Hannibal Biography
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Alps into northern Italy and defeating the Romans at the Battles of the Trebia (218 BC), Lake Trasimene (217 BC) and Cannae (216 BC). After Cannae, the Romans refused to fight him in pitched battles, and gradually captured all the strongholds he had gained in Southern Italy. An invasion of Africa by the Romans under Scipio Africanus in 204 BC forced Hannibal to return to Africa, where Scipio defeated him at Zama (202 BC).
Following the end of the war, Hannibal led Carthage for several years, helping it to recover from the devastation of the war, until the jealous Romans forced him into exile in 195 BC. He went to live at the courts of foreign kings - first Antiochus III of the Seleucid Kingdom. In 189 BC the Romans, having defeated Antiochus in a war, demanded that he turn Hannibal over to them and the great general fled again, this time to the court of King Prusias I of Bithynia. When the Romans demanded that Prusias turn Hannibal over in 182 BC, the great general committed suicide rather than submit.
Detail:
Hannibal Barca ("mercy of Baal"), son of
Hamilcar Barca, was born in 247 BC. After
Carthage's defeat in the First Punic War,
Hamilcar set about the task of improving
Carthage's fortunes. To do this, Hamilcar
began the subjugation of the tribes of
Spain. Carthage at the time was in such a
poor state that its navy was unable to ferry
his army to Iberia (Hispania); instead, he
had to march it to the Pillars of Hercules
and cross there. According to a story he
later told at the court of Antiochus,
Hannibal came upon his father while he was
making a sacrifice to the gods before
leaving for Hispania. Hannibal, then quite
young, begged to go with him. Hamilcar
agreed and allegedly made Hannibal swear
that as long as he lived he would never be a
friend of Rome. Hannibal is reported to have
told his father, "I swear so soon as age
will permit...I will use fire and steel to
arrest the destiny of Rome."
Hannibal's father went about the conquest of
Hispania with all the skills given to
military men. When he was killed in a
battle, Hannibal's brother-in-law Hasdrubal
succeeded to his command of the army.
Hasdrubal pursued a policy of consolidation
of Carthage's Iberian interests, even
signing a treaty with Rome whereby Carthage
would not expand past the Ebro River, so
long as Rome did not expand south of it.
Upon the death of his brother-in-law (221
BC) Hannibal was acclaimed
commander-in-chief by the army and confirmed
in his appointment by the Carthaginian
government. After two years spent completing
the conquest of Hispania south of the Ebro,
he began what he felt to be his life task,
the conquest and humiliation of Rome.
Accordingly, in 219 BC he used a pretext for
attacking the town of Saguntum, which stood
under the special protection of Rome.
Disregarding the protests of Roman envoys,
he stormed it after an eight-month siege. As
the Carthaginian government, in view of
Hannibal's great popularity, did not venture
to repudiate this action, the war he sought
was declared at the end of the year.
Hannibal“s route of invasion given
graciously by The Department of History,
United States Military AcademyOf the large
army of Libyan and Iberian mercenaries that
he had at his disposal, Hannibal selected
the most trustworthy and devoted contingents
and determined to carry the war into the
heart of Italy by a rapid march through
Hispania and southern Gaul. Starting in the
spring of 218 BC, he easily fought his way
through the northern tribes to the Pyrenees
and, by conciliating the Gaulish chiefs on
his passage, contrived to reach the Rhone
before the Romans could take any measures to
bar his advance. After outmaneuvering the
natives, who endeavored to prevent his
crossing, Hannibal evaded a Roman force sent
to operate against him in Gaul; he proceeded
up the valley of one of the tributaries of
the river Rhone (probably the Isere) and by
autumn arrived at the foot of the Alps. His
passage over the mountain chain (probably in
the vicinity of the Col de Mont Cenis) was
one of the most memorable achievements of
any military force of ancient times. He had
arrived, however, with only half the forces
with which he is said to have set out.
Adrian Goldsworthy (The Fall of Carthage) is
skeptical of the explanation that Hannibal
had left forces in Gaul to maintain his line
of communication with Hispania. Hannibal
from the first, seems to have calculated
that he would have to operate without aid
from Hispania. On the other hand, the
figures for the amount of troops he had when
he left Hispania are less reliable.
Nonetheless, Goldsworthy thinks that due to
the opposition of the natives and the
difficulties of ground and climate the costs
of Hannibal's march were considerable.
Hannibal's perilous march brought him into
Roman territory and frustrated the attempts
of the enemy to fight out the main issue on
foreign ground. His sudden appearance among
the Gauls of the Po valley, moreover,
enabled him to detach those tribes from
their new allegiance to the Romans before
the latter could take steps to check the
rebellion.
J.M.W. Turner: Hannibal crossing the
AlpsAfter allowing his soldiers a brief rest
to recover from their exertions, Hannibal
first secured his rear by subduing the
hostile tribe of the Taurini (modern Turin),
and, moving down the Po valley, forced the
Romans by virtue of his superior cavalry to
evacuate the plain of Lombardy. In December
of the same year he had an opportunity to
show his superior military skill when the
Roman commander attacked him on the river
Trebia near Placentia; after wearing down
the excellent Roman infantry he cut it to
pieces by a surprise attack from an ambush
in the flank.
Having secured his position in northern
Italy by this victory, Hannibal quartered
his troops for the winter with the Gauls,
whose zeal in his cause thereupon began to
abate. Accordingly, in spring 217 BC
Hannibal decided to find a more trustworthy
base of operations farther south. He crossed
the Apennines without opposition, but in the
marshy lowlands of the Arno he lost a large
part of his force, including, it would seem,
his remaining elephants, through disease and
himself became blind in one eye. Advancing
through the uplands of Etruria he provoked
the main Roman army to a hasty pursuit and,
catching it in a defile on the shore of Lake
Trasimenus, destroyed it in the waters or on
the adjoining slopes (see Battle of Lake
Trasimene).
From the Department of History, United
States Military AcademyHe had now disposed
of the only field force which could check
his advance upon Rome, but, realizing that
without siege engines he could not hope to
take the capital, he preferred to exploit
his victory by passing into central and
southern Italy and exciting a general revolt
against the sovereign power. It was in
Apulia that a fresh Roman army began to dog
his steps. Hannibal expected to be able to
defeat this too but the commander Quintus
Fabius Maximus Cunctator, stuck firmly to
defensive positions in the hills. Having
ravaged Apulia without provoking Fabius to
battle, Hannibal decided to march through
Samnium to Campania. Campania was a rich
area that included the key Roman ally of
Capua, but though his ravaging of the
countryside showed the weakness of Rome it
still did not provoke Fabius to battle. As
the year wore on Hannibal decided that it
would be unwise to winter in the already
devastated lowlands of Campania but Fabius
had ensured that all the passes out of
Campania were blocked. Hannibal escaped by
sending a herd of cattle with brands tied to
their horns,so drawing off the Roman force
guarding the pass, allowing Hannibal to move
through the pass unopposed. Fabius was
within striking distance but in this case
his caution worked against him. Smelling a
stratagem (rightly) he stayed put. For the
winter, Hannibal found comfortable quarters
in the Apulian plain.
In the campaign of 217 BC Hannibal had
failed to obtain a following among the
Italians; in the following year he had an
opportunity to turn the tide in his favor. A
large Roman army advanced into Apulia in
order to crush him and accepted battle at
Cannae. Thanks mainly to brilliant cavalry
tactics, Hannibal, with much inferior
numbers, managed to surround and destroy all
but a smallish section of this force.
Hannibal capitalized on the eagerness of the
Consul Varro and drew him into a trap by
using an envelopment tactic which eliminated
the Roman numerical advantage by shrinking
the surface area where combat could occur.
Depending upon the source, it is estimated
that 50,000-70,000 Romans fell at Cannae,
the most catastrophic defeat in the history
of that city.
The moral effect of this victory was such
that all the south of Italy joined his
cause. Had Hannibal now received proper
material reinforcements from his countrymen
at Carthage he might have made a direct
attack upon Rome; for the present he had to
content himself with subduing the fortresses
which still held out against him, and the
only other notable event of 216 BC was the
defection of Capua, the second largest city
of Italy, which Hannibal made his new base.
Moreover, with a force of only 26-30,000
men, he lacked the strength to take the
city.
For the next few years Hannibal was reduced
to minor operations which centred mainly
round the cities of Campania. He failed to
draw his opponents into a pitched battle,
and in some slighter engagements suffered
reverses. As the forces detached under his
lieutenants were generally unable to hold
their own, and neither his home government
nor his new ally Philip V of Macedon helped
to make good his losses, his position in
southern Italy became increasingly difficult
and his chance of ultimately conquering Rome
grew ever more remote. In 212 BC the Romans
had so alienated Tarentum that conspirators
admitted Hannibal to the city. The
conspirators then blew the alarm on some
Roman trumpets allowing Hannibal's troops to
pick off the Romans as they stumbled out
into the streets. Hannibal was able to keep
control of his troops to the extent that
there was no general looting. Instead
Hannibal having committed himself to respect
Tarentine freedom told the Tarentines to
mark every house where Tarentines lived.
Only those houses not so marked and thus
belonging to Romans were looted. The
citadel, however, held out so denying
Hannibal the use of harbor. Further, in the
same year, he lost his hold upon Campania,
where he failed to prevent the concentration
of three Roman armies round Capua. Hannibal
attacked the besieging armies with his full
force in 211 BC and attempted to entice them
away by a sudden march through Samnium that
brought him within 3 km of Rome but caused
more alarm than real danger to the city.
But the siege continued, and the town fell
in the same year. In 210 BC Hannibal again
proved his superiority in tactics by a
severe defeat inflicted at Herdoniac (modern
Ordona) in Apulia upon a proconsular army,
and in 208 BC destroyed a Roman force
engaged in the siege of Locri Epizephyri.
But with the loss of Tarentum in 209 BC and
the gradual reconquest by the Romans of
Samnium and Lucania his hold on south Italy
was almost lost. In 207 BC he succeeded in
making his way again into Apulia, where he
waited to concert measures for a combined
march upon Rome with his brother Hasdrubal.
On hearing, however, of his brother's defeat
and death at the Metaurus he retired into
the mountain fastnesses of Bruttium, where
he maintained himself for the ensuing years.
With the failure of his brother Mago in
Liguria (205 BC-203 BC) and of his own
negotiations with Philip of Macedon, the
last hope of recovering his ascendancy in
Italy was lost.
In 203 BC, when Scipio was carrying all
before him in Africa and the Carthaginian
peace party were arranging an armistice,
Hannibal was recalled from Italy by the war
party at Carthage. After leaving a record of
his expedition engraved in Punic and Greek
upon brazen tablets in the temple of Juno at
Crotona, he sailed back to Africa. His
arrival immediately restored the
predominance of the war party, who placed
him in command of a combined force of
African levies and his mercenaries from
Italy. In 202 BC Hannibal, after meeting
Scipio in a fruitless peace conference,
engaged him in a decisive battle at Zama.
Scipio came up with an ingenious method of
neutralizing Hannibal's elephants. Hannibal
lost all of his original elephant troops
(who crossed the Alps with him) by the
battle of Cannae, but they were replenished
in Africa. First of all, Scipio knew that
elephants could only be ordered to charge
forward, but they could only continue their
charge in a straight line. It also meant
that they did not care whether or not they
killed Romans in the process. Scipio
realized that intentionally opening gaps in
his troops meant that the elephants would
continue between them, without harming a
soul. He did this, and after the elephants
passed through his troops harmlessly, they
were picked off on the other side, and his
troops fell back into formation and
continued marching. Unable to cope against
the well-trained and confident Roman
soldiers with his own indifferent troops
after losing his notorious advantage,
Hannibal experienced a crushing defeat that
put an end to all resistance on the part of
Carthage.
Hannibal was still only in his forty-sixth
year. He soon showed that he could be a
statesman as well as a soldier. Following
the conclusion of a peace that left Carthage
stripped of its formerly mighty empire he
for a time prepared to take a back seat.
However, the blatant corruption of the
oligarchy gave Hannibal a chance of a come
back and he was elected as suffet, or chief
magistrate. The office had become rather
insignificant, but Hannibal restored its
power and authority. The oligarchy, always
jealous of him, had even charged him with
having betrayed the interests of his country
while in Italy, for neglecting to take Rome
when he might have done so. So effectively
did Hannibal reform abuses that the heavy
tribute imposed by Rome could be paid by
installments without additional and
extraordinary taxation. He also reformed the
Council of One Hundred, stipulating that its
membership be chosen by direct election
rather than co-option.
Seven years after the victory of Zama, the
Romans, alarmed at Carthage's renewed
prosperity, demanded Hannibal's surrender.
Hannibal thereupon went into voluntary
exile. First he journeyed to Tyre, the
mother-city of Carthage, and thence to
Ephesus, where he was honorably received by
Antiochus III of Syria, who was preparing
for war with Rome. Hannibal soon saw that
the king's army was no match for the Romans.
He advised him to equip a fleet and land a
body of troops in the south of Italy,
offering to take command himself. But he
could not make much impression on Antiochus,
who listened more willingly to courtiers and
flatterers and would not entrust Hannibal
with any important charge. In 190 BC he was
placed in command of a Phoenician fleet but
was defeated in a battle off the river
Eurymedon.
From the court of Antiochus, who seemed
prepared to surrender him to the Romans,
Hannibal fled to Crete, but he soon went
back to Asia Minor and sought refuge with
Prusias I of Bithynia. Once more the Romans
were determined to hunt him down, and they
sent Flaminius to insist on his surrender.
Prusias agreed to give him up, but Hannibal
determined not to fall into his enemies'
hands. At Libyssa, on the eastern shore of
the Sea of Marmora, he took poison, which,
it was said, he had long carried about with
him in a ring. The precise year of his death
is a matter of controversy. If, as Livy
seems to imply, it was 183 BC, he died in
the same year as Scipio Africanus.
Most of the sources we have about Hannibal
are Romans, who considered him the greatest
enemy they had ever faced. Livy gives us the
idea that he was extremely cruel. Even
Cicero, when he talked of Rome and her two
great enemies, spoke of the "honorable"
Pyrrhus and the "cruel" Hannibal. Yet a
different picture sometimes shows through
the bias. When Hannibal's successes had
brought about the death of two Roman
consuls, he searched vainly for one on the
shores of Lake Trasimene, and he sent
Marcellus' ashes back to his family in Rome.
By contrast, when Nero had accomplished his
wonderful march back and forth to and from
the Metaurus he flung the head of Hannibal's
brother into Hannibal's camp. The bias of
Polybius is less obvious because he was
clearly sympathetic to Hannibal. Polybius,
however, spent a long period as a hostage in
Italy and relied heavily on Roman sources
and so the possibility is always there that
Polybius is reproducing Roman propaganda
even when he gives it a pro-Hannibal spin.
Cicero offers a story of Hannibal while at
the court of Antiochus III. Hannibal
attended a lecture by a certain Phormio, a
philosopher, that ranged through many
topics. When Phormio finished the portion
about the duties of a general, Hannibal was
asked his opinion. "I have seen," he
replied, "during my life many an old fool;
but this one beats them all."
There is another story told about Hannibal
while in exile, which puts an odd spin on
his supposed "Punic perfidy". Antiochus III
showed off a vast and well armed formation
to Hannibal and asked him if they would be
enough for Rome, to which Hannibal replied,
"Yes, enough for the Romans, however greedy
they may be."
Hannibal's name is commonplace in popular
culture, an objective measure of his
influence on Western European history. The
author of the 1911 Encyclopędia Britannica
article praises Hannibal in these words:
"As to the transcendent military genius of
Hannibal there cannot be two opinions. The
man who for fifteen years could hold his
ground in a hostile country against several
powerful armies and a succession of able
generals must have been a commander and a
tactician of supreme capacity. In the use of
stratagems and ambuscades he certainly
surpassed all other generals of antiquity.
Wonderful as his achievements were, we must
marvel the more when we take into account
the grudging support he received from
Carthage. As his veterans melted away, he
had to organize fresh levies on the spot. We
never hear of a mutiny in his army, composed
though it was of Africans, Spaniards and
Gauls. Again, all we know of him comes for
the most part from hostile sources. The
Romans feared and hated him so much that
they could not do him justice. Livy speaks
of his great qualities, but he adds that his
vices were equally great, among which he
singles out his more than Punic perfidy and
an inhuman cruelty. For the first there
would seem to be no further justification
than that he was consummately skilful in the
use of ambuscades. For the latter there is,
we believe, no more ground than that at
certain crises he acted in the general
spirit of ancient warfare. Sometimes he
contrasts most favorably with his enemy. No
such brutality stains his name as that
perpetrated by Claudius Nero on the
vanquished Hasdrubal. Polybius merely says
that he was accused of cruelty by the Romans
and of avarice by the Carthaginians. He had
indeed bitter enemies, and his life was one
continuous struggle against destiny. For
steadfastness of purpose, for organizing
capacity and a mastery of military science
he has perhaps never had an equal."
Patton believed that he was a reincarnation
of General Hannibal as well as many other
people including a Roman legionary.
Hannibal is ranked as one of the best
military commanders in history, alongside
Alexander the Great,
Julius Caesar,
Friedrich II and
Napoleon.
This Hannibal Biography Page is Copyright © 2004 - 2006 Chuck Ayoub