THE STRUGGLE WITH CARTHAGE AND HANNIBAL
In these days sober students of history wisely leave the oft-told
stories of war and battle, and busy themselves rather with questions of
social life, public and private economy, and the history of religion,
morals and scientific inquiry. But there are a few wars, great struggles
of nation against nation, which will always have an absorbing interest:
partly because of their dramatic character, partly because of their
far-reaching consequences; and the long fight between Rome and Carthage
is assuredly one of these. On the Carthaginian side it produced two of
the most extraordinary men, father and son, of whom history has anywhere
to tell; and on the Roman side it gives us a vivid picture of the most
marvellous endurance during long years of extreme peril that we can find
in the annals of any people. And probably no war was ever so pregnant of
results for good and ill alike. It welded the whole of Italy south of
the Alps into a united country under the rule of Rome, and launched the
Romans on a new career of conquest beyond the sea; it laid the
foundations of the Roman Empire as we now think of that great system.
Yet it left Italy in a state of economic distress from which it is
hardly untrue to say that she has never fully recovered, and it changed
the character of the Roman people, rich and poor alike, for the worse
rather than the better.
In order to see clearly how it came about, we must once more look at the
map of Italy; a map of modern Italy will do well enough. Let the reader
remember that as yet Rome had control only over the central and southern
parts of the whole of what is now the kingdom of Italy, and that two
other parts of that kingdom, which every Italian now regards as
essential to its unity, were in other hands. These were: first, the
great alluvial plain of the river Po (Padus); secondly, the island of
Sicily: strategically speaking, these lie on the two flanks of the Roman
dominion, to north and south respectively. Any power holding central
Italy, to be safe from invasion, must be in possession of these two
positions, as a long series of wars has clearly shown, beginning with
the two now to be sketched. The magnificent plain of the Po, stretching
from the great Alpine barrier to the Apennines which look down on the
Gulf of Genoa, the richest land in all Italy, was then in the hands of
warlike Gallic tribes, who had settled there before the time when they
struck southward and captured Rome itself; these might again become a
serious danger, as indeed they proved to be in this very war. The island
of Sicily was, and had long been, a bone of contention between the Greek
settlers who had long ago built cities on the most favourable points of
its coast, and the traders of the Phœnician city of Carthage just
opposite to it on the coast of Africa. Sicily was rich in harbours, and
like the plain of the Po, also rich in corn, olive, and vine; and the
Greeks had held on to it so persistently that with the recent help of
Pyrrhus they had for a moment been in almost complete possession of the
island. But they foolishly deserted Pyrrhus at the critical moment, and
now again the Carthaginians had recovered it, all but the kingdom of
Hiero of Syracuse, stretching along the eastern coast under Mount Etna.
Carthaginian fleets cruised round the island, and were often seen off
the coasts of Italy as well. For Carthage was the mistress of the seas
in all the western part of the Mediterranean basin.
Carthage was a daughter of the Canaanite city of Tyre, belonging to that
seafaring people known in history as Phœnicians, whom the Israelites had
pushed down to the coast of Palestine without subduing them. The genius
of the Phœnicians was for trade, and the splendid position of Carthage,
near the modern Tunis, with a rich corn-growing country in the rear, had
helped her merchant princes to establish by degrees what may loosely be
called an empire of trading settlements extending not only along the
African coast, but over that of Sardinia and southern and eastern Spain,
and including Sicily, as we have seen. To maintain this empire she had
to keep up great fleets, and huge docks in her own port; but as her
Phœnician population was largely occupied with trade, she had to rely
for her crews and also for her land forces largely on the native
Africans whom she had subdued, or on mercenaries hired from other races
with whom she came in contact. Though this was a weak point in her
armour, she was far the greatest power in the western seas, and any
other people ambitious of power in that region would have to reckon with
her. So far she had been on friendly terms with Rome, and we still have
the text of three treaties between the two states; but the latest of
these shows signs of mutual distrust, and Rome had now risen so high
that a collision was all but inevitable. A people ruling in Italy cannot
afford to have a rival in Sicily and also in undisputed command of the
sea.
The collision came in the year 264 B.C., and it was the immediate result
of an act of bad judgment and also of bad faith on the part of the
Romans. There would be no need to mention this here if it did not
illustrate a trait in the Roman character which is becoming more marked
as Rome is drawn more and more into diplomatic relations with other
states. The habit of order and discipline at home did not bring with it
a sense of justice and honour in dealing with foreigners. The Roman
practical view of life, which did not include education of the mind and
feeling, was not favourable to the growth of generous conduct except
towards a fellow-citizen. The Latin word _virtus_, which expresses the
practical duties of a citizen, does not suggest honourable dealing
outside the civic boundary. Some mental imagination was needed for
higher aims to make themselves felt in public life; “slimness,” as the
Boers of the Transvaal used to call it, is too often characteristic of
Roman diplomacy; and hardness, not always stopping short of cruelty, is
henceforward constantly to be found in their conduct towards a beaten
foe.
A rascally band of mercenaries, Italians by birth, who had been in the
Syracusan service, had seized on the old Greek city of Messana—the same
Messina which quite recently met with so terrible a fate in the great
earthquake. The city lay on the Sicilian side of the strait which still
bears its name, and looked at from an Italian point of view, might be
called the key to Sicily. Exactly opposite to it was Rhegium (Reggio),
another Greek city which had been treated in the same way by another
band of brigands; but these had been at once cleared out by orders from
Rome. In the case of Messana the task naturally developed on Hiero, the
king of Syracuse, a young man of ability who had lately made a treaty
with Rome; but when he made the attempt, the brigands appealed for help
both to Rome and to Carthage. The plain duty of the Senate was to
support their ally Hiero, or to leave the applicants to their fate. But
the Carthaginians might then establish themselves at Messana, and that
must have seemed to a Roman a thing not to be permitted. The Senate
hesitated for once, and finally referred the matter to the people, who
voted to support the mercenaries against an ally of the Roman State.
This act of bad faith and bad policy cost the Romans a valuable ally,
and a war with Carthage that lasted without a break for twenty-three
years.
It would be waste of space in this little book to go into the details of
this long and wearisome war, which can be read in any history of Rome.
It was, of course, in the main a naval war, and the Romans had as yet no
fleet to speak of. But now was seen the advantage of a united Italy. The
difficulty was overcome by enlisting the services of Greek and Etruscan
sailors and ship-builders; a Carthaginian war-vessel, wrecked on the
Italian coast, served as a model, and a large fleet was soon ready for
sea, with which, strange to say, the Roman commanders succeeded in the
course of a few years in clearing the Italian and Sicilian seas of the
enemy, and even contrived to transport an army of invasion to
Carthaginian territory. This astonishing feat was accomplished simply by
the invention of a device for grappling with the enemy’s ships, so that
they could be boarded by Roman soldiers acting as “marines.” And during
this first half of the war they also renewed their alliance with Hiero,
and conquered the whole of Sicily, with the exception of the strong city
of Lilybæum (now Marsala).
But all these good results were thrown away by the folly of the Roman
Senate. Now that they had crossed the sea and entered on a new sphere of
action, they seemed for the moment to have lost the prudence and wisdom
that had won them the headship of Italy. They had two consular armies in
Africa which seemed to have Carthage herself in their grip; but when she
sued for peace they offered her impossible terms, and about the same
time actually recalled one of the two consuls with his army to Italy.
The old Phœnician spirit revived, and turned to desperate courage: an
able Greek soldier of fortune, Xanthippus, took the Carthaginian army in
hand, and before long, the remaining Roman army was utterly destroyed
and its commander Regulus was a prisoner. This is the Regulus of one of
the most famous of Roman stories, and one of the most beautiful of
Horace’s _Odes_. He is said to have gone to Rome on _parole_ with an
embassy, and on its failure to have returned a captive to Carthage,
where he was put to a cruel death. Many critics now reject this tale as
pure legend, without sufficient reason. It is probably true in outline,
and it is certain that it took firm possession of the Roman mind. It
thus bears witness to the strong Roman feeling of the binding power of
an oath, even when given to an enemy; for Regulus had sworn to return if
the mission failed.
It took Rome many years and enormous efforts to recover from this
disaster, and from the destruction of her fleets by tempests which
unluckily followed and gave Carthage once more the mastery of the sea.
Carthage, too, had found a man of genius, Hamilcar Barca, whose intense
hatred of Rome, ever growing as she gradually prevailed, inspired his
people to continue the struggle by sea, and his own forces to hold on
grimly to a mountain fortress in the north-west of Sicily, Mount Eryx,
the scene of the games in the fifth book of Virgil’s _Æneid_. Both sides
were exhausted and indeed permanently damaged; but the strength of Rome
was more enduring, and in 241 B.C. Hamilcar consented himself to
negotiate a peace, by which Sicily and the adjacent smaller islands
passed into the hands of Rome for ever. Soon afterwards, taking
advantage of a deadly war which Carthage had to wage with her own
mercenaries, Rome contrived, in that spirit of “slimness” already
noticed, to get possession of both Sardinia and Corsica. This shows that
the Senate understood the importance of these islands for a power in
command of the western seas; but unjust dealing brought its own reward.
It is possible that the great Hamilcar might have forgiven Rome her
injuries to his country but for this. As it was, his hatred of her sunk
into his soul more deeply than ever, and that hatred, springing up
afresh in the breast of his son Hannibal, all but destroyed his enemy
off the face of the earth. He retired to Spain, to organise a
Carthaginian dominion there, of which he was himself practically king,
and which he destined as a base of operations against Rome in another
war; and before he started, as Hannibal himself told the story long
afterwards, the father made his boy of nine years old take a solemn oath
to cherish an eternal hatred of the enemies of his country.
The plan of invading Italy from Spain was forced upon Hamilcar by the
fact that Rome was in command of the sea; it was no longer possible for
Carthage to strike at her from Africa without a greater effort to
recover that command than her government of merchant princes was now
disposed to make. And the fact that Hannibal was actually able to carry
out the invasion by land was due to the genius and personal influence of
his father in building up a solid dominion in southern Spain with New
Carthage (now Cartagena) as its capital. Some historians have thought
that of these two extraordinary men the father was the greatest; and it
is at least true that his was a noble work of construction, while his
son’s brilliant gifts were wasted in the attempt to destroy the great
fabric which Rome had reared in Italy. The attempt was unavailing; the
solid Roman structure survived all the assaults of the greatest captain
of the ancient world. The glamour of Hannibal’s splendid victories must
not blind us to the fact that he made two serious miscalculations: he
believed that the Italians hated Rome as he did himself, and would join
him to crush her; and he hoped, if he did not believe, that Carthage
would give him substantial help. Had he judged rightly on the former
point, Rome’s fate was sealed. But the Italian kinsmen of Rome, who had
come to recognise in her their natural leader, never even faltered in
their loyalty,[5] and Carthage did but little to help him till it was
too late. Thus we have in this terrible war the strange spectacle of a
single man of marvellous genius pitting himself against the whole
strength of a united Italy with military resources, as we know from the
accurate Greek historian, Polybius, amounting to some 770,000 men
capable of bearing arms.
Fascinating as we may find Hannibal’s wonderful career, much as we may
admire his nobility of character, a sober judgment must lead to the
conclusion that no great man ever did less for the good of his
fellow-creatures. During the fifteen years of his stay in Italy he did
irreparable damage to the fair peninsula, and he hardened the hearts of
the Romans for all their future dealings with their foes. When at last
he left it he was unable to save his own country, and spent his last
years in exile, ever plotting against the enemy that had escaped him. A
man who is actuated all his life through by a single motive of hatred
and revenge, can never be reckoned among those who have done something
for the benefit of humanity.
While Hannibal was gaining the loyalty of the southern Spaniards, and
organising their resources, Rome was occupied in trying to extend her
power over the Gauls settled in the plain of the Po, and so to make sure
of her northern flank, as she had already secured Sicily in the south.
The Senate knew something of Hannibal’s design, and hoped to anticipate
him in getting a hold on that valuable region, the strategical key to
Italy. But here there was no question of gaining the loyalty of the
tribes; the Gauls were restless and hostile, and had quite lately made
another determined attempt to reach Rome; they actually came within
three days’ march of the city before they were defeated in a great
battle. In 219-218 B.C. Roman armies were still busy in driving roads
northward, and planting two colonies, Placentia and Cremona, on Gallic
soil and on the Po, when Hannibal descended on them from the Alps. He
had found a pretext for war, gathered a force of 100,000 men, passed the
Pyrenees and reached the Rhone before the Senate knew what he was about,
and eluded a consular army dispatched to stop him. Scipio, its
commander, with true military instinct, sent his army on to Spain, to
cut his communications with the base he had been preparing so long. This
line of communication Hannibal never recovered for ten years, and was
forced to maintain and recruit his army on Italian soil.
That army, from a purely military point of view, was without doubt one
of the best known to history. It consisted chiefly of thoroughly trained
Spanish infantry, officered by Carthaginians, and of the best cavalry in
the world, recruited from the Numidians of the western region of North
Africa. It was one of those armies that can go anywhere and do anything
at the bidding of its general, because entire trust in him was the one
motive actuating it. It was a professional army, a perfect instrument of
war, a weapon admirably fitted to destroy, but without constructive
value—with no sap of civilisation giving it permanent vital energy.
Luckily for Rome, this army had shrunk to very moderate dimensions when
it reached Italy; the length of the march, the necessity of leaving some
troops in Spain, and the terrible trials of the crossing of the Alps,
where the native tribes combined with rock, snow and ice to wear it out,
had reduced it to less than 30,000 men.
Yet after a few days’ rest Hannibal went straight for the nearest Roman
force. This force was now on the north bank of the Po under Scipio, who
had returned from the Rhone to Italy. Pushing it back to the new colony
of Placentia, where it was joined by that of the other consul
Sempronius, Hannibal utterly defeated the combined Roman armies on the
little river Trebbia which runs down to that city (now Piacenza) from
the Apennines. The Roman power in the plain of the Po was instantly
paralysed by this defeat, and the victor at once set himself to organise
alliances with the Gallic tribes while he rested and recruited his weary
troops. But from the Gauls he got no substantial help; that fickle
people had no great reason to welcome an invader when once he was in
their territory. And perhaps this was fortunate for him; for if he had
marched into central Italy as leader of a Gallic army he would have
strengthened, not weakened, the resistance of the whole Italian
federation that Rome had so solidly organised. His knowledge of the
motives which held this federation together must surely have been
seriously imperfect.
But in the spring he crossed the Apennines, and made his way through the
marshy and malarious district around the lower Arno, where it is said he
lost an eye from ophthalmia, to meet the consul Flaminius, who had been
sent to cover the approach to Rome with a large army. Slipping past
Flaminius, Hannibal concealed his army among the hills and woods on the
eastern shore of the lake of Trasimene, along the western bank of which
the railway now runs on its way from Florence to Rome; and here he lay
in wait for his prey. Flaminius walked into the trap laid for him; his
army was totally destroyed, and he himself was killed. There was now
nothing to stop the conqueror if he chose to march straight on Rome.
But Hannibal’s plans did not include a siege of Rome; he had brought no
siege apparatus, and at no time during the war did he succeed in getting
any from Carthage, or in making it in Italy. His real object was to
bring the Italians over to his side, to isolate Rome, and to put a free
Italy (so he is said to have phrased it) in place of a Roman dominion.
So he turned his back on Rome, and made his way at leisure down the
eastern coast of central Italy to the corn-lands of Apulia, which were
henceforward to serve as his chief base of operations. Hence he might
easily reach the great sea-ports of Tarentum and Croton, and so get into
touch once more with Carthage, and perhaps, too, with another power from
whom he was already looking for help, Philip, king of Macedon. But
during this southward march he learnt, apparently for the first time,
that Italy was studded with Roman and Latin colonies, each a fortress,
each provisioned and ready to resist him: each, too, a miniature Rome,
disseminating among the Italians the honour and pride of Roman
citizenship, and the animating spirit of Italian unity under Roman
leadership. One or two of these fortresses he vainly tried to take, and
he must at this time have begun at last to realise that the mortal
hatred of an individual is no match in the long run for the organised
vitality of a practical people.
His one chance was to win another great battle, and so to overawe south
Italy, to make his base absolutely secure, and to force gradually
northward the leaven of anti-Roman feeling on which he calculated. For
the rest of that year, 217 B.C., he could not get this chance; the
Senate, still cool-headed, had appointed a cool-headed dictator,[6] who
knew that his slow and steady citizen soldiers were no good match for a
mobile professional army skilfully handled, and steadily refused to
accept battle. Not even when Hannibal forced his way northward to the
rich plain of Campania, and tried to gain over the wealthy city of
Capua, would Fabius be tempted to fight; he dogged the enemy’s
footsteps, and once tried to catch him in a snare, from which Hannibal
escaped by a clever ruse. But next year the Senate dispatched the two
new consuls, with an army not far short of 100,000 men, to deal with the
enemy in southern Italy; and here, reluctant though one at least of them
was, Hannibal enticed them into a battle by seizing a valuable dépôt of
stores at a town called Cannæ, near the sea, in the plain of Apulia.
Though far inferior in numbers, he contrived by consummate tactics to
draw the solid Roman legions into a net, and then used his mobile
Numidian cavalry to prevent their escape to the rear. The fight became a
butchery, in which 80,000 Romans are said to have fallen. The largest
army ever yet sent out from Rome was totally destroyed, and it would
seem as if she could no longer escape from her deadly foe.
At this point, the high-water mark of Hannibal’s successes, we may pause
to see how the Senate met the news of this most terrible disaster. At no
moment in Roman history is the sterling quality of the Roman character
and spirit so conspicuously shown. The Senate had to meet not only the
immediate military crisis in Italy, but the problems of military and
naval policy in Spain, in Sicily, and in the plain of the Po. At home,
too, they had to deal with what we may call a religious panic; the
people, and especially the women, were beginning to lose nerve, and to
fancy that their gods had forsaken them. We can believe the Roman
historian when he says that any other people would have been crushed by
a catastrophe like this. But the wise men of the Senate simply sat down
to repair it, never dreaming of giving in. The city was made safe, fresh
legions were enrolled, and thanks were voted to the surviving consul
“for not despairing of the republic.” They would not ransom the
prisoners in Hannibal’s hands, nor receive the officer whom he sent for
this purpose. They were not moved even by the news that southern Italy,
the Bruttians, Lucanians, Apulians, and most of the Samnites, had joined
the enemy, and that isolated towns farther north had deserted them.
Capua, the second city of Italy, was betrayed to Hannibal, and he was
thus enabled to advance his base from Apulia into the plain of Campania,
without leaving an enemy in his rear: but the Senate did not despair. In
due time the ranks of this Senate, sadly thinned since the war began,
were filled up by a dictator with the best and most experienced citizens
available. All possible means were adopted of keeping up the idea of
“the peace of the gods”; an embassy was even sent to Delphi; the
religious panic speedily quieted down. At the beginning of the next year
provision was made as usual for the military commands in Sicily,
Sardinia, and Spain, and also for a fleet which was being got together
at Ostia, the port at the mouth of the Tiber. Within a few months after
the battle all was going on in Rome as usual.
So the overwhelming defeat of Cannæ did but lead the Romans to
victory—to a victory of all the nobler elements in their character over
momentary doubt and despair. A people that could recover from that
disaster, and go quietly about the work of repairing it, was not likely
to be crushed out of existence even by a Hannibal; and though he was to
remain as a standing menace for many years on Italian soil, it may
fairly be said that henceforward he had no real chance of ultimate
success. Two moments of grave anxiety were still to come, but Rome
survived them both. One of these came three years later, when a
desperate effort was being made to snatch Capua out of Hannibal’s grasp.
To induce the Roman government to raise the siege, he made a sudden
march on Rome, knowing that no covering army was between him and the
capital. He encamped on the Anio, three miles above the city, and rode
with an escort of cavalry right up to the gates. But it was all in vain;
the Senate had gathered levies amply sufficient to hold the walls, and
after plundering the Roman lands Hannibal fell away again, like a
sea-wave spent and broken on a rocky shore.
The last moment of extreme peril came five years later, in 207 B.C. The
wise foresight of the Senate at the outset of the war had so far secured
the Roman hold on Spain, and no reinforcements had reached Hannibal from
that source. At last his loyal and able brother Hasdrubal eluded the
Roman army there, and by taking a new route—that of Wellington in the
Peninsular War—avoided all opposition from the Romans in northern Spain.
Communications with Italy were now at last open, though not by sea, as
they should have been had the government at Carthage thrown its whole
strength into the work of building up its naval power afresh. Hasdrubal
was forced to cross the Alps, and this he did with better knowledge and
with less loss than his brother. He made his way through the Gallic
territory and reached Ariminum (Rimini). Hannibal was in Apulia, where
one consul was holding him in check and dealing with disaffected
Italians; the other was waiting for the invader on the great coast road
south of Ariminum. Hasdrubal sent dispatches to his brother informing
him of his arrival and suggesting plans of co-operation; but there were
Roman troops everywhere, and the messengers fell into the hands of the
enemy. The consul in the south, Claudius Nero, discovering thus the
danger, took a step, without orders from the Senate, which has made his
name for ever famous. He left sufficient force to hold Hannibal, and
slipped away with 7000 picked men, without being discovered even by the
most wily of commanders. He marched into the camp of Livius, the other
consul, by night, after a march of some 200 miles, all the loyal people
of central Italy feeding and blessing his army as he went. Two days
later the most decisive battle of the war was fought on the banks of the
little river Metaurus, which runs into the sea from the Apennines a few
miles south of Ariminum. The Romans were this time completely
victorious; the invading army was utterly destroyed, and Hasdrubal was
killed fighting hard to the last. Nero went swiftly southwards to his
original station, and flung the head of Hasdrubal—so it was said—into
his brother’s camp. For the first time during the long weary years of
the war Rome was mad with joy; and almost for the first time in her
history we note a genuine outburst of gratitude to the gods for this
their inestimable blessing. Gratitude, whether to god or man, was not a
conspicuous trait in the Roman character; but now, in a moment of real
religious emotion, the first thought is one of thankfulness that “the
peace of the gods” is fully restored. It was not only that the Senate
ordered a public thanksgiving of three days, but that men and women
alike took advantage of it to press in crowds to the temples, the
mothers, in their finest robes, bringing their children with them.
The rest of the war-story is soon told. The man who had let Hasdrubal
escape him in Spain was a young Scipio, son of a Scipio who had done
good work and lost his life there earlier in the war. He himself was a
young man of real ability, whose character has always been to some
extent a mystery. He was a new type of Roman, one not wholly without
imagination, and the long years that he spent in Spain without rivals to
check him had perhaps made him cherish and develop his own individuality
more than was possible for the staid Roman noble of the old type at
home. He believed profoundly in himself, and had the gift of making
others believe in him. Returning home the year after the Metaurus
battle, he was elected consul, though not yet of the legal age, and had
Sicily given him as his province, where after many vicissitudes the
Romans were now supreme. He at once proposed to invade Africa, and so to
force Hannibal to leave Italy; and the Senate, though they could not or
would not risk a large force, gave him leave to make the attempt.
Scipio crossed to Africa in 204 B.C., and ere long the Carthaginian
government recalled Hannibal. The great general obeyed, sadly and
unwillingly, and in 202 met Scipio in battle at Zama and was beaten; the
undisciplined levies given him by the government were no match for Roman
veterans. He himself now advised his people to make peace, and conducted
the negotiations, thus doing what he could to make up for the
irreparable damage done her in the war by his own implacable hatred of
her rival. Carthage was no longer to be a naval power—that was
definitely secured by the terms accorded her. She surrendered Spain to
the victors, and agreed to pay a large war indemnity by instalments
during fifty successive years. Her foreign policy was to be guided by
Rome: she could no longer be called an independent State.
So ended this great trial of Roman endurance. No people has ever gone
through a harder test and survived. The sense of duty and discipline
never once failed them; Romans and Italians alike were ready to face
death at any moment in defence of their country. But war, always
mischievous, when prolonged can sow the seeds of much evil in the
future; and we must confess with regret that we are to see but little
more of the heroic qualities that had carried Rome through this great
struggle.