Hannibal: A Hellenistic Life (64 page)

70.
Lazenby, 1998, 218–219.

71.
Lazenby, 1998, 218–221 for the positioning before the meeting of the two generals.

72.
Polybius (15.6.3) claims they had an interpreter with them, and Livy (30.30.1) states they had one translator each.

73.
Gruen, 1992, 237 discusses the cultural imperalism behind the use of Latin in a wider context and states that Scipio would never have held high-level discussions in Greek, and we can assume that Hannibal would have insisted on using Punic – the use of translators on both sides being clue to the status of the speaker (Cornelius Nepos,
Hann
. 13.3, Livy 29.19.11–13).

74.
The speeches are probably made up; certainly Livy’s evocative version is filled out with rhetorical flourish. Polybius’ record possibly preserves the Roman memory of the conversation between the two men from the Cornelii. For the echoes of Sallust
Bellum Catiline
and Livy’s versions of the speech see Rossi, 2004 and Feldherr, 2010.

75.
The date is unknown but later sources link the battle to the appearance of a comet that is backdated to October 202: see Hoyos, 2006, 709 n. 29 and Walbank, vol. 2, 449–450, who provide full references.

76.
These estimates in Lazenby, 1998, 220–221; see also Goldsworthy, 2003, 302–303; Walbank, vol. 2, 449–450.

77.
Goldsworthy, 2003, 303–304 makes the argument that Hannibal intended to punch through the Roman centre.

78.
The speeches are probably an invention of Polybius; at least Hannibal’s speech and actions – as if he were distancing himself from the whole and unwilling to take responsibility for the fight. He knew he was going to lose.

79.
The psychological impact and Hannibal’s ability to inspire his troops are noted in Siebert, 1993a, 483.

80.
Polybius 15.15.3–8 admits as much; he had an inferior army.

81.
Bagnall, 1990, 290–291, whose book on the Punic Wars from the perspective of a field general asks if Hannibal was just stressed out by this point, no longer capable of his best performance, worn and tired from the years of battle and struggle to keep his army together in Italy. He could not muster the enthusiasm for the fight, nor did he perhaps believe in what he was fighting for. Lazenby, 1996b, 40 notes that ‘the master had lost none of his cunning’ and deployed his inferior forces to try to distract the enemy.

82.
As noted by Eckstein, 1987, 255.

Chapter 12 Hannibal into Exile

1.
For Ennius’ Scipio ‘
invicte’
, a panegyric to the Roman hero of the Hannibalic War, see Gruen, 1990; also for a discussion of Ennius in the Roman political landscape.

2.
Pursued by Masinissa, according to Appian,
Lib.
47, whom Hannibal outmanoeuvred and left injured.

3.
According to Walbank, vol. 2, 471, who estimates his birth year as mid-247, he was 45 in 202.

4.
Polybius 15.19.3–9 records Hannibal’s impassioned plea for Carthage to accept the Romans’ ‘lenient terms’: see Walbank, vol. 2, 471. Interesting words, as the terms were only lenient when considered retrospectively after Carthage’s destruction in the Third Punic War, which Polybius witnessed. Livy (30.37.7–8) records a man named Gisgo, perhaps a son of Hasdrubal Gisgo as being the senator who advocated continued resistance.

5.
One talent was equivalent to roughly 26kg of silver (compare with the 2,000 talents demanded at the end of the First Punic War in 241); numbers from Lancel, 1999, 177. Hoyos, 2005, 180 points out that the yearly sum was less than the yearly amount of the First Punic War indemnity but was to be paid over a longer period – most likely the amount that was considered feasible on a yearly basis, although Carthage offered to pay off the entire amount in 191. The Romans did not wait long after the period of payment lapsed in
c.
151 to provoke the Third Punic War, which began in 149, with the city destroyed in 146.

6.
Five hundred ships, according to Livy (30.43.11) were burned, whilst they were left with ten triremes.

7.
The exact meaning of Appian, who discusses the ceding of all territories and cities outside the ‘Phoenician Trenches’ (
Lib.
54) discussed by Walbank, vol. 2, 466–467; also see Lancel, 1999, 178; Eckstein, 1987, 258–259; and Hoyos, 2005, 180 (among others). Livy and Polybius are clear that their territory remained ‘intact’. This may be a term for what was considered traditional Carthaginian territorial hegemony or perhaps it is confused with the later ‘
fossa regia
’ between the first Roman province in Africa and the Numidian territory. Eckstein sees no reason to doubt Appian or the claim that all the war elephants were to be surrendered.

8.
Livy 30.37, 43–44 covers the terms of the peace. See Seibert, 1993a, 496–505 for the period directly after the war; see also Lancel, 1999, 176–180 on the peace; Hoyos, 2005, 179–181.

9.
For example Nepos also claims that his brother Mago was at his side, although according to Livy Mago died in 203 en route from Liguria back to Africa (30.19.1–5). However, Appian,
Lib.
49, 54 also claims that Mago stayed in Italy in 203, yet Cassius Dio (18) states it was a Carthaginian named Hamilcar who was left among the Insubrian Gauls.

10.
Aurelius Victor,
De Caesaribus
, 37.2–3, using Hannibal as an exemplum, indicates that as head of the army he employed the soldiers in public infrastructure jobs. Hannibal’s home region of the Sahel was later known for large-scale olive oil production (and still is) but this is hardly proof.

11.
See Lazenby 1996b; Juvenal,
Satires
7 and 10; Livy 22.51.2–4.

12.
The one example mentioned in Livy, noted above, was in 215.

13.
It is even possible that Hannibal was provided with some protection from prosecution by Scipio in the peace terms but the sources are confused and conflict in this matter and it is difficult to determine the exact course of events, as noted by Lancel, 1999, 181. The period is surveyed by Seibert, 1993a, 476–495, Miles, 2010, 317–319, Hoyos, 2005, 179–189, Lancel, 1999, 176–182.

14.
See Fronda, 2010, 34 n. 84 for a good summary of the scholarship on Hannibal’s strategy, and 231–233 for an interesting discussion of how Hannibal might have been able to turn things around from a base in Magna Graecia. See also Barceló, 2004a, 168–178 for this period when the war turns against Hannibal. Livy likes to view all foreign enemies of Rome as wanting to invade Italy for world domination, and this becomes a rhetorical trope in his concept of the enemy – based on Hannibal.

15.
To our knowledge the only substantial reinforcements from Carthage had landed in 215 at the Bruttian port of Locri under the general Bomilcar (Livy 23.41.11); see Lancel, 1999, 113–116.

16.
Livy (30.42.12) tells of Hasdrubal nicknamed ‘the Kid’ (
Haedus
) who had been one of the envoys to Rome in the peace negotiations and had ‘always been a promoter of peace and opposed to the Barca faction’, who shifted the responsibility of the war on to ‘a few greedy men’. The blame was put squarely on the shoulders of Hamilcar and Hannibal from the
very beginning of the post-war period. There were surely other members of the Barcid clan whose names are not remembered in the historical record.

17.
We can hear of echoes of these reforms in those going on in the Roman Republic.

18.
See Lancel, 1999, 185; 1995, 404–409 on late Punic prosperity; Seibert, 1993a, Miles, 2010, 324–329; Hurst, 1983 and Hurst and Stager, 1978 on the ports specifically.

19.
On aspects of the growth of Numidian royal power and their representations recently see Quinn, 2013, Kuttner, 2013; and Brett and Fentress, 1996, 24–32 for an overview.

20.
Miles, 2010, 324–329 describes this phenomenon as the ‘revenge of the losers’. Rome is bogged down in wars in the eastern Mediterranean; Carthage flourishes. ‘The Romans would not take any [of the money] before it was due’ according to Livy (36.4.8).

21.
Financial irregularities, including the payment of the war indemnity to Rome in coin with a debased silver quantity, had been ongoing (Livy 32.2.1–2). Hoyos, 2005, 194–196 on reforms to the
sufetate
.

22.
Hoyos, 2005, 189 notes this and points out that the accusations may be true. See Gunther, 1989 for a discussion of the period of exile and the argument for Hannibal’s agitation against Rome.

23.
Peters, 2004, 22–23.

24.
See chapter 3, note 4. Miles, 2010, 60–62 on the Tyrian connection at Carthage.

25.
The Romans would declare the ‘freedom’ of the Greeks in 194. For Antiochus’ rising power see Ma, 2002, 82–89.

26.
Antiochus ‘found him burdensome in any case, since everybody ascribed every plan to him’: Cassius Dio,
frag.
19

27.
Gunther, 1989 asks how big a role Hannibal played in focusing hostility towards Rome.

28.
The area bordering Cyrenaica was no longer Carthaginian territory after the peace of 201 so it is difficult to give credibility to this passage. This is compounded by the fact that Cornelius Nepos places the long-dead Mago in frame, claiming that Hannibal sent him back to Italy.

29.
Livy 34.61 covers the story, as does Justin 31.1–3. See also Gunther, 1989 and Hoyos, 2005, 204.

30.
Livy 38.38.9–18; Appian,
Syr.
22.108–109; Justin 31.6.6–10.

31.
Hannibal may have visited Crete before Armenia, where he tricked the locals who were after his wealth, Cornelius Nepos,
Hann.
9.1, Justin 32.4.3–5; see Hoyos, 2005, 205–206.

32.
This seems a fantastic story from Frontinus,
Strat.
4.7.10–11, but from the fourth century
BCE
catapults had been mounted on ships and used for siege warfare: see de Souza, 2007, 441–444.

33.
Differing versions of Hannibal’s death, in Libyssa on the coast of Bithynia, are recorded by Appian
Syr.
11, who claims Hannibal was poisoned by Prusias on the orders of Flamininus; Justin 32.4 claims he took poison to avoid capture by Roman envoys, Juvenal,
Satire
10, 166 ‘a little poisoned ring’; see also Plutarch,
Flam.
20, Livy 39.51. For the location of Libyssa, more in the Epilogue, notes 30 and 31.

34.
Repeated by Plutarch,
Flam.
20, Livy’s tale is an exemplum on the decline of Roman moral standards more than on the death of Hannibal. Hannibal died in the same year as the distinguished Achaean commander Philopoemen, as noted in Polybius 23.12–14, who compares the men; Diodorus Siculus 29.18ff.; Livy 39.50.10.

Epilogue: Hannibal’s Afterlife

1.
Hannibal’s legacy can be found in many different accounts, specified below. The large bibliography ranges from Toynbee, 1965 through to Garland’s interesting discussion on his afterlife and unintended legacy (2010, 128–153). See also Lancel, 1999, 211–224, who looks at the heritage of Hannibal; Barceló, 2004a, 246–258 and many works by Hoyos, including 2008 and articles in Hoyos (ed.), 2011. The excellent exhibition catalogue,
Hannibal ab Portas
(Peters (ed.), 2004) provides a visual presentation of the time.

2.
This strain of historiography, the hatred of Hamilcar and anger of Hannibal is discussed above, chapt. 4, p. 62 and p. 259
n
. 8.

3.
As expressed here by Champion, 2011, 107 and in the sense of the genius of one man driving events. See also Polybius 3.48.2 for the claim to have spoken to eyewitnesses.

4.
Cicero,
Pro Balbo
50–51, quoting Ennius,
Annales
234–235, cited in Elliott, 2013, 166.

5.
Brizzi, 2011, 483–487 on the accusations made about Hannibal during the war.

6.
Polybius says this in the context of ‘the incorruptibility of the Romans’ (18.35). The point he makes is that great Roman successes came when their generals showed no interest in avarice. This may fit a Polybian construction of the Roman versus the Greek rather than being an accurate depiction of Hannibal’s flaws.

7.
A point made by Fronda, 2010, 330.

8.
Roman adaptability and willingness to learn and to take on what worked from their enemies has been shown to be a key to their success (from Polybius onwards). So many examples come from the Punic Wars, i.e. the Punic ships of the First Punic War, the cavalry and tactics of the brilliant Barcid generals, the Celtiberian tactics adopted by their horsemen. The Romans do not, however, exploit the cavalry in their future conquests to anything like the degree used in the Punic Wars. How Hannibal was remembered and shaped by Silius Italicus and Roman literature is the subject of Stocks, 2014.

9.
Both Livy and Polybius make it clear that stories of his omnipotence preceded Hannibal, as discussed in Myles, 2010, 235–255, Rawlings, 2005; Silius Italicus describes the gods as ‘awestruck’ by his deeds.

10.
Polybius had seen the monument but we don’t know if Livy had seen it in person or had just learned of the monument from others. For Livy’s sources on the monument see Jaeger, 2006, 393. Hannibal was attempting to create his legacy, and the inscription has been interpreted as euhemerist in form (Brizzi, 1983) or in the more straightforward Near Eastern tradition of recording achievements (Meister, 1990, 87); see also Miles 2008, 79–80.