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Hannibal 2 with, and the mythology which surrounds him, make him an irresistible personality for writers of the ancient world who seek to entertain as well as transmit the past. Aside from making a good story, Hannibal’s boyhood oath, taken at the age of nine, gives Polybius – the more objective of the two historians – an explanation for Hannibal’s tireless fight against Rome, a fight he continued even after Carthage’s defeat in the Second Punic War. It was perhaps important for Polybius, who was very interested in characterisation and motive, to reconcile the implacable enmity of a man whose qualities he admired with the city he esteemed equally greatly. For Livy, who was on the whole less concerned with evidence and keen to draw a moralising message from his histories, Hannibal’s vices – ‘inhuman cruelty, an utter absence of truthfulness, reverence, fear of the gods, respect for oaths, sense of religion’ (Livy 21.4.9) – explained why, although a tactical genius, he lost the war. Livy saw the war with Hannibal as the zenith of Roman manly virtue and piety to the gods, and thus as an age to be admired and emulated in the time of decline and decadence in which he saw himself. Moreover, the more impressive and fearsome the enemy and the greater the setbacks, the more impressive the Roman achievement seems, and the more steadfast and morally courageous the Romans become. Yet, for all his alleged brutality, it is recorded that Hannibal was fluent in the language, literature and learning of the Greeks, and was an accomplished statesmen and politician – he even held the office of suffete (the rough equivalent to consul) in Carthage after the defeat by Rome. Of course this sinister mix of physical prowess, astounding ability and unmatched cruelty is attractive to the Romans who overcame him, but is there a deeper reason for these stories than the sensationalist tendencies of Roman writers A possible explanation lies in the way Hannibal sought to present himself. With his extensive Greek education – he was tutored by a Spartan – he would have been well aware of the precedent set by Alexander, and followed by later Hellenistic generals, of bringing an entourage of learned men to record the glorious victories and spectacular successes he achieved. These Minerva January/February 2013 9
3 a man of almost unparalleled military genius and ambition who fought courageously against a finally insuperable enemy men flattered the vanity of their patrons, and were unsurprisingly full of praise, yet they also served a far more important purpose. By presenting a perhaps tailored image of greatness and mystery they served to raise the morale of the army, to encourage allies, and to strike fear into enemies – they were in fact the spin doctors of their day. Hannibal was followed on his journeys ‘as long as fortune allowed’ (Nepos, Hannibal, 13.3) by two historians: Sosylus of Sparta, his former teacher, and Silenus of Caleacte, a Sicilian Greek. Their works are now all but lost, but can be in part reconstructed from Polybius, who, although he may have fundamentally disagreed with them, believed in impartiality to the extent of including some of their assertions. Other historians made use of their work, and Silenus was certainly well regarded by Cicero. In order to realise Hannibal’s aims, the message propagated by these men had to contain strong unifying elements common to the whole Mediterranean, so as to bring together his disparate army; it had to enlarge Hannibal to almost god-like proportions; and it had to stress the justice of his cause and the divine sanction that accompanied it. The great general and his propagandists set out upon a campaign to equate Hannibal with the god Heracles, ubiquitous throughout the Mediterranean, where he was known as Melquart in Carthage and the East, Heracles to the Greeks, Hercules to the Italian allies of Rome, and he tallied with older Sicilian and perhaps even Iberian deities, providing a crucial unifying factor and a shared belief. This practice was not uncommon in the eastern Mediterranean where Alexander and his successors linked themselves to various gods and attempted to cloud the distinction between the mortal and the divine, and one could be forgiven for believing Alexander’s 3. Jacopo Ripanda’s fresco in the Hall of Hannibal in the Palazzo dei Conservatori of the Capitoline Museum, Rome, 1508-13. 4. Rue Hannibal in Tunis ensures that the Carthaginian general’s memory is kept alive in his home town. Photograph: Rolf Bach. 5. Shekel, Carthage, Second Punic War, circa 220-205 BC. Obverse: laureate male head (perhaps Hannibal himself) and, reverse, an elephant advancing right. The mint of this issue is still uncertain, originally attributed to the Punic mint in Spain, subsequent hoard evidence has been established that they were struck either in Carthage, or in a Carthaginian mint in Sicily, during the Second Punic War. © CNG. 4 astounding success stemmed from a very personal and intimate relationship with a higher power. Heracles, aside from simply being a universal figure, suited Hannibal’s aims. Traditionally, for his 10th labour Heracles drove the cattle of Geryon from Spain over the Alps into Italy and onwards to Argos accompanied by a large army and, when in Italy, ‘[destroyed] any despotisms that were grievous and oppressive to their subjects, or commonwealth’s that outraged and injured the neighbouring states… he mingled barbarians with Greeks… groups which hitherto had been distrustful and unsocial in their dealings with each other’ (Dionysius, Hannibal, 1.41). The parallels with Hannibal’s actions and plans are clear; the Greek cities in southern Italy and Sicily and the Italic cities around Rome were in an increasingly one-sided alliance with the dominant power of Rome, and it was Hannibal’s plan to liberate them from Roman control by leading a crusade of Carthaginians (thought of as barbarians), Gauls, Greeks and Italians over the Alps against Roman oppression. According to Silenus, this great endeavour was also backed by Jupiter, who came to Hannibal in a dream and gave him Heracles as a guide. Fortunately, Hannibal could justify these grandiose claims of divine favour by the astonishing success he enjoyed, and in the freedom-loving Greeks of southern Italy and Sicily, and the fiercely independent Samnites of central Italy, he found a receptive audience. It was this ambitious agenda that led Hannibal to make such assertions about himself, and it is easy to see why he should have encouraged stories of his hardiness as well as his willingness to suffer the same hardships as the common soldiers – and it is undoubtedly true 5 that he was popular with his men, who, despite great suffering and repeated setbacks, never mutinied, a testament to his forceful and inspirational leadership. However, in the face of superior Roman forces and an attack on Africa, he eventually left Italy and was defeated outside Carthage by Scipio, later Africanus, one of the greatest Roman generals. Hannibal later committed suicide in exile, rather than be captured by the Romans. At the very least, it is clear that Hannibal was an exceptional man and, although we must dismiss claims to divinity by his propagandists, we can also reject the baseless abuse he suffers at the hands of Livy and others. This leaves us with a man of almost unparalleled military genius and ambition who fought courageously against a finally insuperable enemy. Perhaps it is this heroic failure and peerless daring that attracts us to Hannibal – no one else has yet transported 37 elephants across the Alps. n 10 Minerva January/February 2013
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