.--Terms of peace complied with.--Surrender of the elephants and
ships.--Scipio burns the Carthaginian fleet.--Feelings of the
spectators.--Scipio sails to Rome.--His reception.--Hannibal's position
and standing at Carthage.--Orders from Rome.--Hannibal's
mortification.--Syria and Phoenicia.--King Antiochus.--Hannibal's
intrigues with Antiochus.--Embassy from Rome.--Flight of
Hannibal.--Island of Cercina.--Stratagem of Hannibal.--He sails for
Syria.--Excitement at Carthage.--Hannibal safe at Ephesus.--Carthaginian
deputies.--The change of fortune.--Hannibal's unconquerable spirit.--His
new plans.--Hannibal sends a secret messenger to Carthage.--The
placards.--Excitement produced by them.--Roman commissioners.--Supposed
interview of Hannibal and Scipio.--Hannibal's opinion of Alexander and
Pyrrhus.--Anecdotes.--Hannibal's efforts prove vain.--Antiochus agrees
to give him up.--Hannibal's treasures.--His plan for securing
them.--Hannibal's unhappy condition.--The potion of poison.--Hannibal
fails in his attempt to escape.--He poisons himself.
Hannibal's life was like an April day. Its brightest glory was in the
morning. The setting of his sun was darkened by clouds and showers.
Although for fifteen years the Roman people could find no general
capable of maintaining the field against him, Scipio conquered him at
last, and all his brilliant conquests ended, as Hanno had predicted,
only in placing his country in a far worse condition than before.
In fact, as long as the Carthaginians confined their energies to
useful industry, and to the pursuits of commerce and peace, they were
prosperous, and they increased in wealth, and influence, and honor
every year. Their ships went every where, and were every where
welcome. All the shores of the Mediterranean were visited by their
merchants, and the comforts and the happiness of many nations and
tribes were promoted by the very means which they took to swell their
own riches and fame. All might have gone on so for centuries longer,
had not military heroes arisen with appetites for a more piquant sort
of glory. Hannibal's father was one of the foremost of these. He began
by conquests in Spain and encroachments on the Roman jurisdiction. He
inculcated the same feelings of ambition and hate in Hannibal's mind
which burned in his own. For many years, the policy which they led
their countrymen to pursue was successful. From being useful and
welcome visitors to all the world, they became the masters and the
curse of a part of it. So long as Hannibal remained superior to any
Roman general that could be brought against him, he went on
conquering. But at last Scipio arose, greater than Hannibal. The tide
was then turned, and all the vast conquests of half a century were
wrested away by the same violence, bloodshed, and misery with which
they had been acquired.
We have described the exploits of Hannibal, in making these conquests,
in detail, while those of Scipio, in wresting them away, have been
passed over very briefly, as this is intended as a history of
Hannibal, and not of Scipio. Still Scipio's conquests were made by
slow degrees, and they consumed a long period of time. He was but
about eighteen years of age at the battle of Cannae, soon after which
his campaigns began, and he was thirty when he was made consul, just
before his going into Africa. He was thus fifteen or eighteen years in
taking down the vast superstructure of power which Hannibal had
raised, working in regions away from Hannibal and Carthage during all
this time, as if leaving the great general and the great city for the
last. He was, however, so successful in what he did, that when, at
length, he advanced to the attack of Carthage, every thing else was
gone. The Carthaginian power had become a mere hollow shell, empty and
vain, which required only one great final blow to effect its absolute
demolition. In fact, so far spent and gone were all the Carthaginian
resources, that the great city had to summon the great general to its
aid the moment it was threatened, and Scipio destroyed them both
together.
And yet Scipio did not proceed so far as literally and actually to
destroy them. He spared Hannibal's life, and he allowed the city to
stand; but the terms and conditions of peace which he exacted were
such as to put an absolute and perpetual end to Carthaginian dominion.
By these conditions, the Carthaginian state was allowed to continue
free and independent, and even to retain the government of such
territories in _Africa_ as they possessed before the war; but all
their foreign possessions were taken away; and even in respect to
Africa, their jurisdiction was limited and curtailed by very hard
restrictions. Their whole navy was to be given to the Romans except
ten small ships of three banks of oars, which Scipio thought the
government would need for the purposes of civil administration. These
they were allowed to retain. Scipio did not say what he should do with
the remainder of the fleet: it was to be unconditionally surrendered
to him. Their elephants of war were also to be all given up, and they
were to be bound not to train any more. They were not to appear at all
as a military power in any other quarter of the world but Africa, and
they were not to make war in Africa except by previously making known
the occasion for it to the Roman people, and obtaining their
permission. They were also to pay to the Romans a very large annual
tribute for fifty years.
There was great distress and perplexity in the Carthaginian councils
while they were debating these cruel terms. Hannibal was in favor of
accepting them. Others opposed. They thought it would be better still
to continue the struggle, hopeless as it was, than to submit to terms
so ignominious and fatal.
Hannibal was present at these debates, but he found himself now in a
very different position from that which he had been occupying for
thirty years as a victorious general at the head of his army. He had
been accustomed there to control and direct every thing. In his
councils of war, no one spoke but at his invitation, and no opinion
was expressed but such as he was willing to hear. In the Carthaginian
senate, however, he found the case very different. There, opinions
were freely expressed, as in a debate among equals, Hannibal taking
his place among the rest, and counting only as one. And yet the spirit
of authority and command which he had been so long accustomed to
exercise, lingered still, and made him very impatient and uneasy under
contradiction. In fact, as one of the speakers in the senate was
rising to animadvert upon and oppose Hannibal's views, he undertook to
pull him down and silence him by force. This proceeding awakened
immediately such expressions of dissatisfaction and displeasure in the
assembly as to show him very clearly that the time for such
domineering was gone. He had, however, the good sense to express the
regret he soon felt at having so far forgotten the duties of his new
position, and to make an ample apology.
[Illustration: THE BURNING OF THE CARTHAGINIAN FLEET.]
The Carthaginians decided at length to accede to Scipio's terms of
peace. The first instalment of the tribute was paid. The elephants
and the ships were surrendered. After a few days, Scipio announced
his determination not to take the ships away with him, but to
destroy them there. Perhaps this was because he thought the ships
would be of little value to the Romans, on account of the difficulty
of manning them. Ships, of course, are useless without seamen, and
many nations in modern times, who could easily build a navy, are
debarred from doing it, because their population does not furnish
sailors in sufficient numbers to man and navigate it. It was
probably, in part, on this account that Scipio decided not to take
the Carthaginian ships away, and perhaps he also wanted to show to
Carthage and to the world that his object in taking possession of
the national property of his foes was not to enrich his own country
by plunder, but only to deprive ambitious soldiers of the power
to compromise any longer the peace and happiness of mankind by
expeditions for conquest and power. However this may be, Scipio
determined to destroy the Carthaginian fleet, and not to convey
it away.
On a given day, therefore, he ordered all the galleys to be got
together in the bay opposite to the city of Carthage, and to be
burned. There were five hundred of them, so that they constituted a
large fleet, and covered a large expanse of the water. A vast
concourse of people assembled upon the shores to witness the grand
conflagration. The emotion which such a spectacle was of itself
calculated to excite was greatly heightened by the deep but stifled
feelings of resentment and hate which agitated every Carthaginian
breast. The Romans, too, as they gazed upon the scene from their
encampment on the shore, were agitated as well, though with different
emotions. Their faces beamed with an expression of exultation and
triumph as they saw the vast masses of flame and columns of smoke
ascending from the sea, proclaiming the total and irretrievable ruin
of Carthaginian pride and power.
Having thus fully accomplished his work, Scipio set sail for Rome. All
Italy had been filled with the fame of his exploits in thus
destroying the ascendency of Hannibal. The city of Rome had now
nothing more to fear from its great enemy. He was shut up, disarmed,
and helpless, in his own native state, and the terror which his
presence in Italy had inspired had passed forever away. The whole
population of Rome, remembering the awful scenes of consternation and
terror which the city had so often endured, regarded Scipio as a great
deliverer. They were eager to receive and welcome him on his arrival.
When the time came and he approached the city, vast throngs went out
to meet him. The authorities formed civic processions to welcome him.
They brought crowns, and garlands, and flowers, and hailed his
approach with loud and prolonged acclamations of triumph and joy. They
gave him the name of Africanus, in honor of his victories. This was a
new honor--giving to a conqueror the name of the country that he had
subdued; it was invented specially as Scipio's reward, the deliverer
who had saved the empire from the greatest and most terrible danger by
which it had ever been assailed.
Hannibal, though fallen, retained still in Carthage some portion of
his former power. The glory of his past exploits still invested his
character with a sort of halo, which made him an object of general
regard, and he still had great and powerful friends. He was elevated
to high office, and exerted himself to regulate and improve the
internal affairs of the state. In these efforts he was not, however,
very successful. The historians say that the objects which he aimed to
accomplish were good, and that the measures for effecting them were,
in themselves, judicious; but, accustomed as he was to the
authoritative and arbitrary action of a military commander in camp, he
found it hard to practice that caution and forbearance, and that
deference for the opinion of others, which are so essential as means
of influencing men in the management of the civil affairs of a
commonwealth. He made a great many enemies, who did every thing in
their power, by plots and intrigues, as well as by open hostility, to
accomplish his ruin.
His pride, too, was extremely mortified and humbled by an occurrence
which took place very soon after Scipio's return to Rome. There was
some occasion of war with a neighboring African tribe, and Hannibal
headed some forces which were raised in the city for the purpose, and
went out to prosecute it. The Romans, who took care to have agents in
Carthage to keep them acquainted with all that occurred, heard of
this, and sent word to Carthage to warn the Carthaginians that this
was contrary to the treaty, and could not be allowed. The government,
not willing to incur the risk of another visit from Scipio, sent
orders to Hannibal to abandon the war and return to the city. Hannibal
was compelled to submit; but after having been accustomed, as he had
been, for many years, to bid defiance to all the armies and fleets
which Roman power could, with their utmost exertion, bring against
him, it must have been very hard for such a spirit as his to find
itself stopped and conquered now by a word. All the force they could
command against him, even at the very gates of their own city, was
once impotent and vain. Now, a mere message and threat, coming across
the distant sea, seeks him out in the remote deserts of Africa, and in
a moment deprives him of all his power.
Years passed away, and Hannibal, though compelled outwardly to submit
to his fate, was restless and ill at ease. His scheming spirit,
spurred on now by the double stimulus of resentment and ambition, was
always busy, vainly endeavoring to discover some plan by which he
might again renew the struggle with his ancient foe.
It will be recollected that Carthage was originally a commercial
colony from Tyre, a city on the eastern shores of the Mediterranean
Sea. The countries of Syria and Phoenicia were in the vicinity of
Tyre. They were powerful commercial communities, and they had always
retained very friendly relations with the Carthaginian commonwealth.
Ships passed continually to and fro, and always, in case of calamities
or disasters threatening one of these regions, the inhabitants
naturally looked to the other for refuge and protection, Carthage
looking upon Phoenicia as its mother, and Phoenicia regarding
Carthage as her child. Now there was, at this time, a very powerful
monarch on the throne in Syria and Phoenicia, named Antiochus. His
capital was Damascus. He was wealthy and powerful, and was involved in
some difficulties with the Romans. Their conquests, gradually
extending eastward, had approached the confines of Antiochus's realms,
and the two nations were on the brink of war.
Things being in this state, the enemies of Hannibal at Carthage sent
information to the Roman senate that he was negotiating and plotting
with Antiochus to combine the Syrian and Carthaginian forces against
them, and thus plunge the world into another general war. The Romans
accordingly determined to send an embassage to the Carthaginian
government, and to demand that Hannibal should be deposed from his
office, and given up to them a prisoner, in order that he might be
tried on this charge.
These commissioners came, accordingly, to Carthage, keeping, however,
the object of their mission a profound secret, since they knew very
well that, if Hannibal should suspect it, he would make his escape
before the Carthaginian senate could decide upon the question of
surrendering him. Hannibal was, however, too wary for them. He
contrived to learn their object, and immediately resolved on making
his escape. He knew that his enemies in Carthage were numerous and
powerful, and that the animosity against him was growing stronger and
stronger. He did not dare, therefore, to trust to the result of the
discussion in the senate, but determined to fly.
He had a small castle or tower on the coast, about one hundred and
fifty miles southeast of Carthage. He sent there by an express,
ordering a vessel to be ready to take him to sea. He also made
arrangements to have horsemen ready at one of the gates of the city at
nightfall. During the day he appeared freely in the public streets,
walking with an unconcerned air, as if his mind was at ease, and
giving to the Roman embassadors, who were watching his movements, the
impression that he was not meditating an escape. Toward the close of
the day, however, after walking leisurely home, he immediately made
preparations for his journey. As soon as it was dark he went to the
gate of the city, mounted the horse which was provided for him, and
fled across the country to his castle. Here he found the vessel ready
which he had ordered. He embarked, and put to sea.
There is a small island called Cercina at a little distance from the
coast. Hannibal reached this island on the same day that he left his
tower. There was a harbor here, where merchant ships were accustomed
to come in. He found several Phoenician vessels in the port, some
bound to Carthage. Hannibal's arrival produced a strong sensation
here, and, to account for his appearance among them, he said he was
going on an embassy from the Carthaginian government to Tyre.
He was now afraid that some of these vessels that were about setting
sail for Carthage might carry the news back of his having being seen
at Cercina, and, to prevent this, he contrived, with his
characteristic cunning, the following plan. He sent around to all the
ship-masters in the port, inviting them to a great entertainment which
he was to give, and asked, at the same time, that they would lend him
the main-sails of their ships, to make a great awning with, to shelter
the guests from the dews of the night. The ship-masters, eager to
witness and enjoy the convivial scene which Hannibal's proposal
promised them, accepted the invitation, and ordered their main-sails
to be taken down. Of course, this confined all their vessels to port.
In the evening, the company assembled under the vast tent, made by the
main-sails, on the shore. Hannibal met them, and remained with them
for a time. In the course of the night, however, when they were all in
the midst of their carousing, he stole away, embarked on board a ship,
and set sail, and, before the ship-masters could awake from the deep
and prolonged slumbers which followed their wine, and rig their
main-sails to the masts again, Hannibal was far out of reach on his
way to Syria.
In the mean time, there was a great excitement produced at Carthage
by the news which spread every where over the city, the day after his
departure, that he was not to be found. Great crowds assembled before
his house. Wild and strange rumors circulated in explanation of his
disappearance, but they were contradictory and impossible, and only
added to the universal excitement. This excitement continued until the
vessels at last arrived from Cercina, and made the truth known.
Hannibal was himself, however, by this time, safe beyond the reach of
all possible pursuit. He was sailing prosperously, so far as outward
circumstances were concerned, but dejected and wretched in heart,
toward Tyre. He landed there in safety, and was kindly received. In a
few days he went into the interior, and, after various wanderings,
reached Ephesus, where he found Antiochus, the Syrian king.
As soon as the escape of Hannibal was made known at Carthage, the
people of the city immediately began to fear that the Romans would
consider them responsible for it, and that they should thus incur a
renewal of Roman hostility. In order to avert this danger, they
immediately sent a deputation to Rome, to make known the fact of
Hannibal's flight, and to express the regret they felt on account of
it, in hopes thus to save themselves from the displeasure of their
formidable foes. It may at first view seem very ungenerous and
ungrateful in the Carthaginians to abandon their general in this
manner, in the hour of his misfortune and calamity, and to take part
against him with enemies whose displeasure he had incurred only in
their service and in executing their will. And this conduct of the
Carthaginians would have to be considered as not only ungenerous, but
extremely inconsistent, if it had been the same individuals that acted
in the two cases. But it was not. The men and the influences which now
opposed Hannibal's projects and plans had opposed them always and from
the beginning; only, so long as he went on successfully and well, they
were in the minority, and Hannibal's adherents and friends controlled
all the public action of the city. But, now that the bitter fruits of
his ambition and of his totally unjustifiable encroachments on the
Roman territories and Roman rights began to be realized, the party of
his friends was overturned, the power reverted to the hands of those
who had always opposed him, and in trying to keep him down when he was
once fallen, their action, whether politically right or wrong, was
consistent with itself, and can not be considered as at all subjecting
them to the charge of ingratitude or treachery.
One might have supposed that all Hannibal's hopes and expectations of
ever again coping with his great Roman enemy would have been now
effectually and finally destroyed, and that henceforth he would have
given up his active hostility and would have contented himself with
seeking some refuge where he could spend the remainder of his days in
peace, satisfied with securing, after such dangers and escapes, his
own personal protection from the vengeance of his enemies. But it is
hard to quell and subdue such indomitable perseverance and energy as
his. He was very little inclined yet to submit to his fate. As soon as
he found himself at the court of Antiochus, he began to form new plans
for making war against Rome. He proposed to the Syrian monarch to
raise a naval force and put it under his charge. He said that if
Antiochus would give him a hundred ships and ten or twelve thousand
men, he would take the command of the expedition in person, and he did
not doubt that he should be able to recover his lost ground, and once
more humble his ancient and formidable enemy. He would go first, he
said, with his force to Carthage, to get the co-operation and aid of
his countrymen there in his new plans. Then he would make a descent
upon Italy, and he had no doubt that he should soon regain the
ascendency there which he had formerly held.
Hannibal's design of going first to Carthage with his Syrian army was
doubtless induced by his desire to put down the party of his enemies
there, and to restore the power to his adherents and partisans. In
order to prepare the way the more effectually for this, he sent a
secret messenger to Carthage, while his negotiations with Antiochus
were going on, to make known to his friends there the new hopes which
he began to cherish, and the new designs which he had formed. He knew
that his enemies in Carthage would be watching very carefully for any
such communication; he therefore wrote no letters, and committed
nothing to paper which, on being discovered, might betray him. He
explained, however, all his plans very fully to his messenger, and
gave him minute and careful instructions as to his manner of
communicating them.
The Carthaginian authorities were indeed watching very vigilantly, and
intelligence was brought to them, by their spies, of the arrival of
this stranger. They immediately took measures for arresting him. The
messenger, who was himself as vigilant as they, got intelligence of
this in his secret lurking-place in the city, and determined
immediately to fly. He, however, first prepared some papers and
placards, which he posted up in public places, in which he proclaimed
that Hannibal was far from considering himself finally conquered; that
he was, on the contrary, forming new plans for putting down his
enemies in Carthage, resuming his former ascendency there, and
carrying fire and sword again into the Roman territories; and, in the
mean time, he urged the friends of Hannibal in Carthage to remain
faithful and true to his cause.
The messenger, after posting his placards, fled from the city in the
night, and went back to Hannibal. Of course, the occurrence produced
considerable excitement in the city. It aroused the anger and
resentment of Hannibal's enemies, and awakened new encouragement and
hope in the hearts of his friends. Further than this, however, it led
to no immediate results. The power of the party which was opposed to
Hannibal was too firmly established at Carthage to be very easily
shaken. They sent information to Rome of the coming of Hannibal's
emissary to Carthage, and of the result of his mission, and then every
thing went on as before.
In the mean time, the Romans, when they learned where Hannibal had
gone, sent two or three commissioners there to confer with the Syrian
government in respect to their intentions and plans, and watch the
movements of Hannibal. It was said that Scipio himself was joined to
this embassy, and that he actually met Hannibal at Ephesus, and had
several personal interviews and conversations with him there. Some
ancient historian gives a particular account of one of these
interviews, in which the conversation turned, as it naturally would do
between two such distinguished commanders, on military greatness and
glory. Scipio asked Hannibal whom he considered the greatest military
hero that had ever lived. Hannibal gave the palm to Alexander the
Great, because he had penetrated, with comparatively a very small
number of Macedonian troops, into such remote regions, conquered such
vast armies, and brought so boundless an empire under his sway. Scipio
then asked him who he was inclined to place next to Alexander. He said
Pyrrhus. Pyrrhus was a Grecian, who crossed the Adriatic Sea, and
made war, with great success, against the Romans. Hannibal said that
he gave the second rank to Pyrrhus because he systematized and
perfected the art of war, and also because he had the power of
awakening a feeling of personal attachment to himself on the part of
all his soldiers, and even of the inhabitants of the countries that he
conquered, beyond any other general that ever lived. Scipio then asked
Hannibal who came next in order, and he replied that he should give
the third rank to himself. "And if," added he, "I had conquered
Scipio, I should consider myself as standing above Alexander, Pyrrhus,
and all the generals that the world ever produced."
Various other anecdotes are related of Hannibal during the time of his
first appearance in Syria, all indicating the very high degree of
estimation in which he was held, and the curiosity and interest that
were every where felt to see him. On one occasion, it happened that a
vain and self-conceited orator, who knew little of war but from his
own theoretic speculations, was haranguing an assembly where Hannibal
was present, being greatly pleased with the opportunity of displaying
his powers before so distinguished an auditor. When the discourse was
finished, they asked Hannibal what he thought of it. "I have heard,"
said he, in reply, "many old dotards in the course of my life, but
this is, verily, the greatest dotard of them all."
Hannibal failed, notwithstanding all his perseverance, in obtaining
the means to attack the Romans again. He was unwearied in his efforts,
but, though the king sometimes encouraged his hopes, nothing was ever
done. He remained in this part of the world for ten years, striving
continually to accomplish his aims, but every year he found himself
farther from the attainment of them than ever. The hour of his good
fortune and of his prosperity were obviously gone. His plans all
failed, his influence declined, his name and renown were fast passing
away. At last, after long and fruitless contests with the Romans,
Antiochus made a treaty of peace with them, and, among the articles of
this treaty, was one agreeing to give up Hannibal into their power.
Hannibal resolved to fly. The place of refuge which he chose was the
island of Crete. He found that he could not long remain here. He had,
however, brought with him a large amount of treasure, and when about
leaving Crete again, he was uneasy about this treasure, as he had
some reason to fear that the Cretans were intending to seize it. He
must contrive, then, some stratagem to enable him to get this gold
away. The plan he adopted was this:
He filled a number of earthen jars with lead, covering the tops of
them with gold and silver. These he carried, with great appearance of
caution and solicitude, to the Temple of Diana, a very sacred edifice,
and deposited them there, under very special guardianship of the
Cretans, to whom, as he said, he intrusted all his treasures. They
received their false deposit with many promises to keep it safely, and
then Hannibal went away with his real gold cast in the center of
hollow statues of brass, which he carried with him, without suspicion,
as objects of art of very little value.
Hannibal fled from kingdom to kingdom, and from province to province,
until life became a miserable burden. The determined hostility of the
Roman senate followed him every where, harassing him with continual
anxiety and fear, and destroying all hope of comfort and peace. His
mind was a prey to bitter recollections of the past, and still more
dreadful forebodings for the future. He had spent all the morning of
his life in inflicting the most terrible injuries on the objects of
his implacable animosity and hate, although they had never injured
him, and now, in the evening of his days, it became his destiny to
feel the pressure of the same terror and suffering inflicted upon
_him_. The hostility which he had to fear was equally merciless with
that which he had exercised; perhaps it was made still more intense by
being mingled with what they who felt it probably considered a just
resentment and revenge.
When at length Hannibal found that the Romans were hemming him in more
and more closely, and that the danger increased of his falling at last
into their power, he had a potion of poison prepared, and kept it
always in readiness, determined to die by his own hand rather than to
submit to be given up to his enemies. The time for taking the poison
at last arrived. The wretched fugitive was then in Bithynia, a kingdom
of Asia Minor. The King of Bithynia sheltered him for a time, but at
length agreed to give him up to the Romans. Hannibal learning this,
prepared for flight. But he found, on attempting his escape, that all
the modes of exit from the palace which he occupied, even the secret
ones which he had expressly contrived to aid his flight, were taken
possession of and guarded. Escape was, therefore, no longer possible,
and Hannibal went to his apartment and sent for the poison. He was now
an old man, nearly seventy years of age, and he was worn down and
exhausted by his protracted anxieties and sufferings. He was glad to
die. He drank the poison, and in a few hours ceased to breathe.