Hannibal

HANNIBAL, the celebrated Carthaginian commander, was born about 220 years B. C. ; and, when only nine years of age, accompanied his father Hamilcar to the army in Spain. Before his departure he vowed, at the altar, that he would never be in friendship with the Romans ; and in the camp of Hamilcar, the most distinguished general of those times, he acquired that military skill, which afterwards ren dered his enmity so formidable. At the death of his father, nine years after, he continued to serve in the field under lusbrother-in-law, Asdrubal, who had succeeded to the com mand ; and when this general fell by assassination, about eight years afterwards, he was unanimously chosen by the army as their leader, while the senate at Carthage with one voice ratified the election. Soon after his confirmation in the command of the troops, he accomplished the reduction of the Olcades, and, loaded with booty, took up his winter quarters in new Carthage, (the modern Carthagena), where he completely secured the affections of the soldiery by his liberal distribution of the plunder, and the hopes of farther conquests, with which he inspired them. In the following year he reduced all the Spanish nations on the south of the Iberus, except the Saguntines, the allies of Rome ; and, upon returning to his former winter quarters, received an admonition from the Romans to beware of molesting a peo ple who had been taken under their protection. Conceiv ing the armies of his country to have now attained suffici ent strength to contend with the legions of Rome, and eager to vent his long cherished hatred against that rival republic, he returned such an answer as clearly intimated his hostile intentions, and immediately transmitted to Car thage direct charges against the Saguntines, of having com mitted outrages upon the allies of the state. !lavingre ceived permission to make reprisals, he pushed his mea sures with a celerity and decision which the Romans were not prepared to anticipate ; and, after an obstinate siege of eight months, gained possession of Saguntum before any succours could be received front Rome. While the Ro mans were supposing the designs of the Carthaginians to have been limited to the reduction of Saguntum, and were preparing to send an army by sea to Spain, as the seat of the approaching contest, Hannibal, having secured the friendship of the Gauls on both sides of the Alps, began his march for Italy with an army of 50,000 infantry, and 9000 horse; evaded the Consul P. Scipio, who attempted, by landing at the mouth of the Rhone, to intercept his pro gress, carried his army across the Alps in the beginning of winter in the space of 15 days, and appeared in the vicini ty of Turin, after a march of 1000 miles from New Car thage, accomplished in live months and a half. His army was now reduced to 20,000 foot, (of which 12,000 were Africans, and the rest Spaniards), and about 6000 cavalry. Having taken in three days the city of the Taurini, and put all w ho opposed him to the sword, he hastened for ward to meet the Consul Publius Scipio, who had returned with the utmost expedition from the banks of the Rhone, and had already passed the river Po with his army. The two armies joined battle on the banks of the Ticinus, a small river in Lombardy; and Hannibal, chiefly by the su periority of his cavalry, gained an easy victory over a ge neral, who was neither deficient in courage or experience, but who seems to have been little aware of the talents of his adversary. The other Consul, Sempronius, having arriv ed with a fresh army, acted with still greater rashness, and, engaging the Carthagioians near the river Trebia, sustain ed a much more decisive defeat. In the following cam paign Hannibal was again fortunate in having to contend with a self-confident commander, Caius Flaininius ; and, having carefully studied his temper, drew him into a defile by pretending a retreat, and cut to pieces, near the Lake Thrasymenus, the greater part of his army. But all his talents and expedients were brought into requisition by the dictator Fabius Maximus, who justly concluded, that to stop the progress of an invader is to gain a victory, and who cautiously directed his operations to preserve a com manding position, and to intercept the foragers of the ene my. The Carthaginian leader, baffled in all his artful movements to surprise his opponent, or to force an engage ment, resolved at least to attach the neighbouring nations to his interests, by proving himself master of all the open country, boldly directed his march to the fruitful plains of Campania, which he quietly ravaged within sight of the Ro man army. Upon attempting to return with his booty through the same pass by which he entered the country, he found himself, when ,encamped at the foot of Mount Callicula, hemmed in by the masterly movements of the Dictator; but by dispersing, during the night, 2000 oxen with burning faggots on their horns, he contrived to draw off the detachment which occupied the heights in the line of his march, and to bring off his army in complete safety. By taking care, in the general devastation, to spare the lands of Fabius, he encouraged the accusations and suspicions, which were ungenerously cast upon that general, of hold ing a secret correspondence with the enemy. In a short time he found means to draw into a snare the one half of the Roman army, commanded by Minucius, who had been raised to equal authority with the Dictator; but, when in full pursuit of the routed legions, he was checked by the advance of Fabius, and obliged to sound a retreat. While reluctantly retiring to his camp, he is reported to have said to his attendants, " Have I not often told you, that that cloud which hovered upon the mountains would one day burst upon its in a storm ?" The Roman generals, enjoined by the senate to follow the plans of Fabius, continuing merely to watch the motions of the Carthaginians without risking a decisive engagement, he found his difficulties learlully accumulating. Without any hope of succours from Car thNe and left to the resources of his own genius for the means of subsisting his troops, in perpetual distrust of his allies in Italy, and daily assailed by the murmurs of his exhausted soldiers, he was on the point of sacrificing one part ol his army to save the other, when the rashness of his adversa ries again afforded him not only a season of respite, but an occasion of triumph. Having understood the fiery temper of Terentius Vary°, one of the new consuls, (who held the command of the Roman army, and who bore, with the ut most impatience, the cautious counsels of Paulus Emilins, his colleague), he attacked him in all his detachments, in sulted him even in his camp, and succeeded at length in drawing hint into the field, near the fatal village of Can nx. The Roman army consisted of 80,000 foot, and 6000 horse, and that of Hannibal amounted only to 50,000 in all, of which 10,000 were cavalty. Varro, on the day of his turn to command, impatient to punish, as he expressed it, the insolence of the Carthaginian, and confiding in the num ber of his troops, descended into level ground, as if he had studied to favour the enemy's superiority in cavalry ; and in a battle which has already been described in the work, (see CANN/E), lost nearly the whole of the largest army which had ever been equipped by Rome, while the loss of Hannibal did not exceed 6000 men. " Follow me," said

one of the Carthaginian officers, elated with the annihila tion of the Roman army ; " I will be at Rome with the ca valry before they have notice of my approach. In five days we shall sup in the Capitol." To the refusal of Hanni bal to adopt this advice, the preservation of Rome and its empire has been ascribed by Livy, and several other anci ent historians ; hut many later writers have questioned the justice ol the censure. Rome had been carefully fortified after the battle of Thrasytnenus, and was provided with every thing necessary to sustain a siege. It was full of soldiers well trained to war, and supplied the dictator Ju nius Pera with four new legions and 100 horse, immedi ately after the battle of Cannw. Hannibal's advantages had been principally gained by his superiority in cavalry, which could be of little use in attacking a city ; and the rest of his army did not exceed 35,000 men. " His own judgment," says Dr Adam lergusson, " is of more weight than that of the persons who censure him. He knew the character of the Romans, and his own strength. Though victorious, he was greatly weakened by his victories, and at a distance from the means of a reinforcement or supply. He was unprovided with engines of attack ; and so far from being in a condition to venture on the seige of Rome, that he could not attack even Naples, which, after the battle of Cannx, refused to open its gates." Hannibal, soon after his victory at Cannw, withdrew his army to Capua, the principal city of Campania, where he finally took up his winter quarters, sfter several unsuccess ful attempts to gain possession of Nola, Casilinum, and particularly Naples, as affording an easy communication with Africa. Nothwithstanding the assertion of the Ro man historians, that Capua, by its enervating pleasures, proved as fatal to the Carthaginians as Cannx had been to the Romans, it does not appear that Hannibal or his troops had lost much of their martial activity and ardour. As soon as the rigour of the season began to relax, he renew ed the siege of Casilinum in sight of an army from Rome, amounting, exclusive of allies, to 25,000 men ; and the want of supplies from Carthage, which had indeed been promis ed, but were slow in their arrival, was the principal cause of his power declining in Italy. Ile had not troops to op pose the Roman armies, which were so rapidly collected against him, and at the same time, to garrison the towns and protect the countries which had submitted to his autho thority or accepted his alliance. During the space of four years after the battle of Cannx, no decisive advantage was gained by either party in the war ; and though several victories are stated, by Livy and Plutarch, to have been gained over Hannibal by Mat cellus, it is affirmed by Ne pos, that the latter was always victorious in Italy, and by Polybius, that he was never vanquished before the battle of Zama. In the eighth year of the war, while Capua was bird pressed by the Romans, Hannibal made an attempt to draw off the besiegers, by marching to the gates of Route, but found that city too well prepared to resist an attack which he seems after all to have rather feigned than intended. After the fall ol Capua, he was frequently obliged to decline the battle which the Roman generals were now ready to offer ; and at length, in the thirteenth year of the war, after the death and defeat of Ins brother Asdrubal, being unable to preserve his conquests in Italy, he retired with all his forces to the barren rocks of Bru tium. Even in this weakened condition, in a country inca pable of supplying him with subsistence, and at the head of an army composed of Africans, Spaniards, Gauls, Cartha ginians, Italians, and Greeks, he continued, by his extraor diary talents as a general, to preserve the discipline of his troops, and to render himself formidable to the Roman commanders, till, in the 16th year of the war, he was re called to Africa for the immediate protection of Carthage against the victorious legions of Scipio. Leaving Italy with the utmost reluctance, and landing at Little Leptis, a city between Susa and Adrummum, he received instant or ders from the Carthaginian Senate to advance and give bat tle to the Romans. In obedience to these instructions, he proceeded by forced marches to Zama, about five days journey south west from Carthage; and being struck with the undaunted generosity of Scipio in sending back the spies who had been taken in his camp, requested an inter view with the Roman general. The armies had encamp ed within four miles of each other, and there was a large open plain between them, where no ambush could be laid. Here the two generals, escorted by an equal number of guards, arrived for the conference ; and each attended by an interpreter, met in the midway, where they remained for a while in silence, viewing one another with mutual admi ration. Hannibal first spoke and proposed a treaty of peace, upon terms which had been recently agreed upon between the two countries ; but Scipio insisting upon the per fidy of the Carthaginians in breaking the truce during the ne gotiations, required them to surrender at discretion. Han nibal, however much disheartened by his misfortunes, and doubtful of victory, could not bring himself to make, at the head of an army, so humiliating a submission. The con ference terminated ; and both the generals returning to their camps, prepared for battle on the following day. Accord ing to the testimony of Polybius, Hannibal drew up his ar my in the most skilful manner, and performed every thing in the engagement which could have been expected from a great commander. The victory was long and eagerly con tested; and the Romans, though superior in numbers, ap pear to have at one time been on the point of losing the battle. But Masinessa, who commanded the Numidian cavalry, and Lolius who headed that of the Romans, hav ing routed the wings of the Carthaginian army, came in the rear of Hannibal's veteran soldiers, who were almost entire ly cut to pieces in their ranks. Of the Carthaginians, 20,000 are said to have fallen in the field, and about the same number were taken prisoners. Hannibal escaped with a few horsemen to Adru metum, whence he was called to Carthage, to aid the falling republic with his counsels. He instantly declared, that there was no resource except in a peace ; and this reply from the constant advocate of the war, add most inveterate foe of the Roman name, decided the senate to submit to the conqueror. Sce CARTHAGE and ROME.