Hannibal: A Hellenistic Life (8 page)

As a quintessential Hellenistic leader, Pyrrhus was a dynamic military commander whose political intentions were expansive and ambitious, driven by the conquest of neighbouring kingdoms. He was well connected in dynastic terms being brother-in-law to Demetrius Poliorcetes through his first wife Antigone (the stepdaughter of the Egyptian ruler Ptolemy I) and subsequently marrying Lanassa, the daughter of the Syracusan tyrant Agathocles. By invading Italy early in the second quarter of the third century Pyrrhus brought the Hellenistic world fully into the politics of the western Mediterranean.
²⁴

Hannibal was an admirer of the Epirot general. He was raised on Pyrrhus’ battles, adventures and approach to the Romans.
²⁵
In 281
BCE
Pyrrhus’ invasion of southern Italy at the behest of the city of Tarentum (modern Taranto) brought about a paradigm shift in the relations between the Greeks in the west, the Carthaginians and the Romans. For the first time, a Hellenistic king and army engaged the Romans on the Italian mainland and the affairs of Italy and Sicily became entwined with those of the Hellenistic world. The army led by Pyrrhus included twenty battle elephants called ‘the strange monsters of the Macedonians’ (Justin 18.1). This would be the Romans’ and Carthaginians’ first military encounter with ‘the civilized core of the Mediterranean world’.
²⁶

Roman expansion into the south of Italy had precipitated the invasion of Pyrrhus. Successive wars had led to the conquest of the central Italic Samnite peoples and to Rome’s control over the key trade and transport routes through the Apennines. The final Roman victory over the Samnites (290
BCE
) removed
the buffer zone between Rome and the Greek cities of the south of Italy (known as Magna Graecia). The wealthy Greek cities of Magna Graecia had become increasingly nervous of Rome’s growing influence in Italy during the fourth and early third centuries. Since
c
. 350
BCE
the powerful city of Tarentum, in origin a Spartan colony, had employed Greek generals to fight wars against its neighbours. Pyrrhus was the last in a list which also included his uncle Alexander of Epirus (†
c
. 330
BCE
).
²⁷

Pyrrhus crossed from Epirus to Italy in 281
BCE
and narrowly won two hard-fought battles against Roman forces, the first at Heraclea in 280
BCE
and the second at Ausculum in 279
BCE
(
Map 1
). In both battles Pyrrhus was victorious but sustained such heavy losses that the Romans had effectively chastened the Hellenistic king.
²⁸
‘The triumph … was not bloodless; for Pyrrhus himself was severely wounded and a great number of his soldiers killed; and he had more glory from his victory than pleasure’ (Justin 18.1). These battles gave rise to the phrase ‘Pyrrhic victory’, with Pyrrhus reported to have commented ‘if I win one more battle with the Romans, I shall not have left a single soldier of those who crossed over with me’ (Diodorus Sic. 22.6.2).

Carthage’s long-standing involvement in western Sicily was focused on the allied port cities at the west of the island, Panormus (Palermo), Drepanum (Trapani) and Lilybaeum (Marsala).
²⁹
In the summer of 278
BCE
a Carthaginian army was laying siege to Syracuse. The Syracusans leapt at the opportunity to invite Pyrrhus and his army to Sicily to fight against their old enemies and relieve the siege.
³⁰
In exchange for help Pyrrhus was offered control of the Sicilian cities of Agrigentum, Leontinoi and Syracuse, and his marriage to Lanassa tied him to the leadership of the city. The Hellenistic hero sailed boldly into Syracuse, relieving the city and catching the Carthaginian fleet off guard. Pyrrhus became, for a short while, a king of Syracuse and Epirus and set about expanding his hegemony on the island.
³¹
The Carthaginians fared much less well against Pyrrhus’ battle-hardened forces than they did against the Romans. They suffered a series of heavy defeats over the three years Pyrrhus operated in Sicily (from the autumn of 278
BCE
to the spring of 275
BCE
).
³²
When Pyrrhus stormed Eryx, the fortified stronghold of the Carthaginians in western Sicily, Carthage’s influence was restricted to their well-protected port of Lilybaeum. Lilybaeum held out and the Carthaginian navy managed to sustain their outpost on the island against the onslaught.
³³
Now the fractured political situation in Sicily caught up with Pyrrhus, who was faced ‘on all sides with disaffection and insurrections against his authority’ (Plutarch,
Pyrrh.
23). The Romans had rebounded with a vengeance in Italy and Pyrrhus’ allies there were calling for his return. This allowed him an
almost honourable withdrawal from Sicily, which he left in turmoil, ‘like a storm tossed ship’ (Plutarch,
Pyrrh.
24). Pyrrhus was chased across the Straits of Messina, losing ships to the Carthaginians as he withdrew from the island.

Pyrrhus’ invasion had threatened both Roman and Carthaginian power and regional interests. The two powers turned to each other at this moment and agreed to cooperate against their mutual enemy. Polybius writes that ‘a further and final treaty with Carthage was made by the Romans at the time of Pyrrhus’ invasion’ (279/278
BCE
). In the treaty the Carthaginians agreed to aid the Romans by providing ‘the ships for transport and hostilities, but each country shall provide the pay for its own men …’. An important stipulation in the treaty was that ‘the Carthaginians, if necessary, shall come to the help of the Romans by sea too, but no one shall compel the crews to land against their will’ (Polyb. 3.25.1–5). There had been a long history of treaty and cooperation between the Romans and Carthaginians dating back to the sixth century that carefully laid out the spheres of interest of the two states. This treaty added the condition that the two cities must provide military help to each other against Pyrrhus.
³⁴
It also makes clear that the naval might of Carthage was of great interest to the Romans, indicating their superiority of resource in this area.

Once Pyrrhus had withdrawn, the Carthaginians in Sicily and the Romans in southern Italy surged forward (Polyb. 1.6.8).
³⁵
The Roman historian Dio believed it was not until the moment of Pyrrhus’ withdrawal from the field that Carthage and Rome became wary of each other’s growing influence (Cassius Dio 11.1–4). The good relations maintained between Rome and Carthage ended here and it was in Sicily that the post-Pyrrhic surges led to the first hostile contact. It was the beginning of what we call the First Punic War (264–241
BCE
).
³⁶
Pyrrhus himself is reported to have seen the potential when he commented, ‘what a battlefield we are leaving to the Carthaginians and the Romans’ (Plutarch,
Pyrrh.
23).
³⁷

No event had more of an impact on Hannibal, from his earliest childhood to his formative years, than the First Punic War.
³⁸
In essence Carthage and Rome were fighting for control over the island that lay between their spheres of influence, Sicily (
Map 1
).
³⁹
It was an epic war, lasting twenty-three years and resulting in a reordering of geopolitical power in the central Mediterranean.
⁴⁰
It is unlikely that either Carthage or Rome had intended to embark upon such a war in 264
BCE
. As in more modern ‘great’ wars, the combatants could not have anticipated such a massive strategic and military conflict, much less one that lasted over two decades and cost the lives of hundreds of thousands of combatants and civilians.
⁴¹

In Polybius’ narrative of the First Punic War, Carthage and Rome were two equal powers in dispute over the ‘empire of the world’ (Polyb. 1.3.7).
⁴²
The events that drew the two sides into actual war were more prosaic and revolved around the city of Messana (Messina) and a group of mercenary soldiers called the Mamertines. These were the men of Mamers, who was the Oscan god of war (equivalent to Roman Mars).
⁴³
The Mamertines had been one of many factions active in Sicily in the period of Pyrrhus’s invasion and had originally served under Agathocles († 289/288
BCE
). When Agathocles died the mercenaries seized control of Messana, an important city guarding the narrow body of water between Sicily and Italy. At the narrowest point the Straits of Messina are less than four kilometres wide and the city sits just twelve kilometres across the water from the mainland Italian city of Rhegium (Reggio Calabria) (
Map 1
). The Romans had seized Rhegium (
c.
270
BCE
) and ousted another group of mercenary soldiers from that stronghold.
⁴⁴

After Pyrrhus, Hiero II (271–216
BCE
) came to rule at Syracuse and attempted to oust the Mamertines from Messana. As early as 269
BCE
, the Mamertines were soundly defeated by Syracuse in battle and their leaders captured.
⁴⁵
In light of this disaster ‘some of them appealed to the Carthaginians, proposing to put themselves and the citadel into their hands, while another party sent a delegation to Rome’ (Polyb. 1.10.1–3). Carthaginian forces were then invited to occupy the citadel at Messana with troops from their base nearby on the island of Lipari. When Roman troops arrived on the scene the Mamertines turned on the Carthaginians and dislodged them from the citadel.
⁴⁶
As loyalties shifted, the Mamertines invited the Romans to enter the city and the Carthaginians turned to an alliance with their old foes, the Syracusans.

The situation was fluid and our ancient sources seem to have condensed the events of a number of years into a much shorter time.
⁴⁷
Polybius, who wrote about a hundred years after the event, was so unsure of his sources that he accused them of falsehoods and manipulation of the evidence (1.15.6–12). We do know that these first actions of the war left the Romans in possession of Messana and the Carthaginian commander crucified for abandoning his post.
⁴⁸
Crossing from Italy to support the Mamertines was a radical leap for the Romans and may have gone beyond the terms of existing treaties that clearly stated Sicily was within the Carthaginian sphere of influence.
⁴⁹
Even the pro-Roman Polybius notes that ‘it was all too clear that to give the help required [to the Mamertines] would be thoroughly inconsistent’ (1.10.3–5).
⁵⁰
The Romans seemed swayed more by the potential threat posed by the Carthaginians ensconced at Messana than by any hypocrisy in their own foreign policy. The Roman support of the Mamertines represented a
significant moment in the rise of Roman imperial aspirations, since for the first time they engaged in warfare off the Italian mainland. ‘I shall take as the starting point of this book the first occasion on which the Romans crossed the sea from Italy’ (Polyb. 1.5.1).

For the Carthaginians this was clearly an aggressive act by the Romans. Carthage, in coming to the aid of the Mamertines, was acting as it had done for the previous centuries, reacting to requests for military aid from allies in Sicily. From a Carthaginian perspective, Roman actions towards Messana could only have been seen as an attempt to take Sicily. Roman tradition would contend that the Sicilian conquest was an unintended consequence of the long struggle that resulted from their coming to the aid of the Mamertines.
⁵¹
Can we believe that the Roman politicians did not realize that crossing into Sicily to aid the mercenaries would mean they had stepped beyond their traditional realm of influence and into that of the two most powerful cities in the region, Syracuse and Carthage? On the other hand, one of our later Roman sources claims that Carthaginian ships had appeared off Tarentum when Rome was laying siege to it (
c
. 272
BCE
), and that constituted the initial break of the treaty of non-interference they had signed (Cassius Dio, frag. 43).
⁵²
The Romans claimed that initial Carthaginian aggression meant they had to act in Messana or their own spheres would have been challenged by Carthage. Rome acted in the way it did because of the potential threat from Carthage. It seems that both sides, in the spirit of the Hellenistic age, were very willing to engage beyond their traditional domains and the lasting result would bring Rome directly into conflict with Carthage. Decades of warfare were to follow.
⁵³

The Romans had proven to be equal (almost) to Pyrrhus on land but up to the point when they entered the battle for Sicily they did not have a navy to speak of. As Polybius tells us, they had ‘not only no decked ships but no warships at all’ and at the start of the war over Sicily ‘they borrowed penteconters [fifty-oared boats] and triremes from their allies … and ferried their troops across [the Straits] to Messina’ (Polyb. 1.20.13–16).
⁵⁴
However, Polybius stands accused of underestimating Roman naval experience for rhetorical purposes and ‘the idea of the Romans as beginners is in total contradiction with everything we know about Roman maritime interests during the centuries before the war’.
⁵⁵

The Romans went on to build a new fleet based on a Carthaginian quinquereme prototype, which was considered the best ship constructed at the time. The design for the new Roman navy was taken from a Carthaginian ship captured off the Campanian coast early in the war. These ships were
mass-produced on an industrial scale, with Rome acquiring forested lands in Italy to access the materials needed (Polyb. 1.20.7–16).
⁵⁶
The result was that two great fleets would face each other in the First Punic War, called by Polybius the greatest naval war ever fought. ‘Those who marvel at the great sea battles and great fleets of an Antigonus, a Ptolemy or a Demetrius would … on inquiring into the history of this war, be astonished at the huge scale of the operations involved,’ exclaimed Polybius (1.63.7).