Destroy Carthage (3 page)
Before those walls, Agathocles the Greek and his general
Eumarcus had recoiled; the mercenaries of Matho and Spendius
had stopped short. After Zama, there had been officers who
urged Scipio to reduce Carthage. Scipio's philosophy demanded
the dependence, not the destruction, of Rome's enemies, and
his African army had toiled enough. Had he been of another
mind, the ramparts must have prompted second thoughts.
A curious detail of the treaty of 201 was that Rome did not
insist on the indictment of Hannibal, her greatest enemy. It is
known that he supported the peace after Zama against those
in Carthage who talked of further resistance. It may be that
Scipio was moved by the freemasonry of generals. It was also
a fact that the Carthaginians were notorious for dealing harshly
with their failed commanders, and Rome may have left them
to their own judgement.
If so, she regretted it. Far from being traduced, Hannibal retained sufficient support in Carthage to discourage political
opponents from seeking his arraignment. Until 196, he lived
discreetly in retirement, then, disgusted by increasing corruption in government, returned to public life.
The immediate problems of the city on the morrow of defeat
were concerned with morale and the financial burdens of the
treaty. These were not helped by an administration of conniving nobles which, while raising taxes, arranged the exemption of its own members and embezzled the revenues.
Popular resentment, expressed in the election of Hannibal as
sufet, chief magistrate, led to swift reforms.
When the board of judges, a self-perpetuating clique of
aristocrats appointed for life, obstructed him, Hannibal won
enthusiastic backing for the annual review of its membership.
He went on to show that by eliminating tax avoidance and
other public scandals, the indemnity to Rome could be met
without the need for extra taxes. His support grew. Within a few years of his supposed vitiation, the general
Rome had feared more than any other man on earth was re-established as a force to be reckoned in a recuperative and increasingly democratic Carthage. Neither the Roman senate nor
the Carthaginian politicians discredited by Hannibal liked the
developments. Insidiously, a story was spread linking the
'warmonger' with the eastern emperor Antiochus of Syria in
a plot against the Latin state.
In 195, three Roman agents arrived in Carthage, ostensibly
on diplomatic business but in fact to deal with Hannibal. Suspecting that the purpose of the visit was his erasure, and that
powerful local interests might assist in it, the former general
fled secretly to Thapsus, on the gulf of Hammamet, where he
shipped for the Levant with a private fortune. To placate the
frustrated Romans, his political enemies destroyed his house
and property.
Syria, on the other hand, welcomed the exile as an honoured
friend. Whatever his earlier relationship with its ruler,
Hannibal had now been driven to the eastern camp. At
Antioch, he learned that the emperor was in the far west of
Asia Minor, at Ephesus, contemplating the shores of Greece.
The Seleucid dynast had extensive plans.
Three years before Zama, the accession of a child Pharoah
to the pristine throne of the Nile had prompted Antiochus to
make a compact with his fellow-imperialist, Philip V of Mace-
don, whereby they would divide the external dominions of
Egypt between their lands. Fearfully, the Egyptians had looked
to Rome for protection while, equally alarmed, a number of
smaller eastern realms pledged alliance with the western
power.
At peace with Carthage, the Romans switched their efforts
to the new zone, in 200 declaring war on Macedon. Macedonian
troops, they recalled, had fought for Hannibal at Zama.
Further, Roman prospects in the Balkans were threatened by
Philip V. The venture, a notable one in Rome's history, for it marked
a significant shift from concern with her own safety toward the
making of her greater empire, started slowly. Scipio was preoccupied with domestic tasks. It was not until 197, when a
young consul named Titus Flaminius took command, that fortune swung dramatically. Flaminius, deflecting the Greek
states from alliance with Macedon by offering himself as their
liberator from Philip's yoke, then smashed the Macedonians
at Cynoscephalae, in Thessaly.
Commencing in thick fog, and fought over hilly ground,
the battle proved a triumph for the tactical flexibility of the
Roman legions against the less adaptable phalanx traditional
to the Balkan states. Philip, his army decimated, was obliged
to surrender his fleet and abandon his Greek possessions.
In a masterly appearance at the Isthmian games, Corinth, the
victorious Flaminius now proclaimed the Greek nations independent, free not only from Macedon but of obligation to
Rome herself. The announcement, received with delight by the
Hellenes, shrewdly disposed of any leanings they might have
toward the Syrian empire, ensuring the continuance of a number of weak bodies rather than a powerful bloc.
Divide et
impera
was already a Roman theme.
Meanwhile, Antiochus, too busy enriching himself to assist
his co-conspirator, had seized Cyprus and several Egyptian
lands in Asia Minor. He also exploited Philip's predicament
to annex the Dardanelles and parts of Thrace. Well on his way
to recreating the old Seleucid empire, he had superseded
Carthage as Rome's outstanding enemy when Hannibal fled
east.
At Ephesus, the Carthaginian propounded his own strategy.
Rome could only be vanquished in Italy if large numbers of
her troops were tied up abroad. In Spain, the turbulent tribes
once encountered by Carthage were keeping a strong Roman
force occupied. If another were obliged to defend Greece
against Syrian invasion, a simultaneous seaborne attack on Italy
might succeed. Hannibal offered to lead a Syrian armada to
Italian shores.
It was a bold scheme; perhaps the last chance to dispute the
mastery of the world before Rome became unchallengeable.
But Antiochus, lacking Hannibal's western insight, temporized.
With much to lose, the Asian monarch preferred to move
cautiously. Rome took the initiative. In 193, a courier from
Hannibal was arrested in Carthage and the Romans, apprised
of the eastern debate, sent agents to Ephesus to investigate. By this time Scipio had resumed foreign duties and may have
accompanied the mission. Livy and Plutarch, recounting a
second interview between the generals, framed a well-known
anecdote. Scipio was supposed to have asked the Carthaginian
to name the greatest commanders in history, to which Hannibal
responded with Alexander, Pyrrhus and himself, in that order.
'Suppose you had beaten me ?' inquired Scipio ironically.
'Then I would have been the greatest of all,' replied Hannibal.
More convincing is the information that the attention accorded Hannibal by the Roman agents disturbed Antiochus, who
henceforward demoted the exile in his councils. War was now
inevitable. In 191, both Rome and Syria landed expeditions in
Greece, Antiochus apprehensively retaining the bulk of his
forces at Ephesus. The indecisive army he advanced was demolished by the Romans at Thermopylae.
Command of the Aegean became crucial. If the Romans
were not to move east onto his preserves, Antiochus needed
every ship he could master on that sea. Accordingly, Hannibal
returned to Tyre to fetch reinforcements, but they never joined
the king's fleet. Sailing north, they were worsted in the bay
of Adalia by the warships of Rome's ally, Rhodes. Hannibal
withdrew with the surviving craft of the beaten force. When
Antiochus's Aegean squadrons were defeated at Myonessus,
the water no longer protected him.
The invasion he feared came in 190, jointly led by Scipio
and his brother Lucius. Antiochus, falling back from Ephesus
to the river Hermus (Gediz Chai), stood to fight at Magnesia,
modern Minissa, his army computed at 74,000 warriors. The
Scipios led two Roman legions and proportionate allied contingents, perhaps 30,000 troops. Since Publius had taken ill and
could not leave his sick-bed, Lucius engaged the enemy. The
Romans affected disdain for them, a view with which Hannibal
now concurred.
According to Cicero, he described a military lecture at
Ephesus as the dissertation of an old fool. Asked his opinion
of Antiochus's army, Hannibal is said to have observed: 'It will be sufficient - however greedy the Romans may be.'
Certainly, Antiochus had displayed little confidence in withdrawing so far before a much smaller force, but Hannibal had
not despised the king's troops before Thermopylae, and Magnesia showed that they could yet be dangerous. For a time, the
Romans were in jeopardy. While their ranks drove at the
enemy's centre and left flank, Antiochus himself led his right
wing in an advance that compelled part of the Roman army
to withdraw to its battle camp. Only the steadfastness of a
courageous tribune circumvented disaster, allowing time for
reinforcements to come up.
Thwarted on the verge of success, Antiochus departed. His
army, leaderless and demoralized, soon followed. Theirs was a
long retreat, for the terms eventually agreed confined the
Syrians beyond the Taurus range, leaving Rome to exploit Asia
Minor.
The arrest of Hannibal again appeared imminent. Believing
that Antiochus might betray him to the Romans, the Carthaginian embarked for Crete. There, the treasure he still carried
disturbed his peace. Distrusting the motives of his hosts, who
knew of his private wealth, he turned back to Asia, seeking
refuge in the hilly north-western district of Bithynia, then
feuding with its neighbour and rival, Pergamum.
Apparently the Bithynians had Hannibal to thank for a form
of biological warfare they used against the ships of their
enemy. Pots were filled with snakes and hurled at the hostile
craft. As the missiles smashed, venomous reptiles swarmed
among the terrified sailors of Pergamum.
Ingenious ruses proliferate in the literature of Hannibal's
later years, adversity repeatedly foiled by an agile mind. Now
the fugitive immobilizes a suspicious flotilla by persuading its
captains to use their sails as weather shelters. Now he sets a
false trail for those who seek his treasure, topping clay-filled
jars with a skin of gold. Factual or apocryphal, the tales express the constant dangers of the exile's life.
