HANNIBAL B.c. ), Carthaginian general. The name of Hannibal was a very common one in Carthage, but the most illustrious of its bearers was the son of Hamilcar Barca. Born in 247 B.C., at the age of nine Hannibal was taken by his father to Spain, after swearing eternal hatred against the Romans. In Spain he was trained by his father in the art of war. He also ac companied him on the expedition in the course of which Hamilcar, having assured the safety of his young son, was killed by the rebellious Oretani (229). Hannibal remained in Spain during the term of government of his brother-in-law, Hasdrubal, who suc ceeded Hamilcar Barca, and he served under Hasdrubal for some years. On the latter's death (221), Hannibal, at the age of little more than 25, assumed command of the army and province of Spain. In 221 also, he conducted a campaign against the Hol cades, and in 220 he moved against the Vaccaei, and overcame the Carpetani in a battle near the Tagus. In the following year, notwithstanding a warning received from Roman ambassadors, he laid siege to Saguntum, the only city in eastern Spain south of the Ebro which still resisted his armies, and he took it after an eight months' siege. The Romans, who had threatened war if Hannibal should attack Saguntum, now demanded satisfaction from Carthage and, failing to obtain it, declared war. Thus began one of the most terrible wars of antiquity, the Second Punic War.
Inasmuch as he rejected the Roman warning, it is beyond dis pute that Hannibal must bear the responsibility in history for initiating the war. On legal grounds we may ask whether in vir tue of the treaties, the Romans were entitled to intimate to Han nibal that he must not attack Saguntum, and there can be no doubt as to the answer, in view of what we learn from the very historians who consider that Hannibal's attack on Saguntum was a violation of the treaties. The treaty concluded by the Romans with Hasdrubal prohibited the latter from crossing the Ebro in arms. Saguntum, however, is south of that river, though certain ancient historians committed the gross geographical error of plac ing it to the north. Again, it is by no means certain that the treaty contained a clause excluding the Greek colonies from the Car thaginian sphere of influence; but even if there was any such clause it did not apply to Saguntum, for it is a mere fable, due to the likeness of names, that Saguntum was a colony of Zacyn thus ; it was undoubtedly an Iberian city, as is shown by its coins. While, however, legally the Romans had no right to in tervene on behalf of Saguntum—their own alliance with the Sag untines constituting a violation of Hasdrubal's treaty, which, at all events implicitly, assigned the region to the south of the Ebro to the Carthaginian sphere of influence—politically it is clear that by attacking Saguntum Hannibal accepted responsibil ity for the war and all its consequences. He did so because he thought it necessary in order to uphold the position of Carthage as a great power, and at the same time he thought that he could win—not realizing the granite solidity of the Italic confederation centred in Rome, which he hoped to dismember by the hammer blows of his army. Thus Hannibal's whole action was based on a grave and fatal error of valuation ; but this error was inevitable, because he could have no idea of the solidity of the Roman con federation, which had never yet been tested, except partially and not very thoroughly in the time of Pyrrhus; he could only draw a fallacious analogy with the other, infinitely weaker, confedera tions with which he was acquainted from history or by personal experience. Granted that Hannibal believed in the possibility of a victorious war with Rome, and thought that Carthage was bound to initiate it in order to retrieve the disasters of the First Punic War, we must then consider whether the moment Hannibal selected was a good one, and whether his preparations and his plan of campaign were suited to the exigencies of that moment.
The moment itself could not have been better chosen. Later on, a victorious war in Italy would have been almost impossible. The Romans had indeed, during recent years, discomfited the Boii, and crossing the Po had subjugated the Insubres, but the power of the Gauls was not yet broken; hatred of the victors was still extreme, and the Romans had scarcely begun to establish them selves in the conquered territory. At that juncture, therefore, the valley of the Po offered Hannibal an excellent base for a war against Rome, with abundant recruiting material. Had the Romans but been able to consolidate themselves in the Transpadane, he could have had no such hopes. Indeed, from then onwards it was already beginning to be a little too late, and Hasdrubal, by allow ing the Romans to conquer the Cisalpine Gauls, had paid dearly for the truce during which he had been left free to consolidate the Punic empire in Spain.
With regard to the plan of campaign, modern writers have dis cussed whether Hannibal was really its author or whether it was not essentially due to Hamilcar Barca, who had entered upon the conquest of Spain with the precise object of subsequently prepar ing for an invasion of Italy across the Alps with the help of the Gauls, who at that time were still not under Roman dominion. There seems no doubt that such was really Hamilcar's intention. That he nourished a deadly hatred for the Romans, that he pre pared for a war of revenge after having been forced to give up Sicily to them and watch them seize Sardinia, and that his whole object in founding the empire in Spain was to prepare for that war, is beyond question. But he could have made use in two ways of the strength and wealth which Carthage drew from her Span ish empire against the Romans : either in the way which Hannibal afterwards chose, or by preparing to regain the command of the sea, which had been lost in the First Punic War. As, however, he did not direct the policy of Carthage along this latter channel, it is perfectly legitimate to conclude that it was he who laid the foundation of the plan of campaign which Hannibal subsequently carried out. Hannibal's merit consists in having adopted that plan and putting it into execution with unequalled genius.
Nevertheless, Hannibal's conduct of the war had two funda mental defects. One was that—as his father, Hamilcar Barca, had previously done in Sicily, when he tenaciously defended the last remnants of Carthaginian territory there—he failed to realize with sufficient clearness the absolute necessity of naval suprem acy for a definitive victory in the great duel with Rome, and, taking the view that the predominance gained by the Romans in the First Punic War was unalterable, he made no serious attempt at preparing to dispute it. Thus he lessened the efficiency of his conduct of the war; for there is no doubt that the ultimate victory of Rome in the Second Punic War was essentially due to the fact that her naval supremacy was maintained throughout.
Moreover, Hannibal, having to entrust the command of the Spanish forces which were left to themselves when he started for Italy to a tried and faithful officer, selected his brother Hasdrubal, who was certainly in every way loyal, but was very young and quite unequal to his heavy responsibilities—so much so, that he was not merely unable to make head for a moment against a really good general like Scipio (afterwards called Africanus), but was repeatedly defeated by mediocre leaders like the brothers Publius and Gnaeus Scipio, who had small resources and few troops at their command.
Having gone into winter quarters at Cartagena (219-218), Hannibal started slowly towards the Ebro in the spring of 218, not crossing the river till nearly the end of May; he then spent two months in operations against the tribes between the Ebro and the Pyrenees. This slow progress was intentional. He was anxious that his opponents should not have the slightest suspicion of his contemplated invasion of the Po valley, and (thinking it possible to stop him near the Rhone with the strong allied city of Mar seilles as their base) should not soon enough make efficient prep arations in upper Italy for the defence of the passes of the western Alps. This must have been exactly what the consul Publius Cor nelius Scipio planned when, in the late summer of 218 (he had been detained in Italy by an unexpected rebellion of the Boii), he transported his army of two legions by sea from Pisa to the mouths of the Rhone. Here Scipio learned that Hannibal was already north of him, near the right bank of the river. When, after a successful cavalry reconnaissance, he moved northward along the right bank of the Rhone with his legions, he found that Hannibal had crossed the river and was proceeding northward on the left bank with intentions that were not too clear. Hannibal had been anxious to avoid a battle for the time being, and by marching northward to leave Scipio uncertain through which Alpine pass he had chosen to descend into Italy. In these circum stances, Scipio returned to the sea, embarked his legions for Spain with the intention of campaigning against the Carthaginian forces that still remained there, and accordingly entrusted the command to his brother Gnaeus, while he himself sailed from Marseilles for Pisa, whence he hastened to the Po to take command of the two legions stationed there to guard the territory and protect the two recently-founded Roman colonies near the river—Placentia and Cremona. Hannibal, however, as soon as he was assured that the Romans were not contemplating either pursuing him or closing the Alpine passes against him, returned southward, and crossing the pass of Mont Genevre descended into Italy, into the valley of Susa. There he rested his forces, and having taken by assault the city of the Taurini tribe of Gauls, which offered re sistance, proceeded to take the offensive, moving so rapidly in the direction of the Po as to anticipate Scipio's offensive. Hannibal's march was thus, strategically, entirely successful. The Romans, failing to anticipate his movements, had not awaited him where with strong forces they could easily have given an initial and perhaps decisive check to his war worn and unaccli matized Africans—that is to say, in Piedmont, between Ivrea and Turin. After wasting time in seeking him near the Rhone, they had not acted rapidly enough to encounter him near the passes of the western Alps. Nevertheless, according to our tradition, this strategic success was very dearly bought, for between the Ebro and the Po Hannibal is said to have lost more than 50,00o men— about two-thirds of his army—reaching Italy with 20,000 infantry and 6,000 cavalry. This estimate of his losses is, however, quite inadmissible, and a critical scrutiny must reduce the total Car thaginian losses during the long march to not more than 5;000 or o,000. It is indeed inconceivable that any army, after undergoing such hardships and suffering such enormous losses, could at once enter upon a victorious campaign ; nor can it be supposed that Hannibal made such havoc of the best army Carthage ever had. A cavalry skirmish between the Ticino and the Sesia, known as the battle of the Ticino, informed Scipio of the enemy's strength and led him to recross not only the Ticino but also the Po, aban doning the Transpadane to Hannibal and organizing his defence to the south of the Po, with the colony of Placentia as its base.
Near Placentia the Romans also concentrated the legions of the other consul, Tiberius Sempronius, who had been recalled from Sicily, where he was making preparations for a descent on Africa. Hannibal, crossing the Po higher up, moved in the direction of Placentia and encamped on the left bank of the Trebia. Here, crossing the river, the four Roman legions attacked him by order of Sempronius. The victory of the Trebia (about Dec. 218) was the first of the three great victories that Hannibal owed to his supreme tactical skill. This battle caused the Romans to abandon the whole of northern Italy except the colonies of Placentia and Cremona, so that in the following year (217) they stood on the defensive in the peninsula, with one army commanded by Gaius Flaminius at Arretium, and the other under Gnaeus Servilius at Ariminum. Eluding the vigilance of Flaminius, Hannibal now succeeded in crossing the Apennines and proceeded to ravage north-eastern Etruria under his very eyes; he then moved unex pectedly from Cortona along the northern shore of Lake Trasi mene in the direction of Perusia, as if he intended to attack the other consul, Servilius, who was coming down by forced marches from Ariminum to effect a junction with his colleague in Etruria. Flaminius, who was in the enemy's rear, allowed himself to be surprised on the northern shore of Lake Trasimene, between the pass of Borghetto and Passignano, giving Hannibal the oppor tunity to gain the second of his great victories (June 217).
The dilatory and cautious methods of the dictator Fabius gave the Romans every facility for preparing for what they thought was bound to be the decisive campaign in the following year, but did not hinder Hannibal from ravaging along the Adriatic as far as Apulia and crossing into Campania, where he laid waste the fertile Ager Falernus. Thereafter, exhibiting admirable judgment and amazing skill in manoeuvre, he evaded the ambushes laid for him with considerably superior forces by the dictator, and re turned to northern Apulia to take up his winter quarters (217 216).
Here, skirmishes near Geronium, one of which went in the Romans' favour and the other against them, did not alter the situation. It was altered by Hannibal, who at the end of the winter, without interference from the Roman army that was watching him, suddenly moved further south near the Aufidus and there seized the fortress of Cannae, where the Romans had a large supply depot. He thus secured stores for his army and at the same time had the advantage of moving into an undevas tated area well suited to his skilful manoeuvring. Here, near the Aufidus, he was overtaken by the consuls for the year 216, Lucius Aemilius Paulus and Gaius Terentius Varro, with one of the largest armies that Rome had ever put in the field, about 50,00o strong (allowing for the exaggerations of tradition, which sets it at 8o,000) ; their intention was to engage the enemy in a decisive battle. The Romans had two camps, one on either bank of the river, connected by a bridge; Hannibal had a camp on the right bank, further downstream.
The Romans drew up in order of battle on the left bank of the Aufidus, with their front facing the sea and their right resting on the river. If they were defeated, they thought they could fall back either on the left bank towards Asculum or Aquilonia, or, crossing the bridge between the two camps, on the right bank towards Canusium or Venusia. If he gave battle on the Apulian plain, Hannibal had to be prepared to fight with his back to the sea and risk a complete disaster if defeated, since he had no line of retreat. He relied, however, on the efficacy of a manoeuvre that has made the battle of Cannae famous, and has been success fully imitated several times in modern warfare, including the recent World War. Drawing up, as usual, his infantry in the centre and his cavalry on both wings, he advanced impetuously against the enemy with the middle part of the infantry line, con sisting of the Gauls and Spaniards, while the detachments of Libyan infantry on both flanks remained inactive. The Romans not merely withstood the attack, but, with the weight of their deep columns, forced the enemy to give back beyond his original position. Thus the Libyan detachments, which had not moved during the attack, were projecting on both sides of the front as it bent before the drive of the legionaries ; and now, at a given signal, the Romans, who were penetrating like a wedge into the Carthaginian front, were assailed on either flank, while to com plete the enveloping movement there came up from the rear the cavalry, who had routed the Roman cavalry on the wings, and half of whom, giving up the pursuit, had returned to the field of battle. Thus the enveloping movement was completely success ful, and, notwithstanding its bravery and its superiority in num bers, the Roman army was utterly defeated. It will be realized that Hannibal's manoeuvre, which brought about the complete encirclement of the enemy, presupposes that the Romans were not so enormously superior in numbers as tradition would sug gest. Otherwise, in order to surround them, he would have had to weaken his lines proportionately, to such an extent as to make it almost impossible for them to withstand the enemy's attacks.
This tremendous victory bore its natural fruits. After the battles of the Trebia and Lake Trasimene, the Italic confedera tion had remained intact. Not one of the confederate cities had passed over to the enemy. Now, however, this terrible hammer blow detached from the granite mass of the confederation those parts that were least firmly joined to it—first northern Apulia with the powerful city of Arpi, then nearly all the territory of the Caudini and Hirpini, then most of the Lucanians and Bruttians, and lastly Capua, the second city in Italy.
Both by the ancients and in our own day Hannibal has been blamed for not profiting by his victory to march directly on Rome. The criticism is wholly unjustified. Defended by the strong and recently-repaired wall of Servius Tullius, inhabited by a warlike people not accustomed to quail, commanded by a senate that had always known how to face difficult moments, situated on a river that ensured its supplies even if Hannibal had suc ceeded in blockading it by land, Rome was in such a position that in all probability a move against it would not have had the very slightest hope of success, immediate or remote, and would have prevented Hannibal from exploiting his victory and gaining the practical benefit he obtained by inducing southern Italy to rebel. But at this point comes the end of Hannibal's wonderful series of successes, and the character of the war entirely changes. Legend ascribes this to the fact that Hannibal's troops went into winter quarters at Capua and thus lost the fighting spirit. In reality it was due to the new Roman strategy, which no longer allowed Hannibal to exploit that fighting spirit in great pitched battles. For the Romans now adopted the strategy suggested by Fabius, which earned him the name of Cunctator, the Delayer: never to accept battle when the enemy offered it, never to offer it on equal terms, never to attack him in his camp; but to destroy his army in detail as time and opportunity offered, to defend vigorously all the places that had remained loyal to Rome, to try to recover by force or fraud the places that had fallen into Han nibal's hands, profiting by Rome's numerical superiority and Hannibal's inability to keep the two theatres of war, Apulia and Campania, both under his own eye. This plan of campaign undoubtedly called on the Roman people and its allies for im mense sacrifices in men and money, and for an indomitable tenacity. Hannibal, inferior in strength and not adequately supported by the Carthaginian Government because the Romans held permanent command of the sea, was obliged to substitute for his audacious and victorious offensives a cautious and not always successful defensive in which all the resources of his genius could not prevent the recovery by the Romans of one place after another that had fallen into his hands ; for when superior Roman forces sat down before a city friendly to Carthage his only way of saving it was to give battle with inferior numbers, or to attack the Romans in their firmly-defended entrenchments, offer ing them the choice of easy victory.
Thus Hannibal's genius was nullified by the force of circum stances. It is not surprising that he lost ground and gained no more great victories in the field. Rather is it surprising that, always unconquered, threading his way among armies superior to his own, without any hope of adequate reinforcements, he succeeded for so many years in gaining still here and there a suc cess, in winning here and there, even if not for long, another position, in retaining possession of a little Italian territory to the end, and maintaining in it a strong and fairly large army. The weak point in the strategy of attrition adopted by the Romans was the immense effort for which it called, and it is doubtful whether the citizens and their allies would have been equal to such an effort year after year if they had not been comforted by visible successes, which raised their moral when it had been lowered by weariness. Nor must it be supposed that because he was reduced to passive resistance, Hannibal had any idea of allowing the Romans to dictate to him, or even of accepting the transformation of the war into a war of pure attrition, as Fabius desired. He was no longer, indeed, in a position to strike unaided such decisive blows as Cannae. But he could hope for some assist ance that would change the aspect of the war in Italy—not so much from Africa, whence reinforcements could only reach him intermittently, as from Spain, if Hasdrubal had succeeded in destroying the small forces which the Romans could send there, or from Macedon, if King Philip V., who had been induced by news of Hannibal's success to take up arms against Rome in order to expel the Romans from their possessions in what is now Albania, had ventured to cross the Strait of Otranto and conduct an offensive war in Italy. Hannibal might also hope for assist ance from Sicily, which, impressed by the Carthaginian victories, also rebelled against Rome immediately upon the death of the old king Hieron (215) ; or, at any rate, he might hope that the rebel lious Syracusans, with effective help from Carthage, would succeed in containing considerable Roman forces for a long period, and thus indirectly assist him in his war in the peninsula. For reasons over which Hannibal had absolutely no control, none of these hopes were realized except the hope of reinforcements from Spain, which however, as we shall see, arrived too late to change the course of the war in Italy.
Meanwhile, however, the effects of the tenacious Roman resist ance and the war of attrition were making themselves inexorably felt. In 213, Casilinum fell into the hands of the Romans, and later they recovered Arpi. True, Hannibal succeeded in surprising the Greek colony of Tarentum, the third city in Italy. This was not in every way of advantage to him; for as he never succeeded in occupying the citadel he was obliged to disperse his forces in a very dangerous manner, and meanwhile in his absence the Romans, with six legions, laid siege to Capua and surrounded it entirely with lines of circumvallation. Hannibal was not deaf to his allies' appeal, and in the spring of 21 i he broke into Campania and offered battle to the Romans. They, however, refused to leave their fortified positions, and Hannibal was unable to relieve the city because he could not, without very great risk, persevere in his efforts to break the lines of circumvallation. Accordingly he made a very bold move. Leaving behind him the armies which were besieging Capua, he marched on Rome, and encamped three miles from the walls, between the Anio and the Tiber. The Romans were not intimidated ; lining the walls with defending troops, instead of offering battle they sent a force out of the city to encamp a mile from Hannibal. In such circumstances it was madness to attempt an assault upon the walls, and equal madness to delay in the heart of the enemy's country, with difficult com munications and with the danger of being surrounded by superior forces. Consequently, after a few days, Hannibal was forced to retire towards Bruttium, without realizing his hope of drawing away to the relief of Rome the powerful armies which were surrounding Capua, and thus securing an opportunity for a pitched battle and giving the besieged the respite of which they stood in need. A slight success over the consul Sulpicious Galba, who was following him up, did not recompense Hannibal for the complete strategic failure of his march, marvellous—almost miraculous—as it was in itself. Merely by remaining firmly at their posts the besiegers of Capua had decided the fate of the city, which not long afterwards opened its gates and received terrible punish ment for its treachery. The fall of Syracuse a little earlier had marked the final destruction of the Greek power in Sicily. In 209, Hannibal received another heavy blow in the occupation of Tarentum by Fabius through treachery. In Spain also, after many years of indecisive warfare and following the momentary success represented by the rout of the two Scipios (of which, however, the Carthaginians had not been capable of taking full advantage), their empire was breaking up under the blows of Scipio. At this juncture it occurred to Hasdrubal to go to help his brother in Italy with the troops which he could not usefully employ in the defence of Spain. In the fine season of 208, while Hasdrubal, retracing his brother's route, was descending the Alps and continuing in the direction of central Italy as far as the Metaurus, it would seem that Hannibal, with the object of effect ing a junction with him, advanced as far as Larinum, in the country of the Frentani. Such, however, was the numerical superiority of the Romans that, while he himself was obliged to proceed northward with extreme slowness and caution, he was unable to prevent the concentration of considerable forces against his brother. The defeat of Hasdrubal at the Metaurus deprived Hannibal of his last hope of making a recovery in Italy, and the fatal news was conveyed to him by the severed head of his brother being cast by the Romans into his camp. Thereupon, abandoning all idea of an offensive, he retired into Bruttium, where he also concentrated the forces of those allies who had remained loyal to him. Here for four more years he withstood the Romans, fiercely contesting every step of their advance, and making them pay heavily for such successes as they gained by their strategy of attrition. Had they persevered in this strategy to the end, it is doubtful indeed whether they would have gained the final decisive victory, and even had they done so they would probably have paid for it by such immense sacrifices that they themselves would have fallen exhausted upon the corpses of their conquered adversaries. Now, however, Publius Cornelius Scipio, the young general who had displayed genius of such a high order in destroying, with very limited resources, the Carthaginian empire in Spain, was anxious to substitute a strategy consisting in boldly taking the offensive in Africa; and, despite the reluc tance of the senate, in which a strong party headed by the aged Fabius was opposed to such an audacious policy, regarding it as dangerous and foolish, he succeeded in obtaining permission to carry out his design.
Scipio's marvellous victories, which broke Carthage's principal ally, Syphax, king of the Massaesylian Numidians, and threatened Carthage herself, ultimately compelled Hannibal to abandon Italy in the autumn of 203 in order to go to the help of his country. When he landed with his army at Leptis Minor and encamped near Hadrumetum, the Carthaginians, reduced to the last extrem ity, had already concluded an armistice and accepted prelimi naries of peace with Scipio on extremely severe terms. Meanwhile the forces with which, a little e .rlier, Hannibal's other brother Mago had tried somewhat unsuccessfully to take the war into Liguria, also collected at Hadrumetum. Mago, recalled, had also embarked for Africa, but had died of wounds during the voyage. The large forces collected at Hadrumetum and the presence of their greatest general now induced the Carthaginians to try once more the test of arms. Almost at the very moment when the ambassadors were returning from Rome with the peace prelimi naries approved, the Carthaginians—perhaps with Hannibal's con nivance—violated the armistice concluded with Scipio, and the war broke out again. Scipio promptly recalled his faithful ally, Masinissa, king of the Massilian Numidians, whom he had sent into Numidia to fight against Vermina, son of Syphax, king of the Massaesylians, and allied like his father to the Carthaginians. Then, in the fine season of 202, he decided to climb the Bagrada in order to make a junction with the Numidians. Hannibal, who had likewise sent for Vermina, moved from Hadrumetum into the interior to join him, and encamped not far from Scipio, near Zama Regia. Scipio, instead of retiring towards his base, boldly moved forward towards Naraggara, between the Bagrada and the Muchtul, where he effected a satisfactory junction with the Numidian cavalry that Masinissa was bringing him. Hannibal, who had been following him, always in the vain hope of being joined by Vermina, now found himself in a serious position, being something like 125 miles from his base and in the presence of an enemy immensely his superior in cavalry. A meeting between the two commanders, at which Hannibal asked for peace, proved fruitless—because Scipio, realizing the strategic advantage he had gained, insisted on terms more severe than those which had been agreed to before the breach of the armistice ; so that there was nothing for it but battle. Scipio disposed the maniples of his legions in column, in three lines capable of operating independ ently, and defended his wings with the Italian and Numidian cavalry. Hannibal posted in his first line the Ligurian and Celtic mercenaries who had been under Mago's command, in his second line the native Libyans and the Carthaginian citizens, and in his third, further back as a true reserve, the flower of his army—the veterans of the Italian war. The front was protected by the elephants, the flanks by the cavalry. The elephants' assault was ineffectual owing to the able resistance of the Roman light troops, who succeeded in directing them through the columns of maniples, after passing which they were disposed of by other light troops without having done any serious damage. In the centre, the Car thaginian front line failed to resist the charge of the Roman hastati, and defeat seemed inevitable when Scipio, employing a manoeuvre which he himself had first used in the war in Spain, brought up the second- and third-line maniples, the principes and the triarii, on the flanks of the hastati. Hannibal had foreseen this manoeuvre, and countered it by bringing up the African infantry on either side of the mercenaries. But his tactical fore sight was not crowned with success. The mercenaries, who were already giving ground, were routed, and the Africans with them. The reserve of Italian veterans remained intact, and Hannibal had disposed them on purpose to attack the legions if the latter should be victorious and should enter upon an undisciplined pur suit. As soon, however, as he perceived that Hannibal's third line was intact, Scipio recalled his men and re-formed them behind the natural breastwork afforded by the bodies of the casualties in the first two Carthaginian lines ; having done so, he led them to the attack. Coming up from the rear at the same moment were the Italian and Numidian cavalry under Laelius and Masinissa, who had driven back the weaker Carthaginian cavalry with ease and, abandoning the pursuit in time, were returning to attack the infantry. Hannibal's veterans were thus surrounded and cut up, only very few escaping, among whom, however, was Hannibal himself (Oct. 202).
After this battle, in which, though not victorious, he had given a most wonderful exhibition of his tactical genius, Hannibal advised his fellow-citizens to make peace—indeed, almost forced them to do so—notwithstanding the very severe terms now dic tated by the victor. After the conclusion of peace Carthage, despite her defeat, displayed the greatest confidence in Hannibal, and placed him at the head of the Government, thus enabling him to reorganize public affairs. Hannibal, great in administration as in war, speedily restored the State finances—to such an extent that in a short time the Carthaginians were able to make Rome an offer of payment in full of the heavy war indemnity that had been exacted. Rome, however, could not allow Carthage to re cover ; and so, a few years later, Roman envoys came to the city to accuse Hannibal of conspiring against the peace. He was forced to escape secretly, and took refuge (I 96) with Antiochus IV. the Great, king of Syria; who, having reunited the old Seleucid empire, was in diplomatic conflict with Rome, since the latter, after her victory in the Second Macedonian War, had established herself in the hegemony of the Balkan peninsula. The diplomatic conflict between Syria and Rome dragged on for some years until in the autumn of 192, in response to an appeal from the Aetolians, who had taken up arms against Rome, Antiochus landed in Greece and began the so-called Syrian War.
To this war he had been incited by the great Carthaginian refugee, who hoped that it might lead to the liberation of his country. Hannibal is said to have asked to be sent to the west with a hundred warships to prepare for a descent on Italy. This was a chimerical project, in view of the failure of the great expedition which he had so carefully prepared and ably conducted in the peninsula. It is much more likely that Hannibal simply asked Antiochus for a small land and sea force, with a view to preparing for a descent on Africa and inducing the Carthaginians to resume the war of independence against Rome and her ally Masinissa in Africa, thus causing a diversion which might also turn greatly to the advantage of the king of Syria. But even if such were the original plans of Hannibal and Antiochus, there was no possibility of carrying them out. When the Aetolians took up arms, intervention by Antiochus in Greece became urgent and could no longer be delayed; and he was obliged to employ all his available land and sea forces in strengthening and maintain ing his expeditionary forces in the peninsula. Moreover, it is obvious that, since he could not even find adequate forces in 191 to resist the attack of the Romans and Philip in Greece, he could certainly have none available for a diversion in Africa. When, defeated at Thermopylae (191), he took refuge in Asia Minor, his only thought was—inevitably—to prepare to defend by land and sea his ancestral kingdom, which the Romans were getting ready to attack.
Already in the year 191 the naval battle of the Corycus gave the Romans the command of the Aegaean. It was essential for Antiochus to regain it in the following year. With this object, while his admiral Polyxenides was operating in the Aegaean, Hannibal was sent to Phoenicia to collect a fleet with which to help the principal Syrian squadron. In i go Hannibal moved north from Phoenicia with 37 warships. Near the promontory of Side he encountered the fleet of the Rhodians, allies of Rome, who disputed his passage. After a fierce fight Hannibal was de feated and forced to retire ; nor did he succeed either then or later, in joining with Polyxenides to take part in the decisive struggle. By land as by sea the fortune of war was against the Syrians, and after the defeat of Polyxenides at Myonessus and that of Antiochus at Magnesia (the latter battle took place late in 190 or early in 189) the king was obliged to accept the peace terms imposed by the Romans, which included the surrender of Hannibal.
Hannibal, however, effected his escape, and after many vicissi tudes—tradition gives us anecdotes of varying degrees of authen ticity—we find him at the court of Prusias, king of Bithynia, one of the few despots who had not yet become dependent on Rome. It was Hannibal who suggested to his protector the magnificent site which was chosen for the foundation of the city of Prusa, the modern Brussa. Later he took part in the war between Prusias and Eumenes II., king of Pergamus, in which he gained his last success, the naval victory of the Bithynian fleet over that of Pergamus, commanded by Eumenes himself, who narrowly escaped capture. The war ended when Rome imposed her media tion on the contending parties. These events, however, drew the attention of the Romans upon Hannibal, and, through Titus Quintius Flamininus, they demanded that Prusias, who also had now been forced by circumstances to become dependent upon them, should surrender him. Prusias was cowardly enough to arrange for the great refugee's arrest ; Hannibal, however, seeing his house surrounded by soldiers, committed suicide by taking poison, which he always carried on his person in readiness for emergencies (183).
The great Carthaginian had thus witnessed the complete failure of what had been the whole purpose of his life—the war of revenge by Carthage against Rome. That war had not merely ended in the defeat and destruction of the Carthaginian power, but had made Rome so conscious of her strength, and given rise to such a development of the spirit of militarism and imperialism among the Romans, that they had by now firmly established their predominance over the Eastern Greek world as well. This com plete failure can in no way be laid to the charge of Hannibal, who, with unshaken patriotism, until his death employed all the resources of his genius in the unequal struggle ; nor would it be fair to impute it to Carthage, whose tenacious resistance was marvellous, having regard to the forces at her command, and was at any rate immensely superior to that of the Hellenic powers, though in many respects the latter were in a much more favour able position. The failure was due to the strength of the Roman people and the Italians so firmly bound to them, to the admirable political-military organization of the Italic confederation, to the almost superhuman spirit of sacrifice exhibited by the Italians during the war, to the strategy of their leaders—the policy of attrition adopted at the beginning by Fabius when it represented the only possibility of resistance, and the bold offensive policy later adopted by Scipio, who proved himself such a talented pupil of his great adversary as to profit by his own teaching to frustrate his most wonderful tactical inspirations.
Of the great Carthaginian's personality we know but little, and the tradition that has come down to us is often vitiated by the partisan hatred of his adversaries; but all the ancient writers without exception pay homage to his incomparable military genius, and all but a few moderns regard him as one of the greatest warriors of all time. Roman tradition charged him with acts of cruelty, and his memory lived as that of a man "abomi nated by the fathers" of Italy for the slaughter of their sons. But those of his cruel acts of which there is reliable evidence do not exceed what the customary laws of war in ancient times were cruel enough to permit, and the terrible tragedy of Carthage's struggle for existence affords them an extenuation which is not forthcoming for some of the atrocities committed by the Roman commanders in the second century. Moreover, on more than one occasion he displayed generosity towards a fallen enemy. The "Punic faith" of which the Roman sources accuse him seems to have no more foundation than resides in the military stratagems of which he made free use, and these were certainly far more innocent than the somewhat dishonourable stratagem employed by Scipio Africanus to surprise the camps of Hasdrubal and Syphax. For the rest, Hannibal was a cultured man, acquainted with several languages; he spoke and wrote Greek, and probably had not omitted to study the military science of the Greeks. Many of his sayings are given us by the various sources, and, though not all authentic, taken as a whole they illustrate his rough, frank, soldierly spirit. Little or nothing is known of his private life. We are told that he married a Spanish woman from Castulo, by whom he does not seem to have had any children. The ancient writers, who manage to find more or less well-authenticated scan dalous anecdotes about almost all the greatest men of antiquity, laud his morality to the skies, and, much as they hate him, they can find no least speck on his fair fame in this regard. There is only one reference to be found in certain sources to a love affair with a Bruttian girl, but its authenticity is by no means sure, and it is in any case too vague to arouse our curiosity. For the rest, certain charges of avarice which we find in the ancient sources can easily be explained by his constant need of large resources for his political and military activities. Even in this matter, however, his prudent administration of the finances of Carthage bears witness to his integrity. Taken for all in all, we find him one of the noblest, as he is one of the most unfortunate, of the great men of action of antiquity.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.—The history of Hannibal was written very shortly Bibliography.—The history of Hannibal was written very shortly afterwards by Greeks who were in his camp, like Sosilus and Silenus. Sosilus, as also another Greek historian of Hannibal, Chaereas, is reprimanded by Polybius (iii., 25) for his "barber's-shop anecdotes"; but a recently-discovered fragment dealing with the war in Spain (Wilcken, Hermes, xli., pp. 103 sqq.) does not seem to confirm the condemnation. In addition to these Greek sources, all or nearly all of which are pro-Carthaginian, the ancients had Roman primary sources, chief of which were the Annales of Fabius Pictor. Later a full general history of the Second Punic War was composed in Latin by L. Caelius Antipater; it is lost, but, to judge from the fragments, it was of little value. There has come down to us the Greek history of the Second Punic War composed about the middle of the second century B.C. by the Greek historian Polybius of Megalopolis ; it is complete as far as the battle of Cannae (lib. iii.), fragmentary there after. Polybius combined Carthaginian and Roman sources--in what proportions it is difficult to say, but it is certainly a mistake to suppose that our tradition regarding the Second Punic War is wholly of Roman origin (Dessau, Hermes, li., pp. 355 sqq.), or to try to make a mechanical separation of the Roman and Carthaginian pas sages in the text of Polybius (Beloch, Hermes, 1.) . The full story of the Second Punic War has come down to us in the third decade of Livy ; and here again, while we have passages of undoubted annalistic origin and others, particularly dealing with the wars in Sicily and the East, that are mere versions of Polybius, regarding the remainder there are strong differences of opinion among the critics. Of the copious bibliography mention need only be made of Wessel barth's Historisch-kritische Untersuchungen zur dritten Dekade des Livius, and for the rest the student may be referred to the historical works cited below. Of the minor sources, apart from those derived from Livy (Florus, Orosius, etc.), we need only mention here Plu tarch's lives of Fabius and Marcellus, Appian's Hannibalica, and the fragments of Diodorus and Dion Cassius, all of which narrations appear to be based on the vulgate of Polybius, with additions and errors in varying degrees.
The modern Hannibalic bibliography is enormous. On a single episode in his career—the crossing of the Alps—a whole shelf of monographs could be collected ; and no year passes without publica tions on this subject in various languages, especially English. Neglect ing entirely the earlier writings and those that deal with too specialized subjects, we may mention in the first place Mommsen's passage on Hannibal and his wars (Rom. Geschichte, vol. i., book iii.), and Neumann's Das Zeitalter der punischen Kriege (Breslau, 1883), a solid and well-balanced treatise. Acute and original, though fre quently hypercritical, is U. Kahrstedt, Geschichte der Karthager von 218-146 (Berlin, 1919 ; published as vol. iii. of O. Meltzer's Geschichte der Karthager, but entirely different in character from the first two Volumes) . This work contains an exhaustive discussion of the sources. On the military aspect two works are of fundamental importance, though frequently at variance with each other: these are Delbriick's Geschichte der Kriegskunst (2nd ed., Berlin, 1908), book v., and Kromayer's Antike Schlachtfelder, iii., a. Italien and 2. Afrika (Berlin, 1912) ; in addition, K. Lehmann, Die Angri ff e der drei Barkiden auf ltalien (Leipzig, 1905), may be read with profit. An attempt at a comprehensive political and military appreciation of the history of the Second Punic War, its antecedents and its consequences, is made in De Sanctis, Storia dei Romani, especially in vol. iii. 2 (Turin, 1917) . For the most recent bibliography reference may be made to the text accompanying Kromayer and Veith's Schlachten-Atlas, Rom. Abteil ung, Liefg. i. and ii. (Leipzig, 1922). Lastly, special mention must be made of the Untersuchungen zur Geschichte des zweiten punischen Krieges collected by E. Meyer in his Kleine Schriften, ii. (Halle, 1924), and his drawings of medallions of Hannibal and Scipio in Meister der Politik (I. 2nd ed., 1923). (G. DE S.)