The Fall of Carthage (55 page)
The End
After the battle Hannibal and his staff fled back to his main base at Hadrumentum. The Romans rounded up their prisoners and looted the Punic camp. Scipio received the encouraging news of a fresh convoy of supplies arriving near
castra Cornelia.
Laelius was sent once again to carry the news of victory to Rome. The defeat of their last army left Carthage with no choice but once again to seek peace. Scipio led his fleet in a demonstration of force right up to Carthage itself to place further pressure on it to submit. In military terms the Romans could pose little direct threat to such a well-fortified city. Even with his entire army the siege of Carthage would have been a massive undertaking of uncertain outcome. Scipio swiftly rejected the idea, even though it is claimed by Livy that several of his officers advocated the plan. Therefore despite his initial rebuff of a Punic peace embassy, the Roman commander was eager to settle. In particular he may have been once more concerned about keeping his command and retaining the glory which his victory had won. In fact one of the consuls of 201 did try to replace Scipio in the African command at this late hour, but after intervention by some of the tribunes of the plebs and further senatorial debate, he in fact replaced Nero in the naval command.
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castra Cornelia.
Laelius was sent once again to carry the news of victory to Rome. The defeat of their last army left Carthage with no choice but once again to seek peace. Scipio led his fleet in a demonstration of force right up to Carthage itself to place further pressure on it to submit. In military terms the Romans could pose little direct threat to such a well-fortified city. Even with his entire army the siege of Carthage would have been a massive undertaking of uncertain outcome. Scipio swiftly rejected the idea, even though it is claimed by Livy that several of his officers advocated the plan. Therefore despite his initial rebuff of a Punic peace embassy, the Roman commander was eager to settle. In particular he may have been once more concerned about keeping his command and retaining the glory which his victory had won. In fact one of the consuls of 201 did try to replace Scipio in the African command at this late hour, but after intervention by some of the tribunes of the plebs and further senatorial debate, he in fact replaced Nero in the naval command.
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The terms of the Treaty dictated by Scipio were harsh. All Roman prisoners and deserters were to be handed over without ransom. All war elephants were confiscated and the fleet was reduced to a mere ten triremes. Carthage kept most of its territory in Africa, but all its overseas possessions were lost. Even in Africa they were forced to acknowledge Masinissa in a substantially enlarged kingdom. An indemnity of 10,000 silver talents was to be paid in annual instalments over a fifty-year period, a constant reminder of their defeat. Another indication of their new status was the stipulation that they should not make war outside Africa and only there with Rome's permission. Although Carthage continued to be ruled internally by its own laws it was now clearly subordinate to Rome in all external affairs. Finally the Carthaginians were to provide food and supplies for Scipio's army for a three-month period and provide their pay until the treaty had been confirmed. As a reminder of what the Romans considered to be their recent treachery they were also to make reparations for loss of Roman property when the truce was broken and the convoy attacked. Hostages were selected from the noble families of the city to act as surety during the negotiations so that there would be no repeat of this incident.
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The message of the Treaty was clear, and perhaps reinforced if as Appian claims the Carthaginians were now to be styled 'Friends and Allies' of the Roman People, the same formula used for Rome's subordinate allies in Italy. For that was what they now clearly were, subordinate allies of a greater state to which they paid annual tribute and to whose authority they submitted in important matters of foreign policy. The overseas empire and the once proud fleet which had protected it were abolished. It is unsurprising that some of the Punic leaders wanted to refuse such a harsh peace. Hannibal, always a realist, physically dragged one senator down from the speaker's position when he embarked on a speech in this vein. He excused his behaviour by saying that after a thirty-six-year absence from Carthage he had forgotten the etiquette of its politics, but then urged the leaders forcibly not to reject a peace which in their position could have been far worse. In the end the Punic Senate accepted and delegations were sent to Rome to confirm the terms.
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It was early spring 201 before the Senate finally confirmed their earlier decision to accept whatever peace terms Scipio proposed. Immediately on the return of the envoys along with representatives of the Roman priesthood, the fetials, to oversee the important rituals involved, the provisions started to be put into operation. A great number of Punic warships, 500 according to some of Livy's sources, were rowed out of the city's great harbour and then burned. A grim fate awaited the deserters who had fought for the Carthaginians, the Romans being crucified and the Latins beheaded. Scipio returned to Rome to celebrate a spectacular triumph.
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CHAPTER 13
Rome, the Beginnings of Empire
The Reckoning
F
ROM THE BEGINNING
the Second Punic War was a far more serious struggle than the First, which began in Sicily and remained primarily a struggle for control of the island. Regulus' invasion pushed the Carthaginians close to capitulation, but resulted in defeat and was never repeated by the Romans. The conflict became one of endurance, decided eventually when the last Punic fleet was destroyed at the Aegates Islands. The resultant Peace Treaty left Carthage strong in Africa and still capable of expansion in Spain, but came to seem more harsh after the Roman seizure of Sardinia.
the Second Punic War was a far more serious struggle than the First, which began in Sicily and remained primarily a struggle for control of the island. Regulus' invasion pushed the Carthaginians close to capitulation, but resulted in defeat and was never repeated by the Romans. The conflict became one of endurance, decided eventually when the last Punic fleet was destroyed at the Aegates Islands. The resultant Peace Treaty left Carthage strong in Africa and still capable of expansion in Spain, but came to seem more harsh after the Roman seizure of Sardinia.
The Second Punic War was a much simpler struggle for dominance in which territory was only ever of secondary importance. The Carthaginian attempt to retake Sardinia was feeble, and the moves against Sicily did not begin until several years into the war. In each case the initiative came from leaders on these islands and not from Carthage. Land was taken from the enemy and allies persuaded to defect as a means of exerting pressure, not as an end in itself. The treaties guaranteeing the independence from Carthage of states like Capua and Tarentum make it clear that a permanent Punic province in southern Italy was not anticipated. The war was fought to force the other side to submit and accept a treaty greatly favouring the victor. In 218 both sides planned to strike at the enemy's heartland, the Romans in Africa and Spain, and Hannibal in Italy. Despite setbacks, distractions and disagreement amongst the rival leaderships, these aims remained until the end, Hasdrubal and Mago renewing the invasion of Italy, and Scipio ending the war in Africa. The war extended into other theatres as each side seized opportunities to mount additional attacks on the enemy and so apply more pressure, but these were always subordinate to the main effort.
The greater intensity of the Second Punic War is illustrated by the balance between the three main types of fighting, battles, sieges and raids. Massed battles were far more common, although naval encounters were few and small-scale, none rivalling the great fleet actions of the First War. There were about twelve pitched battles from 218 to 202, which is three times the number fought between 265 and 241; and perhaps two dozen other sizeable actions. The brief accounts of many encounters make it difficult to be certain of their scale, nature and sometimes even their outcome, forcing these figures to be a little rough. Just over half of the major battles were fought in Italy, the remainder in Spain and Africa. As in the First War, the terrain in Sicily did not favour formal pitched battles and this was also true of much of Spain, Illyria and Greece, but in addition to the concentration of massed clashes to certain regions, they also tended to occur in brief, highly intense periods of campaigning. Hannibal fought three major battles and several sizeable actions between 218 and 216 and far fewer in later years. Scipio Africanus fought a battle in Spain in 208, tried unsuccessfully to force one in 207, and completed his victory with a final encounter in 206. In Africa he repeated this pattern, fighting major actions in both 203 and 202. Battles were most likely to occur when one commander acted exceptionally aggressively, usually by penetrating deep into enemy territory, for instance in the initial invasions of Italy and Africa, or Scipio's deep forays into the Punic province in Spain. The Roman response in particular was to meet such threats in open battle and it was only after successive defeats that commanders like Fabius Maximus injected a degree of caution into Roman operations in Italy. Such a high degree of mutual consent was required to produce a massed battle that even such able commanders as Hannibal and Scipio were frequently incapable of forcing an unwilling enemy to fight. This makes Scipio's decision to attack such a formidable position as Hasdrubal's at Baecula as remarkable as its success.
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The Romans lost several smaller actions, but were only defeated in a pitched battle by Hannibal in Italy. The defeats of Publius and Cnaeus Scipio in 212 occurred in a series of scrambling fights produced by a markedly unfavourable strategic situation. Elsewhere Roman armies displayed a marked superiority in open battle against all the other Punic armies and commanders. There is no doubt that Hannibal's army in Italy was the best ever fielded by Carthage, due to a combination of his charismatic leadership and the long years of campaigning in Spain. Another advantage came from its exceptionally high cavalry to infantry ratio, which reached between 1:3 and 1:4 at its peak, more than double the average for both sides. Hannibal's continued successes over the Romans gave his army an advantage in morale which it never really lost to the very end of the Italian campaign. Other Punic armies had a similar mix of nationalities and troop types, but performed very poorly on the battlefield. Most other commanders were far less able leaders and tacticians than Hannibal, and did not have the opportunity to turn the disparate contingents under their command into a cohesive unit through a combination of long training and successful operations under familiar officers. Frequently a single element is presented in our sources as the only truly reliable and efficient part of an army, for instance the Libyans at Ilipa or the Celtiberians at the Great Plains. Even Hannibal failed to weld together the three armies in Africa for the Cannae campaign in the short time he had available.
The Roman militia system produced armies which were far more homogenous in terms of language, command structure, drill and organization. This made it far easier to integrate legions from different commands into the same force. Prolonged service steadily increased the effectiveness of a Roman army, but the process occurred far more readily than with a Punic force of mixed nationalities. The legions in the Second Punic War served for far longer than any Roman troops before this date, so that by the latter stages of the war many were as well-trained and confident as any professional soldiers. The tactical flexibility shown by the Romans at Metaurus, Ilipa and Zama was the tangible evidence of this. Both men and their officers were now capable of feats unimaginable in 218. Such armies were far superior to most Punic forces and could defeat significantly more numerous enemies, as Scipio was to demonstrate. As the war progressed, the disdain which the Romans had shown for all Carthaginian armies and commanders apart from Hannibal began to be based more and more on reality.
Despite the large number of battles and sizeable actions fought in the Second Punic War, they were still rare events in the experience of most soldiers, who far more often took part in raids or sieges. Raiding was not primarily intended to provide food for an army, although it could be combined with this activity. Its main objective was to inflict as much damage as possible on the enemy-held countryside, killing or capturing the population, destroying farms and villages, burning crops and stealing livestock. All of these activities took time and effort, whilst some, for instance the destruction of crops, could only be done for a brief season of the year in the weeks immediately before harvest. Damage tended to be confined to a small area and had little long-term effect, although it was doubtless appalling for those immediately affected. Yet if raids continued over a long period they could have serious consequences for a region. Losses amongst the rural workforce to capture, death or conscription, and prolonged damage to fields, crops and livestock reduced productivity and created a shortage of food which in turn weakened the population and encouraged disease, resulting in further declines in production. Some areas, especially Bruttium and the other parts of southern Italy where Hannibal and his army were confined for years, were repeatedly raided by both sides and must have suffered greatly. One of the major controversies of the Second Punic War, which we shall discuss in a later chapter, is its impact on the population and rural economy of Italy.
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The most immediate consequence of raiding was damage to the enemy's prestige for failing to defend his territory. The sight of burning farms left in the wake of Hannibal's march in 217 incited Flaminius to pursue him incautiously, eager to avenge this humiliating display of Roman weakness. Later in the same year Fabius Maximus became very unpopular because he refused to act and prevent such depredations. A state which proved unable to defend its allies against enemy depredations lost face and was likely also to lose its allies. This was especially true in areas such as Sicily and Spain where the communities showed understandably little strong commitment to either side. Hannibal's failure to protect many of his Italian allies from raiding was a major factor encouraging their inexorable drift back to Rome.
Walled cities were safe from raiding, and only the smallest were ever likely to fall to direct assault. For most of the peoples involved in the conflict, towns and cities provided their political centres, controlling wide areas of the surrounding land. Raiding could intimidate the population of a region, but only the occupation of their important strongholds allowed their permanent control. The Roman victory in Sicily came from the capture of the two main enemy strongholds at Syracuse and Agrigentum. Neither side was capable of ending the entire war by capturing the enemy's capital, which were too large and too well protected, although on several occasions both Rome and Carthage believed themselves to be under direct threat. The capture of fortified positions has always been extremely difficult, one of the main reasons for the prominence of sieges in the propaganda of 'Great Kings' from the Pharaohs onwards. Only when the professional Roman army combined engineering skill with a willingness to accept the casualties inevitable in an assault did the balance shift away from the defender. As we have seen, direct attacks on a large city were only successful when they combined surprise with treachery from inside or special knowledge of a weakness in the defences. Blockades took much longer and required a large force to remain in one place for months or years, increasing the problems of supply. The Romans' superiority in numbers and ability to feed their armies allowed them to mount the long and ultimately successful sieges at Capua and Syracuse.
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