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Chapter 3: Marching to Rome in 211 and threats
after early victories
„acti‟ inquit „nihil est, nisi Poeno milite portas
frangimus et media uexillum pono Subura.’
67
Juvenal, Sat. 10.155-6
„Nothing has been achieved,‟ [Hannibal] cries, „until our Punic
soldiers have smashed the gates of Rome and our standard is set in the
Subura.‟
Author‟s translation.
Hannibal‟s crossing of the Alps was an impressive feat, but it was his appearance
outside the city of Rome in 211 that became emblematic for the notion of an „enemy at
the gates.‟ He was the last famous enemy general to invade Italy in the republican
period 194 and the event of 211 is the only recorded occasion during the entire war when
he came within sight of Rome. It offers, therefore, the only opportunity for an ancient
author to showcase Rome successfully repelling an attack by her great enemy, Hannibal.
The geography of peninsular Italy and Rome‟s location within it enables an author to
loosely describe an enemy marching towards Rome whether the army enters the
peninsula from the north 195 or south. Thus, to present Hannibal intending to march on
Rome from the time he left Spain, and especially after one of his major victories,
whatever his actual intentions, is not difficult.
The various presentations of Hannibal‟s march on Rome in 211 are discussed in the
first section of this chapter and the depictions of Hannibal intending to march on Rome
prior to 211, together with the explanations for why he did not appear outside the city
until 211, are discussed in the second section. The comparisons in the first section will
show that, apart from a general agreement on context in 211 and a general vagueness
over why Hannibal withdrew from his position outside the city, there are substantial
differences between the representations of both his march on Rome and the defence of
Rome in the face of his attack.
194
Boiorix, king of the Cimbri, may have been the last in 101BC (Plutarch, Marius, 25).
195
The topography favours armies invading from the north; hence Napoleon‟s quip about invading Italy
as if putting on a boot – entering from the top.