How good was Hannibal (Barca) really??
Dan Powers
Hi Everyone,
I recently presented some findings on Hannibal's impact on the Second Punic War. Needless to say, my interpretations and opinions, sparked a rather 'lively and engaged' discussion.
The premise of my finding id based on the basic question I started with:
Why was Hannibal running around Italy for almost a decade and unable to finish Rome off following Cannae?
My answer, so far, calls this suspicious - brings into question Hannibal's actual "genius". It seems that (my interpretation) Hannibal is greatly over-rated. *Here comes a discussion, hopefully. My method, was to track back Hannibal's recorded military track record, brings to light some surprising things.
In the interest of getting a long overdue discussion going, I leave it here for now.
Dan
Dan Powers
“It’s not a matter of being afraid or not, it’s about what you do when you ARE afraid”
George T
| Probably the same reason Attila the Hun didn't want it when he was knocking on the door (no it wasn't because he got bribed by the pope). There was more money, raping and pillaging to be had running around the country side (or mainland Europe in Attila's case) then taking Rome and having to spend years if not decades taking over the responsibility of looking after a MegaCity. Why don't pirates keep the cities they raid when all the inhabitants leave for the hills? What to do with Rome once he had it, that was
the conundrum. |
|
Justin
needed the enemy of Carthage on its feet to keep his own position
secure, just as Stilicho needed Alaric around to bolster his. Stilicho
could have finished Alaric off on more than one occasion, but let him
escape. His job, like Hannibal's, depended on employers who mistrusted
his power. How long would a successful Barca family have lasted when
the oligarchy of Carthage no longer had Rome to worry about?
> 27KViewDownload
Dan Powers
Intriguing idea about the economics, I definitely agree it was a strong
motivator if not directly THE initial cause for the outbreak of all the
Punic Wars. I wonder if it was just to get the money, or "moveable wealth"
without responsibility, wouldn't he specifically target the treasuries to
raid in Rome? And if it was the money, why not just secure Spain, and the
mines getting precious metal?
Justin
I like the political possibilities as part of the explanation. Lately it
seems I have reverted to using military measurement as indicators of
political means and ends. I think that taken in 'total context' if such a
thing is possible - more often the military events are indicators of varying
levels of political control and even perhaps of 'a lack of military control'
by pretty much everyone. With a few exceptions, most military events, are
the direct product of attempts to gain or regain control of geography - or
in some cases indicators of competing economics. At times it seems to be
about religion, but without digressing too much, I think religion was and is
used as the justification of competition that is really about resources, so
often what looks like religious war is often political control or economic/
natural resources truly.
Thought provoking ideas to consider. It is always good to get input you (I
in this case) had not really thought of connecting before...
Dan Powers
dar...@gmail.com
“It’s not a matter of being afraid or not, it’s about what you do when you
ARE afraid”
--
Justin
Rome immediately after Cannae? He had just wiped out virtually all
available Roman military manpower in Italy. He had an army large
enough and trained enough to lay siege to and even storm Rome, and the
city, reeling from the shock of defeat, would likely as not have
surrendered in his arrival anyway. It is clear to me that Hannibal did
not want to take Rome. Question then is, why?
Looking at the track record of Carthage's treatment of its prominent
defenders along with Hannibal's subsequent behaviour after his defeat
at Zama (he would not even go to Carthage) gives a good indication of
the answer.
My two cents' worth.
ga...@berkeley.edu
Friends, I have to be brief.
> It seems to me the big question here is: why didn't Hannibal march on
> Rome immediately after Cannae? He had just wiped out virtually all
> available Roman military manpower ...
We discussed this at the conf. Several reasons:
1. he was lousy at siege warfare. Look at Saguntum (9 months) and
Spoleto - a town that drove him off in 218/17. He ahd no hope of taking
Rome by siege.
2. His goal was not to sack Rome but to break the alliance of Italian
cities. This was his next goal.
3. What would be do with it (See George's comment)
4. at conf others added ideas I now forget.
>..... It is clear to me that Hannibal did
> not want to take Rome. Question then is, why?
He knew he could not, so he planned to win the war differently than
capturing Rome as a city.
Dan asked:
>> raid in Rome? And if it was the money, why not just secure Spain, and
>> the mines getting precious metal?
In 216 he had unrestricted access to Spain's wealth. He was not
worried at all about the Scipio brothers since Hasdrubal had an army.
>> > Why was Hannibal running around Italy for almost a decade and unable
>> to finish Rome off following Cannae?
1. Romans would not engage him again after Cannae, using Fabian strategy
until Marcellus did not lose the battle of Nola 2 or 3 years later. By
then Romans had rebuilt their army.
2. Between 216 and 211 H's army shrank from attirition and garrisioning
cities while R forces grew. At a certain point he was too weak to take on
the Romans in an offensive battle and only fought defensively to drov
ethem off. Nor did he have a simple escape route.
3. Roman generals from 215-207 were much better than in 218-216.
gaius
Justin
defenders, and Hannibal took it anyway. Is 8 months long for a siege
in Antiquity?
I came across this passage from 'Hannibal's war: a military history of
the Second Punic War' by John Lazenby:
' ...a march from Lake Trasimene to the Adriatic via Spoletium is well
night impossible to reconcile with Polybius' statement that Hannibal
reached the sea on the tenth day, and Livy's account should probably
be rejected: possibly some Carthaginian raiders had ranged as far as
Spoletium and were beaten off, and Roman tradition magnified the
incident to suggest that Hannibal had been marching on Rome, and had
only been deterred by the valiant resistance of this one town. But
even if the story were true, it would not necessarily mean that
Hannibal intended to march on Rome, for Spoletium was a Latin colony,
and he may have wished to do not more than test the reactions of a
Latin state to his repeated release of Latin prisoners, some of whom
may well have come from Spoletium. Thus it would not have been so much
that he could not take the place that deterred him, as that it
resisted at all.' - p66.
Dan Powers
occurs in the opening round in Spain. It is also one of the few examples of
Hannibal actually taking a city by force.
Now I understand the logic behind, possibility of Hannibal "choosing to NOT"
take cities and prefer the looting aspect. But where Hannibal is wandering
around Italy after Cannae (216) it is unclear whether Hannibal "can" leave.
Reinforcements are reported by Livy being sent to Hannibal in Italy from
Carthage, but whether those reinforcements arrive or not the ancient sources
are unclear.
Of suspicious nature, is the fact that Hannibal does not, and probably
cannot, deliver the decisive blow to Rome to wipe it out. The real fighting
after Cannae occurs in Spain (not Italy) and the final battle is at Zama
back in North Africa [c. 203 Carthage recalls Hannibal - see: Appian, Livy,
Polyb.; Toynbee, Scullard] (again not in Italy) - but at this point 3 of 4
major armies had been utterly destroyed in Spain at the hands of Scipio the
Younger (Africanus). That last surviving army was Hannibal's which has to
scurry out of Italy (killing soldiers it could not transport to North
Africa) to deal with Scipio's invasion. Obviously it fails.
Another 'suspicious' point, is that only "SOME" of the Greek cities which
had been allied with Rome go over to Hannibal's side. Some do resist, to
their own detriment. Again, that he only gets some (rather limited) local
support is a point of suspicious behavior to me. It indicates that his
ability to coerce was much less than is presented by Roman sources which
would all have you believe he was another Alexander, which he was not.
Either way, as we cannot say one way or another what exactly Hannibal
envisioned, Hannibal had the initiative and was within grasp of winning the
entire war by 215. But he did not. In fact the war would go on, for over a
decade longer. And this combination of things, leads me to question "just
how much military prowess did Hannibal in fact possess at any point?"
But that is just me, and my opinion/ interpretation. It is interesting for
me to ask such questions, even if they sometimes lean to the provocative
side.
Dan Powers
dar...@gmail.com
“It’s not a matter of being afraid or not, it’s about what you do when you
ARE afraid”
-----Original Message-----
From: arkaion...@googlegroups.com
[mailto:arkaion...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Justin
Sent: Wednesday, April 20, 2011 4:51 AM
To: Arkaion Bellum (Ancient Battle and Warfare)
Subject: Re: How good was Hannibal (Barca) really??
--
ga...@berkeley.edu
I enjoyed Justin's comment about Spoleto as a mere raid, not a full scale
attack that has been exaggerated.
see below -
>
> Of suspicious nature, is the fact that Hannibal does not, and probably
> cannot, deliver the decisive blow to Rome to wipe it out. The real
> fighting after Cannae occurs in Spain (not Italy)
.. Read Livy 23-30 and you will see plenty of fighting in Italy.
Marcellus and Sempronius Gracchus engage Hannibal several times a year
until Gracchus is killed and later Marcellus also. Other commanders
tend to focus on sieges but those two fight H.
> Another 'suspicious' point, is that only "SOME" of the Greek cities which
> had been allied with Rome go over to Hannibal's side. Some do resist, to
> their own detriment. Again, that he only gets some (limited) local
> support is a point of suspicious behavior to me. It indicates that his
> ability to coerce was much less than is presented by Roman sources which
> would all have you believe he was another Alexander, which he was not.
>
Andrew should weigh in on this. But I suppose Greek-Punic warfare
in Sicily 500-300 BC might explain why some Greek cities refuse to
join Hannibal. Carthage is a stern task master and they know it.
Hannibal has better success with Bruttians and Apulians and
Lucanians than with Greeks. Perhaps those peoples only knew Roman
imperialism and hoped they would get better from Carth.
gaius
Chris Stratton
Dan Powers
Hi Chris, welcome to the group.
Yes posting by email does work correctly. I might be able to offer part of an answer, and there are others who can complete that answer. (I have not read that book yet, it is somewhere on my list to 'to read' but not there yet.)
Let me frame this by offering a general note on warfare itself. War is a constant progression and often intentionally in continual develop by all those who practice and participate in this. So What we often get in a later period (later part of any period) in Classical World, are X with adaptations and modifications, without exception.
If a particular war lasts longer than 4 or 5 years, there are usually traceable developments within that specific conflict. Some good and some bad, and the good ones usually stay.
Let me frame the question of the Punic Wars 1 & 2
The First Punic War starts in 265 and runs to 241. There is considerable development within that conflict on both sides. The Carthaginian citizens who were not rowing or otherwise involved in the shipping/naval aspects are reported as being a phalanx (or at least phalanx like) body of troops. The caution is that 1) Any phalanx of this period of the 3rd Century, is highly adapted from the Classical Phalanx of the 5th Century. Most likely it is adapted both in kit and tactics to reflect those changes, and also to adapt for the environment they exist in North Africa. As far as Xanthippos, depending on how you personally read the sources, no one says that he (X.) "trained" them in Carthage. Diodorus, Appian, Polybius, Livy (only a fragment) just says X. shows up and leads them to defeat MA Regulus. Essentially they all say that Xanthippos "drills" them or "practices" them. Some might interpret that as "training" but I tend to think there was not nearly enough time to completely train that size of a force. But that is my own interpretation of the sources.
But understand the time frame from 241-218 of twenty some years, very few of those with any experience from FPW will by young enough to still be fighting for Hannibal, I am sure there are some. But if they were 25 years old in 241 (at the cusp of young and barely knowing how to fight)- by 418, this makes those men age 48, Far past the prime of fighting ability. Experienced for sure, but you don't want whole scale units made up only of these guys going into a major battle. That makes them 50 by the time Hannibal gets to Italy. Possible but I would suggest major problems trying line these men up as being any elite unite that late. AN elite unit may well have some of them, but I doubt they made up the primary core for any unit at all by the Second Punic War. And there are others here who can definitively say more about the SPW. My assessment is that the tactics and equipment have changed (or been modified drastically) since FPW to account for tactical wrinkles and engagements.
I am not sure if that answers anything or just creates more questions. But we have some great people on the list, who can shed much more light on this.
Dan Powers
“It’s not a matter of being afraid or not, it’s about what you do when you ARE afraid”
From: arkaion...@googlegroups.com
[mailto:arkaion...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Chris Stratton
Sent: Friday, April 22, 2011 6:20 AM
To: arkaion...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: How good was Hannibal (Barca) really??
I am not sure if If responding thru email works with google groups. But I'll give it a try. I joined this group because Jan, founder of ancientopedia, recommended it to me. Yes I believe both Livy and Polybius mention fighter after Cannae. I would highly, highly recommend a new book published last year called "The Ghosts of Cannae" by Robert O'connell. The chapter "Aftershock" discusses the battles in Italy and Sicily in as much detail as the primary sources allow. Also, I want to ask a question about the "Liby-Phoenician Phalanx". I am a member of the Extended Realism Mod for Rome Total War (found on twcenter.net) and the team leader and I have been debating what this unit actually was. I originally proposed they were classical hoplites, because Xannthipus trained the Carthaginian citizens in the first Punic war in a phalanx, (though this word is used rather loosely by Livy and Polybius). I am now leaning more toward a kind of Iphekrataean type spearmen, armed with Gladii and Principe styled mail armor, both because of the equipment available in Spain and in Italy. The LPs (Liby-Phoenicians) followed the Barcids to Spain, so I think it is fairly accurate to consider them an elite corp, since it was continued by Hannibal upon Hamilcar's death.
Chris Stratton
Dan Powers
Thanks for the response. It does sort of add more questions unfortunately. By maintain the corp I was more or less thinking the sons of Hamilcar's troops and recruits from just about anywhere else. If Xannthipus did not train them per se, I would have to conclude that they already had some decently well trained Carthaginian citizens to start with.
Which the ancient sources, especially Polybios and Diodorus, both relate that Xanthippos observes and comments that the troops are not the problem - the real problem is the generals. Implying a high level of competence on the part of the Carthaginian Phalanx. It is also a damning assessment of the Carthaginian land generals (commanders) available in Carthage. The main force of course is still tied up on Sicily with other Romans.
As for Hannibal, I am under the impression that he did not have the resources to take Rome because he waited too long after Cannae and that his primary objective was to break Rome's alliances in southern Italy. Hannibal must have been an incredible figure to keep a force of mercenaries from all over the Mediterranean loyal to him personally.
He had the money. Carthage did control the mines and precious metals in Spain.
The idea of an invasion through the alps does seem militarily stupid however. It was a novelty. As were the elephants.
But nonetheless I cannot diminish any of his merit. I would go as far as to say that Alexander was not as great as Hannibal.
I will agree to disagree with you here. I don't see them as even comparable. Not in ability or accomplishments. But we are entitled to our own opinion.
Hannibal was caught in an extremely less flexible situation with far fewer available resources with an army that was not quite as impressive as the Macedonian one created by Phillip. Hannibal also faced political pressures and multiple interests of his troops that Alexander had never faced.
I could write a medium size book arguing the difficulty of your position. But if you read the sources, making such a comparison is like comparing a galley warship of 1750 to a nuclear aircraft carrier. Totally different circumstances. I will point out that in Aristotles "politics" the Carthaginian Constitution is much closer to a moderate democracy (like Rome) than a Monarchy.
Chris Stratton
Patrick Waterson
|
Hannibal the Strategist If we are to evaluate Hannibal
overall, it might help to look at his strategic, operational and
tactical performance separately and then reassemble the results for
an overall evaluation.
Plutarch (Life of Fabius, 17.1) records that one of his officers ('Barca the Carthaginian') advocated an immediate march on Rome and, when Hannibal declined, said that he knew how to win a victory but not how to use one. Livy compares the defeat with the Allia (XXII.50.1-3) and notes (XXII.51.4) that “It is generally believed that that day's delay was the salvation of the city and the empire [mora eius die satis creditur saluti fuisse urbi atque imperio]”. Indeed, reports Livy (XXII.53), “A number of men of patrician blood, led by Lucius Caecilius Metellus, were turning their eyes to the sea and planning to abandon Italy and find refuge with some foreign prince.” Scipio scotched that plan with drawn sword, but it is indicative of the fragile state of Roman morale just after Cannae, and the verdict of history is that Hannibal missed a great opportunity. If we assume he had marched directly off the field of Cannae onto the road to Rome, how would he have fared in reality? He had no siege train, and his new allies may or may not have been able to provide him with one. However, one does not need a siege train for a siege, as the Romans subsequently demonstrated at Capua: starving the defender out is quite sufficient. Just blockading the gates with a chain of fortifications would have sufficed even if the Romans recovered their courage on his arrival rather than being thrown into further panic. With Rome besieged, it is likely that more allies would have dropped away from the Roman cause. It is hard to see how Rome, unable to obtain food or allied troops, would have been able to muster further armies, and easy to see that the city would soon be reduced to seeking terms. This brings up the question of how Hannibal hoped or expected to end the war: would it be with a Roman humiliation, or a sack of Rome? From his absence of preparations for the latter, one is inclined to consider the former. Hence, after Cannae, one might judge his objective to be to reduce the Romans to terms, but his indirect approach – suborning allies and taking strongholds – merely gave the Romans a chance to recover, and his one chance of ending the war slipped from his grasp. There are two more elements of his strategy to consider: Spain and Hasdrubal's attempt to join him. Hannibal had left the defence of Spain in the hands of his brother Hasdrubal with a further 'observation force' of 10,000 infantry and 1,000 cavalry under Hanno. Once Scipio had given Hannibal the slip (or vice versa) in Gaul, Hanno was in a very dangerous position, but Hannibal does not seem to have thought it necessary to warn him or adjust his orders. Hanno himself unwisely engaged and lost most of his force. This left Spain vulnerable to the Roman army, a problem that was not solved until 211 BC (and then only temporarily), and which in the meantime absorbed resources that could have been used to support Hannibal. Was this a strategic error of judgement on Hannibal's part, first declining to engage Scipio and then failing to adjust the orders of the contingents in Spain when he knew or could surmise that Scipio was on the way there? Ultimately, the war was won and lost in Spain, giving Scipio the chance to cross to Africa. For the 215 BC campaign season, Hannibal sought substantial reinforcements from Carthage, pointing out that the Romans, although heavily defeated in battle, were still formidable foes. Carthage allocated substantial forces and directed Hasdrubal Barca to move to join Hannibal in Italy. Hasdrubal could do this only by eliminating the Roman army in Spain, which he duly attempted at Dertosa (Ibera), but failed when his Spanish troops took French leave part-way through the battle. This unfortunate result - which cannot be laid at Hannibal's door, but rather at that of the Carthaginian senate - was not the only dislocation of the 215 BC campaign, as significant forces earmarked to reinforce Hannibal were diverted – unsuccessfully – to Sardinia. It was not until 207 BC that Hasdrubal, following another defeat by another Scipio, managed to bring an army into Italy. The arrival of Hasdrubal's army
represented both Hannibal's ultimate hope and Rome's ultimate fear.
However, Hannibal seems not to have appreciated that the Romans could
concentrate on Hasdrubal, and that the result might not be a
Carthaginian success. The correct strategic procedure would have been for Hannibal
to march up Italy to meet Hasdrubal, and for the united armies to
overcome all that faced them. Hannibal presumably felt that for
various reasons this would not be possible, primarily on account of
the difficulties of logistics and communication entailed: at least, he did not stir from his camp and move to meet Hasdrubal. The fact
that the Romans captured his brother's messengers certainly did not
help, but on the assumption that he knew Hasdrubal would be on the
way, a little more effort to get into the right place to link up
would have been advisable. Hasdrubal had “informed his brother
that he would meet him in Umbria” (Livy XXVI.43), which suggests
some prior knowledge and perhaps planning on both sides, because
Hasdrubal would hardly be in a position to give orders to Hannibal,
his elder brother and senior general. Hannibal seems to have failed rather badly here. So Hannibal appears as a somewhat shaky strategist, strong on plans but often indifferent in the conduct of campaigns and weak on objectives. I shall look at his operational and tactical showing in future posts (in part to keep postings to a manageable length). In essence, he scores brilliantly operationally and fairly well tactically, but with a curious inability to control his army in battle. Patrick
|
ga...@berkeley.edu
As always, I enjoy Patrick's contribution. I add a few trivial bits
without disputing Patrick at all.
> records that one of his officers ('Barca the Carthaginian') advocated
> an immediate march on Rome and, when Hannibal declined, said that he
> knew how to win a victory but not how to use one.
Sources usually say it was Maharbal the cavalry captain who said this.
Livy compares the
> defeat with the Allia (XXII.50.1-3) and notes (XXII.51.4) that “It
> is generally believed that that day's delay was the salvation of the
> city and the empire [mora eius die satis creditur saluti fuisse
> urbi atque imperio]”. Indeed, reports Livy (XXII.53), “A
> number of men of patrician blood, led by Lucius Caecilius Metellus,
> were turning their eyes to the sea and planning to abandon Italy and
> find refuge with some foreign prince.”
This is so bizarre of Livy. The Caecilii Metelli are plebeians. In the
later Republic they put out about 15 consuls.
> Scipio scotched that plan
> with drawn sword, but it is indicative of the fragile state of Roman
> morale just after Cannae, and the verdict of history is that Hannibal
> missed a great opportunity. However, one does
> not need a siege train for a siege, as the Romans subsequently
> demonstrated at Capua: starving the defender out is quite sufficient.
> Just blockading the gates with a chain of fortifications would have
> sufficed even if the Romans recovered their courage on his arrival
> rather than being thrown into further panic. With Rome besieged, it
Most critical scholars think Scipio (Africanus) was not at Cannae at
all. This is a made up story like Washington and the cherry tree.
Again, very odd of Livy to mention it, but he also reported the
Regulus legend ...
Also, Hannibal lacked siege equipment, so a siege would be hard if
Romans did not panic and surrender at once. Could he starve them out?
Maybe.
> Was this a strategic error of judgement on
> Hannibal's part, first declining to engage Scipio and then failing to
> adjust the orders of the contingents in Spain when he knew or could
> surmise that Scipio was on the way there? Ultimately, the war was
> won and lost in Spain, giving Scipio the chance to cross to Africa.
> For the 215 BC campaign season,
(This was the gist of Dan's paper.)
> Hannibal sought substantial reinforcements from Carthage, pointing
> out that the Romans, although heavily defeated in battle, were still
... The correct strategic procedure would have been for Hannibal
> to march up Italy to meet Hasdrubal, and for the united armies to
> overcome all that faced them. Hannibal presumably felt that for
> various reasons this would not be possible,
Communication between the two was cut pretty early in the campaign.
...
> In essence, he scores
> brilliantly operationally and fairly well tactically, but with a curious
> inability to control his army in battle.
I think I read somewhere his army had 12 languages in it.
Maybe that tells us something.
gaius
Justin
stands out is the fact that after Trasimere he did not head for Rome
but rather for southern Italy, on the Adriatic coast. It is a general
assumption that Hannibal, in marching to Italy, was making a lunge for
the jugular before Roman forces had time to consolidate their position
in Spain (hence leaving Scipio's army in mid-air which he had no way
of knowing for sure could be beaten by his brother) . Everyone knew
that the jugular was Rome herself, a city state ruled by a city state
constitution, the nerve centre of a network of alliances that was held
together by the prestige of the Urbs. Hannibal was aware of this, for
Carthage was organised in exactly the same way, so why didn't he take
Rome and end the war?
He knew all about siege warfare, and my (admitted not expert) opinion
is that he was quite good at it. He would have known that Rome could
be taken, unlike Syracuse that was in a strong defensive position and
was able to resist a siege by Rome for two years, falling only when
one of its citizens showed the Romans a secret way in. His men knew
that Rome was the natural next target after Cannae, and one of them
concluded that he was a fool for not immediately marching on it. The
whole thing really is very strange.
If we assume Hannibal did not want to take Rome, the obvious
conclusion is that he did not want to destroy the Roman Republic. What
then could he hope to gain by keeping Rome alive? Carthaginian foreign
policy had no problem with subjugating foreign peoples like the
Spanish and Gauls; would it be uneasy with taking control of a more
civilised power? Or did Hannibal have personal reasons? I suggested
one in an earlier post: can anyone comment?
On May 3, 1:30 pm, Patrick Waterson <patrick_water...@yahoo.co.uk>
wrote:
Patrician
intentions regarding Rome are curiously vague. Following Cannae, Livy
describes him as moving on Naples, being deterred by its walls,
marching instead on Capua, negotiating its defection, and meanwhile
sending Mago to "take over the Bruttian communities and others which
were throwing off their allegiance to Rome" (Livy XXIII.11) en route
to Carthage to apply for more men, money and munitions. It does look
as if Hannibal still envisaged a long war rather than the 'quick kill'
advocated by Maharbal (or Plutarch's 'Barcas') and involving a march
on Rome.
The question is: why? Was it because he felt that a rapid victory
would put him out of employment? Judging by the amount of support
granted by the Carthaginian senate pursuant to Mago's visit (Livy
XXIII.13), Hannibal was then at the height of his popularity and there
would have been no objection to making him governor of Italy, as his
father had been of Spain. His hatred of Rome, acquired from his
father, would have been slaked by its capture. In my judgement,
Hannibal would have had no reason to fear loss of status or employment
if he had conquered Rome. The Carthaginian record of taking over
Greek cities in Sicily prior to the First Punic War indicates they had
no qualms about conquering 'civilised' powers.
My own opinion - and this is opinion - is that Hannibal did not feel
up to the task. He was deterred by the walls of Naples (Livy XXIII.
1). When Mago was asked by Carthaginian senator Hanno "What is the
morale, and what the hopes, of those thousands of men still ranged
against us?" Mago "said he had no idea." (Livy XXIII.12-13).
Hannibal's own prioritising of suborning Italian cities rather than
moving on Rome points to his policy of collecting a power base, or at
least of ensuring sufficient resources, before taking his next step.
Did he even then fear he had grabbed a tiger by the tail and needed
more power before attempting to address the other end? Had two years
in Italy impressed him, as it did Polybius, with the vast resources of
Rome?
If so, his response seems to have been along the lines of Adolf
Hitler's strategy in the USSR in 1942: subtract resources from the
enemy and add them to one's own. Like Hitler's strategy in 1942,
Hannibal's in late 216 BC failed: resources were indeed conquered, but
at the cost of compromising one's own forces and allowing those of the
enemy to recover. This 'indirect approach' is always a 'poor man's
war' and only really works if one can induce the enemy to commit his
forces to a losing battle in defence of his resources. Such may
indeed have been Hannibal's hope for finishing the war: if so, it was
set at naught by the unexpected Roman strategy of avoiding battle but
reclaiming lost cities by the slow pressure of siege.
Hence, what Hannibal won by his operational genius - considered in the
next post - he lost through timorous and fitful strategic vision. One
can be tempted to see policy in his actions, sparing Rome to act as a
target (as some Romans advocated with respect to Carthage at the time
of the Third Punic War) and as a 'hate object' for the dissent leading
to defection among southern Italian cities, but if Rome were taken
these cities would anyway have no Roman alliance, and the overriding
impression one gains from the classical authors is that even after
Cannae Hannibal did not feel he could achieve the capture of Rome.
Patrick
Patrician
Here we see Hannibal at his very best, for as a march organiser he
excelled, and as a battle planner he was without equal.
“To enumerate his battles would occupy too much time; and this one
observation, accordingly, (from which it will be understood how great
a general he was), will be sufficient, that, as long as he continued
in Italy, none made a stand against him in a regular engagement, none,
after the battle of Cannae, pitched a camp against him in the field.”
- Nepos, Lives of Eminent Commanders, Hannibal, 5.
Hannibal made his mark through his operational record. In the early
part of his Second Punic War career, everything he does amazes his
opponents: he crosses the Alps, a remarkable feat in itself (at least
when done the first time), he defeats a Roman army at the Trebia, and
defeats it in a way that nobody has defeated a Roman army for a long
time. Then he not just defeats but effectively wipes out another
Roman army at Trasimene, and this defeat sends shockwaves throughout
Italy. The Romans, unprecedently, avoid battle on the advice of their
dictator, and when Fabius tries to lay a trap for Hannibal while the
latter is plundering around Falernum, Hannibal neatly wrong-foots him,
extricates his army and shatters Fabius' detachment on the exit route
(Polybius III.93-94).
The following year, Hannibal surprises not only the Romans but the
whole Mediterranean world with his victory at Cannae. This is a
stupendous achievement by any standard, the annihilation of two double
Roman consular armies. Nobody achieved this before, and nobody would
achieve it again (until the Cimbri and Teutones at Arausio, but they
were barbarians in vast numbers, so did not really count ;-) ).
Cannae is considered Hannibal's magnum opus and the foundation of his
claim to greatness. Although he did not use the opportunity to move
immediately on Rome, his victory did bring in Philip of Macedon, who
but for an unfortunate nocturnal panic in his fleet might have landed
an army in Italy in 216 BC, which would have had some very interesting
consequences (Polybius V.109-110).
Following Cannae, the Romans reverted to a system of avoiding open
battle with Hannibal, and the war became an affair of raids, sieges
and partial engagements, in which Hannibal did not particularly
excel. He acquired several places, including Tarentum, by treachery,
but it was not until 212 BC that the Romans again began (Nepos
notwithstanding) to face him in open battle.
The year 212 BC saw reverses for the Roman in Italy on the scale of
the Trebia and Trasimene. First, a certain Marcus Centennius Paecula,
who had won fame as a centurion, somehow convinced the Roman senate to
give him charge of 8,000 men to conduct forays against Hannibal. By
the time he arrived in Lucania, volunteers had swollen his force to
16,000. He promptly offered battle to Hannibal and was as promptly
wiped out (Livy XXV.19). Then the praetor Gnaeus Fulvius, plundering
the fringes of Apulia with his legions, ran into Hannibal at
Herdonea. Hannibal set Mago with 2,000 cavalry to cover the escape
routes and planted a 3,000-strong ambush force to strike at the crisis
of the battle. Livy relates that Roman discipline in this battle was
so poor that Hannibal broke the Roman line at first contact, and of
18,000 Roman and allied troops only 2,000 escaped (Livy XXV.21). “The
news of these successive disasters was received in Rome with very
great distress and alarm,” narrates the Roman historian, but the
consuls and their armies were substantially intact, and soon returned
to the siege of Capua, which Hannibal was unable to break.
In 210 BC, another Gnaeus Fulvius, this one a proconsul, lost another
army at Herdonea when Hannibal sent his cavalry to outflank the Romans
and strike at their camp as well as the rear of their infantry (Livy
XXVII.1).
Both Polybius and Nepos represent Hannibal as undefeated prior to
Zama, and Livy's descriptions of numerous reverses inflicted on
Hannibal in Italy may be inspired by a number of accounts by patriots
of the Fabius Pictor type who wrote with more pro-Roman enthusiasm
than accuracy. It seems safe to conclude that Hannibal never suffered
a major battlefield defeat until Zama.
What stands out in the accounts of Hannibal's early successes (and, in
Nepos, some of his later ones) is the care he took over preparation
and detail. This, together with a knowledge of psychology that
enabled him to craft and bait traps for opposing commanders, can be
considered his trademark, and if the basis of Hannibal's fame were to
be encapsulated in one word, that word would be 'stratagem'.
At the Trebia, he lures the Romans out of their camp, across a frozen
river, into a fight with his fresh army and an ambush at their backs.
At Trasimene, he lures a pursuing Flaminius into a hopeless position
and an ambush. At Cannae, with a smaller army, he performs a
battlefield envelopment that was still regarded as the model battle of
annihilation against a civilised power at the beginning of the
twentieth century. All these actions are described in some detail by
Polybius (Book III) and all show Hannibal's penchant for setting up a
battle so that the outcome would be determined before the first
javelin was thrown.
One sees a similar attention to planning and detail, and understanding
of the psychology of his opponents, in his later life, where he is
commanding the fleet of King Prusias of Bithynia.
“Hannibal was inferior in number of vessels, and had to use art in the
contest, as he was no match for his enemy in force. He accordingly
ordered as many poisonous serpents as possible to be brought together
alive, and to be put into earthen vessels, of which when he bad
collected a large number, he called the officers of his ships
together, on the day on which he was going to fight at sea, and
directed them all to make an attack upon the single ship of King
Eumenes, and to be content with simply defending themselves against
others, as they might easily do with the aid of the vast number of
serpents; adding that he would take care they should know in what ship
Eumenes sailed, and promising that, if they took or killed him, it
should be of great advantage to them.
After this exhortation was given to the soldiers, the fleets were
brought out for action by both parties. When the line of each was
formed, and before the signal was given for battle, Hannibal, in order
to show his men where Eumenes was, despatched to him a letter-carrier
in a boat with a herald's staff; who, when he reached the enemy's line
of vessels, held out a letter, and signified that he was looking for
the king; he was therefore immediately taken to Eumenes, because
nobody doubted that there was something written in the letter relating
to peace. The messenger, having thus made the king's ship known to his
party, returned to the same place from which he had come. Eumenes, on
opening the letter, found nothing in it but what was meant to ridicule
him; and though he wondered as to the motive of it, and none could be
discovered, yet he did not hesitate to come at once to battle. In the
conflict, the Bithynians, according to the direction of Hannibal, fell
all at once upon the ship of Eumenes. That prince, as he was unable to
withstand their onset, sought safety in flight, but would not have
found it, had he not taken refuge behind his guards, which had been
posted on the neighbouring shore. As the rest of the Pergamenian ships
bore hard upon the enemy, the earthen pots, of which we have
previously spoken, began suddenly to be hurled into them. These, when
thrown, at first excited laughter among the combatants, nor could it
be conceived why such a thing was done; but when they saw their ships
filled with serpents, and, startled at the strangeness of the
occurrence, knew not what to avoid first, they put about their ships,
and retreated to their camp upon the coast. Thus Hannibal, by his
stratagem, prevailed over the force of the Pergamenians. Nor was this
the only occasion; but often, at other times, he defeated the enemy
with his troops on land, and with equally skilful management.” -
Nepos, Hannibal, 10-11.
Even this late in life, Hannibal could surprise his foes with
carefully-planned stratagems that were as novel as they were
effective. The psychological shock of snakes and scorpions arriving
on deck – a contingency he knew his opponents would not be trained to
handle – combined with disabling Pergamene command by concentrating on
Eumenes' flagship was sufficient for the inferior Bithynian forces to
score a remarkable success.
Hannibal's claim to fame thus rests solidly upon the twin abutments of
his talent for operational planning and skill at exploiting his
opponents' psychology. Combining the two gave him a mastery of
stratagem that has seldom been equalled and never been surpassed.
In the final post of this series (as and when yours truly gets round
to it) we shall examine Hannibal as a tactical commander, and his
skills and limitations in handling an army in action on the
battlefield.
Patrick
Justin
erudite on the subject:
a) Just how strong were Rome's fortifications compared to Naples' and
Saguntum's, and
b) How exactly could a consular army manage to beat off Hannibal
whilst simultaneously laying siege to a city/town? By use of the
double fortification trick of Caesar at Alesia? I find this last
particularly strange: what is it about a siege that rendered a Roman
army that would otherwise lose every time unbeatable?
On May 11, 12:11 pm, Patrician <patrick.water...@mypostoffice.co.uk>
wrote:
George T
I agree along the lines of Patrick.
I read a book over the weekend about the collapses of the worlds great empires. In the section about Carthage they first speak of Hannibal and in say his hesitation while in Italy about not going straight after Rome as the fact that he was after a power base first and wanted all the surrounding cities first to fall to him. I believe along the lines that if a siege on Rome was going to happen he didn’t want cities miles away being on Rome’s side, harassing his efforts and feeding Rome resources.
As a comparison many years later when Rome was going about to destroy Carthage, the surrounding cities (the Libyans especially) all wanted Cathage destroyed and were all on Romes side.
In a nutshell the books puts forward the idea that Carthage was run by accountants, what ever was needed to make a profit and make the balance sheet look good, leading to exploiting their neighbours. On the other side of the coin the Romans were lead by politicians after glory and therefore needed victories and to increase their boundaries of influence to forward their political careers. This they did by absorbing surrounding cities. Which saved Rome and hurt Carthage.
Dan Powers
Let us consider that Hannibal is the "victim" of historiographical
exaggeration not unlike the Persians by the Greek historians. Now this is
going to be a stretch for some, but bear with me in this simple analogy.
The Romans eventually defeat Hannibal. In fact they systematically (in no
small part due to Scipio the younger) pull the limbs slowly and painfully
from the body of the "Mighty Persian (I mean) Carthaginian War Machine"...
It does have a striking familiarity to it.
Nepos and Polybius are writing from essentially "Roman" sources. Diodorus
has been accused of many slanderous opinions, but he demonstrates access to
'other' non-roman sources and does not paint such a grandiose picture.
George's point about Carthaginians being more accountant than soldier
resonates with me. That Hannibal was seriously concerned about his
'continued' employment builds on the idea that Carthage was not very
interested in maintaining military forces or capability beyond what they
needed to make money and exploit trading partners - A theme that traces back
to the cultural heritage and precedent of the Phoenicians (very pointedly
discussed in connection with submission of Phoenicia to Persia).
As far as Livy, in many circumstances Livy is no more reliable as an
objective historian than the one sided Behistun Inscription of Persia. He
was after all, commissioned by Augustus to produce a 'grand history' of
Rome. He is certainly more objective than many, but a number of biases
against anyone not Roman are clearly prevalent. So just like Herodotus,
usage of Livy, Nepos (a Contemporary of Caesar in the first Century),
Polybius (originally a slave to the Scipio Aemilianus (3rd Punic War) and
eventually was freed. I am not saying that the sources are unreliable, but
they must be considered with caution in terms of understanding why these
writers conveyed certain perspectives. Hannibal was the veritable boogeyman
for the Romans. But just because the Romans were scared of him, and this is
obvious in all the sources, does not equal as evidence that he was endowed
with military genius. That is where in my opinion, I do take issue with the
idea that Hannibal was so incredible.
His military record of taking fortified locations is not so great. He
certainly did not think it important enough to have "engineers" employed.
Something the Romans did have. I will also point out that Hannibal is over
a century after Alexander who DID have engineers and systematically employed
them to turn the city fortifications at both Tyre and Gaza into rubble,
literally. Hannibal gets lucky, and he gets lucky a lot. But I do not know
of a single siege that Hannibal was engaged in at all that lasted more than
a few days. His "tactical prowess" on the battlefield is suspect at best.
His main tactics consist of surprise and human waves. In the course of the
battle he may or may not have intentionally engaged the envelopment. In my
reading of the sources (though he is credited with a conscious decision) I
think that circumstance developed that way. After all the Romans at Cannae
nearly broke through his lines in a couple of places and there seems to have
been major concern on the part of Hannibal that his Gauls were going to get
routed.
But as it is handed down, Cannae is the stuff of legend. That by itself
does not qualify that Hannibal planned it to happen that way. In the way of
battles they never go the way they are supposed (planned) to go.
Here, I will continue to be underwhelmed by the evidence, and find myself
unconvinced that Hannibal was anything better than a 3rd rate general who
got lucky on more than one occasion. His flexibility on the battlefield is
to me, rather suspect. He is able to pull a rabbit out of the hat at
Cannae. At Lake Trasimene, it is a combination of skill and luck, as well
as ignorance on the part of the consul.
Appian does not portray Hannibal the Invincible. He was not invincible. He
was solid, but not first rate. He doesn't exhibit, in my opinion, the
traits of a military genius. Philip II (Macedon), Cyrus the Great (Persia),
and Caesar - all created or in Caesar's case "re-created" their respective
entire state government in the image that allowed them to be THE guy.
Alexander exhibits far more flexibility and better understanding of the
tactical than Hannibal, and I do not consider Alexander a genius. On the
battlefield (though we can never know) I would put any of them up against
Hannibal and be shocked if Hannibal could hang on for more than the opening
hours. Scipio the Younger DID defeat Hannibal.
Had Hannibal been 'that' good the Romans would have been forced to face him
after Cannae. But they instead skirmished, and Hannibal became a non-factor
for nearly 10 years. During which time the Romans literally rolled up 3
Carthaginian Armies in Spain, and had made major crippling incursions on
North Africa. Zama certainly needed to be won, but the war was won.
Carthage was hanging on by dear life. Hannibal did not even know (according
to the surviving sources) his brother had been killed at the head of one of
those armies in Spain, until his brother's head was catapulted into
Hannibal's camp. Hannibal was still in Italy, and this is recorded by
Appian. Did Hannibal march on and then take Rome? No, he was evacuated to
North Africa for the last ditch attempt at defending Carthage.
After Carthage, Hannibal escapes to the employ of the Hellenistic Kings in
the East. After getting an army slaughtered and losing a sizable navy in
the Hellenistic wars, he is turned out (defeated in a fight against Eumenes
of Pergamum- this is not the Wehrmacht of the Blitzkrieg he is fighting; and
then defeated in a naval engagement against the Rhodians- not exactly the
British Imperial Navy). So his last success is in Italy at Cannae. He is
said to have committed suicide to avoid being captured by Romans in his
60's.
As I have said from the beginning, I am just unimpressed with his record.
The Romans want to portray him as greater, thereby increasing their own
merit, through increasing his. In comparison of Hannibal and Scipio the
Younger (mind you inexperienced and in his 20's at the time) Hannibal was
leagues below what even the young Scipio was. And there is the difference
between some lucky breaks and someone who got it and was good at it.
At the end of the day, we will all hold our respective opinions. Certainly
the discussion is an interesting one, and as some of us found out in March,
calling Hannibal less than a genius strikes a nerve with MANY people who
don't particularly share that view. I may be alone in thinking so lowly of
Hannibal. He is just overrated, grossly overrated and it is interesting to
me how many will defend his metaphorical honor as a great military leader.
But engaged conversation is fun, and it always amazes me the information
people can pull out at the drop of a hat.
Cheers.
Dan
Patrician
The third and final (and decidedly late!) post in this series looks at
Hannibal actually on the battlefield, his ability to conduct and
influence an ongoing action, and his ability to improvise in the face
of battlefield developments. Interestingly, here is where he shows
weakest of all.
This assessment is based on Polybius' record of several of Hannibal's
battles, with input from Livy, Nepos and others. Polybius is perhaps
the most useful source, as he possessed military experience and more
importantly judgement, and was able to draw directly on several period
sources, probably during the seventeen years he spent as a hostage in
Rome. I would not consider him particularly pro-Roman, as during this
time he engineered the escape of Demetrius II Soter from Roman custody
against the wishes of the senate (Polybius XXXI.12-15), which does not
seem to be a very pro-Roman thing to do, and his Histories are
sprinked with hints on how to defeat Romans. His admiration for
Hannibal seems genuine.
The first of Hannibal's major battles against the Romans is the
Trebia, in 218 BC.Hannibal, the master psychologist and battle
planner, tempts the Romans out of their camp and into a missile-
wasting skirmish across the freezing Trebia river. He then meets them
with his own freshly fed, oiled and warmed army, crushes their flanks
and trounces them. However, 10,000 Romans in the centre (i.e. the
entire legionary contingent of a consular army) cut their way through
his troops and escaped.
What stands out here, apart from the fact that despite this reverse
Hannibal won the battle, is that he did nothing to deal with this
breakthrough by the Roman centre, which, having decided not to attempt
to renew the action, left the field without hindrance (Polybius III.
74). Perhaps, with everything and everyone committed, and torrential
precipitation limiting his options, there was nothing he could have
done, but this absence of direction once the battle was actually under
way would continue to be a feature of his battles even when reserves
were present and the weather was clear.
Next came Hannibal's classic ambush at Trasimene, in which Flaminius
was caught with his army in marching order and died along with most of
his men. Here again, we see Hannibal's careful and effective
preliminary planning and use of the psychology of his opponent, but we
also observe that 6,000 Romans fought their way through and escaped
(Polybius III.84), without Hannibal doing anything to stop them.
Again, this battle was fought in conditions of limited visibility
(mist), which may have prevented him from seeing what was going on,
but one searches the sources in vain for any indication of where he
was and what he was actually doing during the battle. He did organise
a pursuit that trapped the Roman escapees and forced their surrender,
but the fact that he once more let a large force of Romans through his
lines without any form of reaction is puzzling, and an indicator that
perhaps tactical leadership on the battlefield was not his strong
point.
In 217 BC, after a year of frustration at Fabius' hands, he for once
showed a flash of tactical promise when escaping through the Eribianus
pass with his plunder, the occasion of his famous oxen and torches
ruse. Here he noted his peltasts (logkhephoroi) standing off against
Fabius' detachment of pass guards and sent a force of Spaniards to
help out: these proved just right for the occasion, and defeated
Fabius' detachment quite handily. We can mark him up a bit here.
The following year, 216 BC, saw Hannibal's greatest triumph, Cannae.
Our sources all admire how he was able, with a force smaller than the
Romans, to inflict an annihilating victory against such a large army,
and describe the forces and/or stratagems that made it occur.
Noticeably absent, however, is any indication of Hannibal exercising
tactical direction on the battlefield: the decisive strokes by the
cavalry were performed on the initiative of the commander of cavalry,
Hasdrubal (Polybius III.116). For the first time, Hannibal's actions
and station on the field are described: he is in the centre,
encouraging his men. In Livy's and Plutarch's account of the action
at Nola the following year, we find him doing the same, shouting at
his men rather than making tactical redispositions.
Livy records him twice defeating a Roman army in the vicinity of
Herdonea (212 and 210 BC). In each case, it is superior Carthaginian
disicipline or a superior battle plan which wins the day, with no bold
strokes attributed to Hannibal in person (contrast the actions of Nero
at the Metaurus in 207).
The siege of Capua (211 BC) gave Hannibal a new tactical problem: how
to break a circumvallation. The three Roman camps were linked by a
double ditch and rampart surrounding the city. Hannibal correctly
assessed that the way to break the siege was to take one of the Roman
camps, and his preparations were, as usual, thorough and detailed. In
addition to coordinating Capuan sorties with his own attacks, he
assigned elephants to help out and sent Latin speakers to infiltrate
the camp and issue false orders for the Romans to leave the camp and
reassemble in the nearby mountains. However, when a Spanish 'cohort'
broke into the Roman camp, Hannibal was nowhere to be seen: the
Spaniards hesitated for lack of instructions, the Roman leadership got
together a force and counterattacked, and Hannibal's attempt was
defeated. Where was he while this was going on? Not, evidently, at
the point that mattered, the critical assault on the Roman camp. Once
again, wherever he might have been, he was not in the place that
needed him most.
Perhaps the most glaring example of Hannibal being seemingly unable to
manage a battle occurs at Zama in 202 BC. Although Polybius praises
Hannibal's skilful use of his forces, the use of three successive
lines, of which the first two managed to do no more than blunt the
hastati, threw away the Carthaginian numerical advantage. Much better
would have been to use his superior infantry numbers to flank and
envelop the Roman lines instead of deploying like an uninspired
Ottoman Turk. It has been speculated that Hannibal adopted the
deployment he did because of Scipio's superiority in cavalry, but this
is a very curious thing for him to do, as Vermina with 16,000 or more
troops, mostly cavalry, was a few days' march away and hastening to
his aid (Liv XXX.36). My understanding, based on Polybius' timing of
the capture of Hannibal's spies and the negotiations with Scipio (all
occurring before Masinissa arrived) is that Scipio fooled Hannibal
into thinking that the Carthaginians had cavalry superiority.
If so, Hannibal must have had something of a shock when he saw
Masinissa on the field. If the Carthaginians had possessed cavalry
superiority, Hannibal could have used his veterans to wrap round the
Roman army in a Cannae-style manoeuvre while the elephants and Celts,
with the Carthaginian citizenry in support, kept the Romans busy. His
deployment, with the veterans in the rear and free to manoeuvre,
suggest that his initial battle plan was something like this,
predicated upon Scipio having only Laelius' cavalry, thus giving
Hannibal a slender but effective superiority in that arm and
permitting the envelopment to proceed unhindered. Without cavalry
superiority, this was no longer possible. But when the cavalry of
both sides streamed off the field, it became possible again. Yet
Hannibal seems to have been quite passive in this battle, and we look
in vain for any inspired tactical stroke, indeed for any tactical
stroke whatsoever, that he may have attempted to restore his fortunes.
It may be just my impression, but reading between the lines in
Polybius XV.16 (ending with "A brave man meets one stronger than
himself.") he seems to be suggesting that Scipio outwitted and
outgeneralled Hannibal.
One of the difficulties in coming to a final assessent of Hannibal as
a general is that he did not leave commentaries in the style of
Caesar, so we have no clear indicators of his thinking in particular
situations, and biographical treatments of him tend to skim the
surface of the results he obtained without going into the kind of
detail we would like. That said, if we were to rate him out of 10, my
own ratings would be:
Strategic: 5, possibly 6 given that he saw that Rome would have to be
defeated in Italy, and successfully transferred an army there.
Operational: 10. His unparallelled record of successes against Roman
armies were the fruits of his use of planning, psychology and
strategem, in all of which he was the master. (Note: on the basis of
the run-up to Zama we would have to rate Scipio as 11 for outwitting
Hannibal, so this might be a reason to drop Hannibal to 9.)
Tactical: 4, maybe 5. He seems weakest here, unable to adjust the
course of a battle or react with a reserve once it has begun. Once he
came up against an opponent who could do either or both, he was in
trouble. Ultimately, this is what toppled him from his pedestal.
Patrick
Justin
well in your article on Zama.
To understand why Hannibal could make such brilliant battle plans and
yet be so tactically ineffectual during the actual course of a battle,
I think it important to realise the difference between planning before
a battle and making decisions whilst one is in progress. Hannibal was
capable of doing the former because he had a clear and certain
knowledge of what the Romans were going to do, and he had a clear and
certain knowledge because a Roman consular army - up to Zama - always
did the same thing: form its four legions in three lines with cavalry
on the wings, and advance.
Where Hannibal fell down was when the enemy did something unexpected.
He could base his thinking only on previously deduced certitudes. He
could not, like Caesar or Alexander, read a battle and react
accordingly. When it was a question of assessing developing
likelihoods and possibilities, he was lost. He fought like a
theoretician; he did not have an instinct for a battle.
One sees this clearly at Zama, where Scipio's surprise Numidian card
left Hannibal virtually paralytic, although he did have a chance: let
his outnumbered cavalry lead the Roman and Numidian cavalry off the
field and then quickly envelope the Roman infantry before their
cavalry returned. It is a decision that required battefield instinct:
'Do I have the time to do it.....yes, probably.....then go!'. One
cannot imagine Caesar hesitating.
Which leads to the conclusion that Hannibal shone only if confronted
with a predictable and poorly-led enemy. Someone with the calibre of
Alexander would have taken him apart.
On Jun 19, 12:07 pm, Patrician <patrick.water...@mypostoffice.co.uk>
wrote:
ga...@berkeley.edu
> well in your article on Zama.
>
> Which leads to the conclusion that Hannibal shone only if confronted
> with a predictable and poorly-led enemy. Someone with the calibre of
> Alexander would have taken him apart.
That someone was Scipipo Africanus - a GREAT Roman general, as Hannibal,
Hasdrubal, and Antiochus learned too late.
gaius