Hannibal, (born 247 bce, North Africa—died c. 183–181 bce, Libyssa, Bithynia [near Gebze, Turkey]), Carthaginian general, one of the great military leaders of antiquity, who commanded the Carthaginian forces against Rome in the Second Punic War (218–201 bce) and who continued to oppose Rome and its satellites until his death.
Hannibal was the son of the great Carthaginian general Hamilcar Barca. The Greek historian Polybius and the Roman historian Livy are the two primary sources for his life. According to them, Hannibal was taken to Spain by his father and at an early age was made to swear eternal hostility to Rome. From the death of his father in 229/228 until his own death about 183, Hannibal’s life was one of near constant struggle against the Roman Republic.
Hannibal’s earliest commands were given to him in the Carthaginian province of Spain by Hasdrubal, son-in-law and successor of Hamilcar. It is clear that Hannibal emerged as a successful officer, for, on the assassination of Hasdrubal in 221, the army proclaimed him, at age 26, its commander in chief, and the Carthaginian government quickly ratified his field appointment.
Hannibal immediately turned himself to the consolidation of the Punic hold on Spain. He married a Spanish princess, Imilce, and then conquered various Spanish tribes. He fought against the Olcades and captured their capital, Althaea, and he quelled the Vaccaei in the northwest. In 221, making the seaport of Kart-hadasht (modern Cartagena, Spain) his base, he won a resounding victory over the Carpetani in the region of the Tagus River.
In 219 Hannibal attacked Saguntum, an independent Iberian city south of the Ebro River. In the treaty between Rome and Carthage subsequent to the First Punic War (264–241), the Ebro had been set as the northern limit of Carthaginian influence in the Iberian Peninsula. Saguntum was indeed south of the Ebro, but the Romans had “friendship” (though perhaps not an actual treaty) with the city and regarded the Carthaginian attack on it as an act of war. The siege of Saguntum lasted eight months, and in it Hannibal was wounded. The Romans, who had sent envoys to Carthage in protest (though they did not send an army to help Saguntum), after its fall demanded the surrender of Hannibal. Thus began the Second Punic War, declared by Rome and conducted, on the Carthaginian side, almost entirely by Hannibal.
The march into Gaul
Hannibal spent the winter of 219–218 at Cartagena in active preparations for carrying the war into Italy. Leaving his brother Hasdrubal in command of a considerable army for the defense of Spain and North Africa, he crossed the Ebro in April or May 218 and then marched into the Pyrenees. Rome declared war shortly before it heard of his arrival at the Pyrenees, a decision spurred by Saguntum and Hannibal’s crossing of the Ebro. Hannibal may have started from Cartagena with an army of around 90,000—including an estimated 12,000 cavalry—but he left at least 20,000 soldiers in Spain to protect his supply lines. In the Pyrenees his army, which included at least 37 elephants, met with stiff resistance from the Pyrenean tribes. This opposition and the likely desertion of some of his Spanish troops diminished his numbers as he reached the Rhône River, but he met little resistance from the tribes of southern Gaul. Meanwhile, the Roman general Publius Cornelius Scipio transported his army, which had been detained in northern Italy by a rebellion, by sea to the area of Massilia (Marseille), a city that was allied to Rome. Thus, Hannibal’s access to the coastal route into Italy was blocked not only by the Massilians but by at least one army, with another gathering in Italy. As Scipio moved northward along the right bank of the Rhône, he learned that Hannibal had already crossed the river and was marching northward on the left bank. Realizing that Hannibal probably planned to cross the Alps, Scipio returned to northern Italy to await him.
Controversy has surrounded the details of Hannibal’s movements after the crossing of the Rhône. Polybius states that he crossed it while the river was still in one stream at a distance of four days’ march from the sea. Fourques, opposite Arles, is thought by some to have been the likely crossing place. Many also consider as possibilities the natural historic fording places between modern Beaucaire and Avignon. Hannibal used coracles and boats locally commandeered; for the elephants he made jetties out into the river and floated the elephants from those on earth-covered rafts. Horses were embarked on large boats or made to swim. During the operation hostile Gauls appeared on the eastern bank, and Hannibal dispatched a force under Hanno to cross farther upstream and attack them from behind. As the Gauls attempted to block Hannibal’s crossing, Hanno’s force struck, scattering the Gauls and allowing the main body of the Carthaginian army to transit the Rhône unopposed.
Hannibal then received friendly Gallic leaders headed by the northern Italian Boii, a Celtic tribe whose lands had been reduced by recent Roman settlements and whose superior knowledge of the Alpine passes must have been of the greatest value to Hannibal’s plans. Indeed, Polybius makes it clear that Hannibal did not march toward the Alps blindly but instead had excellent information about the best routes. After crossing the Rhône, Hannibal’s army seems to have marched north for about 80 miles (130 km) and passed into an area called “the island,” the identification of which is the key to Hannibal’s subsequent movements on land. According to Polybius, it was a fertile densely populated triangle bounded by hills, by the Rhône, and by a river that is probably the Isère. The confluence of the Rhône and the Isère marked the boundary of the Allobroges tribe, and on the “island” a civil war was being fought between two brothers, possibly both Allobroges chieftains. Brancus, the elder, in return for Hannibal’s help, provided supplies for the Carthaginian army, which, after marching about 750 miles (1,210 km) in four months from Cartagena, was in sore need of them.
The Alpine crossing
Some details of Hannibal’s crossing of the Alps have been preserved, chiefly by Polybius, who is said to have traveled the route himself. First to oppose the crossing was a tribelet of the Allobroges, who may have been angered by Hannibal’s intervention on behalf of Brancus. This group attacked the rear of Hannibal’s column in an ambush, possibly along the Isère at the “gateway to the Alps” (near modern Grenoble) and possibly where the river is at its narrowest, surrounded by high ridges of the Chartreuse and Belledonne massifs. Hannibal took countermeasures, but those involved him in heavy losses in men. On the third day he captured a Gallic town and from its stores provided the army with rations for two or three days.
After about four more days of passage along river valleys—very possibly the Isère and Arc rivers, although that is debated—through increasing elevations, Hannibal was ambushed by hostile Gauls at a “white-rock” place apparently one day’s march from the summit. Those unnamed Gauls attacked the baggage animals and rolled heavy stones down from the heights, causing both men and animals to panic and lose their footings on the precipitous paths. Harassed by such daytime assaults and mistrusting the loyalty of his Gallic guides, Hannibal bivouacked on a large bare rock to cover the passage by night of his horses and pack animals in the gorge below. Then, before dawn, he led the remainder of his force through the narrow gorge entrance, killing the few Gauls who had guarded it and believed Hannibal to be trapped.
Mustering his forces at the summit of the Alps, Hannibal remained camped there for several days before his descent into Italy. Polybius makes it clear that the summit itself must have been high enough for snow drifts to persist from the previous winter; along with the other criteria extrapolated from Polybius, that suggests a summit elevation of at least 8,000 feet (2,400 metres). The problem of determining the exact location of the camp is compounded by the fact that the name of the pass was either not known to Polybius and his sources or it was thought not sufficiently important to provide to mostly Roman readers. Livy, writing 150 years later, sheds no additional light on the matter, and modern historians have posited numerous theories about Hannibal’s exact course through the Alps. Proposed routes have included the low passes at Montgenèvre, Little St. Bernard, and Mount Cenis, as well as the high passes at Col du Clapier–Savine Coche and Col de la Traversette.
Along the end stages of the route, snow was falling on the pass, making the descent even more treacherous. Rockslides made travel on the narrow track hazardous, and the army was held up for most of a day while it was made passable for the pack animals and elephants. Finally, on the 15th day, after a journey of five months from Cartagena, with 25,000 infantry, 6,000 cavalry, and most of his original 37 elephants, Hannibal descended into Italy. He had surmounted the difficulties of climate and terrain, the guerrilla tactics of inaccessible tribes, and the major difficulty of commanding a body of men diverse in race and language under conditions to which they were ill-fitted.
The war in Italy
Hannibal’s forces were now inadequate to match the army of Scipio, who had rushed to the Po River to protect the recently founded Roman colonies of Placentia (modern Piacenza) and Cremona. The first significant action between the two armies took place on the Po plains, west of the Ticino River, and Hannibal’s Numidian cavalry prevailed. Scipio was severely wounded, and the Romans withdrew to Placentia. After maneuvers failed to lead to a second engagement, Hannibal successfully goaded the army of Sempronius Longus into battle on the left bank of the Trebbia River south of Placentia (December 218). The Roman force was soundly defeated, although it is likely that the wounded Claudius Scipio did not take part in the battle, and it is uncertain if any of his legions were part of the action. That victory brought both Gauls and Ligurians to Hannibal’s side, and his army was considerably augmented by Celtic recruits. After a severe winter Hannibal was able to advance in the spring of 217 as far as the Arno River marshes, where he lost an eye to infection. Although two Roman armies were now in the field against him, he was able to outmaneuver that of Gaius Flaminius at Arretium (modern Arezzo) and reached Curtun (modern Cortona). By design, that move forced Flaminius’s army into open combat, and in the ensuing Battle of Lake Trasimene, Hannibal’s troops all but annihilated the Roman army, killing at least 15,000 soldiers, many of whom were driven into the lake to drown. An additional 15,000 Romans and allied troops were captured. Reinforcements of about 4,000 cavalry under Gaius Centenius were intercepted before they arrived and were also destroyed. The Carthaginian troops were either too worn to clinch their victories and march on Rome, or Hannibal considered the city to be too well fortified. Hannibal, furthermore, nurtured the vain hope that the Italian allies of Rome would defect and cause civil war.
Hannibal spent the summer of 217 resting at Picenum, but later he ravaged Apulia and Campania; meanwhile, the delaying tactics of Quintus Fabius Maximus Cunctator’s army allowed only skirmishes between the two armies. Suddenly in the early summer of 216, Hannibal moved southward and seized the large army supply depot at Cannae on the Aufidus River. There early in August the Battle of Cannae (modern Monte di Canne) was fought. Hannibal chose the ground wisely; he commanded the water supply of the Aufidus, and he forced the numerically superior Romans into a narrow plain bounded by the river and a sizable hill. He also positioned his army in such a way that the Romans had to engage it by facing into a hot summer wind carrying dust that irritated the eyes and reduced visibility. When battle commenced, the Gauls and Iberian infantry of Hannibal’s centre line yielded (without breaking) before the drive of the numerically superior Roman infantry. The Romans continued their advance, exposing both of their flanks to the Spanish and Libyan infantry that comprised the Carthaginian right and left. Boxed in on three sides, the Romans’ avenue of retreat was closed when Hannibal’s cavalry returned after completing its rout of the Roman cavalry. The compressed Romans were butchered by Hannibal’s army. Polybius gave the number of Roman dead at 70,000, while Livy reported 55,000; either way it was disaster for Rome. Virtually 1 in 5 Roman men of military age were slaughtered, and households at every level of society were affected. Dozens of senators were killed, as were many patricians and over 200 members of the equestrian class (Roman knights). Rome was now justifiably terrified of Hannibal, and he became a bogeyman to Roman children.
That great land victory, which came to be seen as the textbook example of a double envelopment, brought the desired effect: many regions began to defect from the Italic confederacy. Hannibal, however, did not march on Rome but spent the winter of 216–215 in Capua, which declared its loyalty to Hannibal, possibly with the hope of being made Rome’s equal. Gradually the Carthaginian fighting strength weakened. The strategy suggested by Fabius after the Battle of Trasimene was again put into operation: to defend the cities loyal to Rome; to try to recover, where opportunity offered, those cities that had fallen to Hannibal; never to enter battle when the enemy offered it but rather to keep the Carthaginians alert in every theatre of war. Thus, Hannibal, unable because of inferior numbers to spread his forces to match the Romans and unable to employ that concentrated strength in a decisive battle, passed from the offensive to a cautious and not always successful defensive in Italy, inadequately supported by the home government at Carthage and, because of the Roman command of the sea, forced to obtain local provisions for protracted and ineffectual operations. That was a diplomatically challenging task, as Hannibal could not extract so much food as to alienate his local allies. In addition, many of his Gallic supporters tired of a war in which the promised plunder had dried up, and they returned north to their homelands. When combined with the slow but steady loss of his African veterans to combat deaths and injuries, the departure of Hannibal’s Gallic soldiers represented a qualitative and quantitative erosion of his army.
Hannibal, except for the capture of Tarentum (modern Taranto), gained only minor victories (215–213). Reinforcements from Carthage were few. In 213 Casilinum and Arpi (captured by Hannibal in winter 216–215) were recovered by the Romans, and in 211 Hannibal was obliged to march to relieve the Roman siege of Capua. Hannibal marched to within 3 miles (5 km) of the strongly fortified walls of Rome in an attempt to draw away the Roman armies, but the move was unsuccessful and Capua fell. In the same year, in Sicily, Syracuse fell, and by 209 Tarentum, in south Italy, had also been recaptured by the Romans.
The wars in Spain and Africa
Meanwhile, Roman successes in Spain dealt severe blows to Carthaginian power there. In 208 Hasdrubal, detaching a force from the main Carthaginian army, crossed the Alps (possibly by his brother’s route, although no great losses are recorded) to go to Hannibal’s aid. Hasdrubal’s army was defeated, however, at Metaurus in northern Italy (207) before the Carthaginian armies could effect a junction. Hasdrubal was killed in the battle, and his severed head was delivered to Hannibal’s camp; that reportedly led Hannibal to lament, “There lies the fate of Carthage.” His last hope of making a recovery in central Italy thus dashed, Hannibal concentrated his forces in Bruttium, where with the help of his remaining allies he was able to resist Roman pressure for four more years.
Scipio, elected consul in 205, overcame opposition within the Senate and won approval to take the fight to North Africa, breaking Carthage’s principal ally, the Massaesylian Numidians, and endangering Carthage itself. In order to go to the help of his country, Hannibal was forced to abandon Italy in 203. Although a preliminary armistice had already been declared and the Carthaginian armies had accepted Scipio’s severe terms (winter 204–203), Hannibal concentrated the remnants of the Carthaginian forces at Hadrumetum (modern Sousse, Tunisia). Almost at the very moment when the ambassadors were returning from Rome with the preliminary peace proposals, the Carthaginians violated the armistice.
Accounts of the campaigns that followed differ greatly, but they culminate at the Battle of Zama. Both Hannibal and Scipio, in order to link up with their respective Numidian allies, moved up the Bagradas River to the region of Zama Regia. Hannibal was now deficient in cavalry. The mercenary troops of his front line and the African infantry of his second line together were routed, and Scipio, seeing that Hannibal’s third line, the veteran soldiers, was still intact, reformed his front and brought up the Numidian cavalry of Masinissa, his Numidian ally, in the Carthaginian rear. Hannibal lost 20,000 men in defeat, but he himself escaped Masinissa’s pursuit. That marked the end of Hannibal’s military campaigns on behalf of Carthage.
Exile and death
The treaty between Rome and Carthage that was concluded a year after the Battle of Zama frustrated the entire object of Hannibal’s life, but his hopes of taking arms once more against Rome lived on. Although accused of having misconducted the war by his enemies in Carthage—chiefly, the merchant faction led by Hanno—Hannibal was made a suffete (a civil magistrate) in addition to retaining his military command. As suffete he was able to overthrow the power of the oligarchic governing faction at Carthage and bring about certain administrative and constitutional changes. Although Scipio Africanus, who had bested him at Zama, supported his leadership in Carthage, he became unpopular with a certain faction of the Carthaginian nobility because he challenged their graft. According to Livy, that led his enemies to denounce him to the Romans for inciting Antiochus III of Syria to take up arms against Rome. The strength of that accusation was questionable, but Hannibal was forced to flee, first to Tyre and then to the court of Antiochus at Ephesus (195). There he was welcome at first, since Antiochus was preparing war with Rome. Soon, however, the presence of Hannibal and the sound advice he gave concerning the conduct of the war became a source of embarrassment, and he was sent to raise and command a fleet for Antiochus in the Phoenician cities. Inexperienced as he was in naval matters, he was defeated by the Roman fleet off Side in Pamphylia. Antiochus was defeated on land at Magnesia in 190, and one of the terms demanded of him by the Romans was that Hannibal should be surrendered. Again, accounts of Hannibal’s subsequent actions vary; either he fled via Crete to the court of King Prusias of Bithynia, or he joined the rebel forces in Armenia. Eventually he took refuge with Prusias, who at that time was engaged in warfare with Rome’s ally, King Eumenes II of Pergamum. He served Prusias in that war, and, in one of the victories he gained over Eumenes at sea, it is said that he threw baskets of snakes into the enemy vessels in one of the earliest documented examples of biological warfare.
The Romans’ influence in the east had expanded to such a degree that they were in a position to demand the surrender of Hannibal. In one account of his final hours, Hannibal, expecting treachery from Bithynia, sent out his last faithful servant to check all the secret exits from his fortress at Libyssa (near modern Gebze, Turkey). The servant reported back that hostile unknown guards stood at every exit. Knowing that he had been betrayed and was unable to escape, Hannibal poisoned himself in a final act of defiance against the Romans. The year is uncertain but was probably 183.
It is not to be expected that his Roman biographers would treat Hannibal impartially, but Polybius and Dio Cassius give the least-biased accounts. In spite of the charges of Hannibal’s cruelty put forth by the Roman authors, he did enter into agreement with Fabius for the return of prisoners and treated with respect the bodies of Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus (consul 215) and Lucius Aemilius Paulus (216), the fallen enemy generals. Of avarice, the other charge commonly laid against him, no direct evidence is found other than the practices necessary for a general to finance a war. Indeed, he spared Fabius’s farm in Campania while ravaging the surrounding countryside, although that was done to fuel rumours that Fabius had reached an accommodation with Hannibal.
Much that was said against Hannibal might be ascribed to Roman propaganda, especially from Livy. One claim laid against him was that he cannibalized the bodies of his dead soldiers in times of great difficulty, but Polybius dismisses that charge as an idle suggestion made by a Carthaginian commander and offers no evidence that Hannibal acted upon it. In retrospect, Hannibal’s physical bravery is well attested, and his temperance and continence were usually praised. His power of leadership is implied in the lack of rioting and disharmony in that mixed body of men he commanded for so long, and the care he took for his elephants and horses as well as his men gives proof of a humane disposition. His treachery, that punica fides that the Romans detested, could from another point of view pass for resourcefulness in war and boldness in stratagem. Of his wit and subtlety of speech, many anecdotes remain. He spoke Greek and Latin fluently, but more personal information is absent from his biographies. The only surviving portrait of Hannibal may exist in the form of silver coins from Cartagena, possibly struck in 221, the year of his election as general, depicting him with a youthful beardless face. (See also Researcher’s Note on Hannibal’s ethnicity and physical appearance.)