Hannibal: A Hellenistic Life (11 page)

In Sicily Hamilcar moved to occupy the high ground at the north-west tip of the island, ‘the so-called place at Heirkte’ (Polyb. 1.56.3). From there he waged a guerrilla war until a key outpost overlooking the port of Panormus and part of the city of Eryx (modern Erice) were recaptured (
Map 1
). The strategic site of Eryx sits on the highest point in north-west Sicily and had been sacred to the goddess Astarte from the very earliest period of Phoenician settlement. The precinct of the goddess commanded views to the west and north on the western coast of Sicily and directly overlooked the key port of Drepanum (Trapani) (Polyb. 1.55.7–10). Hamilcar seized back the town of Eryx but the Romans managed to hold on to the precinct of the goddess above them. He had cut off the Roman supplies and communication lines but was also in a precarious position himself (Polyb. 1.58.2–3). A kind of stalemate ensued as both sides battled for control of the divine favour and the strategic advantage offered by this holy site (Plate 2 shows the commanding view over the west coast of Sicily from Eryx).
⁸

Hamilcar’s small victories and his success in clawing back territory in the west of the island had a positive psychological effect that must have restored some Carthaginian pride after a decade of humiliating defeats. Every family in Carthage would have been touched by the loss of its citizens, many thousands of whom had died or been captured and sold into slavery. All strata of the
population at Carthage were committed to a war which took a deep economic and psychological toll on them. Hamilcar gained great acclaim from his command in this phase of the war. From this his popularity and influence grew at home.

These small victories could not erase the reality facing Carthage: that they were struggling to hold on to what little territory they had left in Sicily. They had wrested some control back from the Romans but the overall impression is that, despite Hamilcar’s efforts on land, Carthage had reverted to a broadly defensive strategy in the last six years of the war. A disjointed approach by the navy and the army may lie at the root of the problem. There seems to have been unwillingness to form a cohesive plan, perhaps a result of infighting among the elite families in charge of the different branches of the military. Carthaginian prosperity had been built upon its fleets and the ability to control ports in the central Mediterranean. The concept of losing Sicily may once have been unthinkable to the Carthaginians but they had underestimated the resolve of the enemy they were fighting. Although Hamilcar remained undefeated in his six years in Sicily, the Carthaginians’ ability to continue to fight and to maintain the supply of their forces seems to have been coming to an end.
⁹

For at least a decade the resources of the Carthaginians and the Romans had been stretched to their very limits by this debilitating war. ‘Both the Romans and Carthaginians were destitute of money,’ wrote Appian in about the year 252
BCE
and yet the war continued for another decade (
Sic.
5.1). The Carthaginians were so short of cash that they had tried and failed to borrow 2,000 talents from Ptolemy II of Egypt (1 talent = 26kg). Polybius claims that both sides’ strength was paralysed and resources exhausted ‘by protracted taxation and expense’ (1.58.9). The Roman state had turned to private finance to raise funds for the construction of a new fleet during the final phase of the war. The two sides faced not only financial depletion but also near collapse of their reserves of manpower.

The dire financial situation may be visible in the coinage minted during this period at Carthage, with its debased silver content.
¹⁰
From the Roman writer Suetonius comes an anecdote about a famous Roman woman named Claudia who came from a patrician family. As she was travelling on a litter through Rome, held up by throngs of the poor and homeless blocking her route, she remarked that it was too bad that her brother (Publius Claudius Pulcher, defeated off Drepanum in 249
BCE
) could not lose another fleet so that the riff-raff would be cleared from the streets of the city (
Tib
. 2.3). After their defeat in the sea battle at Drepanum the Romans had been forced to
draft in slaves and the urban poor to man ships near the end of the war. We have to imagine that Carthage had done the same.
¹¹

The end of the drawn out war came abruptly in early March 241
BCE
when a Carthaginian relief fleet raised to supply the garrison at Eryx met a newly raised Roman fleet north of Levanzo, one of the Aegates Islands that lie off the west coast of Sicily (see
Map 1
and
Plate 2
). The Carthaginian ships were laden with provisions when the Roman ships engaged them as they rounded the north tip of the island.
¹²
The Carthaginians ships, made less manoeuvrable by the weight of the supplies they carried, were crewed by new recruits and untrained marines (Polyb.1.61.4). They had also been taken by surprise by the appearance of this new Roman fleet. Roman maritime efforts had been severely restricted after the loss off Drepanum eight years previously. Since then the Carthaginians may have been lulled into the belief that they had, at least, won the sea war. Polybius wrote that they ‘never expected the Romans to dispute the sea with them again’ (1.61.5). But when, once more, the Romans did return to the sea with another fleet they surprised the Carthaginians and swiftly won the day. With ‘fifty Carthaginian ships sunk and seventy captured with all their crews’, the total number of prisoners may have been 10,000 (1.61.6). The surviving Carthaginian ships, aided by a favouring wind, fled back to Carthage.
¹³
Although this was not as dramatic a victory for the Romans as previous battles, it was the final straw for Carthage and for the garrison on the mountain at Eryx. The Roman consul sailed on to Lilybaeum. When news of the defeat reached Carthage, the walls of the city would once again have been draped in black. Hamilcar was given ‘full powers to deal with the situation’ and sued for a settlement (Polyb. 1.62.3).
¹⁴

The negotiated peace that officially ended what we call the First Punic War was named after the victorious Roman consul Lutatius. The terms of the Peace of Lutatius were punitive for Carthage. After so much loss on both sides the Romans were driven to punish the Carthaginians financially, if only to repay the loans made by their own wealthy citizens. The treaty read:

there shall be friendship between the Carthaginians and the Romans on the following terms … The Carthaginians shall evacuate the whole of Sicily and the islands between Italy and Africa [i.e. the Aeolian Islands, Pantelleria and Lampedusa]; they shall not make war upon Hiero, nor bear arms against the Syracusans nor their allies. The Carthaginians shall give up to the Romans all prisoners without ransom. The Carthaginians shall pay the Romans 2200 Euboean talents of silver over a period of twenty years. (
Polyb. 3.27.1–6
)

Defeat in the First Punic War severely restricted Carthaginian power and influence. The city of Carthage was cowed but Hamilcar Barca had remained undefeated in the field. The withdrawal from the long held and much coveted ports of Sicily began. It was a disaster for Carthage, the ports were now lost, the state was bankrupt and the people exhausted. The Carthaginians accepted the Roman terms and faced the humiliation of the peace. Sicily (except the territory controlled by Syracuse) became Rome’s first overseas province and a stepping-stone on her way to empire.
¹⁵
Polybius’ account of the First Punic War does not portray the outcome as inevitable and insists that the battles were closely fought and the naval capacity of the two powers equally matched. In Polybius’ view the war could have gone either way but the Romans had the deeper resources and won with a bit of luck and smarter naval tactics. Hamilcar would return home and rise to the pinnacle of military power, setting in motion events that led to another epic struggle with Rome.
¹⁶

The lessons learned by Carthage from their defeat in the First Punic War were absorbed by the generation who would fight the next war. Hannibal was just six years old, beginning his education and starting to formulate a concept of the city around him and of his place in that city.
¹⁷
The traditions of schooling in Carthaginian culture are unknown but we can assume that as a favoured son of an illustrious family Hannibal had an elite upbringing and was taught at home by tutors. Studies would have included military command and Greek, the language of learning in the Hellenistic Mediterranean. The impact of the loss of Sicily on Hannibal’s generation of Carthaginians, brought up to be proud of their heritage and noble past, must have been profound. The war with Rome cast a long shadow over boys his age, used to regaling each other with tales of great victories and adventurous generals they had learned about. The realities of the enormous loss of life in the naval battles would have created a cohort of heroes and a deep-rooted enmity in those who lived through the events. The generation of Carthaginians who grew up in this period blamed the Romans for the First Punic War but it is equally clear that the majority of Carthaginian commanders (with the notable exceptions of Hamilcar and Xanthippus the Spartan) had not been up to the task.

These years of Hannibal’s early childhood were lived during a harrowing time for the city of Carthage. For, adding to the misery of the Carthaginians, the peace with Rome brought no respite from war. Following the end of the First Punic War the next three years saw Carthage consumed with ‘so serious a civil war … that the city was never in so great a danger except when it was destroyed’ (Cornelius Nepos,
Ham
. 2.1).
¹⁸
At the conclusion of the peace in 241
BCE
Hamilcar had transferred his soldiers from the mountaintop
stronghold at Eryx to the port of Lilybaeum. There he resigned his command and sailed back to Carthage leaving Gisgo, the commander at Lilybaeum, the task of disbanding the army and sending the troops home (Polyb. 1.66.1). The next danger arose from within the ranks of the Carthaginian army and among its mercenary soldiers.
¹⁹

At Lilybaeum Gisgo was left with much to do. Carthaginian power in the west of Sicily was at an end and the loss must have been intensely felt by the Punic population of the city. Families connected to both Sicily and Carthage for centuries must have been forced to give up their land, houses and identity. There would have been refugees from a population that had been under a blockade for much of the previous decade. Many may have tried to cross from Lilybaeum to Carthage, seeking a new life in the city. There is silence in the ancient sources about the non-military population but we can imagine the scenes at the port of Lilybaeum that summer.

The military population are better documented. The troops of the Carthaginians were both recruited from allied territories and hired as paid soldiers from regions unconnected to Carthage. There were Numidian horsemen who made up the cavalry and Libyan foot soldiers from neighbouring kingdoms in Africa. Others troops came from allied territories further afield such as the slingers from the Balearic Islands.
²⁰
Additionally there were soldiers who had no connection to Carthaginian allied territory and were hired from regions renowned for producing soldiers: the Greek east, the northern Italian peninsula, or Lusitania (part of modern Portugal). Polybius specifically notes ‘Iberians, some Celts, some Ligurians and some from the Balearic Islands’ (1.67.7) among the mercenaries at Carthage.

Having fought and lost an exhausting and expensive war, Carthage was faced with the reality of having a large force of unpaid defeated soldiers waiting in Lilybaeum under Gisgo’s command. We have already seen that the Carthaginians had a reputation for offering a high rate of pay to their mercenaries (Diodorus Sic. 16.81.4). Soldiers would have expected prompt payment in full so Hamilcar’s lieutenant Gisgo planned a staggered withdrawal. The transportation of all the soldiers to Carthage together did not seem a sensible solution thus he sent them in detachments so that they could be paid and dispatched to their own lands, group by group, before discontent led to trouble (Polyb.1.66.4).
²¹

As is often the case, civilian leaders at home do not share the perspective of military commanders in the field, and Carthage was no exception.
²²
The Carthaginian state was in financial disarray and despite Gisgo’s careful plan, the civilian leaders hoped to negotiate with the soldiers once they were
gathered together. Gisgo’s advice was ignored and shiploads of mercenaries arrived in the city. It was summer and a backlog of unpaid, discontented soldiers clogged the streets day and night. The situation grew more unruly as the soldiers ‘committed frequent offences’ and were in a ‘licentious spirit’ (Polyb. 1.66.6). Gisgo’s strategy of orderly demobilization was foiled.

The nineteenth-century author Gustave Flaubert picked up on Polybius’ description of these mercenary troops when he wrote his flamboyant depiction of the Carthaginian military after the First Punic War in his celebrated novel
Salammbô
(published in 1862). ‘Men of all nations were there,’ Flaubert imagined:

Ligurians, Lusitanians, Balearians, Africans, and fugitives from Rome. Beside the heavy Dorian dialect were audible the resonant Celtic syllables rattling like chariots of war, while Ionian terminations conflicted with consonants of the desert as harsh as the jackal’s cry. The Greek might be recognised by his slender figure, the Egyptian by his elevated shoulders, the Cantabrian by his broad calves. There were Carians proudly nodding their helmet plumes, Cappadocian archers displaying large flowers painted on their bodies with the juice of herbs, and a few Lydians in women’s robes, dining in slippers and earrings. Others were ostentatiously daubed with vermilion, and resembled coral statues.
²³

Flaubert’s account is purely fictional and deeply orientalist but captures an essence of the vibrant and multicultural fighting force that gathered at Carthage that summer of 241
BCE
.