"Will Durant on Hannibal's Historic Challenge to Rome (264-202 B.C.)"

Hannibal against Rome 264 to 202 BC 1 Carthage some 1100 years before our era the inquisitive traders of Phoenicia discovered the mineral wealth of Spain soon a fleet of merchant vessels plied between Sidon tire and byblos at one end of the Mediterranean and tar tesis at the mouth of the guaro covere on the other since such voyages could not then be made without many stops and the southern shores of the Mediterranean provided the shortest and safest route the Phoenicians established intermediate posts and trading stations on the African coast at Leptis magna now led to a Drama Tom now sous Utica now to teak hippo die rightists now Buzard hippo reaches now born and even the algebra alixus south of Tangier the Semitic settlers at these posts married some of the natives and bribed the rest to piece about 813 PC a new group of colonists perhaps from Phoenicia perhaps from expanding Utica built their homes upon a promontory 10 miles northwest of the modern Tunis the narrow peninsula could be easily defended and the land watered by the bagra dis now majora river was so fertile that it quickly recovered from repeated devastation classic tradition ascribed the founding of the city to Elissa or Dido daughter of the king of Tyre her husband having been slain by her brother she had sailed with other adventurous Souls to Africa her settlement was called Carta dashed new town to distinguish it from Utica the Greeks transformed the name into car chewed on the Romans into cars ago the Latins gave the name Africa to the region around Carthage and Utica and followed the Greeks in calling its Semitic population peeny that is Phoenicians the sieges of Tyre beshal manager nebuchadrezzar and Alexander drove many wealthy tyrants to Africa most of them went to Carthage and made it a new center of Venetian trade Carthage grew in power and splendor is tyre and sidon declined the city drove the African natives farther and farther inland ceased to pay tribute to them exact tribute from them and used them as slaves and serfs in its homes and filled large estates took form some with 20,000 men in the hands of the practical Phoenicians agriculture became a science and an industry which the Carthaginian mego summarized in a famous manual irrigated with canals the soil flowered into Gardens cornfields vineyards and orchards of olives pomegranates pears cherries and figs horses and cattle sheep and goats were bread asses and mules were the beasts of burden and the elephant was one of many domesticated animals urban industry was relatively immature except for metalwork the Carthaginians like their Asiatic forebears preferred to trade what others made they led their pack mules east and west and across the Sahara to find elephants ivory gold or slaves their immense galleys carried goods to and from a hundred ports between Asia and Britain for they refused to turn back like most other Mariners at the Pillars of Hercules it was presumably they who about 490 BC financed a nose voyage of exploration 2600 miles down the Atlantic coast of Africa and the voyage of hamako along the northern shores of Europe although their coinage was undistinguished they were apparently the first to issue the equivalent of a paper currency leather strips stamped with signs of value and accepted throughout the Carthaginian realm probably it was the rich merchants rather than the aristocratic landowners who provided the funds for those armies and navies which transformed Carthage from a trading post into an empire the African coast accept Utica was conquered from Cyrenaica to Gibraltar and beyond thar tsys Cadiz now Cadiz and other Spanish towns were captured and Carthage grew wealthy from the gold silver iron and copper of Spain it took the Balearic Islands and reached out even to Madeira it conquered Malta Sardinia Corsica and the western half of Sicily it treated these subject lands with varying degrees of severity charging them annual tribute conscripting their population for its army and strictly controlling their foreign relations in their trade in it gave them military protection local self-government and economic stability we may judge the wealth of these dependencies from the fact that the town of Leptis minor paid 365 talents or 1 million three hundred fourteen thousand dollars a year into the Carthaginian Treasury the exploitation of this Empire and trade made Carthage in the third century BC the richest of Mediterranean cities tariffs in tribute brought her annually twelve thousand talents twenty times the revenue of Athens at her Zenith the upper classes lived in palaces wore costly robes and ate exotic delicacies the city crowded with a quarter of a million inhabitants became famous for its gleaming temples its public baths above all for its secure harbours and spacious docks each of the 220 docks was faced with two ionic pillars so that the inner harbor or couthon presented a majestic circle of 440 marble columns then subrata Avenue led to the forum a colonnaded square adorned with greek sculpture and containing administrative buildings commercial offices law courts and temples while the adjoining streets oriental a narrow teamed with a thousand shops plying a hundred crafts and resounding with bargaining houses rose to six storeys and often crowded the family into a single room in the center of the city providing one of many hints to later builders of Rome stood a hill or Citadel the bursa here were the Treasury in the mint more shrines and colonnades and the most brilliant of Carthaginian temples to the Great God Ashman around the landward side of the city ran a three-fold protective wall 45 feet high with still higher towers and battlements within the wall were accommodations for 4,000 horses 300 elephants and 20,000 men outside the walls were the estates of the rich and beyond these the fields of the poor the Carthaginians were Semites akin in blood and features to the ancient Jews their language now and then struck a Hebraic note as when it called the chief magistrates show fed haze the Hebrew shall fed him or judges the men grew beards but usually shaved the upper lip with bronze razors most of the moor affairs or turban or sandals and a long loose gown but the upper-class has adopted the Greek style of dress dyed their robes with purple and fringed them with glass beads the women LED for the most part a veiled and secluded life they could rise to high place in the priesthoods but otherwise had to be contented with the sovereignty of their charms both sexes used jewelry and perfume and occasionally displayed a ring in the nose we know little of their morals except from their enemies Greek and Roman writers described them as heavy eaters and drinkers loving to gather in dinner clubs and is loose in their sex relations as they were corrupt in their politics the treacherous Romans employed fides Punic ax Carthaginian faith as a synonym for treachery Polybius reported that at Carthage nothing that results in profit is regarded as disgraceful who talked announced the Carthaginians as harsh and gloomy docile to their rulers hard to their subjects running to extremes of cowardice in fear and of savagery and anger stubborn in decisions austere and unresponsive to amusement or the graces of life but Plutarch they'll usually fare was always a Greek and polybius was bosom friend of the Scipio who burned Carthage to the ground the Carthaginians appear at their worst in their religion which again we know only from their enemies their ancestors in Phoenicia had worshipped bale Moloch and Astarte as personifying the male and female principals in nature and the Sun and Moon in the sky the Carthaginians addressed similar devotions to corresponding deities Vale Hama and Tanis Tanith above all aroused their loving piety they filled her temples with gifts and took her name in their oaths third and honor was the god Mel carte key of the city then Ashman god of wealth and health then a host of minor gods bales or Lords even Dido was worshipped to bail Haman in great crises living children were sacrificed as many as 300 in a day they were placed upon the inclined and outstretched arms of the idol and rolled off into the fire beneath their cries were drowned in the noise of trumpets and cymbals their mothers were required to look upon the scene without moan or tear lest they be accused of impiety and lose the credit to them from the God in time the rich refused to sacrifice their own children and bought substitutes among the poor but when Agatha clays of Syracuse besieged Carthage the upper classes fearing that their subterfuge had offended the god caste 200 aristocratic infants into the fire it should be added that these stories are told us by die odorous a Sicilian Greek who looked with equanimity upon the Greek system of infanticide it may be that the Carthaginian sacrifice solaced with piety an effort to control the excesses of human fertility while the Romans destroyed Carthage they presented the libraries they found their - their African allies of these collections nothing survives except Hanno's record of his voyage and fragments of may go on husbandry saying to Gustin vaguely assured us that in Carthage there are many things wisely handed down to memory and Sallust and Juba made use of Carthaginian historians but we have no native account of Carthage's history of its architecture the Romans left not a stone upon a stone we're told that its style was a mixture of Phoenician and Greek that its temples were massive and ornate that the temple and statue of Bayeux Hammond were plated with gold valued at a thousand talents and that even the proud Greeks considered Carthage one of the world's most beautiful capitals the museum's of Tunis contained some pieces of sculpture from sarcophagi found in tombs near the site of Carthage the finest is a strong and graceful figure perhaps of Tanith in a manner essentially Greek smaller statues unearthed from Carthaginian graves and the beliefs are crude and often repulsively grotesque as it designed to impress children or frighten Devils away the surviving pottery is purely utilitarian but we know that Carthaginian craftsmen did good work in textiles jewelry ivory ebony amber and glass any clearer picture of Carthaginian government is now beyond our pens Aristotle praised the constitution of Carthage as in many respects superior to all others for a state is proved to be well ordered when the Commons are steadily loyal to the Constitution when no civil conflict worth speaking of as arisen and when no one has succeeded in making himself dictator the citizens met occasionally in an assembly empowered to accept or reject but not to discuss or amend proposals referred to it by a Senate of 300 elders the Senate however was not obliged to submit to the assembly any measures upon which it could itself agree the people elected the Senate but opened bribery reduced the virtue or danger of this democratic procedure and replaced an aristocracy of birth with an oligarchy of wealth from nominations presented by the Senate the assembly annually chose to show phytase to head the judicial and administrative branches of the state above all these bodies was a court of 104 judges who in contravention of the law held offers for life as it was empowered to supervise all administration and to require an accounting from every official at the end of his term this court acquired by the time of the Punic Wars supreme control over every governmental agency and every citizen the commander of the armies was nominated by the Senate and chosen by the assembly he was in a better position than the Roman consul for his command could be continued as long as the Senate desired the Roman however led against Carthage legions of landowning Patriots whereas the Carthaginian army was a mercenary force of foreign chiefly Libyan origin feeling no affection for Carthage but loyal only to its paymaster and occasionally to its general the Carthaginian Navy was without question the most powerful of its time 500 Quinn forums gaily painted slim and Swift Abele protected Carthaginian colonies markets and trade routes it was the conquest of Sicily by this army and the closing of the western Mediterranean to Roman commerce by this Navy that brought on the century-long duel to the death known to us as the three Punic Wars to Regulus the two nations had once been friends when one of them was strong enough to dominate the other in 508 they had made a treaty that recognized the hegemony of Rome over the coast of elation but pledged the Romans not to sail the Mediterranean west of Carthage nor to land in Sardinia or Libya except for the brief repair or provisioning of ships it became a common practice among the Carthaginians says a Greek geographer to drown any foreign sailor found between Sardinia and Gibraltar the Greeks of Masseria now Marseille had developed a peaceful coastal commerce between southern Gaul and northeastern Spain Carthage we are told Ward on this trade for radical ii and mycelia was a faithful ally of Rome we do not know how much of this is war propaganda dignified as history now the drone controlled Italy she could not feel secure so long as two hostile powers Greeks and Carthaginians held Sicily hardly a mile from the Italian coast besides Sicily was fertile it might supply half of Italy with grain Sicily taken Sardinia and Corsica would have themselves fall into Roman hands here was manifest destiny the natural next step in the expansion of Rome how to find a casus belli about 264 BC a band of Samnite mercenaries who call themselves hammer teens that is men of Mars seize the town of Messina on the Sicilian coast nearest to Italy they slew or expelled the Greek citizens divided among themselves the women children and goods of the victims and made a living by raiding the Greek cities nearby Cairo the second dictator of Syracuse besieged them a Carthaginian force landed at Messina drove Jairo back and took possession of the city the mammoth teens appealed to Rome for help in expelling their saviours the Senate hesitated knowing the power and wealth of Carthage but the rich plebeians who dominated the century Allah sembly clamored for war and Sicily Rome decided that at whatever cost she must keep the Carthaginians from so near and strategic a port a fleet was fitted out and dispatched under Caius Claudius to rescue the man but these had meanwhile been persuaded by the Carthaginians to withdraw their request for Roman aid and a message from them to this effect reached Claudius at region ignoring it he crossed the strait invited the Carthaginian commanded to a conference imprisoned him and sent word to the Carthaginian army that he would be killed if they resisted the mercenaries welcomed so gallant an excuse for avoiding the legions and Messina fell to Rome two heroes were thrown up by this first Punic War on the Roman side Regulus on the Carthaginian hamilkar perhaps we should add a third and fourth the Senate and the Roman people the Senate one high row of Syracuse to Rome's side and thereby assured supplies for Roman troops and Sicily it organized the nation with wisdom and resolution and led it to victory through almost overwhelming disasters the citizens provided money materials labor and men to build Rome's first fleet 330 vessels nearly all Quinn Kareem's 150 feet long each manned by 300 rowers and 120 soldiers and most of them equipped with novel grappling irons and movable gangways for seizing and boarding enemy ships by these means naval warfare unfamiliar to the Romans could be turned into hand-to-hand combat in which the Legionaries could use all their disciplined skill this fact says polybius shows us better than anything else how spirited and daring the Romans are when they are determined to do a thing they had never given thought to a navy yet when they had once conceived the project they took it in hand so boldly but before gaining any experience in such matters they had once engaged the Carthaginians who for generations had held undisputed command of the sea of Aquino --mess on the southern coast of Sicily the hostile fleet carrying 300,000 men fought the greatest sea battle of antiquity this in 256 the Romans under Regulus won decisively and sailed on unhindered to Africa landing there without careful reconnaissance they soon met a superior Carthaginian force which almost annihilated them and took their reckless consul prisoner shortly afterward the Roman fleet was dashed by a storm against a rocky coast 284 vessels rekt and some 80,000 men were drowned it was the worst naval calamity in the memory of men the Romans showed their quality by building 200 neuquén quorums in three months and training 80,000 men to man them after keeping regulus a prisoner for five years his captors allowed him to accompany a Carthaginian embassy sent to Rome to seek peace but on his promise to return to captivity if the Senate refused the proffered terms when regulus heard these he advised the Senate to reject them and despite the entreaties of his family and his friends went back with the embassy to Carthage there he was tortured to death by being prevented from sleeping his sons at Rome took two Carthaginian captives of high rank bound them in a chest studded with spikes and kept them awake till they died neither tale seems credible until we recall the barbarities of our time three Hamilcar of Hammel cars has dribbles and Hannibal's Carthage had an abundance for these names were given in almost every generation in their oldest families they were pious names formed from those of the gods Hamilcar was he whom Mel card protects Hasdrubal was he whose help is bail Hannibal was the very grace of bail our present hamilkar was surnamed Barca lightning it was his nature to strike swiftly suddenly anywhere he was still a youth when in 247 Carthage gave him supreme command of its forces taking a small fleet he harassed the coast of Italy with surprised landings destroying Roman outposts and taking many prisoners then in the face of a Roman army holding pen Ormus now Palermo he disembarked his troops and captured a height overlooking the town his contingent was too small to risk a major engagement but every time he led it forth it returned with spoils he begged the Carthaginian Senate for reinforcements and supplies it refused hugged its horns and bad him feed and clothe his soldiers in the country that surrounded him meanwhile the Roman fleet had won another victory but had suffered a serious defeat at trapano in 249 worn-out almost equally the two nations rested for nine years but while in those years Carthage did nothing relying upon the genius of Hamilcar a number of Roman citizens voluntarily presented to the state of fleet of 200 men of war carrying 60,000 troops this new Armada sailing secretly caught the Carthaginian fleet unprepared at the egay thien Isles off the west coast of Sicily and so overwhelmed at that Carthage sued for peace in 241 Carthaginian Sicily was surrendered to Rome an annual indemnity of 440 talents was pledged to Rome for ten years and all Carthaginian restrictions on Roman trade were withdrawn the war had lasted nearly 24 years and it brought Rome so near to bankruptcy that its currency was - based 83% but it had proved the irresistible tenacity of the Roman character and the superiority of an army composed of freemen / mercenaries seeking the greatest booty for the least blood Carthage was now to be all but destroyed by its own breed it had withheld for some time the pay of its mercenaries even of those who had served hamilkar well they poured into the city and demanded their money and when the government temporized and tried to disperse them they broke into mad revolt Carthage's subject people's taxed beyond endurance during the war joined the uprising and the women of libya sold their jewels to finance revolution 20,000 mercenaries and rebels led by Methot a libyan freeman and spending us a campaign e'en slave laid siege to carthage at a time when hardly a soldier was there to defend it the rich merchants trembled for their lives and appealed the hamilkar to save them torn between affection for his mercenaries and his City Hamilcar organized an army of 10,000 Carthaginians trained them led them forth and raised the siege the defeated mercenaries retreating into the mountains cut off the hands and feet of Jesco a Carthaginian general and 700 other prisoners broke their legs and then through the still-living victims into an indiscriminate grave Hamilcar maneuvered 40,000 of the rebels into a defile and blocked all exits so well that they began to starve they ate their remaining captives than their slaves at last they sent spendy is to beg for peace Hamilcar crucified spendy us and had hundreds of prisoners trampled to death under elephants feet the mercenaries tried to fight their way out that were cut to pieces Mesa was captured and was made to run through the streets of Carthage while the citizens beat him with thongs and tortured him till he died this war of the mercenaries lasted 40 months from 241 to 237 and was by far said polybius the most bloody and impious war in history when the conflict was over carthage found that rome had occupied sardinia carthage protested and rome declared war the desperate Carthaginians bought peace only by paying Rome an additional twelve hundred talons and surrendering Sardinia and Corsica we may judge the fury of Hamilcar at this treatment of his country he proposed to his government that it should provide him with troops and funds to re-establish the power of carthage in spain as a stepping stone to an attack upon italy the land owning aristocracy opposed the plan fearing further war the mercantile middle class resenting the loss of their foreign markets and ports support as a compromise hamilkar was given a modest contingent with which he crossed to Spain in 238 he recaptured the cities whose allegiance to Carthage had lapsed during the war built up his army was native recruits financed and equipped it with the products of Spain's mines and died while leading a charge against a Spanish tribe this in 229 he left behind him in the camp his son-in-law has trouble and his sons Hannibal as jubilant may go his lions brood the son-in-law was chosen commander and for eight years governed wisely winning the cooperation of the Spaniards and building near the silver mines a great city known to Rome as Nova Carthago or New Carthage the Cartagena of today when he was assassinated in 221 the army elected as its leader Hamel car's eldest son Hannibal then 26 years of age before leaving Carthage his father had brought him a boy of nine to the altar of Bayeux Hammond and had bidden him swear that someday he would revenge his country against Rome Anibal swore and did not forget poor Hannibal why had Rome permitted the reconquest of Spain because she was harassed with class strife was expanding in the Adriatic and was at war with the goals in 232 a Tribune Gaius Flaminius foreshadowed the graça by carrying through the assembly against the violent opposition of the Senate a measure distributing among the poor citizens some lands recently won from the goals in 230 Rome took her first step toward the conquest of Greece by clearing the Adriatic of pirates and seizing a part of the illyrian coast as a further protection for Italian trades now on south and east she resolved to drive the Gauls over the Alps and make Italy a completely United State to secure herself on the west she signed a treaty with Hasdrubal by which the Carthaginians in Spain agreed to stay south of the Ebro River and at the same time she made an alliance with the semi Greek towns of Sag anthem and damp aureus in Spain in the following year 225 a Gallic Army at 50,000 foot and 20,000 horse swept down the peninsula the inhabitants of the capital were so frightened that the Senate returned to the primitive custom of human sacrifice and buried two Gauls alive in the forum as an appeasement of the gods the legions met the invaders near Telemann killed 40,000 took 10,000 prisoners and marched on to subjugate all Cisalpine Gaul in three years the task was completed protective colonies were established at Placentia and promoter and from the alps to sicily italy was one it was an untimely victory had the Gauls been left unmolested for a few years more they might have stopped Hannibal but now all Gaul was aflame against Rome Hannibal saw the opportunity he had longed for to cross Gaul with little opposition and to invade Italy with Gallic tribes as his allies the Punic leader was now 28 years old at his prime in body and mind in addition to a Carthaginian gentleman's schooling in the languages literature's and history of Phoenicia and Greece he had received a soldier's training through 19 years in camp he had disciplined his body to hardship his appetite to moderation his tongue to silence his thought to objectivity he could run or ride with the swiftest hunt or fight with the bravest was the first to enter the battles is the hostile living and the last to abandon the field the veterans loved him because in his commanding presence and piercing eyes they saw their old leader hamilkar returned to them in fresh youth the recruits liked him because he wore no distinctive dress never rested till he had provided for his Army's needs and shared with them all sufferings and gains the Romans accused him of avarice cruelty and treachery for he honored no scruples in seizing supplies for his troops punished disloyalty severely and laid many snares for his foes yet we find him often merciful always chivalrous nothing occurs in the accounts of him says the judicious Mommsen which may not be justified under the circumstances and according to the international law of the times the Romans could not readily forgive him for winning battles with his brains rather than with the lives of his men the tricks he played upon them the skill of his espionage the subtlety of his strategy the surprises of his tactics were beyond their appreciation until Carthage was destroyed in 219 BC Roman agents organized in Siddhanta a coup d'etat that set up a government patriotically hostile to Carthage when the Segen teens molested tribes friendly to him hannibal ordered them to desist when they refused he besieged the city Rome protested to Carthage and threatened war Carthage replied that since Segen term was 100 miles south of the Ebro Rome had no right to interfere and had by signing an alliance with it violated her treaty with Hasdrubal Hannibal persisted in the siege and Rome took up arms again never dreaming that this second Punic War was to be the most terrible in her history Hannibal spent eight months in subduing the Segen times he did not dare advance toward Italy while leaving to the Romans so excellent a port for landing in his rear in 218 he crossed the Ebro challenging fate as Caesar would at the Rubicon he had an army of fifty thousand infantry and 9,000 cavalry none of the mercenaries most of them Spaniards and Libyans three thousand Spaniards deserted when they learned that he planned to cross the Alps and Hannibal released seven thousand others who protested against his enterprise as impossible it was hard enough to force a passage through the Pyrenees more unexpected was the fierce resistance of some Gallic tribes ally with Marseille the summer of fighting was required to reach the Rhone and a major battle to cross it he had hardly left its banks when a Roman army arrived at the mouth of the river Hannibal led his troops north toward Vienna and then struck eastward into the outs Celtic hordes had crossed those ranges before him and he too might have done it without extraordinary hardship had it not been for the hostility of the Alpine tribes and the difficulty of getting his elephants through narrow or precipitous passages early in September after a climb of nine days he reached the summit and found it covered with snow there he led his men and animals rest for two days and then began the downward march through passes steeper than the ascent over roads sometimes buried by landslides and often paved with ice many soldiers and beasts lost their footing and tumbled to their deaths Hannibal spurred on his despairing forces by pointing out to them in the distance south the green fields and sparkling streams of Italy that paradise he promised them would soon be theirs after 17 days in the Alps they reached the plain and rested so many men and horses had been lost in the crossing that the army was now reduced to 26,000 less than half the force that had left New Carthage four months before had the Cisalpine goals resisted him his feat transalpine goals had done Hannibal's progress might have ended there but the boy I and other tribes welcomed him as a savior and joined him as allies while the recently established Roman settlers fled southward across the Po faced with the second threat in seven years to the very life of Rome the Senate mobilized all its resources and called upon the states of Italy to unite in the defence of their land with their help Rome raised armies totaling three hundred thousand foot fourteen thousand horse and four hundred fifty six thousand met Hannibal along the Ticino the small river flowing into the POE at pavia Hannibal's Numidian cavalry put the romans to flight and Scipio dangerously wounded was saved by the brave into position of the son who was destined to meet Hannibal again at Xena sixteen years later at Lake Trasimene Hannibal encountered another Roman army 30,000 strong led by the Tribune Caius flaminius and the company by slave dealers bringing fetters and chains for the prospective prisoners whom they hope to sell with part of his forces Hannibal decoyed this army into a plane surrounded by hills and woods that concealed most of his troops at his signal the hidden columns do boost upon the Romans from every side and killed nearly all of them including Flaminius himself this in 217 Hannibal now controlled all northern Italy but he knew that he was still outnumbered ten to one by a resolute foe his only hope lay in persuading at least some of the Italian states to revolt against Rome he released all prisoners whom he had taken from Rome's allies saying that he had come not to fight Italy but to set it free he marched through flooded Etruria where for four days no dry land could be found on which to pitch a camp across the Apennines to the Adriatic and there allowed his soldiers along interval to refresh their energies and heal their wounds he himself suffered from severe ophthalmic took no time to trade it and lost the use of one eye then he marched down the eastern coast inviting the Italian tribes to join him none did on the contrary every city closed its gates against him and prepared to fight as he moved south his Gallic allies interested only in their northern homes began to desert him plots against his life were so numerous that he had to assume every new disguises he begged his government to send him supplies and Men by some adriatic port it refused he asked his younger brother horrible whom he had left in Spain to organize an army and cross Gaul and the Alps to join him but the Romans had invaded Spain and has to Bob did not dare to leave it 10 years were to pass before his coming Rome now adopted against her greatest adversary his own baffling policy of caution and attrition Quintus Fabius Maximus made dictator in 217 created an adjective by delaying as long as he could a direct engagement with Hannibal in time he believed the invaders would be reduced by hunger discord and disease after a year this master the inaction irritated the Roman populace the Assembly overruled the Senate as well as all precedents and logic by electing Manutius Rufus Co dictator with Fabius against Fabius advise Manutius advanced against the enemy fell into a trap was severely beaten and thereafter understood why Hannibal said that he feared Fabius who would not fight more than Marcellus who would a year later Fabius was deposed and the Roman armies were entrusted to Lucius Aemilius Paulus and Caius Terentius Varro Paulus the aristocrat counseled caution borrow of the plebs was all for action and as usual caution lost the argument Varro sought and found the Carthaginians at canny in Apulia some 10 miles from the Adriatic coast the Romans had 80,000 infantry 6,000 cavalry Hannibal had 19,000 veterans 16,000 unreliable Gauls 10,000 horse and he had lured Varro to fight in a broad plain ideal for cavalry he had placed the Gauls at his centre expecting that they would give way they did and when the Romans followed them into the pocket the subtle Carthaginian himself in the thick of the fray ordered his veterans to close in upon the Roman flanks and bad his cavalry smashed through the opposed horsemen to attack the legions from behind the Roman army was surrounded lost all chance of maneuvering and was almost annihilated 44,000 of them fell including Paulus and 80 senators who had enlisted his soldiers 10,000 escaped to keynesian among them Varro and the Scipio who was to win the surname of africanus Mayer this in 216 Hannibal lost six thousand men two-thirds of them goals it was a supreme example of generalship never bettered in history it ended the days of roman reliance upon infantry and set the lines of military tactics for 2,000 years 5 Scipio the disaster shattered Rome's hegemony in southern Italy Samnites routines Luque nians metapontum 3e Crotona low Cree and Kapua joined Cisalpine Gaul and attaching themselves to Hannibal only Umbria lacy Amanda Toria remained firm higher o of Syracuse was loyal to the death but his successors declared for carthage philip v of Macedon fearful of Roman expansion - Illyria into the East allied himself with Hannibal and declared war upon Rome Carthage herself became interested sent Hannibal meagre reinforcements and supplies some of the young Roman Nobles among the survivors at Keynesian thought the situation hopeless and meditated slight degrees but Scipio shamed them into courage Rome was for a month hysterical with terror only a small garrison remained to protect it against Hannibal matrons of High family ran weeping to the temples and cleansed with their hair the statues of the gods some whose husbands and sons had fallen in battle cohabited with foreigners and slaves lest their strain should die to regain the favour of obviously offended deities the Senate again sanctioned human sacrifice and buried alive two goals and two Greeks but the Romans says polybius were must to be feared when they stood in real danger though they were now so overwhelmingly defeated and their military reputation had been destroyed yet by the peculiar virtues of their constitution and by wise counsel they not only recovered their supremacy in Italy but in a few years made themselves masters of the world the class war ceased and all groups rushed to the rescue of the state taxes are already risen apparently beyond tolerance but now the citizens even widows and children voluntarily brought their secret savings to the Treasury every male who could bear arms was called to the colors slaves were accepted in the levies and were promised freedom in the event of victory not a single soldier would consent to receive pay Rome prepared to contest every inch of ground against the new lion of Carthage but Hannibal did not come his 40,000 men were too small a force he thought to beseech a city to whose defense many armies would converge from still loyal States and if he took it how could he hold it his Italian allies instead of strengthening weakened him Rome and her friends were raising forces to attack them and without his help they would succumb his aides reproached his caution and one of them remark sadly the gods have not given all their gifts to one man you know how to win victory Hannibal but you do not know how to use it Hannibal decided to wait till Carthage Macedon and Syracuse could unite with him in a multiple offensive that would retake Sicily Sardinia Corsica and Illyria and compel Rome to confine her power to Italy he released all captives except Romans and offered these to Rome for a small ransom when the Senate refused this he sent most of them to Carthage is laid forced the rest in Roman style to amuse his men by gladiatorial combats even to the death he besieged and took several towns and then led his army to winter in Capua it was the most pleasant and dangerous place that he could have chosen for this second city of Italy some 12 miles north of Naples had learned from the Etruscans and the Greeks the vices as well as the graces of civilization and Hannibal's troops felt entitled to indulge for a season the flesh that had borne so many hardships and wounds they were never again the invincible soldiers who had through many campaigns been formed in their masters spartan image in the next five years Hannibal led them to some minor successes but while they were so engaged the Romans laid siege to Capua aníbal sought to relieve it by marching to within a few miles of Rome the Romans raised 25 new legions 200 thousand men and Hannibal still limited to 40 thousand retired to the south in 211 kapwa fell its leaders who would let loose a massacre of Romans in the city were beheaded or committed suicide and the population which had strongly supported Hannibal was dispersed throughout Italy a year before Marcellus had taken Syracuse and a year later agrigento mules into Rome meanwhile a Roman army under the two older sibling to keep Hasdrubal occupied they defeated him at the Ebro in 215 but both of them were soon afterward killed in battle and their gains were being lost when their son and nephew Scipio africanus was dispatched to the Spanish command he was but 24 far below the legal age for so responsible a position but the Senate was willing to stretch the Constitution to save the state and the assembly was by this time voluntarily subordinating itself to the Senate the people admired him not only because he was handsome and eloquent intelligent and brave but pious courteous and just it was his custom before undertaking an enterprise to commune with the gods in the temples on the Capitol and after his victories to reward them with hecatombs he believed or represented himself to be a favorite of heaven his successes spread the belief and filled his followers with confidence he soon restored discipline among the troops captured Novikov odo after a long siege and scrupulously turned over to the Treasury the precious metal and stones that there fell into his hands most of the Spanish cities surrendered to him and by 2:05 Spain had become a Roman province nevertheless Hastur bombs main force had escaped and now crossed Gaul and the Alps into Italy the young leaders message to Hannibal was intercepted and his plan of campaign was revealed to Rome a Roman army met his modest force at the matura river in 207 and defeated him despite his excellent generalship seeing the battle lost and all hope of reaching his brother gone has traval leaped into the midst of the legions and took death in his stride the Roman historians perhaps Romancing tell us that the victor cut off the youths head and sent it through a purely ER to be cast over the ramparts into Hannibal's camp broken in spirit by the fate of a brother whom he had dearly loved hannibal withdrew his thinned-out forces to brute 'i'm no action was fought with him this year says Livy nor did the Romans care to disturb him so great was the reputation of his powers even while his cause was everywhere round him crumbling into ruin Carthage sent him a hundred ships laden with men and food but a gale drove the vessels to Sardinia where a Roman fleet sank or captured 80 of them the rest fled home in 205 young Scipio fresh from his victories in Spain was chosen consul raised a new army and sailed for Africa the Carthaginian government appealed to Hannibal to come to the help of the city that had so long refused to support him how shall we imagine the feelings of the half-blind warrior driven into a corner of Italy by an endless stream of enemies seeing all his toil and hardships at 15 years brought to nothing and all his triumphs summing up to futility and flight half of his troops refused to embark with him for Carthage according to hostile historians he had 20,000 of them killed for disobedience and for fear that Rome might add them to her legions touching his native soil after an absence of 36 years he hastily formed a new army and went out to face Scipio at Zama 50 miles south of Carthage this in 202 the two generals met in a courteous interview found agreement impossible and joint battle for the first time in his life Hannibal was defeated the Carthaginians mostly mercenaries gave ground before the Roman infantry and the reckless cavalry of mass Anisa the Numidian King 20,000 Carthaginians were left dead on the field Hannibal now 40 I've fought with the energy of youth attacked Scipio and personal combat and wounded him attacked Massa Nyssa reformed his disordered forces again and again and led them in desperate counter charges when all helps led the eluded capture road to Carthage announced that he had lost not only a battle but the war and advised the Senate to sue for peace Scipio was generous he allowed Carthage to retain her African Empire but demanded the surrender of all her war vessels except ten triremes she was not to make war outside of Africa or within it without Rome's consent and she was to pay Rome two hundred talents or seven hundred twenty thousand dollars every year for fifty years Hannibal pronounced the terms just and persuaded his government to accept them the second Punic War changed the face of the western Mediterranean it gave Spain and all its wealth to Rome providing the funds for the Roman conquest of Greece it reunited Italy under Rome's unquestioned mastery and threw open all routes and markets to Roman ships and goods but it was the most costly of all ancient wars it ravaged or injured half the farms of Italy destroyed 400 pounds killed 300,000 men southern Italy has never quite recovered from it to this day it weakened democracy by showing that a popular assembly cannot wisely choose generals or direct a war it began the transformation of Roman lies and morals by hurting agriculture and helping trade by taking men from the countryside and teaching them the violence of battle and the promiscuity of the camp by bringing the precious metals of Spain to finance new luxuries and imperialistic expansion and by enabling Italy to live on the extorted wheat of Spain Sicily and Africa it was a pivotal event for almost every phase of Roman history to Carthage it was the beginning of the end with much of its commerce and Empire left to it it might have solved the problems of regeneration but the oligarchical government was so corrupt that it threw upon the lower classes the burden of raising the annual indemnity for Rome and embezzled part of it to boot the popular party called upon Hannibal to come out of his retirement and save the nation in 196 he was elected so feat he shocked the oligarchs by proposing that the judges of the court of 104 should be elected for one year and should be ineligible for a second term after a year's interval when the Senate rejected the measure he brought it before the assembly and carried it by this law and this procedure he established at one stroke a degree of democracy equal to Rome he punished and checked finality and pursued it to its source he relieved the citizens of the extra taxes that had been laid upon them and yet so managed the finances that by 188 Carthage was able to pay off the Roman indemnity in full to get rid of him the oligarchy secretly sent word to Rome that Hannibal was plotting to renew the war Scipio used all his influence to protect his rival but was overruled the Senate accommodated the rich Carthaginians by demanding the surrender of Hannibal the old warrior fled by night rode 150 miles to thapsus and there took shipped to Antioch this in 195 he found Antiochus the third hesitating between war and peace with Rome he advised war and became one of the Kings staff when the Romans defeated Antiochus at magnesia in 189 they made it a condition of peace that Hannibal should be turned over to them he escaped first to Crete then to Bethany ax the Romans hunted him out and surrounded his hiding place with soldiers Anibal preferred death to capture let us he said relieve the Romans from the anxiety they have so long experienced since they think it tries their patience too much to wait for an old man's death he drank the poison that he carried with him and died aged 67 in the year 184 BC a few months later his Conqueror and admirer Scipio followed him to peace you