Hannibal: A Hellenistic Life (25 page)

The two strategists, Hannibal the risk-taker and Fabius Maximus the riskaverse, attempted to outmanoeuvre each other. Fabius endeavoured ‘to move parallel to the enemy, always occupying in advance the positions which his knowledge of the country told him were the most advantageous’ (Polyb. 3.90.1). The Roman intention was to harass Hannibal at close quarters, to skirmish with the men sent out to forage but not to fall into a trap or be provoked into battle. This strategy allowed the Romans to bide their time and gave their soldiers experience against the Carthaginian army. Hannibal sensed how dangerous this might be to his army and ‘felt immediate apprehension about the dictator’s wariness’ (Livy, 22.12.5–6). His soldiers would have been frustrated and isolated as Fabius’ tactics constrained Hannibal’s ability to reach out to allies in Italy. The number of soldiers in the Carthaginian army was limited and he was far from home. They were vulnerable and would be defeated by increments if this situation continued. As Polybius noted, ‘Fabius was determined not to expose himself to any risk or to venture on a battle but to make the safety of the army under his command his first and chief aim’ (3.89.2). Up until now Hannibal had controlled all his engagements with
Roman commanders, whose confidence and aggression had led them to engage. Fabius was different.

Through the late summer and into the autumn of 217
BCE
Hannibal plundered and provoked while Fabius delayed and contained. Livy records Fabius’ scorched-earth policy. He issued ‘an edict for all people whose towns and settlements lacked fortifications to move to places of safety, and for all those in the area along the route Hannibal was likely to take to leave their farms … to burn their buildings and destroy their crops … so as to leave the enemy no supplies of any kind’ (22.11.4). The tactics had an impact and there are reports of severe supply shortages for Hannibal later in 217/216
BCE
(22.32.3). However, since Polybius has the Carthaginians ‘in possession of a huge amount of booty’ by the end of the campaigning season of 217 it becomes difficult to judge the real effectiveness of the policy (3.92.9).
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Hannibal’s reaction to Fabius’ tactics was to lead his army west into the mountains of the Samnites and across into Campania to the fertile lands of what was called in Latin the
ager Falernus
. ‘The plain around Capua is the most celebrated in all Italy, both for its fertility and beauty,’ exclaims Polybius (3.91.2). The area is notable because it was officially Roman territory (ceded by Capua in 340
BCE
) and the Campanians had been granted a limited form of Roman citizenship in the fourth century.
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The population was a heterogeneous mix of Greek, Oscan speaking (the Italic peoples of the region) and Roman colonists with a strong independent streak. The area contained key towns such as Capua, ‘once the wealthiest of cities’, and also ports along the coast like Cumae, Neapolis (Naples) and Nuceria (Polyb. 3.91.6). Hannibal reasoned that his presence there would ‘either … compel the enemy to fight or make it plain to everybody that he was winning and that the Romans were abandoning the country to him’ (Polyb. 3.90.11).
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Once in Campania, Hannibal found himself in what Polybius describes as ‘a kind of theatre’ with the sea to the west and high mountains on the south and east. The circle of mountains, ‘through which there are only three passes from the interior, all of them narrow and difficult’, provided the seats of the theatre, although the region is more accessible than Polybius makes out (3.91.8–10).
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Fabius Maximus maintained his strategy despite agitation among some of the Roman generals, and especially from his Master of the Horse, Minucius, who could not bear to stand by and watch Hannibal move about with impunity. In the Livian tradition, the Roman second in command rails against the policy of containment: ‘have we come here as spectators’ to watch ‘the sight of our allies being butchered and their property burned?’ (22.14.3). The Roman forces were positioned in the hills above the Campanian plain,
moving in tandem with the Carthaginians and guarding the passes through the mountains while watching the roads north to Rome.
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Minucius made fun of ‘Fabius’s tactics where, as he put it, the dictator took great trouble to provide the army with splendid seats to witness the spectacle of Italy being laid waste’ (Plutarch,
Fab
. 5.5).

Hannibal’s motivation to remain in the south through this summer is addressed by Polybius: ‘he hoped [this policy] would cause alarm among the cities and persuade them to throw off their allegiance to Rome’ (3.90.10–13). As Fabius Maximus watched Hannibal’s army from the hills, ‘a farm that belonged to the dictator had been pointed out to the Carthaginians by some deserters’. Hannibal ordered the whole area to be razed to the ground except this farm. He wanted to ‘create the impression that some secret pact had been made and this was Fabius’s payment for it’ (Livy 22.23.4–5). The policy was designed to increase Roman hostility to their dictator’s delaying tactics. Hannibal hoped to make it both more difficult for Fabius Maximus to maintain his distance and to turn people against the Romans.
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Up until this point, however sympathetic some of the allies might have been to Hannibal’s cause, none had been persuaded to change sides, with most in the region waiting to see what the next phase in the war would entail.
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As autumn arrived, Hannibal turned back to Apulia. He had been about a month in Campania, ‘having done his best to provoke the Romans’. He found himself still without any significant defections to his side and an urgent need for safe winter quarters for his men and baggage. Hannibal ‘wanted to secure … a place suitable for his winter quarters, so that his army should not only fare sumptuously for the present but continue to have abundance of provisions’ (Polyb. 3.92.8–9). The Roman dictator had also made the same calculations and positioned his army to try and block Hannibal’s retreat into Apulia. For Fabius ‘was sure that Hannibal would go back by the same passes he had used to enter Falernian territory’ (Livy 22.15.3).
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Turning back towards Apulia meant crossing the Apennines, a significant barrier – especially as Hannibal knew the Romans occupied the high ground and blocked the passes that led through the mountains. To the Romans this must have seemed the moment when Fabius Maximus’ summer-long policy of attrition would finally pay off.
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Four thousand Roman troops had been positioned in the narrowest part of the pass, probably the valley of Callicula, north of Cales.
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Fabius waited ‘with the greater part of his army encamped on a hill in front of the pass’. When the Carthaginians arrived and made their camp, Fabius ‘thought he would be able to carry away their booty … and possibly even to put an end to the whole campaign’ (Polyb. 3.93.1). It is
revealing of how wary the Romans were of Hannibal that they did not attack him here when they occupied the high ground and had him trapped.

Hannibal assessed his situation and devised a plan to meet the challenge. He seemed to be cut off ‘and it did not escape his notice that his own strategy was being turned against him’ (Livy 22.16.4–5). He ordered one of his key lieutenants Hasdrubal, titled the ‘officer in charge of services’, to collect and bundle as much dry wood as could be found.
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Next he gathered together two thousand of the strongest oxen they had in the ‘captured stock’ (Polyb. 3.93.4). Then they took dry bundles of wood mixed ‘together with bunches of twigs and dry vine-shoots and attached them to the horns of the oxen’ (Livy 22.16.5–8). The plan was for the light infantry (pikemen) to drive the oxen by night with their horns aflame towards a ‘saddle’ that lay between the Romans guarding the narrow pass and the Carthaginian camp. Hannibal sought to create a diversion for his army to use as cover as they moved by night through the narrowest part of the pass and into the Apennines. He ordered his men to ‘get their supper and retire to rest early’, taking care as always that they were at their best for the next challenge (Polyb. 3.93.6).

‘When the third watch of the night [
c
. 03h00] was over … he now bade them light all the bundles and drive the oxen up to the ridge.’ As soon as the Roman soldiers guarding the pass ‘saw the lights advancing up the slope’, they thought that Hannibal was moving his army in that direction. Drawn by the lights they ‘left the narrow part of the pass and advanced to the hill to meet the enemy’. The Roman soldiers were confused when they reached the oxen. Their fear was that something ‘much more formidable’ than the reality awaited them (Polyb. 3.93.7–3.94.2). Hannibal’s supernatural reputation must have helped this ruse succeed. The Roman troops were obviously in awe of his abilities, and in the dark especially wary about what magical plan might unfold at his bidding. When the Romans had moved away from the narrow pass, Hannibal made for the gap ‘with his heavy-armed troops in front, next to them his cavalry, next the captured cattle, and finally the Spaniards and Celts’ (Polyb. 3.93.10). In this way Hannibal brought his whole army and all his treasury safely through the narrow gorge and evaded the Romans.

There are records of a remarkably similar use of oxen with their horns aflame by the famous general Tian Dan in China some fifty years before Hannibal’s ruse. It would indicate how widely informed Hannibal was and how closely connected the world had become if he had known of this subterfuge beforehand.
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We have no way of knowing the origins of the idea with any certainty so it seems likely to be an extraordinary coincidence. The plan was successful and the dawn found the Roman forces on the ridge of a saddle
facing the Carthaginian light infantry among the oxen. Hannibal sent some of his Spanish troops back and they attacked the Romans, killed about a thousand and brought their own light infantry down through the pass safely (Polyb. 3.94.6).
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Once again, superior skill, imagination and intelligence had left the Romans in disarray.

The ever-cautious Fabius had ‘heard the commotion, but thought it was a trap and was reluctant to fight any battle, especially in the dark’ (Livy 22.18.1). Thus a rather dejected Roman army followed Hannibal back through Samnium and into Apulia. The search for winter quarters led Hannibal to the countryside around Luceria and up to the town of Geronium, where there was ‘plenty of corn’ (Polyb. 3.100.1–2). He had generally spread ‘terror’ around the countryside during the campaigning season so when he sent a message to the citizens of Geronium ‘asking for their alliance and offering pledges’ they ignored the request (Polyb. 3.100.3). Hannibal then took the city by siege and the inhabitants were ‘put to the sword’ (Polyb. 3.100.4). In contrast, Livy claims that the city was already abandoned when Hannibal decided to settle there for the winter and he used the abandoned buildings as grain stores (22.18.7).
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Back in Rome the political fallout from Hannibal’s miraculous escape played out and ‘Fabius’ delaying tactics were now discredited in Rome as well as in the camp’ (Livy 22.15.1). Fabius Maximus was a soldier of great experience but his tactics provoked strong opposition within his own army and from the Roman population. ‘The soldiers mocked Fabius and contemptuously called him Hannibal’s
paedagogus
,‘ wrote his biographer Plutarch (
Fab
. 5.4). This was considered a demeaning term and is difficult to translate into English. The
paedagogus
was a slave employed to accompany boys to school, carry their books, and was in essence a private tutor. Hannibal’s miraculous escape from Campania, when it looked as if he was trapped, ‘brought down more abuse and contempt upon Fabius than anything that had come before’ (
Fab
. 7.2). Fabius Maximus was recalled to Rome around the time that Hannibal was searching for winter quarters. Livy tells us that the visit was for religious purposes but there is speculation that he was recalled to answer questions from the Senate about his increasingly unpopular strategy. While Fabius was away in Rome, Minucius took command of the legions. Before he left for Rome, Fabius had advised his second in command to keep to the strategy of shadowing Hannibal but Minucius was ‘entirely wrapped up in the project of risking a great battle’ (Polyb. 3.94.10).
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The Carthaginian forces at Geronium were busy gathering enough supplies to see them through the winter. Hannibal’s main concern was keeping his
men, livestock and horses fit and well, as ‘his cavalry was the arm on which he relied above all others’ (Polyb. 3.101.11). Food supply was a significant concern and he needed fodder and pastureland to keep his considerable number of livestock healthy. This left him vulnerable to attack. The priority given to provisioning meant that Hannibal dispatched a large proportion of the army out to forage, leaving a skeleton crew to defend their quarters. Minucius watched from nearby as the men went about collecting grain and stores. Hannibal occupied a forward position, fortifying a camp in front of Geronium, and stationed some of his light infantry on a hill between himself and the Romans to supply cover to the foragers. Minucius sensed that the Carthaginians were vulnerable and led out his own light-armed troops in an attack on the hill. The Romans took the position and Hannibal and his men were forced to withdraw (Polyb. 3.101.4–7).

The skirmish laid bare Hannibal’s main weakness: that his men had to forage and his animals needed food. This diminished his manpower both for fighting and protecting his camp. Minucius’ aggressive tactics bore fruit on a day when ‘a great number of the enemy were dispersed over the country … he drew up his legionaries in front of the Carthaginian camp … and sent his cavalry and light-armed troops out to attack the foragers, with orders to take no prisoners’. Hannibal was caught without the manpower to march out and meet the Roman legions or protect the men who were foraging. Minucius had Hannibal cornered and managed to kill ‘many’ of his soldiers. It was the arrival of Hannibal’s lieutenant Hasdrubal with 4,000 cavalry that finally caused the Romans to withdraw. The Carthaginians had to abandon their forward position and retreat into Geronium. From then on they foraged much more cautiously (Polyb. 3.102.1–11). In the whole period Hannibal spent in Italy, this was one of the few times he allowed the opposition to dictate the terms of engagement. His preoccupation with gathering supplies meant he had not been prepared for a battle.
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