Hannibal Read online

  But Publius Scipio had arrived, crossing the Po with his legions in the center of the broad valley, effectively dividing the Padana Celts into two groups and preventing them from unifying against Rome. This bold move was successful initially. Even the Boii in the east were stymied. They had recently embarrassed the Romans in an uprising that slaughtered many of the regional Roman garrisons, and of course, had sent welcoming envoys to Hannibal back in Spain the previous year.

  A GRIM OBJECT LESSON

  Now began a period when both Romans and Carthaginians bolstered their troops along the Po Valley by various strategies. Publius Scipio had previously crossed the Po and was building a bridge across the Ticinus River, which flowed into the Po from the north. He assembled his troops and emphasized to his men how the Carthaginians had fled in fear before them, choosing to cross the mountains rather than stand and fight.13 He told them how weakened and depleted Hannibal’s troops were now after their arduous Alps crossing and how Rome had an endless supply of recruits. They should now find it outrageous that the Carthaginians had invaded Italy and would now face them.

  In stark contrast to the Romans, the meeting in Hannibal’s camp also brings up a famous episode recorded by both Polybius and even more dramatically by Livy.14 Some believe it shows the truer undercurrent of brutal cruelty in Hannibal’s personality; others maintain it was merely a brilliant object lesson that Hannibal made unmistakably clear for his troops. One winter evening, likely lit by a bonfire, instead of first making any inspiring speech to his diverse army of hard veterans, Hannibal assembled his men and brought out enemy Celt captives in heavy chains, their bodies scarred from battle and emaciated from hunger. He gave those captives a stark opportunity: one that was later not lost on Romans such as Livy, who knew gladiatorial combat games to the death in arenas and amphitheaters. With his soldiers’ eyes glued to the scene, Hannibal placed in front of these Celtic captives the most ostentatious and ornately decorated Celtic armor, rich weapons, and prize horses such as their greatest chiefs displayed before battle when they would go forward as single champions for their peoples. He offered whoever would fight to the death would win the glorious armor and rewards they coveted as well as freedom. The vanquished would die, and thus win another kind of freedom from their harsh slavery. In unison, each of the captive enemy Celts roared their willingness to fight one another, and two were chosen by lot. The other captive Celts all mourned they had no such opportunity for victorious freedom or the release of a quick death.

  The Celtic warriors raised their arms and voices and prayed to their gods for victory and then began their furious battle against each other. Hannibal intended his troops to identify with both warriors, wanting them to feel pity for the vanquished as much as pride for the victor. When the dead man was dragged away, to the groans of his tautly attentive audience, Hannibal stood and gave his short, blunt explanation already quoted above about conquering or dying. Hannibal wanted his men to see what they would suffer over the course of the long campaign. Victory was not a vanity of mere cloaks, loot, and horses but rather the envy of mankind. Even death on the battlefield was a kind of prize as well, a release from further suffering. Because of the long road they had traveled, the hostile numbers of enemies in between, and the wide rivers to cross, his men couldn’t expect to reach home even if they escaped defeat by abandoning their dying companions or fleeing in retreat from a battle gone horribly awry. Instead, they must be single-mindedly hard and not let any Roman or anyone else take away their freedom, not suffer a lonely life of exile and slavery where they would never see friends or home country again. The Romans could always flee home; his army of Carthaginians, Libyans, Numidians, Spanish, and others could not.

  One of Hannibal’s concluding statements recorded for this event used an ironically nautical figure, perhaps like the inertia of a wave: “The courage of those who despair of safety will carry everything before it.” Hannibal’s lesson was received with sober reflection as intended, and his troops were not lulled by false promise but instead were made bolder with truth. Hannibal dismissed his army with praise for what they had done and endured so far, also commanding them to be ready to march again at daybreak.

  Another account of one of Hannibal’s dramatic abject lessons—compelling if also brutal—is his “sacrifice” before the Battle of Ticinus. In one hand, he took a young lamb and a stone in the other. He called on the gods, especially Baal, as witness that if he broke his word, may the gods do to him what he did: crushing the lamb’s head with the stone and spraying animal brains on anyone close enough to witness this drama, which Livy says convinced his men that the “gods would guarantee their hopes.”15 Now each army was ready, Hannibal’s possibly the more determined.

  THE BATTLE OF THE TICINUS

  The area of the Ticino River today is mixed farmland and poplar forest, but it is the flatness of the region around modern Vigevano (ancient Victumulae) or Lomello that gave each general confidence in his cavalry, since the broad Padana plain, the Po River Valley, gives a great advantage to cavalry maneuvers. In any case, both armies were surprised to reach each other so quickly.16

  The next day saw both Carthaginian and Roman troops advancing toward each other on the north bank of the Po, Publius Scipio having previously marched in advance of Hannibal to the Ticino River, where his bridge was now finished. Scipio marched west, and Hannibal east. The next day, after each army’s scouts gauged the distance, they wheeled about, notifying each general of the other’s position. The opposing armies camped and waited through the night, eager to engage. At daybreak, both armies advanced toward each other, intending to scope out relative strength, position, and which units were assembled. Publius Scipio brought his entire cavalry, as did Hannibal, and Scipio also brought his javeliners. When each leader saw the dust of his approaching enemy—which can only mean this was a drier part of the winter17—each general immediately gave the order for action. Scipio placed his javelins and Celtic cavalry at the middle of the front and his less mobile infantry behind. He must have hoped his heavy cavalry would mow down the core of Hannibal’s infantry.

  But this strategy could work only if Hannibal had no cavalry in front to counter the charge. Did Hannibal anticipate this? Both like and unlike the Romans, Hannibal also placed his heavy fighting units in the middle front—including his allied Spanish and Celtic cavalries and infantry. But he placed his highly mobile, light Numidian cavalry on the outer wings, hoping to outflank the Romans with speed.

  With each general advancing eagerly and the heavy cavalries thundering toward each other, the battle engagement happened unusually fast. When the opposing heavy cavalries were about to meet head-on at full speed, the Roman javeliners ( jaculatores) in the very front had no time to throw their projectiles.

  At first, the battle was heaviest in the center and nearly equal. Roman infantry and their Celtic cavalry fought together, now with no room for the Celt allied cavalry to maneuver or charge due to the press of men and the lack of space, so the horses were essentially useless. This was apparently just what Hannibal had been hoping for, as his mobile Numidian light cavalry completely outflanked the clustered Roman army and now quickly whirled around to attack the compressed Romans from the rear, trampling and scattering the Roman javeliners who were retreating on foot, literally riding right over them.

  Suddenly the battle turned when the core of Publius Scipio’s Romans saw they were fighting both front and rear and that their rear guard was collapsing. The remounting Roman allied cavalry was now scattered in every direction, although a few actual Romans gathered around Publius Scipio, who had been severely wounded in the center of the fray. Livy makes a huge point of claiming that the soldiers who regrouped around Scipio and essentially saved his life were led by his young eighteen-year-old son, the younger Publius Cornelius Scipio18 who would become a major figure in our story.

  Much of the actual credit for saving the Roman commander may have belonged instead to a Ligurian slave.19 Although the Romans had
also inflicted casualties on Hannibal’s army, their losses were now such that Scipio called a full retreat back to the Ticino. He realized that Hannibal’s cavalry was vastly superior and hoped desperately to get his running legions across the Ticino Bridge before full disaster. Hannibal was hoping to engage more of the Roman infantry and gave chase, although not fast enough.

  The bulk of the Romans made it across while attacked by Numidian horsemen on their sides. Placing an armed contingent of guards to face Hannibal, they destroyed as much of the Ticino Bridge as possible, reducing it to a skeleton of planks to stop Hannibal from following farther. Hannibal saw the bridge was useless, so he took the six hundred Roman men left to guard the bridge as prisoners, some of whom could have been army engineers dismantling the timbers.20

  Publius Scipio, however, retreated back south to the new Roman colony town of Placentia over the earlier Po River Bridge the Romans had built, returning to seek needed medical help for his serious wounds. Placentia was a brand-new settlement of six thousand Romans, having just been established in early 218 from land taken from Anamares Celts, who lived in the Po River Valley near the Trebia River.21 Scipio’s beleaguered men found their spirits were as battered as their bodies, as they had not expected to lose to the much-reduced Carthaginians. Hadn’t their trusted veteran general Publius Scipio said that Hannibal had fled before them near the Rhône? And wasn’t the remnant of his surviving soldiers still exhausted by its long ordeal of crossing the mountains? How many Roman lives were lost is only conjecture, but it was a clear defeat, and Hannibal captured at least the six hundred Romans left at the Ticino Bridge. Livy noted that the brief Battle of the Ticinus was also one of the first engagements demonstrating Hannibal’s advantage in cavalry.22

  Hannibal marched back west for two days and had his own bridge constructed over the wide Po, commanding Hasdrubal to get the army across after him, as he sped across first in order to meet envoys of Celts assembling in peace. In the two days since the Romans had retreated, the word had spread all over the Padana to the Celtic tribes, which already had either resisted the Romans or had reluctantly been neutral. Now they came to make alliances with Hannibal. The Celtic tribes in Northern Italy clearly understood the intentions of the Romans to absorb what had traditionally been Celtic tribal farmlands. No doubt the Insubres tribe, already having at least a century of experience with the Romans’ expansionist aims—and now a tentative ally of Hannibal—helped to stir up antagonism against the Romans. These Celts assembled at the Po now offered supplies and allied warriors to Hannibal, who received their envoys and offers with dignity and friendship.23

  Now that his troops had successfully crossed to the south bank of the Po, Hannibal marched them east again downriver in hope of encountering any Roman soldiers in the vicinity, although they had all retreated to Placentia. So Hannibal marched his army to where the Romans could see him in plain view, a clear challenge to fight. This may have been a safe bet on Hannibal’s part for several reasons, knowing it was the dead of winter and that Scipio was in no shape to fight. It is even possible that he was posturing for the sake of his new Celtic allies. But the recuperating Scipio wouldn’t budge, knowing his current position inside the walls was the most secure. So Hannibal withdrew a little more than six miles west of Placentia and set up his camp there.

  THE PROBLEM OF THE CELTS AND THEIR TREACHERY AGAINST ROME

  Seeing the bright prospect of Hannibal and the sudden reluctance of the Romans to fight, those Celts inside Placentia who had been Roman allies—possibly including many who were even forced to fight for Rome as conscripts—made a treacherous move. After waiting in their tents for the Romans to retire for the night, when all was still, they quietly rose up and quickly slaughtered any Romans sleeping nearby before fleeing the camp. With their typical24 manner of decapitating enemies—“a more horrifying Celtic custom was that of the decapitation of foes”25—they took as many Roman heads as possible and fled.

  All told, about two thousand Celts and two hundred Celtic cavalry quickly went over from Placentia to Hannibal’s camp as dawn broke, greeting the general with their grisly trophy heads26 as proof of their treachery. Hannibal welcomed them as allies and encouraged them but sent them back to their own tribes and villages with gifts or promises. He told them to tell their fellow tribesmen what they had accomplished in the middle of the Roman camp—a shrewd move for Hannibal because he knew they were proud and would find it more difficult to realign with Rome after going public. He also told them if they were now allies, they should urge their fellow tribes to join him against Rome, hoping that many Celts would be emboldened by the example of resistance to Rome.

  Now the Boii (the region of Bologna, named after them) also came to Hannibal and brought with them in chains three captured Roman officials who had been delegated from Rome to divide up their tribal lands. They had taken them hostage by treachery and now offered them to Hannibal. Instead, Hannibal told them to keep them as bargaining power to force the Romans to return their Boii hostages, which had been the reason the Boii captured the officials in the first place.

  This seemingly generous ploy—looking more like magnanimity than cruelty, but actually just pragmatism—shows that Hannibal not only had good military intelligence about the Boii but also understood how to negotiate with the Romans, who would be reluctant to abandon their officials as long as they knew they were alive. The Romans would be equally reluctant to kill the hostage Boii while they still had bargaining incentive. This was clear shrewdness in the game of war that Hannibal played so well.

  In the meantime, Publius Scipio was devastated by the Celtic treachery in his Placentia camp and dreaded how much effect this would have on all the neighboring Celts. He knew this action would weaken whatever chance he had to regain the generally disaffected Celts who had been brewing trouble for some time. While Rome had some allied Celts in the region who had been loyal for years and were not changing sides to aid the Cartha-ginians, Publius Scipio knew the Celts in general were notoriously fickle—especially those who had only recently joined Hannibal—and could easily throw themselves to whomever they perceived had the current advantage. Publius Scipio hoped that the Celts would not be willing to fight outside their own territory for Hannibal’s interests.27

  But Scipio knew that his Roman troops had reinforcements coming soon in newly recruited legions marching west from Ariminum (modern Rimini) on the Adriatic coast under the command of consul Tiberius Sempronius Longus. He also knew they were green and mostly untrained, as was their consular commander. Scipio believed it would be best to train the new legions over the duration of the winter, and with his health at risk from healing wounds, he also knew he had to wait before engaging Hannibal again. He must have also worried because he rightly surmised that Sempronius would be eager to fight Hannibal for political gain in order to be renamed consul in the coming elections.

  A FURTHER BLOW TO ROME: LOSS OF CLASTIDIUM’S GRAIN DEPOT

  An unexpected additional blow staggered the Romans and was particularly bitter to Publius Scipio. It was deep December. Despite provisioning by allied Celts, the Carthaginians were running low on food. A major fortified Roman storage grain depot at Clastidium (modern Casteggio) held a great quantity of grain. Clastidium was only six miles south of the Po River, but a few days west from where Hannibal’s main army camped near the Trebia. Hannibal still had skirmishers and mobile units collecting food from wherever they could in the nearby Padana region, which included Clastidium and its fort, and Hannibal’s men were probably about to attack the depot for this very reason. But then something no one expected happened.

  The commander of Clastidium’s garrison guarding the grain depot was not Roman but a Roman ally from Brundisium (modern Brindisi) named Dasius. His troops were also not Roman but allies from Messapia in Calabria. Not only were these cities south of the primary sphere of Roman influence in central Italy but they were also closer in culture, language, and southern outlook to the former Greek colonies of Magna Grae
cia than to Rome. Dasius essentially opened the gates to Hannibal’s men and gave them all the stored Roman grain that had been harvested only a few months before, and which the Roman legions under Publius Scipio counted on as winter provisions. The Clastidium garrison of Messapian troops also defected to Hannibal, who welcomed them warmly.

  The problem of the Celts would continue for both Hannibal, who needed their alliance, and for the Romans, whose occupation of their lands was greatly resented, particularly in North Italy. It also seems likely that the ease of acquiring the purloined Roman grain at Clastidium further opened Hannibal’s eyes to how superficial Roman control was in the deep south of Italy where Dasius and the Messapians originated.

  Eleven

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  TREBIA

  Most historians, including Polybius, agree that the Roman and Punic forces had only a partial engagement at the Ticino, calling it more of a cavalry skirmish than a full battle.1 Nevertheless, it was the first time Hannibal actually engaged an organized Roman force.

  While it wasn’t a decisive victory for either side, the Romans were demoralized and were likely the losers in many ways. First, the Romans had expected victory, and instead saw the end of the battle swing far more to the enemy’s side. Second, Hannibal’s cavalry proved more than a match for the Roman horsemen and legions, especially his mobile Numidian light cavalry, routing the Roman javeliners and attacking from the rear. Third, it was the Romans who retreated from the battlefield in disarray to escape back east across the Ticino Bridge. Fourth, Hannibal captured at least six hundred Romans, while no substantive Punic captives are mentioned in any battle texts. Fifth, and perhaps most important for what followed soon, Publius Scipio was severely wounded and could not fight again for some time. Last but not least, the fact that the Romans proved so vulnerable even under experienced leadership spoke volumes to the Padana Celts. Hannibal gained the alliance of the Celts at least for the duration of his sojourn in northern Italy.