Military Commentary by Eldert Bontekoe

     Cavalry. It was king of the battlefield from the days of the Hurrians, who introduced it to the civilized world sometime before 1500 BC, up to the days of the Civil War. It provided an army with reconnaissance, mobility, screening and, with the invention in dark-age Europe of the stirrup, the "shock effect" of real heavy cavalry. Those who had it tended to dominate land warfare; those who didn't got dominated. Carthage had it; Rome hadn't any worth mentioning. Carthaginian coins show horses; Roman coins show prows of ships.

     Everybody remembers Hannibal's elephants. They were big, they were noisy, they were effective against infantry, at least some of the time. They were what made Hannibal's crossing of the Alps so memorable. People crossed over using the familiar passes all the time; the poor fellow they found frozen a few years ago - he had been there since long before Rome had come into existence - was one such traveler. The elephants made the passage difficult; they made little practical difference in battle. Hannibal was determined to deal once and for all with the Roman threat to Punic commerce; in the end, however, it was Carthage, not Rome, which was defeated.

     Carthage, settled before 800 BC as a colony of Tyre, was a typical Phoenician establishment. Perhaps "corporation" would be a better term (Carthage, Inc.); the Carthaginians lived for trade (when, that is, they weren't burning children alive or dallying with temple prostitutes or otherwise indulging in the religious activities of their Ba'al cult). They were not complete strangers to the use of force; they used it when absolutely necessary. Like purple dye and bar silver, however, it was a commodity to be purchased when needed, and used as an investment. Despite what the Marxists say no real capitalist likes war; the profits from war contracts are - and were back then - nothing like what a capable merchant gets from normal trade routes, and the profits from the latter tend to be in cold cash, whereas those from the former are likely to be paid in empty promises.

     The first Punic War had begun over a petty squabble in Syracuse. A gang of cut-throats who called themselves Mamertini (i. e., "People of Mars", "Martians") had seized Messana, which Syracuse regarded as part of its empire. Syracuse under king Hieron attacked; the Mamertini placed themselves under Roman protection, the conflict spread, and soon the Carthaginians found themselves drawn in to protect their investments. The Romans proved to be masters at engineering, both naval and siege, and although the war was long it resulted in a clear Roman victory. Carthage knew when to dump a bad investment, so terms of peace were fairly easily worked up and agreed to. As far as Carthage was concerned, that was that.

Æ Pentonkion of Messana, under the Mamertini. Lot 45

     Of course life is never that simple. The Carthaginian "sphere of influence" included Sardinia. The Romans had agreed to respect this; but suddenly the Sardinians revolted against being used as a colonial "milk cow". They succeeded in expelling the Carthaginian forces completely. While Carthage was considering what to do the Romans saw a golden opportunity to grab a strategically important plot of land; it could, after all, serve as a base for attacking Italy, as events in the nineteenth century demonstrated. The Romans pounced; after all, with Carthage expelled, Sardinia was up for grabs. So Rome grabbed it. Carthage acquiesced -- it wasn't, after all, that important; but lingered a suspicion that Rome had further ambitions, and something, eventually, would have to be done.

     What really got Carthage's "board of directors" upset was the indications of Roman interest in Spain. Sardinia might be of little value, and those turbulent Sicilians might seem to be more trouble than they were worth, but Spain was another matter. Not only was it a rich area, in terms of resources - cash was king, and Carthage's cash came from Spanish silver mines - but it also was an area of ancient Punic settlement. Gades, another Phoenician city like Carthage, was even older than Carthage itself, and thus it was "second home" in spirit. Hence any Roman involvement was looked on as the nearest thing to an attack on the home city, and not to be taken lightly.

Silver Shekel of Carthago Nova with head of Hannibal. Lot 22

     Another factor in the equation was the Barcid family, of which Hannibal was the most famous example. The name means "lightning", which gives some idea of the impact this family had in many matters. They set themselves up as de facto kings in New Carthage (modern Carthagena) and ruled Iberia for Carthage. While most of the "royalty" may have been an act designed to keep the less peaceable locals in check (Carthage and its rulers seem not to have cared as long as the cash flowed), Hannibal started life as much more than a petty warlord.

     The Romans had an alliance with a moderately important city in Spain called Saguntum. The Romans cared little about what happened there; their interest in the place was due mainly to the fact that the city was a close friend of Massilia, about which Rome cared a great deal. It also offered the advantage that, should Rome need an Iberian base, Saguntum would serve admirably. Hannibal, the heir to the Barcid family and the head of this party, was spoiling for a fight with Rome, and Saguntum provided the opportunity.

     Accordingly, when Hannibal had brought all the other tribes and cities south of the Ebro river under control he besieged Saguntum in 219 BC. Knowing that the Romans were busy elsewhere, in a war in the Adriatic, he worked at the siege for eight months, finally taking the city by storm. The Romans reacted accordingly, sending an embassy which delivered the expected ultimatum, which was rejected, and the result was a war which did not go quite according to anybody's expectations.

     From the outset the Romans found themselves in difficulties, which only got worse as things progressed. The Gauls, restive as ever, were that much more so with Hannibal's

encouragement. They ambushed more than one Roman column. The Gauls were, however, equal-opportunity enemies; they were just as keen on attacking Hannibal. Those who did so, however, soon learned that Hannibal and his troops were old hands at Celtic warfare, and were quite capable of dealing with this sort of threat.

     Hannibal's strategy was simple: march on Italy, defeat Rome in battle, take several important south Italian cities, brake the Roman alliance, and thus force Rome to sue for peace on Carthaginian terms.

     Hannibal (whose name means "he who loves Ba'al", roughly equivalent to Theophilus in Greek) began maneuvering and preparations for his assault into Italy over the winter of 219 BC. By early summer of 218 BC, he had marched his army to the Rhone river his emissaries had obtained pledges of support from the Celtic tribes of Cisalpine Gaul. Although, his crossing was resisted by the local Gauls, by September he and his army of 50,000 infantry and 9,000 cavalry were prepared to begin their invasion of Italy.

     Scipio (P. Cornelius, not the great victor-to-be) had hoped to beat Hannibal before he set off. He landed with his troops at Massilia on the eastern side of the mouth of the Rhone and sought to prevent Hannibal crossing the river and fight the war on Gaulish soil. But as he was soon to discover, he arrived a week too late and could only engage Hannibal's rear scouts. Hearing of Scipio's arrival, Hannibal rushed the crossing leaving half of the elephants behind. When Scipio realized he missed his foe and that Hannibal was intending a risky march over the Alps, he scrambled back to Pisa with the news. He left the Army in Gaul to open up a second front and to close supply and re-enforcement lines overland from Spain to Hannibal's expeditionary forces.

     Although Hannibal was too quick to be caught in Gaul, he was next faced with a most difficult and costly crossing of the Alps. The exact route he took is debated; whichever route it was, it wasn't one of the easier ones. His elephants made it difficult; the late season made it more so. Nonetheless he persisted, missed the easy (or easier) pass of Mt. Cenis and had to slog and clear their way through snow-drifted paths, losing men and pack-animals to the point where he reached the Italian plains with not much more than half of his original force recorded as 20,000 infantry and 6,000 cavalry on a bronze tablet placed in Kroton.

     The local Gaulish tribes were initially unimpressed by his numbers given the grave task he was undertaking and hesitant to aid in his folly despite their promises. But a quick engagement at their chief city of Taurini demonstrated that this was not an army which could be accessed by it numbers alone. Following the massacre, the Celts threw in with his cause and provided important reinforcements.

     Meanwhile, Scipio hurried back to Rome to raise another army. The Senate also recalled Sempronius and his army from Sicily (where it was preparing for an invasion of Africa) to aid in repelling the invasion. Scipio hastily took the new army north, but in their first meeting the invaders thrashed the Romans in largely a cavalry action near Lomello, from which Scipio barely escaped with his life (thanks to the bold action of his 17 year-old son, the future Scipio Afranicus). This event encouraged even more Celts to join Hannibal.

     The main Roman army under Sempronius finally arrived in December, only to allow itself to be provoked into making an ill-advised attack. On paper the Roman army with its 36,000 infantry, 4000 cavalry outnumbered Hannibal's forces of 20,000 infantry and 10,000 cavalry. At the Trebbia the Romans learned, at a high rate of tuition, the value of disciplined heavy cavalry and broader command structure, when Hannibal's chased off the Roman horse and attacked the flanks of the infantry. The legions broke through in the center, but they were by this time under attack from flank and rear, and were routed. Lastly, a hidden force of 2000 troops under the command of Mago, Hannibal's youngest brother finished the job. The breakthrough in the center formed the basis for the action at Cannae; nobody there seemed to have noticed, however, that the Romans lost despite it at Trebbia.

     The next battle was even worse for Rome, as in the next year the consul Flaminius was marching along with his army one foggy day in June without benefit of even basic reconnaissance between the shores of lake Trasimene and the hills which lined it; this was, as Hannibal realized, ideal for an ambush, and the Romans walked right into the trap. In the ensuing rout - to call it a battle gives the Roman leader too much credit - the Roman army essentially ceased to exist. The best summary of the affair was the statement of Marcus Pomponius to the Senate, as recorded in Livy: "Pugna magni victi sumus" (There was a great battle, and we were defeated).

     Roman fortunes improved somewhat in 217, as the new dictator, Fabius, realized that the new levies and their commanders, including himself, were no match in a straight fight for Hannibal's veterans. Accordingly he undertook to shadow the invaders, keeping just out of their reach, picking off stragglers and foraging parties, and generally weakening Hannibal while training his own troops. Hannibal tried many times to provoke a battle, and was disturbed to find that he was now dealing with a general, as opposed to a gladiator with an army. This policy was less than popular in Rome; for his strategy Fabius earned the epithet "Cunctator", that is, delayer or time-waster. The Senate raised his belligerent subordinate, Minucius, to equal rank to try to get some action; the two leaders thereupon split up the army. Hannibal saw his opportunity, provoked Minucius into a battle, and was well on his way to destroying him when Fabius brought the other half of the army onto the field by a forced march. Hannibal knew well enough that his tired troops would most likely be destroyed if trapped between the two forces, so he beat a hasty retreat. Henceforth even Minucius realized that the Fabian strategy was the only sane policy.

     In 216 the Roman populace decided that enough was enough. They raised an enormous (for the time) army of eight legions under new consuls, using Fabius's veterans as a core. With this massive force they expected to be able to destroy Hannibal once and for all, perhaps arguing that at the Trebbia the only reason for the Roman loss was that insufficient numbers made it possible for the invaders to surround the legions. They were determined to force a decisive battle. In the end they succeeded, but not quite as they intended.

     Accordingly the new consuls Varro and Paullus (who rotated command on a daily basis) were determined to have a battle, and to Hannibal this was good news indeed. Although they outnumbered him by nearly eight to five, their army was still a "one-trick pony", relying on infantry and with cavalry and light troops mainly as insignificant adjuncts. The Romans had some idea of this, as they chose their ground at Cannae for battle on August 2, 216 BC so as to cover at their right flank with a river and the left by a hill, but that only delayed the end result.

     The Roman idea was simply to blast through the Carthaginian center while holding off the wings. Once the Punic army had been split, the legions would hold one half in check while destroying the other, then turn on the second. That would have been fine, except for the fact that Hannibal had other plans. The Romans bunched their legions in the center, with a short, deep front. Their cavalry, in which they had faith despite recent lessons, was supposed to hold off the Carthaginian forces long enough for the legions to cut through, then help destroy the enemy. Simple in theory, it assumed that the battle would simply be a "slug fest", won by the harder hitter.

     Hannibal, of course, immediately realized that here was Trebbia writ larger. His strategy was a refinement of his tactics there: hold the center as long as possible, destroy the wings, then when the situation began to look serious, sweep around on the flanks and rear, and add reserves. The Roman army with its singular command structure would continue to try to advance up the center until their troops would be compacted enough to be unable to effectively use their spears. Once forced to use short swords on the flanks and rear, only one rank of Roman soldiers could attack, while the Carthaginians had the room necessary to continue the massed spear assault which allowed two rear ranks to be involved in the combat.

     The Romans had 80,000 men (70,000 on the field plus 10,000 troops left to guard their camp) versus perhaps 50,000 for Hannibal. The Romans arranged their eight legions and allies at the center into deep formations of massed spearmen, with 1,600 Roman cavalry to the right flank (protected by the River Aufidius) and 4,800 allied cavalry on the left, they did not keep a reserve.

     The Carthaginians matched the center with their light and heavy Celtic and Spanish infantry (about 28,000 in number) in a broader formation, with his Spanish and Celtic heavy cavalry (6,000 men) facing the Roman cavalry (1,600) and the 4,000 Numidian cavalry facing the Roman allied cavalry (4,800). Hannibal was playing for high stakes, he kept his best infantry, 12,000 heavy African foot, unengaged, split into two forces as reserves at each flank. His elephants were not present (or alive?).

     The Roman center charged into the Punic center after the usual skirmishers had their few minutes of action. The Gauls and Iberians gave ground slowly but surely, but they were anchored on the wings by the Carthaginian cavalry, which slowly gained ground. The Roman legions continued their push, creating an enlarging salient. Meanwhile, on the right wing, the Roman cavalry broke and was driven from the field.

     By now the Romans had pushed the enemy infantry back, past where the elite African infantry waited in reserve. At the decisive moment this infantry charged and hit the legions on the flanks. The legionaries struggled to meet this new threat as the Punic center rallied. The battle still hung in the balance, but only for a moment.

     The Carthaginian heavy cavalry, under Hasdrubal (not Hannibal's brother, but another), smashed the Roman horse, then charged back into the fray. The legions had barely managed to meet the new attack on their flanks; now the charge on their rear by this new factor completes the encirclement. With the center holding its own and the inexorable pressure on flanks and rear, the Roman army contracts, until it becomes too dense for effective operation. The battlefield became a butcher shop, and of 80,000 Romans and allies which entered the contest no more than 30,000 lived to tell the tale, and two thirds of those were prisoners. The losses among Hannibal's men were few, and mostly expendable Gauls and Iberians.

     It was Hannibal's greatest victory. It says something for the Roman resolve that it was also his last important one. The Romans lost an army, and they were to lose allies, but one thing they were good at was weathering the storm. Hannibal later found that times had changed. He could take a city, but he could not hold it indefinitely, and when he left the Romans quickly retook it and subjected the inhabitants to all the horrors of punishment for treachery. Hannibal could not protect his allies in Italy; his army wasn't large enough even with Bruttian help to garrison important cities and remain in the field. Carthage sent him no help; the home colony preferred to use what little it could spare to try to save the situation elsewhere. Despite his military genius, he could not continue to win against a much larger adversary on their soil without replacements or supplies.

     The three Scipios eventually overran Spain, Hannibal's brother Hasdrubal tried to reinforce Hannibal only to be decisively defeated at the Metaurus, and Hannibal's army slowly became irrelevant. Punic attempts to cause trouble in Sicily, Sardinia and Greece eventually petered out, while Rome conquered Spain completely. The Carthaginians destroyed the armies of the two elder Scipios there, but the end result was to bring into prominence the one Roman who was equal to the task, namely P. Cornelius Scipio "Africanus", who cleaned them out of Spain for good. The eventual peace for Carthage eliminated her as a power in the Mediterranean. Hannibal was recalled and retired to private life, eventually to commit suicide.

     These campaigns taught the Romans several valuable lessons. The Romans learned the value of a professional, as opposed to amateur, army and command staff; the importance of good subordinate commanders; the value of a increasing the proportion of cavalry; and perhaps most important, the value of reconnaissance. The cost of this tuition, however, was staggering; in three campaign seasons the Romans lost about 75,000 men. Eventually, at Zama they graduated from this military school with honors.