HANNIBAL LEAVES ITALY
Carthage might now have despaired, had not Hannibal been alive. His
name, she knew well, could still inspire the Roman legions with terror,
his presence would, she believed, ensure their defeat. So messengers
were sent to Italy to bid him hasten to Carthage.
The great general left Italy sorrowfully, for the hopes with which he
had entered her had not been fulfilled.
In spite of all the great victories he had won, Italy had slipped from
his grasp. Perhaps it was true, as Maharbal had said, ‘Hannibal knows
how to win victories, but not how to use them.’
But if Hannibal left the country reluctantly, the people rejoiced at
his departure. They could never feel secure while he was in their land.
His name, indeed, still made the Romans tremble.
Before the great general left, he ordered bronze tablets to be made,
and on these he ordered to be engraved the battles he had fought in
Italy, as well as a full account of the war. These records were written
both in the Greek and the Punic language.
A famous historian, who was a boy when Hannibal was fighting in Italy,
saw these tablets when he grew to be a man, and so he was able to write
a true account of the second Punic war.
But all the history that Polybius wrote was not carefully preserved. So
that after the battle of Cannæ we have no records save those given to
us by Roman historians. And what they, in their pride, wrote, was not,
many people think, the same as Hannibal recorded on his bronze tablets.
After the capture of King Syphax, a short truce had been arranged
between the two powers, while an embassy went from Carthage to Rome to
try to obtain peace.
But the truce was broken by the Carthaginians, and for this the Romans
made them suffer heavily.
Some ships, laden with provisions for the Roman army, were on their
way from Sardinia to join Scipio’s fleet, when a storm blew them on to
an island in the Bay of Carthage. The Carthaginians seized some of the
ships, being unable to resist the temptation to get food, of which they
had had but little for some time.
Scipio was indignant at this breach of the truce, and he at once sent
to Carthage to demand that the booty should be restored.
But there were some in Carthage who wished the war with Rome to go on,
and they were more powerful than those who longed for peace. So the war
party arranged that the Roman ambassadors should be sent back by ship
to Scipio, with a safe conduct, indeed, but without an answer to his
demands.
They were taken safe to within sight of their own ships, then their
escort withdrew, while the admiral of the Punic fleet, having been
secretly instructed, at once tried to take the ambassadors prisoners.
Two of the crew were injured, some were even killed, while the
ambassadors escaped with difficulty.
After so evident an insult to the messengers of Rome, Scipio at once
prepared to carry on the war.
By the autumn of 203 B.C. Hannibal was in Carthage, and the people,
full of confidence in their great general, were eager that he should at
once take the field.
But Hannibal roughly bade the citizens ‘attend to their own affairs,
and leave him to choose his own time of fighting.’
He then begged for an interview with Scipio, and tried to arrange
terms of peace. But the Consul refused to have anything to do with such
terms, saying that the truce had been broken, his envoys insulted, and
the Carthaginians must suffer the consequences of such deeds.
Scipio was indeed impatient to fight, that the war might the sooner
come to an end.
It was already the month of October, 202 B.C., and although the people
of Rome had decreed that Scipio should still continue in Africa, the
Senate was anxious that one of the new Consuls should be sent to join
him, and share his power.
Claudius, the hero of Metaurus, was one of the new Consuls, and he was
ordered to cross to Africa with a fleet of fifty quinqueremes.
Scipio resented this, for if the war with Carthage ended successfully
after Claudius reached Africa, it was he, as Consul, who would enjoy
the triumph at Rome.
Now the invasion of Africa had been Scipio’s own scheme, and he wished
to have the glory of its success himself alone. So before the end of
October he hastened to lead his army to battle in the neighbourhood of
Zama.