A General History for Colleges and High Schools (Myers)/Chapter 25
CHAPTER XXV.
THE SECOND PUNIC WAR.
(218–201 B.C.)
Rome between the First and the Second Punic War.
The First Roman Province.—For the twenty-three years that followed the close of the first struggle between Rome and Carthage, the two rivals strained every power and taxed every resource in preparation for a renewal of the contest.
The Romans settled the affairs of Sicily, organizing all of it, save the lands belonging to Syracuse, as a province of the republic. This was the first territory beyond the limits of Italy that Rome had conquered, and the Sicilian the first of Roman provinces. But as the imperial city extended her conquests, her provincial possessions increased in number and size until they formed at last a perfect cordon about the Mediterranean. Each province was governed by a magistrate sent out from the capital, and paid an annual tribute, or tax, to Rome.
Rome acquires Sardinia and Corsica.—The first acquisition by the Romans of lands beyond the peninsula seems to have created in them an insatiable ambition for foreign conquests. They soon found a pretext for seizing the island of Sardinia, the most ancient and, after Sicily, the most prized of the possessions of the Carthaginians. The island, in connection with Corsica, which was also seized, was formed into a Roman province. With her hands upon these islands, the authority of Rome in the Western, or Tuscan Sea, was supreme.
The Illyrian Corsairs are punished.—At about the same time, the Romans also extended their influence over the seas that wash the eastern shores of Italy. For a long time the Adriatic and Ionian 
waters had been infested with Illyrian pirates, who issued from the roadsteads of the northeastern coasts of the former sea. The Roman fleet chased these corsairs from the Adriatic, and captured several of their strongholds. Rome now assumed a sort of protectorate over the Greek cities of the Adriatic coasts. This was her first step towards final supremacy in Macedonia and Greece.
War with the Gauls.—In the north, during this same period, Roman authority was extended from the Apennines and the Rubicon to the foot of the Alps. Alarmed at the advance of the Romans, who were pushing northward their great military road, called the Flaminian Way, and also settling with discharged soldiers and needy citizens the tracts of frontier land wrested some time before from the Gauls, the Boii, a tribe of that race, stirred up all the Gallic peoples already in Italy, besides their kinsmen who were yet beyond the mountains, for an assault upon Rome. Intelligence of this movement among the northern tribes threw all Italy into a fever of excitement. At Rome the terror was great; for not yet had died out of memory what the city had once suffered at the hands of the ancestors of these same barbarians that were now again gathering their hordes for sack and pillage. An ancient prediction, found in the Sibylline books, declared that a portion of Roman territory must needs be occupied by Gauls. Hoping sufficiently to fulfil the prophecy and satisfy Fate, the Roman Senate caused two Gauls to be buried alive in one of the public squares of the capital.
Meanwhile the barbarians had advanced into Etruria, ravaging the country as they moved southward. After gathering a large amount of booty, they were carrying this back to a place of "safety, when they were surrounded by the Roman armies at Telamon, and almost annihilated (225 B.C.). The Romans, taking advantage of this victory, pushed on into the plains of the Po, captured the city which is now known as Milan, and extended their authority to the foot-hills of the Alps.
Carthage between the First and the Second Punic War.
The Truceless War.—Scarcely had peace been concluded with Rome at the end of the First Punic War, before Carthage was plunged into a still deadlier struggle, which for a time threatened her very existence. The mercenary troops, upon their return from Sicily, revolted, on account of not receiving their pay. Their appeal to the native tribes of Africa was answered by a general uprising throughout the dependencies of Carthage. The extent of the revolt shows how hateful and hated was the rule of the great capital over her subject states.
The war was unspeakably bitter and cruel. It is known in history as "The Truceless War." At one time Carthage was the only city remaining in the hands of the government. But the genius of the great Carthaginian general Hamilcar Barcas at last triumphed, and the authority of Carthage was everywhere restored.
The Carthaginians in Spain.—After the disastrous termination of the First Punic War, the Carthaginians determined to repair their losses by new conquests in Spain. Hamilcar Barcas was sent over into that country, and for nine years he devoted his commanding genius to organizing the different Iberian tribes into a compact state, and to developing the rich gold and silver mines of the southern part of the peninsula. He fell in battle 228 B.C.
Hamilcar Barcas was the greatest general that up to this time the Carthaginian race had produced. Genius is seldom transmitted; but in the Barcine family the rule was broken, and the rare genius of Hamilcar reappeared in his sons, whom he himself, it is said, was fond of calling the "lion's brood." Hannibal, the oldest, was only nineteen at the time of his father's death, and being thus too young to assume command, Hasdrubal,[1] the son-in-law of Hamilcar, was chosen to succeed him. He carried out the unfinished plans of Hamilcar, extended and consolidated the Carthaginian power in Spain, and upon the eastern coast founded New Carthage as the centre and capital of the newly acquired territory. The native tribes were conciliated rather than conquered. The Barcine family knew how to rule as well as how to fight.
Hannibal's Vow.—Upon the death of Hasdrubal, which occurred 221 B.C., Hannibal, now twenty-six years of age, was by the unanimous voice of the army called to be their leader. When a child of nine years he had been led by his father to the altar; and there, with his hands upon the sacrifice, the little boy had sworn eternal hatred to the Roman race. He was driven on to his gigantic undertakings and to his hard fate, not only by the restless fires of his warlike genius, but, as he himself declared, by the sacred obligations of a vow that could not be broken.
Hannibal attacks Saguntum.—In two years Hannibal extended the Carthaginian power to the Ebro. Saguntum, a Greek city upon the east coast of Spain, alone remained unsubdued. The Romans, who were jealously watching affairs in the peninsula, had entered into an alliance with this city, and taken it, with other Greek cities in that quarter of the Mediterranean, under their protection. Hannibal, although he well knew that an attack upon this place would precipitate hostilities with Rome, laid siege to it in the spring of 219 B.C. He was eager for the renewal of the old contest. The Roman Senate sent messengers to him forbidding his making war upon a city which was a friend and ally of the Roman people; but Hannibal, disregarding their remonstrances, continued the siege, and, after an investment of eight months, gained possession of the town.
The Romans now sent commissioners to Carthage to demand of the Senate that they should give up Hannibal to them, and by so doing repudiate the act of their general. The Carthaginians hesitated. Then Quintus Fabius, chief of the embassy, gathering up his toga, said: "I carry here peace and war; choose, men of hage, which ye will have." "Give us whichever ye will," was the reply. "War, then," said Fabius, dropping his toga. The " die was now cast; and the arena was cleared for the foremost man of his race and his time, perhaps the mightiest military genius of any race and of any time."
The Second Punic War.
Hannibal's Passage of the Alps.—The Carthaginian empire was now stirred with preparations for the impending struggle.
Hannibal was the life and soul of every movement. His bold plan was to cross the Pyrenees and the Alps and descend upon Rome from the north.
With his preparations completed, Hannibal left New Carthage early in the spring of 218 B.C., with an army numbering about one hundred thousand men, and including thirty-seven war elephants. Crossing the Pyrenees and the Rhone, he reached the foot-hills of the Alps. Nature and man joined to oppose the passage. The season was already far advanced—it was October—and snow was falling upon the higher portions of the trail. Day after day the army toiled painfully up the dangerous path. In places the narrow way had to be cut wider for the monstrous bodies of the elephants. Often avalanches of stone were hurled upon the trains by the hostile bands that held possession of the heights above. At last the summit was gained, and the shivering army looked down into the warm haze of the Italian plains. The sight alone was enough to rouse the drooping spirits of the soldiers; but Hannibal stirred them to enthusiasm by addressing them with these words: "Ye are standing upon the Acropolis of Italy; yonder lies Rome." The army began its descent, and at length, after toils and losses equalled only by those of the ascent, its thinned battalions issued from the defiles of the mountains upon the plains of the Po. Of the fifty thousand men and more with which Hannibal had begun the passage, barely half that number had survived the march, and these "looked more like phantoms than men."
Battles of the Ticinus, the Trebia, and Lake Trasimenus.—The Romans had not the remotest idea of Hannibal's plans. With war determined upon, the Senate had sent one of the consuls, L. Sempronius Longus, with an army into Africa by the way of Sicily; while the other, Publius Cornelius Scipio, they had directed to lead another army into Spain.
While the Senate were watching the movements of these expeditions, they were startled with the intelligence that Hannibal, instead of being in Spain, had crossed the Alps and was among the Gauls upon the Po. Sempronius was hastily recalled from his attempt upon Africa, to the defence of Italy. Scipio, on his way to Spain, had touched at Massilia, and there learned of the movements of Hannibal. He turned back, hurried into Northern Italy, and took command of the levies there. The cavalry of the two armies met upon the banks of the Ticinus, a tributary of the Po. The Romans were driven from the field by the fierce onset of the Numidian horsemen. Scipio now awaited the arrival of the other consular army, which was hurrying up through Italy by forced marches.
In the battle of the Trebia the united armies of the two consuls were almost annihilated. The Gauls, who had been waiting to see to which side fortune would incline, now flocked to the standard of Hannibal, and hailed him as their deliverer.
The spring following the victory at the Trebia, Hannibal led his army, now recruited by many Gauls, across the Apennines, and moved southward. At Lake Trasimenus he entrapped the Romans under Flaminius in a mountain defile, where, bewildered by a fog that filled the valley, the greater part of the army was slaughtered, and the consul himself was slain. The way to Rome was now open. Believing that Hannibal would march directly upon the capital, the Senate caused the bridges that spanned the Tiber to be destroyed, and appointed Fabius Maximus dictator.
In one respect only had events disappointed Hannibal's expectations. He had thought that all the states of Italy were, like the Gauls, ready to revolt from Rome at the first opportunity that might offer itself. But not a single city had thus far proved unfaithful to her.
Fabius "the Delayer."—The fate of Rome was now in the hands of Fabius. Should he risk a battle and lose it, the destiny of the capital would be sealed. He determined to adopt a more prudent policy—to follow and annoy the Carthaginian army, but to refuse all proffers of battle. Thus time might be gained for raising a new army and perfecting measures for the public defence. In every possible way Hannibal endeavored to draw his enemy into an engagement. He ravaged the fields far and wide and fired the homesteads of the Italians, in order to force Fabius to fight in their defence. The soldiers of the dictator began to murmur. They called him Cunctator, or "the Delayer." They even accused him of treachery to the cause of Rome. But nothing moved him from the steady pursuit of the policy which he clearly saw was the only prudent one to follow.
The Battle of Cannæ.—The time gained by Fabius enabled the Romans to raise and discipline an army that might hope successfully to combat the Carthaginian forces. Early in the summer of the year 216 B.C. these new levies, numbering 80,000 men, confronted the army of Hannibal, amounting to not more than half that number, at Cannae, in Apulia. It was the largest army the Romans had ever gathered on any battle-field. But it had been collected only to meet the most overwhelming defeat that ever befell the forces of the republic. Through the skilful manoeuvres of Hannibal, the Romans were completely surrounded, and huddled together in a helpless mass upon the field, and then for eight hours were cut down by the Numidian cavalry. From fifty to seventy thousand were slain; a few thousand were taken prisoners; only the merest handful escaped, including one of the consuls. The slaughter was so great that, according to Livy, when Mago, a brother of Hannibal, carried the news of the victory to Carthage, he, in confirmation of the intelligence, poured down in the porch of the Senate-house, nearly a peck of gold rings taken from the fingers of Roman knights.
Events after the Battle of Cannæ.—The awful news flew to Rome. Consternation and despair seized the people. The city would have been emptied of its population had not the Senate ordered the gates to be closed. Never did that body display greater calmness, wisdom, prudence, and resolution. By word and act they bade the people never to despair of the republic. Little by little the panic was allayed. Measures were concerted for the defence of the capital, as it was expected that Hannibal would immediately march upon Rome. Swift horsemen were sent out along the Appian Way to gather information of the conqueror's movements, and to learn, as Livy expresses it, "if the immortal gods, out of pity to the empire, had left any remnant of the Roman name."
The leader of the Numidian cavalry, Maharbal, urged Hannibal to follow up his victory closely. "Let me advance with the cavalry," said he, "and in five days thou shalt dine in the capital."But Hannibal refused to adopt the counsel of his impetuous general. Maharbal turned away, and, with mingled reproach and impatience, exclaimed, "Alas! thou knowest how to gain a victory, but not how to use one." The great commander, while he knew he was invincible in the open field, did not think it prudent to fight the Romans behind their walls.
Hannibal now sent an embassy to Rome to offer terms of peace. The Senate, true to the Appian policy never to treat with a victorious enemy (see p. 245), would not even permit the ambassadors to enter the gates. Not less disappointed was Hannibal in the temper of the Roman allies. For the most part they adhered to the cause of Rome with unshaken loyalty through all these trying times. Some tribes in the South of Italy, however, among which were the Lucanians, the Apulians, and the Bruttians, went over to the Carthaginians. Hannibal marched into Campania and quartered his army for the winter in the luxurious city of Capua, which had opened its gates to him. Here he rested and sent urgent messages to Carthage for re-inforcements, while Rome exhausted every resource in raising and equipping new levies, to take the place of the legions lost at Cannae. For several years there was an ominous lull in the war, while both parties were gathering strength for a renewal of the struggle.
The Fall of Syracuse and of Capua.—In the year 216 B.C., Hiero, King of Syracuse, who loved to call himself the friend and ally of the Roman people, died, and the government fell into the hands of a party unfriendly to the republic. An alliance was formed with Carthage, and a large part of Sicily was carried over to the side of the enemies of Rome. The distinguished Roman general, Marcus Claudius Marcellus, called "the Sword of Rome," was intrusted with the task of reconquering the island. After reducing many towns, he at last laid siege to Syracuse.
This noted capital was then one of the largest and richest cities of the Grecian world. For three years it held out against the Roman forces. It is said that Archimedes (see p. 213), the great mathematician, rendered valuable aid to the besieged with curious
Capua must next be punished for opening her gates and extending her hospitalities to the enemies of Rome. A line of circumvallation was drawn about the devoted city, and two Roman armies held it in close siege. Hannibal, ever faithful to his allies and friends, hastened to the relief of the Capuans. Unable to break the enemy's lines, he marched directly upon Rome, as if to make an attack upon that city, hoping thus to draw off the legions about Capua to the defence of the capital. The "dread Hannibal" himself rode alongside the walls of the hated city, and, tradition says, even hurled a defiant spear over the defences. The Romans certainly were trembling with fear; yet Livy tells how they manifested their confidence in their affairs by selling at public auction the land upon which Hannibal was encamped. He in turn, in the same manner, disposed of the shops fronting the Forum. The story is that there were eager purchasers in both cases.
Failing to draw the legions from Capua as he had hoped, Hannibal now retired from before Rome, and, retreating into the southern part of Italy, abandoned Capua to its fate. It soon fell, and paid the penalty that Rome never failed to inflict upon an unfaithful ally. The chief men in the city were put to death, and a large part of the inhabitants sold as slaves. Capua had aspired to the first place among the cities of Italy: scarcely more than the name of the ambitious capital now remained.
Hasdrubal attempts to carry Aid to his Brother.—During all the years Hannibal was waging war in Italy, his brother Hasdrubal was carrying on a desperate struggle with the Roman armies in Spain. At length he determined to leave the conduct of the war in that country to others, and go to the relief of his brother, who was sadly in need of aid. Like Pyrrhus, Hannibal had been brought to realize that even constant victories won at the cost of soldiers that could not be replaced, meant final defeat.
Hasdrubal followed the same route that had been taken by his brother Hannibal, and in the year 207 B.C.descended from the Alps upon the plains of Northern Italy. Thence he advanced southward, while Hannibal moved northward from Bruttium to meet him. Rome made a last great effort to prevent the junction of the armies of the two brothers. At the river Metaurus, Hasdrubal's march was withstood by a large Roman army. Here his forces were cut to pieces, and he himself was slain (207 B.C.). His head was severed from his body and sent to Hannibal. Upon recognizing the features of his brother, Hannibal exclaimed sadly, " Carthage, I see thy fate."
War in Africa: Battle of Zama.—The defeat and death of Hasdrubal gave a different aspect to the war. Hannibal now drew back into the rocky peninsula of Bruttium, the southernmost point of Italy. There he faced the Romans like a lion at bay. No one dared attack him. It was resolved to carry the war into Africa, in hopes that the Carthaginians would be forced to call their great commander out of Italy to the defence of Carthage. Publius Cornelius Scipio, who after the departure of Hasdrubal from Spain had quickly brought the peninsula under the power of Rome, led the army of invasion. He had not been long in Africa before the Carthaginian Senate sent for Hannibal to conduct the war. At Zama, not far from Carthage, the hostile armies came face to face. Fortune had deserted Hannibal; he was fighting against fate. He here met his first and final defeat His army, in which were many of the veterans that had served through all the Italian campaigns, was almost annihilated (202 B.C.). Scipio was accorded a splendid triumph at Rome, and given the surname Africanus in honor of his achievements.[2]
The Close of the War.—Carthage was now completely exhausted, and sued for peace. Even Hannibal himself could no longer counsel war. The terms of the treaty were much severer than those imposed upon the city at the end of the First Punic War. She was required to give up all claims to Spain and the islands of the Mediterranean; to surrender her war elephants, and all her ships of war save ten galleys; to pay an indemnity of five thousand talents at once, and two hundred and fifty talents annually for fifty years; and not to engage in any war without the consent of Rome. Five hundred of the costly Phoenician war galleys were towed out of the harbor of Carthage and burned in the sight of the citizens.
Such was the end of the Second Punic, or Hannibalic War, as called by the Romans, the most desperate straggle ever maintained by rival powers for empire.
- ↑ Not to be confounded with Hannibal's own brother Hasdrubal. See p. 262.
- ↑ Some time after the close of the Second Punic War, the Romans, persuading themselves that Hannibal was preparing Carthage for another war, demanded his surrender of the Carthaginians. He fled to Syria, and thence to Asia Minor, where, to avoid falling into the hands of his implacable foes, he committed suicide by means of poison (183 B.C.).