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The Truth about Hannibal’s route across the Alps The three Punic wars were a struggle for dominance of the Mediterranean region by the two great trading and military By Philip Ball powers of the third and second centuries BC: Carthage and Having battled their deadly rivals the Romans in Spain, in Rome. Carthage, a former Phoenician city-state in present-day 218BC the Carthaginian army made a move that no one Tunis, had an empire extending over most of the north African expected. Their commander Hannibal marched his troops, coast as well as the southern tip of Iberia. Rome was then still a including cavalry and African war elephants, across a high pass republic, and the two states were locked in a power struggle apt in the Alps to strike at Rome itself from the north of the Italian to flare into open war, until the Romans annihilated Carthage peninsula. It was one of the greatest military feats in history. in 146BC. The Romans had presumed that the Alps created a secure Hannibal, son of general Hamilcar who led troops in the first natural barrier against invasion of their homeland. They hadn’t Punic war, gave Carthage its most glorious hour. He is ranked reckoned with Hannibal’s boldness. In December he smashed alongside Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar and his nemesis apart the Roman forces in the north, assisted by his awesome Scipio as one of the greatest military strategists of the ancient elephants, the tanks of classical warfare. Many of the animals world, and his alpine crossing plays a big part in that died of cold or disease the following winter, but Hannibal reputation. Most of what we know about it comes from the fought his way down through Italy. For 15 years he ravaged the accounts given by the Roman writers Polybius (c200-118BC) land, killing or wounding over a million citizens but without and Livy (59BC-AD17). They make it sound truly harrowing. taking Rome. But when he faced the Roman general Scipio Africanus at Zama in north Africa in 202BC, his strategic genius met its match. So ended the second Punic war, with Rome the victor. As the Carthaginian army ascended from the Rhône valley in Gaul, they were harassed and attacked by mountain tribes who, knowing the territory, set ambushes, dropped boulders and generally wrought havoc. During the descent the Carthaginians Hannibal’s alpine crossing has been celebrated in myth, art and were mostly unmolested, but now the mountains themselves film. JMW Turner made high drama of it in 1812, a louring threatened mortal danger. The Alps are steeper on the Italian snowstorm sending the Carthaginians into wild disarray. The side, and the path is narrow, hemmed in by precipices. 1959 sword-and-sandals epic movie, with Victor Mature in the eponymous title role, made Hannibal’s “crazed elephant army” look more like the polite zoo creatures they obviously were. “Because of the snow and of the dangers of his route [Hannibal] lost nearly as many men as he had done on the ascent,” wrote Polybius. “Since neither the men nor the The battles didn’t end with Scipio’s victory, though. Much ink, animals could be sure of their footing on account of the snow, if not blood, has been spilled in furious arguments between any who stepped wide of the path or stumbled, overbalanced historians over the precise route that Hannibal took across the and fell down the precipices.” Alps. The answer makes not a blind bit of difference to the historical outcome, but there’s clearly something about that image of elephants on snowy peaks that makes experts care deeply about where exactly they went. At length they reached a spot where the path suddenly seemed impassable, as Livy describes it: “A narrow cliff falling away so sheer that even a light-armed soldier could hardly have got down it by feeling his way and clinging to such bushes and An international team of scientists now thinks the puzzle is stumps as presented themselves.” largely solved. Its leader, geomorphologist Bill Mahaney of York University in Toronto, began pondering the question almost two decades ago by looking at geographical and environmental references in the classical texts. He and his colleagues have just revealed surprising new evidence supporting their claim to have uncovered Hannibal’s path. “The track was too narrow for the elephants or even the pack animals to pass,” writes Polybius. “At this point the soldiers once more lost their nerve and came close to despair.” Hannibal tried a detour on the terrifying slopes to the side of the path, but the snow and mud were too slippery. So instead he set his troops to construct a road from the rubble, and after backbreaking labour he got the men, horses and mules down good match for that which Polybius mentioned. “No such the slope and below the snowline. The elephants were another deposit exists on the lee side of any of the other cols,” he says. matter – it took three days to make a road wide enough. Finally, says Polybius, Hannibal “succeeded in getting his He suspects Hannibal did not intend to come this way, but was elephants across, but the animals were in a miserable condition forced to avoid the lower cols to the north because of the from hunger”. hordes of Gauls massing there. “They were every bit Hannibal’s equal, and no doubt hungry to loot his baggage train,” Where exactly Hannibal crossed the Alps was a point of Mahaney says. contention even in the days of Polybius and Livy. Nineteenthcentury historians argued about it, and even Napoleon weighed The rockfall evidence was pretty suggestive. But could in. The controversy was still raging a hundred years later. Some Mahaney and his team of geologists and biologists find authorities proposed a northerly path, past present-day anything more definitive? Since 2011 they’ve been looking in a Grenoble and through two passes over 2,000 metres high. peaty bog 2,580m up in the mountains, just below of the Col de Others argued for a southerly course across the Col de la la Traversette. It’s one of the few places where Hannibal’s army Traversette – the highest road, reaching 3,000m above sea could have rested after crossing the col, being the only place in level. Or might the route have been some combination of the the vicinity with rich soil to support the vegetation needed for two, starting in the north, then weaving south and north again? grazing horses and mules. The southern route was advocated in the 1950s-60s by Sir The researchers rolled up their sleeves and dug into the mire. Gavin de Beer, director of the British Museum (natural What they found was mud. And more mud. Not very history), who published no fewer than five books on the informative, you might think. But mud can encode secrets. subject. He combed the classical texts and tried to tie them in Taking an army of tens of thousands, with horses and to geographical evidence – for example, identifying Hannibal’s elephants, over the Alps would have left one heck of a mess. river crossings from the timings of floods. “All of us more or More than two millennia later, Mahaney might have found it. less follow de Beer’s footprint,” says Mahaney. The peaty material is mostly matted with decomposed plant For Mahaney, it began as a hobby and become a labour of love. fibres. But at a depth of about 40cm this carbon-based material “I’ve read classical history since my ordeal getting through four becomes much more disturbed and compacted, being mixed up years of Latin in high school,” he says. “I can still see my old with finer-grained soil. This structure suggests that the bog Latin teacher pointing his long stick at me.” became churned up when the layer was formed. That’s not seen in any other soils from alpine bogs, and isn’t easily explained He went looking for clues in the landscapes. Both Polybius and by any natural phenomenon such as grazing sheep or the action Livy mention that the impasse faced by Hannibal was created of frost. But it’s just what you’d expect to see if an army with by fallen rocks. Polybius, who got his information firsthand by horses and elephants passed by – rather like the aftermath of a interviewing some of the survivors from Hannibal’s army, bad year at the Glastonbury festival. This soil can be describes the rockfall in detail, saying that it consisted of two radiocarbon-dated – and the age comes out almost spookily landslides: a recent one on top of older debris. In 2004 close to the date of 218BC attested by historical records as the Mahaney found from field trips and aerial and satellite time of Hannibal’s crossing. photography that, of the various passes along the proposed routes, only the Col de Traversette had enough large rockfalls The researchers then took samples of this disturbed mud back above the snowline to account for such an obstruction. to the lab, where they used chemical techniques to identify some of its organic molecules. These included substances There’s an old, steep track of rubble leading out of this pass – found in horse dung and the faeces of ruminants. There’s some which might conceivably be based on the very one made by of this stuff throughout the mire mud, but significantly more in Hannibal’s engineers. What’s more, in 2010 Mahaney and co- the churned-up layer. workers found a two-layer rockfall in the pass that seemed a What’s more, this section also contained high levels of DNA found in a type of bacteria called clostridia, which are very common in the gut of horses (and humans). In other words, the layer of disturbed mud is full of crap (perhaps not so different from Glastonbury either). Aside from a passing army, it’s not easy to see where it might have come from – not many mammals live up here, except for a few sheep and some hardy marmots. That’s not all. Microbiologists collaborating with the team think they might have found a distinctive horse tapeworm egg in the samples. “There is even the possibility of finding an elephant tapeworm egg,” says Mahaney’s long-term collaborator, microbiologist Chris Allen of Queen’s University Belfast. “This would really be the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.” It’s just a shame, he adds, that “the pot of gold is actually a layer of horse manure”. Evidence of elephants at the site would surely be a smoking gun, since you don’t find many of them wandering wild in the Alps. Meanwhile, Mahaney hopes, if he can find the funding, to mount a radar survey of the entire mire and other mires nearby to search for items dropped by the passing army. “My sniffer tells me some will turn up,” he says – “coins, belt buckles, sabres, you name it.” Unless they do, other experts may reserve judgment. Patrick Hunt, an archaeologist who leads the Stanford Alpine Archaeology Project, which has been investigating Hannibal’s route since 1994, says that the answer to the puzzle “remains hauntingly elusive”. It’s all too easy, he says, for fellow experts to adduce evidence for their favoured route – his team argues for a more northerly path – but until the same methods and rigour are brought to bear on all the alternatives, none can be ruled out. All the same, he adds, Mahaney is one of the best geo-archaeologists working on the question. “He continues to be a trailblazer in the field,” says Hunt, “and I’d love to collaborate with him, because he’s asking excellent questions.” If Mahaney can secure firm evidence – such as chemical or microbial fingerprints of elephant faeces – it would be the culmination of a personal quest. “The Hannibal enigma appealed to me for the sheer effort of getting the army across the mountains,” he says. “I have been in the field for long times with 100 people, and I can tell you it can be pandemonium. How Hannibal managed to get thousands of men, horses and mules, and 37 elephants over the Alps is one magnificent feat.” THE MYSTERY OF HANNIBAL'S extensive, conditions were still not conducive to ELEPHANTS | By JOHN NOBLE WILFORD transporting hungry elephants. Historians speculate that a few small elephants could ARCHEOLOGISTS have tried. Students of ancient have been brought down the Nile Valley into Egypt, or by climate and ecology have tried, too. But no one has yet the Red Sea, and then bred in captivity, but there is come up with a satisfactory answer: Where did Hannibal apparently no record of this. Nor is there any record of get the elephants for his heroic march across the Alps to the large African species being indigenous to North attack the homeland of the Romans? Africa in the time of Hannibal. Drawings of elephants The question was raised anew in the Sept. 6 issue of New Scientist, a British magazine. Derek Ager, a geologist, wrote an article casting doubt on all of the proposed sources of Hannibal's elephants. Once there were elephants nearly everywhere, but by the time of Hannibal's march in 218 B.C. they had already dwindled to the two species extant today, the Indian, or Asian, elephants and the African ones. appear on the Tassili Frescoes in the Hoggar Mountains of southern Algeria, but a recent British expedition determined that the drawings predated Hannibal. Many historians believe a likely source of Hannibal's elephants could have been the Atlas Mountains of Morocco and Algeria. Living there at the time was a forest subspecies of the African elephants. These were smaller animals, standing about 8 feet tall at the shoulders in contrast to the 11-foot-tall sub-Saharan If he had had a choice, Hannibal would presumably have animals. The Atlas elephants later died out as the region gone into battle with Indian elephants, which had been grew increasingly arid. used effectively a century before in charging against the forces of Alexander the Great. Indian elephants are not quite as large as the African species but much more easily trained, which is why they are favored by zoos and circuses. It is also the reason Indian elephants are seen tramping through fictional Africa in old Tarzan movies. Presumably these animals would have been just as difficult to train and would have been less imposing in warfare. In ancient military campaigns elephants hauled supplies and served somewhat the same function as modern tanks. The bigger and ill-tempered African elephants are distinguished by their larger, fan-shaped ears, flat foreheads and concave backs. But how did Hannibal, in Carthage, on the Mediterranean in present-day Tunisia, get a troop of elephants all the way from Asia? Or from south of the Sahara, the bush habitat of the larger African species? Elephants have a voracious appetite. Mr. Ager noted that In his 1955 study, ''Alps and Elephants,'' Gavin de Beer, an adult male African elephant eats some 400 pounds of who was director of the British Museum of Natural vegetation a day. Even though the North African climate History, wrote, ''Not only did the elephants' appearance, was slightly wetter then and the Sahara not quite so their smell, and the noise of their trumpeting alarm both men and horses opposed to them, but they were highly dangerous when charged, fighting with their tusks and their trunks and trampling down their opponents.'' For these reasons, commenting on the small Atlas elephants, Mr. Ager said, ''I find the idea of Hannibal's using small elephants unsatisfying.'' By most accounts Hannibal's invasion force in 218 B.C., assembled in Spain, included 100,000 men and 37 or 38 elephants. Mr. Ager notwithstanding, many historians tend to accept Mr. De Beer's conclusion that most of these elephants were African, either from the Atlas Mountains or from south of the desert. The evidence is a Carthaginian coin, struck in the time of Hannibal, that bears an unmistakable image of an African elephant. Coins are often valuable to archeologists, and here it is about all historians have - a coin and a story told after the Second Punic War. Hannibal dealt the Romans under Scipio several crushing defeats but ultimately failed to seize Rome itself. Only one of the elephants survived the war, it seems. This was the elephant Hannibal himself had often ridden. Its name, according to the story, was Surus, meaning ''the Syrian.'' Because the Ptolemies of Egypt, successors to Alexander, were known to have seized some Indian elephants as booty in their campaigns in Syria, it seemed likely that some descendants of those elephants had found their way to Carthage. Egypt and Carthage enjoyed good relations in those days. Mr. De Beer, citing the story of Surus, concluded, ''It is therefore almost certain that Hannibal's elephants included at least one Indian.'' The Battle of Zama | Peter Fitzgerald Hannibal was the first to engage in battle, this was done by sending his war elephants along with a skirmishing group. The Romans On October 19th in the year 202 BC a big battle commenced that retaliated with their skirmishers and by blowing their horns as finished a great war. The battle in question is the Battle of loud as possible to scare the elephants. This move with the horns Zama and the war that finished because of the outcome of this actually partially worked as a group of the war elephants turned battle is the Second Punic War. back and completely disrupted Hannibal’s left flank. The Second Punic War was a battle between the Roman Republic A group of Roman cavalry made up of Numidian cavalry was sent and Carthage. The army of Carthage was commanded by the to mop up the left flank of Hannibal’s army, which also happened infamous ancient commander Hannibal. to be made up of Numidian cavalry. In the end there was no left Prior to the Battle of Zama flank of the Carthage army left as the flank simply left the field (for Before the battle commenced there had been many battles and reasons unknown). much bloodshed at the hands of both armies. 16 years before the While all this was occurring the other war elephants had simply battle, the Carthaginians marched across the Alps under the been lured to the back of the Roman lines and despatched of. leadership of Hannibal and started winning important battles The left flank of the Roman lines was made up of cavalry; this against the Romans. cavalry was then sent against the right flank cavalry of the The Romans decided they wished to remedy the situation and find Hannibal line. Hannibal made his cavalry leave the battle field with a way round the formidable Hannibal so tactics were changed and the Roman cavalry in pursuit, literally rendering them ineffective. a new direction was taken. This new direction came in the form of The Romans now marched their central lines on to the Carthage Roman commander Scipio Africanus who had an interesting idea forces. Hannibal in response sent his first two lines forward, the which was to form the backbone of the battle. first line of which was pushed back and the second line charged Scipio Africanus decided that while Hannibal was in the southern forward causing big losses of the Roman lines. peninsula of Italy, to let him stay there while the Roman The Romans reinforced their second line to stop the rout of army headed to Africa to invade the Carthaginian homeland. This Hannibal’s army on the Roman forces, this move caused would then finish the war without battle with Hannibal. Hannibal’s second line to get annihilated and the third line to push In 203 BC Scipio Africanus landed in Africa while Hannibal was out to the wings. still in Italy. Once in Africa Scipio won some landmark victories, The cavalry chasing the Carthage cavalry came under attack off the most notably the huge victory at the Battle of the Great Plains. This field as the Carthage cavalry turned back to do battle, but this ploy manoeuvre by Scipio and the big victories he achieved caused the didn’t work as the Romans slaughtered the Carthage cavalry. Carthaginians to call Hannibal back to the homeland for commanding their army in a defensive capacity. The Romans now formed one large line and engaged in battle, a fierce battle that was carrying on for some time. This was until the The Battle of Zama Roman cavalry returned and encircled the rear of Hannibal’s men After Hannibal managed to make his way back with his army to and started tearing through them. Carthage, he collected local citizens along with his veteran force A large portion of the Carthage army, along with Hannibal, fled the from Italy and made on his way to face the Romans commanded by battlefield. Scipio. The outcome of the battle was a resounding victory for the Hannibal was the first to reach the battle point, a place called Romans. The Romans lost 5,500 men while the Carthage army lost Zama Minor not far from Carthage. The battle was to take place on 20,000 and also had 20,000 captured as prisoners. the plains as it gave Hannibal a great vantage point for using his cavalry, unfortunately he never thought about the prospect of the Romans having a stronger cavalry force. Hannibal had 51,000 men, of which 45,000 were infantry and 6,000 cavalry (including 80 war elephants). Scipio had 43,000 men of which 34,000 were infantry and 9,000 were cavalry. Both armies faced one another in three straight lines and cavalry on the flanks. Ancient Rome’s Darkest Day: The Battle of Cannae Evan Andrews It was the bloodiest battle the ancient world had ever seen. During the Second Punic War on August 2, 216 B.C., a Carthaginian army under the general Hannibal clashed with eight Roman legions near the Italian city of Cannae. Though heavily outnumbered, Hannibal used a famous doubleenvelopment tactic to surround the Romans and trap their army. By the time the slaughter finally ended, at least 50,000 legionaries lay dead and Rome faced the greatest crisis in its history. Paullus gave chase, and by early August the Romans and Carthaginians were both deployed along the River Aufidus. According to the ancient historian Polybius, Hannibal had around 40,000 infantry and 10,000 cavalry at his disposal (his famous war elephants had all died by 216). The Romans boasted some 80,000 troops and 6,000 cavalry. In 216 B.C., the Roman Republic was embroiled in the second of what would eventually be three devastating wars with the North African city-state of Carthage. What had begun some 50 years earlier as a territorial dispute had devolved into an existential duel, with both powers vying for supremacy. Rome had emerged the victors in the First Punic War, but at the start of the second conflict in 218 B.C., the Carthaginian general Hannibal had staged an audacious invasion of Italy via the Alps. Since then, his mercenary army of Libyans, Numidians, On the morning of August 2, the two armies assembled Spaniards and Celts had rampaged across the on a hot, dust-blown plain and prepared for battle. The countryside, laying waste to farmland and trouncing Romans set up in a traditional block formation with a Roman legions. In just two major battles at the River mass of infantry protected by cavalry on both wings. Trebia and Lake Trasimene, Hannibal had used his Varro—the commander on the day—hoped to use his military genius to inflict as many as 50,000 casualties on legions like a battering ram to break the center of the the Romans. Carthaginian lines. Hannibal expected this, so he arranged his army in an unconventional formation Following these early losses, Rome adopted a delaying designed to use the Romans’ momentum against them. strategy that sought to cut off Hannibal’s supply lines He began by positioning his weakest troops—his Gallic and avoid the pitched battles that were his stock-in- Celts and Spaniards—at the very center of his line. He trade. It was a canny tactic, but one the hyper-aggressive then placed his more elite, battle-hardened Libyan Romans would not embrace for long. In 216 B.C., they infantry slightly to the rear on both flanks. The cavalry elected Gaius Terentius Varro and Lucius Aemilius took up positions on the far left and right wings. When Paullus as co-consuls and equipped them with eight fully assembled, the Carthaginian line resembled a long legions—the largest army in the Republic’s history. Its crescent that bulged outward at its center toward the mission was clear: confront Hannibal’s army and crush Romans. Never one to lead from the rear, Hannibal it. assumed a post at the front alongside his Spaniards and Gauls. The chance for a showdown arrived later that summer, when Hannibal marched into southern Italy and seized a At the sound of trumpets, the two sides surged forward vital supply depot near the town of Cannae. Varro and and the battle commenced. “Now began a great slaughter and a great struggle,” the historian Appian later wrote, “each side contending valiantly.” Light infantry initiated the fight by probing one another’s lines and hurling javelins, spears and projectiles. The first decisive maneuver followed when Hannibal’s heavy cavalry, under the command of an officer named Hasdrubal, stampeded into the horsemen on the Romans’ right flank. In short order, the superior Carthaginian riders had all but obliterated their Roman adversaries. Back at the infantry battle, Hannibal’s bare-chested Gauls and Spaniards collided with the main body of The memorial stone commemorating the Battle of Romans in a whirlwind of swords, spears and shields. As Cannae. the troops slashed and stabbed at one another, the Hannibal’s trap was complete, but the battle was still far Carthaginian center was slowly pushed back, reversing from over. The corralled legionaries showed no signs of its formation from an outward bulge into a concave surrender, so the Carthaginians closed in and began the pocket. This was all part of Hannibal’s plan. By giving grisly work of cutting them down one man at a time. the Romans the impression they were winning, he was Over the next several hours, the plain at Cannae turned only luring them into a space between the still- into a killing field. A few thousand Romans broke out of unengaged Libyan troops on the edges of his formation. the encirclement and fled, but with no room to With their spirits soaring, thousands of legionaries had maneuver, the rest were slowly hemmed in and soon streamed into the pocket in the Carthaginian line. slaughtered. “Some were discovered lying there alive, When they did, they abandoned their orderly shape and with thighs and tendons slashed, baring their necks and became bunched together. throats and bidding their conquerors drain the remnant of their blood,” the chronicler Livy later wrote. “Others Hannibal now gave the order that would spell the Romans’ doom. At his signal, the Libyans pivoted inward and attacked the advancing legionaries’ left and right flanks, closing them in a vise. Hasdrubal, meanwhile, galloped across the battlefield and helped rout the cavalry on the Romans’ left wing. Having shorn the Romans of their mounted support, he then wheeled his were found with their heads buried in holes dug in the ground. They had apparently made these pits for themselves, and heaping the dirt over their faces shut off their breath.” Ancient sources differ, but by sunset, anywhere from 50,000 to 70,000 Romans lay dead and thousand of others were captured. Hannibal had lost some 6,000 men. force around and pounced on the legionaries’ unprotected rear. The surviving Romans—perhaps as Word of the massacre at Cannae sent the city of Rome many as 70,000 men—were totally encircled. spiraling into a panic. “Multitudes thronged the streets,” Appian wrote, “uttering lamentations for their relatives, calling on them by name, and bewailing their own fate as soon to fall into the enemy’s hands.” In their desperation, the Romans dispatched a senator to the Greek oracle at Delphi to divine the meaning of the tragedy. They even conducted human sacrifices to appease the gods. While Hannibal ultimately decided that his army was too weak to march on Rome, Cannae decisively defeated him in the war’s final clash at the had still pushed the Republic to the brink of collapse. In Battle of Zama. just one day of fighting, the Romans had lost at least seven times as many soldiers as were later killed at Battle The Second Punic War effectively ended Carthage’s reign of Gettysburg. “Certainly there is no other nation that as a military power, allowing Rome to tighten its grip on would not have succumbed beneath such a weight of the Mediterranean and begin building its empire. Even calamity,” Livy wrote. in defeat, however, Hannibal had cemented his place in the pantheon of great military commanders. The Yet even in their darkest hour, the stubborn Romans Romans built statues of him to celebrate their triumph simply refused to yield. Following a brief period of over a worthy adversary, and his victory at Cannae later mourning, Rome’s senate rejected Hannibal’s peace became a subject of fascination for generals ranging offers and refused to ransom his Cannae prisoners. The from Napoleon to Frederick the Great. Dwight D. citizenry was put to work making new arms and Eisenhower described it as the “classic example” of a projectiles, and the crippled army was rebuilt by battle of annihilation. Nevertheless, Hannibal’s tactical lowering the recruitment age, enlisting convicts and even masterpiece had not been enough to break the Romans. offering slaves their freedom in exchange for service. For He had won a legendary battle at Cannae, only to leave each of the Roman legions destroyed at Cannae, several his enemy even more determined to win the war. more were eventually raised and committed to the field. While his enemy fell back on its overwhelming manpower, Hannibal only grew weaker. He continued to maraud through Italy for several years in search of a second Cannae, but his isolated army slowly withered away after not enough of Rome’s allies rallied to his cause. The Romans’ miraculous comeback continued in 204 B.C., when the general later known as Scipio Africanus launched an invasion of North Africa with some 26,000 men, many of them survivors of the humiliation at Cannae. Hannibal was recalled from Italy to defend the Carthaginian homeland, but in 202, Scipio Why Hannibal Lost | BY RICHARD A. GABRIEL operational failures that led to his defeat in Italy. And his loss there was to have dire consequences for Carthage. Among the basic distinctions in warfare is the difference between tactics and strategy. The term tactics refers to the operational Wars evolve within the cultural contexts adversaries bring to the techniques military units employ to win battles. Strategy, on the other conflict. For Romans war was a straightforward predatory exercise hand, addresses the broader political objectives for which a war is employed to destroy an enemy’s regime. Battles were means to the fought and the ends, ways and means employed to obtain them. For larger political ends of conquest, occupation and economic strategy to succeed, there must be at least a rough connection exploitation. To accept defeat risked having an enemy impose such between tactical objectives and the broader objectives for which the conditions on one’s own citizens, something Rome would pay any war is waged. Otherwise, battles become ends in themselves, often price in blood and treasure to prevent. Romans fought wars until with grave strategic consequences. decisively won. Only then did negotiations follow. Such was the case with Hannibal Barca, the Carthaginian general Hannibal’s perspective on war was rooted in the influence of widely considered one of history’s most able and talented field Hellenistic culture. In his view the object was not the destruction of commanders. He invaded Roman Italy in what historians still regard an enemy’s state or political regime. Instead, armies fought battles on as a classic campaign, won every major engagement he fought and one another’s turf until it became clear to the political leadership of yet ultimately achieved none of Carthage’s strategic objectives. the losing side there was nothing more to be gained and perhaps much to lose by further combat. The antagonists then entered into negotiations and reached a settlement of a commercial or geographic In his view armies fought until it became clear to the political leadership of the losing side there was nothing more to be gained by further combat nature. Hannibal believed his battlefield victories would force Rome to the negotiating table. This Hellenistic approach restrained Hannibal from attacking Rome itself when presented two opportunities—first after his 217 BC victory at Lake Trasimene and Born in 247 BC, Hannibal was the son of Carthaginian general and again after Cannae just over a year later. In Hannibal’s mind an statesman Hamilcar Barca, who rallied his North African nation-state attack on Rome was unnecessary to the final outcome of the war. from defeat in the First Punic War (264–241 BC) to conquer much of Iberia (present-day Spain) before his death there in battle in 228 BC. When the Romans refused to discuss peace even after the disaster at Hannibal had essentially grown up in military service, and following Cannae, Hannibal’s plan began to unravel. It was one thing to expect the 221 BC assassination of his brother-in-law Hasdrubal, who had the Gauls to join his campaign against Rome, but the assumption that replaced Hamilcar, Hannibal took charge of the Carthaginian army. Rome’s Latin allies or Roman colonies would join in any significant He soon proved a brilliant field commander who applied his intellect numbers was wholly unfounded, based on a lack of understanding of and martial skills to the singular end of winning battles. Roman culture and history. Had this not been clear to Hannibal before, it must surely have been after Cannae. As a fallback he sought Again, however, battles are the means to a strategic end, not ends in to create a confederacy of Italian and Greek states that would become themselves. Hannibal, a sworn enemy of all things Roman, lost sight de facto protectorates of Carthage once the war was over. of that fact when he launched the Second Punic War (218–201 BC). While the conflict would rage across the Mediterranean world, For Hannibal’s plan to have any chance of success required sufficient victory in Italy was Hannibal’s sole objective. To achieve it, he manpower to accomplish two things: First, to hold the towns and marched the bulk of his army in Iberia across southern Gaul (present- cities while protecting agricultural resources necessary to feed the day France) and, famously, over the Alps into the Roman heartland. occupying troops; second, to sustain a large field army to deal with any Roman offensives. The problem was it required far more Hannibal approached his operations in Italy not as one campaign in a manpower than he possessed or could possibly raise and supply in larger war but as the only campaign in the only war. He seemed to Italy alone. believe that if he won enough battles, he would win Italy, and if he won Italy, victory would be his. Ultimately, however, his confusion Hannibal’s revised plan, therefore, depended on Carthage to provide of tactics with strategy caused him to commit a number of manpower and logistical requirements from outside Italy, something it refused to do for sound strategic reasons. Moreover, the plan gave no consideration to the ability of the Roman navy to blockade At the outbreak of war Carthage had initially given Hannibal a free southern Italian ports and disrupt supply convoys from Carthage. hand, having had little choice but to support their field commander in Most important, Hannibal’s southern Italian confederacy was his Italo-centric strategy. But after Cannae, when it became clear essentially a defensive strategy that left intact and unchallenged the Rome could not be forced to the negotiating table, Carthage favored a Roman manpower and resource base north of the Volturnus more direct approach to regaining its lost possessions. (Volturno) River, thus enabling Rome to rebuild its armies until ready to resume the offensive. Even if it coalesced, Hannibal’s league What Carthage wanted most from the war was to retain possession of of rebel towns in southern Italy could not impede Rome’s war effort Iberia, with its lucrative silver mines, commercial bases and sufficiently to induce it to seek peace. monopoly on the inland trade. It also wanted to recoup its bases in Corsica, Sardinia, Sicily and some of the offshore islands and thus Hannibal’s failure to attack Rome was his greatest tactical mistake. control the sea-lanes in the eastern Mediterranean. After Cannae, The Roman historian Livy tells us that when Carthage recalled Carthage moved to secure these possessions by reinforcing them, as Hannibal in 203 BC, he called down “curses on his own head for not in Iberia, or attempting to seize them militarily—as in Sardinia, Sicily having led his armies straight to Rome when they were still bloody and Corsica. If Carthage could establish a significant military from the victorious field of Cannae.” But history must regard presence in its former possessions, it would be in a strong position to Hannibal’s failure to attack Rome within the context of his greater retain them once the war ended and negotiations ensued. failure to understand the strategy that guided the conduct of the war. Hannibal’s superiors viewed his operations in Italy as little more than Both Carthage and Rome viewed the war in a far broader strategic a localized campaign designed to tie down as many Roman legions as context than did Hannibal. Rome sought to preserve gains it had possible while they brought military pressure to bear at more obtained during the First Punic War and perhaps seize Iberia, while important strategic locales. It had wisely revised its strategic Carthage aimed to retain Iberia and recover territory in Corsica, approach and objectives—a direct consequence of Hannibal’s failure Sardinia and Sicily it had lost in the previous war. Rome clearly to realize his myopic goals in Italy. perceived Carthage’s strategic intent: Of the 11 legions deployed after Hannibal arrived in Italy, two were sent to Iberia, two to Hannibal felt betrayed by Carthage after Cannae. When in 203 BC Sardinia, two to Sicily and one to the port of Tarentum (present-day his superiors ordered their commander to abandon his Italian Taranto) to block any invasion by Philip V of Macedonia, though he campaign and return to Africa, Livy records that Hannibal “gnashed had yet to ally with Hannibal. Only four legions deployed within Italy his teeth, groaned and almost shed tears.” He openly blamed to meet Hannibal’s invasion. Carthage for its failure to support his campaign with troops, supplies and money. “The men who tried to drag me back by cutting off my Had Hannibal also taken the broader perspective, he would have supplies of men and money are now recalling me,” he is said to have understood that an attack on Rome would have made sound complained, adding that his defeat came not at the hands of Romans tactical and strategic sense. A march on the capital after his victory at “but the Carthaginian Senate by their detraction and envy.” Trasimene would have forced the Romans to come to its aid, drawing off their forces from outside Italy. By then only one intact legion, at As with many of history’s great field commanders, Hannibal had Tarentum, remained to defend Rome. At Trasimene, Hannibal had succumbed, at least in part, to his enemy’s superior logistics. destroyed Gaius Flaminius’ army, while his subordinate Maharbal had destroyed Gnaeus Servilius Geminus’ cavalry. The two nearest Hannibal’s accusation that the Carthaginian Senate had failed to send Roman legions were on Sardinia, but 70 Carthaginian warships him critical supplies and troops when most needed was dead on. patrolled its waters to prevent Roman troop transports from reaching Throughout the course of the Second Punic War, Carthage sent the mainland. Hannibal only one resupply expedition—a marginal force of 4,000 Numidian horse, 40 elephants and some money in 215 BC. After that Had Hannibal immediately marched on the capital, even as a feint, he received nothing, as Carthage had redirected its resources to a Rome would have been forced to recall some of its legions, exposing strategy in which victory in Italy no longer occupied a central place. Sicily, Sardinia or Iberia to Carthaginian attack and invasion. His failure to act represented a lost opportunity even he, in hindsight, Carthage’s failure to properly resupply Hannibal cannot be blamed realized might have turned the tide of the war. on a lack of available resources. Indeed, the manpower and resource base of the Carthaginian empire was greater than Rome’s. The troop by defeating its armies in the field had already failed. If none of the and resupply expeditions Carthage sent out in support of military Latin allies or Roman tribes had deserted by that point, it was highly operations during the Second Punic War were substantial, in some unlikely any further defections in the south of Italy or additional cases larger than Hannibal’s entire army in Italy. In 215 BC, for victories Hannibal might win there would prompt Rome to seek example, Carthage sent to Iberia 12,000 infantry, 1,500 cavalry, 20 peace. elephants and a quantity of silver with which to hire mercenaries. Later that year it sent an even larger force to Sardinia. In 213 BC. The strategic ground shifted beneath his feet, reducing a commander who Carthage dispatched to Sicily 25,000 infantry, 3,000 cavalry and 12 had once ruled the battlefield to little more than a sacrificial pawn elephants. In 207 BC it sent to Iberia 10,000 additional troops to replace losses from the Battle of Baecula. Finally, in 205 BC Hannibal’s brother Mago and a force of 12,000 infantry, 2,000 If Hannibal could not destroy Rome on its own soil, as Carthage cavalry and a number of elephants invaded Liguria in northern Italy. believed, then what was the point of the war? In true Hellenistic fashion the Carthaginian statesmen decided their priorities lay in Carthage was able to resupply and reinforce its armies in the various maintaining control of Iberia and perhaps regaining Sardinia, Corsica theaters of operations thanks to its ready supply of transport ships— and other areas lost earlier. If that was the strategic objective of the not surprising for a commercial and shipbuilding nation-state that war, then how did Hannibal’s continued presence in Italy contribute could construct or hire from traders as many transports as needed for to that end? The answer was to tie down as many legions as possible any contingency. Moreover, the Roman naval presence off southern in Italy while Carthage concentrated its efforts in the other theaters of Italy was never sufficient to cover all bases at once, so there was no operations. Italy became a sideshow, and Hannibal was left to his fate good reason why supply transports could not have gotten through to so that when the war ended, Carthage might be able to hold on to Hannibal. what it had won elsewhere. Right up to war’s end Carthage had more than enough men, materiel In the end Hannibal failed in Italy not because he was defeated on the and transports to support Hannibal in Italy. It simply chose not to battlefield but because his tactical victories had not contributed to send them. Carthage’s overall strategic objectives. After Cannae the strategic ground shifted beneath Hannibal’s feet, reducing a commander who Ironically, Carthage’s strategic shift away from Italy after Cannae had once ruled the battlefield to little more than a sacrificial pawn in came at a time when Hannibal’s momentum was at its zenith. a much larger game he never really understood. MH Paradoxically, it was his very successes in the field that led Carthage to reconsider its strategy. When Mago returned to Carthage in 215 BC to request troops and supplies for Hannibal, he addressed the Senate. At that meeting Hanno, head of the faction that had opposed the war from its outset, asked Mago the following questions: “First, in spite of the fact that the Roman power was utterly destroyed at Cannae, and the knowledge that the whole of Italy is in revolt, has any single member of the Latin confederacy come over to us? Secondly, has any man belonging to the five and 30 tribes of Rome deserted to Hannibal?” Mago had to answer they had not. “Have the Romans sent Hannibal any envoys to treat for peace?” Hanno continued. “Indeed, so far as your information goes, has the word ‘peace’ ever been breathed in Rome at all?” Mago again replied in the negative. “Very well then,” Hanno concluded. “In the conduct of the war we have not advanced one inch: The situation is precisely the same as when Hannibal first crossed into Italy.” Hanno’s point was that Hannibal’s strategy to bring Rome to the negotiating table