Course and results of the war, 264-241 B.C. Sicily and even made an unsuccessful invasion of Africa, but the main struggle was on the sea. Here at first the Romans were at a disadvantage, for they had no ships as large and powerful as those of the Carthaginians. With characteristic energy, however, they built several great war fleets and finally won a complete victory over the enemy. The treaty of peace provided that Carthage should abandon Sicily, return all prisoners without ransom, and pay a heavy indemnity. The interval 241-218 B.C. Carthage, though beaten, had not been humbled. She had lost Sicily and the commercial monopoly of the Mediterranean. But she was not ready to abandon all hope of recovof preparation, ering her former supremacy. The peace amounted to no more than an armed truce. Both parties were well aware that the real conflict was yet to come. The war, however, was delayed for nearly a quarter of a century. During this interval Rome strengthened her military position by seizing the islands of Sardinia and Corsica from Carthage and by conquering the Gauls in the Po valley. The Carthaginians, meanwhile, began to create a new empire in Spain, whose silver mines would supply fresh means for another contest and whose hardy tribes would furnish soldiers as good as the Roman legionaries. war. 57. Hannibal and the Great Punic War, 218-201 B.C.. The steady advance of the Carthaginian arms in Spain caused much uneasiness in Rome and at length led that city to declare Carthage herself was not unwilling for a second trial of strength. Her leading general, Hannibal, who had been winning renown in Spain, believed that the Carthaginians were now in a position to wage an aggressive war against their mighty rival. And so the two great Mediterranean powers, each confident of success, renewed the struggle for supremacy. Beginning of the Second Punic War, 218 B.C. At the opening of the conflict Hannibal was not quite twentyseven years of age. While yet a mere child, so the story went, his father had led him to the altar, and bade him swear by the Carthaginian gods eternal enmity to Hannibal Rome. He followed his father to Spain and there learned all the duties of a soldier. As a master of the art of war, he ranks with Alexander the Great. The Macedonian king conquered the world for the glory of conquest; Hannibal, burning with patriotism, fought to destroy the power which had humbled his native land. He failed; and his failure left Carthage weaker than he found her. Few men have possessed a more dazzling genius than Hannibal, but his genius was not employed for the lasting good of humanity. Hannibal's invasion of Italy The Romans planned to conduct the war in Spain and Africa, at a distance from their own shores. Hannibal's bold movements totally upset these calculations. The Carthaginian general had determined that the conflict should take place in the Italian peninsula itself. Since Roman fleets now controlled the Mediterranean, it was necessary for Hannibal to lead his army, with its supplies, equipment, and beasts of burden, by the long and dangerous land route from Spain to Italy. In the summer of 218 B.C. Hannibal set out from Spain with a large force of infantry and cavalry, besides a number of elephants. Beyond the river Ebro he found himself in hostile territory, through which the soldiers had to fight their way. To force the passage of the Pyrenees and the Alps cost him more than half his original army. When, after a five months' march he stood on the soil of Italy, Hannibal had scarcely twenty-five thousand troops with which to meet the immense power of Rome a power that, given time, could muster to her defense more than half a million disciplined soldiers. The Romans were surprised by the boldness and rapidity of Hannibal's movements. They had expected to conduct the war far away in foreign lands; they now knew that First victories they must fight for their own homes and firesides. of Hannibal The first battles were complete victories for the Carthaginians and opened the road to Rome. Hannibal's plans, however, did not include a siege of the capital. He would not shatter his victorious army in an assault on a fortified town. Hannibal's real object was to bring the Italians over to his side, to ruin Rome through the revolts of her allies. But now he learned, apparently for the first time, that Italy was studded with Latin colonies,1 each a minature Rome, each prepared to resist to the bitter end. Not a single city opened its gates to the invader. On such solid foundations rested Roman rule in Italy. The Senate faced the crisis with characteristic energy. New forces were raised and intrusted to a dictator,2 Quintus Fabius Maximus. He refused to meet Hannibal in a A dictatorship pitched battle, but followed doggedly his enemy's footsteps, meanwhile drilling his soldiers to become a match for had ever put in the field. The opposing forces met at Cannæ in Apulia. The Carthaginians numbered less than fifty thousand men; the Romans had more than eighty thousand troops. Hannibal's sole superiority lay in his cavalry, which was posted on the wings with the infantry occupying the space between. Hannibal's center was weak and gave way before the Romans, who fought this time massed in solid columns. The arrangement was a poor one, for it destroyed the mobility of the legions. The Roman soldiers, having pierced the enemy's lines, now found themselves exposed on both flanks to the African infantry and taken in the rear by Hannibal's splendid cavalry. The battle ended in a hideous butchery. One of the consuls died. fighting bravely to the last; the other escaped from the field 1 See page 155. 2 See page 149. and with the wreck of his army fled to Rome. A Punic commander who survived such a disaster would have perished on the cross; the Roman commander received the thanks of the Senate "for not despairing of the republic." 1 After Cannæ The battle of Cannæ marks the summit of Hannibal's career. He maintained himself in Italy for thirteen years thereafter, but the Romans, taught by bitter experience, refused another engagement with their foe. Hannibal's army was too small and too poorly equipped with siege engines for a successful attack on Rome. His brother, Hasdrubal, led strong reinforcements from Spain to Italy, but these were caught and destroyed before they could effect a junction with Hannibal's troops. Meanwhile the brilliant Roman commander, Publius Scipio, drove the Carthaginians from Spain and invaded Africa. Hannibal was summoned from Italy to face this new adversary. He came, and on the field of Zama (202 B.C.) met his first and only defeat. Scipio, the victor, received the proud surname, Africanus. B.C. Exhausted Carthage could now do no more than sue for peace on any terms that Rome was willing to grant. In the hour of defeat she still trusted her mighty soldier, and it Peace in 201 was Hannibal who conducted the final negotiations. The conditions of peace were severe enough. The Carthaginians gave up Spain and all their ships except ten triremes. They were saddled with a huge indemnity and bound to engage in no war without the consent of Rome. Carthage thus became a dependent ally of the Roman city. In describing the course and outcome of the Second Punic War our sympathies naturally go out to the heroic figure of Hannibal, who fought so long and so bravely for Victorious his native land. It is clear, however, that Rome's Rome victory in the gigantic struggle was essential to the continued progress of classical civilization. The triumph of Carthage in the third century, like that of Persia in the fifth century,2 must have resulted in the spread of Oriental ideas and customs throughout the Mediterranean. From this fate Rome saved Europe. 1 Livy, xxii, 61. See page 100. 58. Roman Supremacy in the West and in the East, Carthage had been humbled, but not destroyed. She still enjoyed the advantages of her magnificent situation and continued to be a competitor of Rome for the trade of the Mediterranean. The Romans watched with jealousy the reviving strength of the Punic city and at last determined to blot it out of existence. In 149 B.C. a Third Punic 149 B.C. A relief from the Column of Trajan, Rome. The name testudo, a tortoise (shell), was applied to the covering made by a body of soldiers who placed their shields over their heads. The shields fitted so closely together that men could walk on them and even horses and chariots could be driven over them. large army was landed in Africa, and the inhabitants of Carthage were ordered to remove ten miles from the sea. They resolved to perish in the ruins of their capital, rather than obey such a cruel command. Destruction Carthage held out for three years. The doubtful honor of its capture belonged to Scipio Emilianus, grandson, by adoption, of the victor of Zama. For seven days the legionaries fought their way, street by street, house by house, until only fifty thousand inhabitants were left to surrender to the tender mercies of the Romans. The of Carthage, 146 B.C. |