Hannibal: A Hellenistic Life (3 page)

Hannibal’s biography must begin from this point, for the Hannibal we know has been adapted to the narrative of Rome’s rise to greatness. If we can be certain about anything at all to do with Hannibal, it is what he meant to the Romans and those who fought against him. The Greek historian Polybius is the most reliable of all the ancient sources on Hannibal. He was closely
connected to the story and may have actually witnessed the destruction of Carthage in 146
BCE
. A Greek brought to Rome as a captive in the second century, Polybius wrote a history of the Romans to explain to his fellow Greeks how these upstarts had come to control so much of the world in such a short time (1.3.3–6).
⁶
Polybius was a young man when Hannibal died in
c
. 183
BCE
, perhaps seventeen years old. Hannibal’s exploits were both celebrated and reviled in the popular history of the day and Polybius’ youth would have been steeped in these stories. For Polybius and the historians who followed him such as the Roman Livy, the life of Hannibal embodied Rome’s struggle with Carthage and played an essential and epic part in that story.

The Romans also provided an assessment of Hannibal’s less attractive attributes and Livy’s portrait recalls that ‘the man’s great virtues were matched by his enormous vices: pitiless cruelty, a treachery worse than Punic, no regard for truth, and no integrity, no fear of the gods or respect for an oath, and no scruples’ (21.4.9–10).
⁷
The Roman sources gave this brave and fierce enemy the more commonly acknowledged attributes of a stereotypical Carthaginian: a Punic deceit and treachery.

By the third/second century the Romans referred to Hannibal and the Carthaginians as Punic.
⁸
Punic was the name given to the cultural stereotype articulated by the Roman authors. It was the name used by Carthaginian enemies and is the modern term for the wars between Rome and Carthage, and for the Carthaginian language and culture.
⁹
Punic is an ethnic term whilst Carthaginian reflects the political entity and is the name given to the conquered by the conquerors. It is almost certainly not a term Hannibal would have used to refer to himself. In Livy’s description one of Hannibal’s greatest flaws was this, ‘a treachery more than Punic’ (
perfidia plus quam Punica
, Livy 21.4.9). Livy’s audience would instinctively have understood what was meant by this Punic duplicity or treachery. In the decades following Livy, Valerius Maximus would write that ‘Punic craftiness (was) notorious throughout the terrestrial globe’ (7.4.4).

This notorious stereotype of the Carthaginians may have developed as a direct result of Hannibal’s invasion of Italy. Hannibal is by far the most discussed aspect of Carthaginian culture in the ancient sources and the eternal question remains: did the man create the stereotype or did the stereotype create the man? As his notoriety and fame grew in Italy during the period of the war it is possible that Roman anti-Hannibalic propaganda began to take hold and remained firmly in place after his final defeat.
¹⁰
In the Roman mind the Carthaginians were forever afterwards judged by their encounters with Hannibal. The Punic label stuck and is now the conventional term used when referring to the culture associated with Hannibal, Carthage and his world.
¹¹

These two sides of Hannibal – the brave general and the untrustworthy Punic – were not necessarily contradictory to the Romans. In the Roman history of Rome, Hannibal could be both the most worthy of opponents whose eventual defeat made Rome great, and the most dishonest and stereotypical of Punic villains whose own actions justified the destruction of Carthage and its people. Modern historians are left with this dichotomy. The Romans admired and feared Hannibal in equal measure. Some Romans believed that Hannibal’s treacherous actions typified the Carthaginian people and had brought destruction down upon the city.
¹²
In short, the story was constructed to imply that the Carthaginians got what was coming to them.

The works of the historians of the Hannibalic War who contradicted the purely Roman view of Hannibal and Carthage have not survived. We know they existed and that Polybius and others consulted a much wider range of sources on the period than we have access to today. There were important Greek historians who took a pro-Carthaginian stance. We know specifically of one named Sosylus, a Spartan, who travelled in Hannibal’s camp and wrote a history of the Punic Wars from this insider’s perspective.
¹³
Another historian named Silenus from Kale Acte in Sicily also travelled with Hannibal and wrote a history of his life (Cornelius Nepos,
Hann
. 13.3).
¹⁴
Cicero referred to Silenus as ‘a painstaking student of Hannibal’s career’ but only fragments of his history survive (
De div
. 1.49). The views on Hannibal that might contradict the orthodox interpretation of events have largely been lost. We are left with the overwhelming story of Roman power. History is truly written by the victors and their written perspective of the Carthaginians and the life of Hannibal is all that remains. What survives provides us with an image of Hannibal that is reflected through a Roman eye.

When Hannibal first came to the attention of the Romans and thus entered history he was campaigning in the Iberian peninsula (modern Spain and Portugal) in 221–219
BCE
. There he chose the path that would eventually make him Rome’s ‘greatest enemy’.
¹⁵
Ever since then, the epic nature of his battles with Rome and journey to Italy that took him over the Alps with his army and elephants has astounded commentators and the public. The ancient and the modern worlds have been fascinated by his daring and audacity. The stunning military victories that followed on from his journey over the Alps cemented his legend. The next decades of his life were spent wandering Italy and the Mediterranean fighting the Romans. He became a symbol of opposition to Rome’s growing power and this led to his celebrated reputation as a strategic genius and a heroic fighter.

To understand Hannibal and the path he followed it is vital to look at the history, the legend and the culture that produced him. That the real Hannibal
was an extraordinary individual is not in question but so much of his life has become legendary that the context for his achievements needs to be rooted in his time and place. The third-century Mediterranean was culturally dominated by the Hellenistic kingdoms created in the aftermath of the conquests of Alexander the Great (356–323
BCE
). It was a period of growth and expansive warfare across the Mediterranean. Hannibal’s Carthage was located at the centre of the sea, occupying a prime position on the North African coast and deeply influenced by the social and political changes under way. The third century also witnessed the rising power of another central Mediterranean city, Rome. These two powerful city-states would begin the century as allies on the fringes of Hellenistic power and end it as bitter enemies deeply involved in the struggles of the Hellenistic kings. Thus the challenge Hannibal presented to Rome and the brilliance of his military victories took place against the backdrop of Hellenistic warfare and legendary military achievements. This Hellenistic world provided the contextualization for Hannibal, both in his own and in his enemy’s eyes.

Equally important for our understanding of Hannibal is the unique heritage and the role that Carthage played in Roman history and memory. The destruction of Carthage has made Hannibal one of the best known yet least understood of all the great figures of antiquity.
¹⁶
Hannibal left us no surviving memoirs and his culture was completely destroyed, yet interest in his life has been sustained through the millennia. There are multitudes of fictional and historical accounts of Hannibal’s story that stretch back through the centuries, in many languages. Historians have analysed his life, incredible military achievements and legacy.
¹⁷
Portraits of Hannibal always reflect the way in which contemporary cultures have engaged with the history of Rome and the questions people ask of the past. Interest in Hannibal continues to this day and he plays an enduring role in modern culture. Today, it is useful to reconsider how the memory of great wars echo through history as interpretations of events shift and change. In this story of Hannibal I have tried to consider the life and great events of his time while also reflecting on how and why we continue to look back at him with fascination from the twenty-first century.

This book is the story of one man’s epic struggle with the nascent power of Rome. It is the story of an empire built and another destroyed. There are high adventures, daring deeds and legendary battles that still resound today. It is also the story of Carthage itself, of the lost city and culture that are central to any portrait of Hannibal. For it is Carthaginian culture that shaped both Hannibal and the way he was represented in our sources. Carthage was one of
the great cities of antiquity and in the third century its influence stretched across North Africa and through the islands of the central Mediterranean (
Map 2
). Founded by Phoenicians early in the first millennium
BCE
, Carthage was a city that flourished at the centre of a network of trade routes that criss-crossed the Mediterranean.
¹⁸
The culture of the city was based in the traditions of the eastern Mediterranean region of the Levant but Carthage had grown to be a multicultural metropolis with an expansive outlook by the time of Hannibal’s birth in the mid-third century
BCE
. It was a city closely connected to the wider Mediterranean but at the same time inherently foreign to the Greek and Roman authors of its history.
¹⁹
The narrative of the life and death of Hannibal has come down to us filtered through a Roman lens but was deeply rooted in Carthaginian culture and traditions. It is therefore essential to begin this story of Hannibal by looking at what we know about the legends and history of the Punic city of Carthage.

CHAPTER 1

HANNIBAL AND CARTHAGE

A Tyrian colony; the people made

Stout for war, and studious of their trade:

Carthage the name; belov’d by Juno more

Than her own Argos, or the Samian shore.

Here stood her chariot; here, if Heav’n were kind,

The seat of awful empire she design’d.

(
Virgil,
Aeneid
1.21–26
¹
)

T
HE FORTUNES OF THE
great ancient city of Carthage and the story of Hannibal are woven together in history and myth. Hannibal was Carthage’s most famous son and his name in the Punic language means ‘he who finds favour with Ba’al’.
²
Ba’al was the chief god in the Carthaginian pantheon and Carthage was the most prosperous city and cultural centre of the Punic world. Hannibal’s Carthage was a long-established city on the African shore of the central Mediterranean with a reputation for great wealth and beauty.
³
By the time of Hannibal’s birth in 247
BCE
the city had existed for almost six centuries. The rich cultural heritage and origins of Carthage shaped Hannibal’s early life and were fundamental to his education and the creation of his identity.

Legend has it that Hannibal’s family traced their roots back to the very foundation of the city when Phoenicians from Tyre established a colony on the spot early in the first millennium
BCE
(Silius Italicus, 1.70–77). ‘In this period, 65 years before the founding of Rome, Carthage was established by
the Tyrian Elissa, by some authors called Dido’ claimed the Roman historian Velleius Paterculus (1.6.4). The ‘nobly born’ Hannibal is the only other Carthaginian whose renown is as great as that of Dido, refugee from the city of Tyre, legendary queen and founder of the city.

The story of Hannibal’s Carthage begins with these Phoenicians, who came from the port cities of the Levant such as Sidon, Tyre and Byblos (modern Lebanon) in the early Iron Age. At the beginning of the first millennium
BCE
the Phoenicians spread out across the Mediterranean and their ships, especially those from Tyre, explored widely for natural resources to be traded in the urbanized world of the Near East.
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Phoenician ships plied their trade on the shores of the Mediterranean as they picked up valuable materials and dropped off objects and spread ideas. The ancient Greeks adopted their alphabet, and the stories and myths of the Near East moved across the Mediterranean with their ships.
⁵

Hannibal’s city Carthage was one of a number founded early in the first millennium by intrepid Phoenician seafarers exploring westwards.
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We learn about the nature of early Phoenician expansion from passing references in the ancient literary record. The sophisticated urban centres of the ancient Levant were key to the trading wealth of the Phoenicians and passages in the Hebrew Bible describe what drove the trade. The Book of Ezekiel (27:12) claims that ‘Tarshish was thy merchant by reason of the multitude of all kind of riches; with silver, iron, tin and lead, they traded in the fairs’. This was a time when silver, iron, tin and lead were a source of great wealth and these most valuable commodities were to be found in the western and central Mediterranean regions of Iberia (tin, silver) and Etruria (iron ore, copper). Tarshish refers to Tartessos, the Greek word for the mineral-rich region of Iberia beyond the Pillars of Herakles along the Guadalquivir river (the Baetis in antiquity) just north-west of the Phoenician colony of Gadir (ancient Gades/modern Cadiz,
Map 2
).
⁷
Many centuries later, during the Hannibalic War, this area witnessed some of the most intense fighting as the Carthaginians and Romans sought to control the still important natural resources.

The early Phoenicians established a network of trading posts at strategic points that criss-crossed the Mediterranean Sea to capitalize on this market. Communities existed in western Iberia, the Balearic Islands, Sardinia, Elba, Malta, Sicily and along the coast of North Africa as far as the Atlantic. With settlements extending over such a large area there must have been large-scale exploitation of mineral wealth. There is little doubt that the Phoenicians ‘prospered greatly’ from their expeditions and they are frequently described as ‘wealthy’ by ancient authors.
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The connection with trade, commerce and
wealth was a distinctive part of the Phoenician/Carthaginian heritage and identity ascribed to them by the Greeks and the Romans.