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Notes: Chapter 1

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Notes for Chapter 1. Hannibal, Spain, 221 – 218 B.C.

1. Did Hannibal assassinate Hasdrubal the Handsome, his predecessor as governor of Spain? There’s no evidence to suggest that he did, but Livy (1965, XXI, 1) and others do say that a Spanish native assassinated Hasdrubal (see Note 4), and given Hannibal’s very likely impatience to be on with his work, it seems plausible that Hannibal could have given the native a push. Anyway, it makes for a good story, so I’ve used it.
2. Was Hasdrubal the Handsome a dissipated drunkard given to debauchery and pedophilia? No one knows, but it colors the story nicely to suppose so, and making him unlikable helps make Hannibal more sympathetic when I depict him as an assassin.
3. Hasdrubal the Handsome’s treaty with Rome is historical fact. In 226 B.C., Hasdrubal agreed with the Romans not to set foot north of the Ebro River if Rome would not come south of it. Rome no doubt violated the Ebro Treaty by aiding Saguntum, as did Hannibal later by crossing the river with a huge army.
4. Did the son of an Iberian chieftain kill Hasdrubal the Handsome? There are various traditions on this subject, one of which is represented in Livy (1965, XXI, 2). This tradition says that, according to Lancel (1998, p. 43), Hasdrubal “was assassinated in his palace at Cartagena by a servant who thus avenged the death of his master, an Iberian prince who had been killed on Hasdrubal’s orders.” Silius Italicus embroiders the story further (Lancel 1998, p. 43) to include the elaborate torture of this assassin. I’ve chosen to make the man the son of an Iberian chieftain whom Hasdrubal crucified, and I have the assassin killed on the spot by guards at Hannibal’s signal.
5. The name Qart Hadasht, in Punic, is translated by the Romans as Carthago Nova, New Carthage. Hasdrubal the Handsome gave his new city on the southeastern coast of Spain the same name, meaning “new town,” as the original Carthage. See Lancel (1998, p. 39). For a good plan of the city, see Scullard, Scipio Africanus: Soldier and Politician, p. 49.
6. Description of Hannibal and his brothers. I’ve borrowed my image of Hannibal somewhat imaginatively from his reputed image on coins. He appears on the coins (admittedly crudely made in those days) as a man with a large, sharp blade of a nose, dark features (likely in a North African, even of Phoenician extraction), and sharp, dark, deep-set eyes. See the images of the coins in Scullard, Scipio Africanus: Soldier and Politician, p. 41.
7. Thermopylae. A reference to the famous battle of 480 B.C. in which a brave band of Spartans held back a Persian onslaught for days at the narrow pass of Thermopylae. The Spartans all died, but gave the Greeks time to rally, eventually defeating the Persians at Salamis.
8. Old Hanno. He was the lifelong foe of the Barca family in Carthage. Where they advocated a policy that put Carthage squarely into the Mediterranean world, Old Hanno and others argued that after her ignominious defeat at Rome’s hands in the First Punic War, Carthage should turn towards Africa and pursue her trade there, avoiding further conflict with Rome. The Barcas prevailed with, in the long run, disastrous results for Carthage as she lost the Second and then the Third Punic Wars and was utterly destroyed in 146 B.C.
9. Alexander. Hannibal’s invasion of Italy was only a little over a century after Alexander the Great conquered most of the eastern Mediterranean and pushed on to take the lands of the Tigris and Euphrates (modern Iraq) and much of what is now Pakistan and western India. In the end, Alexander died, leaving his conquests to unravel or be fought over by his generals, who founded several great dynasties that ruled that part of the world for the next several centuries: Ptolemy I set up a Macedonian kingdom over Egypt and begat the Ptolemaic dynasty which culminated in Cleopatra; Antigonus I ruled much of Asia Minor and the nearer Middle East; Cassander ruled much of northern Greece; Lysimachus governed Thrace and Dacia, along the northwestern shores of the Euxine Sea (Black Sea); Pyrrhus ruled Macedonia and Illyria (where modern Macedonia, Croatia, and Bosnia lie), and Seleucus I took over the easternmost reaches of Alexander’s conquests, reaching from modern Iraq into Iran (Persia), Pakistan, and India. The term Hellenistic period covers the time from Alexander’s accession to the Macedonian throne in 336 B.C. to the final conquest of Greece by Rome in 30 B.C. Hellenistic society was widely influential throughout the Mediterranean.
10. A coin for the Ferryman. The Greeks and Romans put a coin in the mouth of a person newly dead so he could pay Charon, the ferryman who carried the souls of the dead across the River Styx into the underworld. He required that they had had proper funeral rites and that they paid a fee of one obol. This mythology was widespread in the ancient world, and Carthage by Hannibal’s time was highly Hellenized (see Note 9 on Alexander), so I have it apply to the Carthaginians too.
11. Hamilcar’s death by drowning. This is mentioned in the ancient sources, some of which say that Hannibal, and possibly his brothers, were there too, Hamilcar’s death coming as he tried to cover his sons’ (his “lion cubs’” ) escape. I wrote an early version of this chapter that detailed that incident. You can see it at ____.
12. Did the Carthaginians “crucify lions for sport and generals for failure”? They did, at least according to Flaubert’s colorful, highly imaginative novel Salammbo, which tells the story of a revolt led by disgruntled mercenary soldiers after the First Punic War (Hannibal’s father put down the revolt). For a vivid account of a crucified lion, see Salammbo, p. 38. At the moment, I can’t recall exactly where I read the account of crucifying generals for failure.
13. Rome’s control of the sea. As part of the war settlement after the First Punic War, which ended in 241 B.C., Rome forbade Carthage’s possession of a war fleet, which left the western seas firmly in Roman control. Carthage did put to sea at times, but she couldn’t do so with impunity any longer. Thus Hannibal’s need to communicate with Carthage by sending riders from Spain across the Strait of Gibraltar and along the Mauretanian (Moroccan) and Numidian (Algerian) coasts. Later, from Italy he probably sent riders back via the route of his invasion (as I have him do at one point) or sent ships from the eastern or southern coasts of Italy, where Rome’s control was still tenuous.
14. Hannibal’s giant map. I’ve invented this to make a lot of talk feel more dramatic and as a way of helping readers visualize the lay of the ancient land. See my own drawn versions of the map.
15. “Rome is not just one city but the whole peninsula.” Not quite true, but at this time Rome had indeed conquered or otherwise subdued most of her neighbors on the Italian peninsula, with the exception of some of the lands in the south and east, the places Hannibal later chose to base his operations.
16. Rome’s “incompetent system of generaling her troops.” From Hannibal’s point of view, Rome’s elected generals (her consuls and sometimes praetors), who served only a year at a time, must have seemed incompetent. And Hannibal was not the only one to think so—you’ll see more of this as you follow Scipio’s career in the book.
17. “None of the three of us has been back to Carthage since we were boys.” To the best of my knowledge, Hannibal and his brothers remained in Spain from when their father took them there as each was about nine or ten years old.
18. Lists of the tribes along Hannibal’s march. My source for the territories of the various tribes was the Barrington Atlas of the Greek and Roman World, a stupendous volume put together by a team of top scholars in a huge project that culminated in this handsome atlas just in time for my work on the book. $275, but to me vastly worth the investment. It was also the source I used to obtain ancient place names, to measure distances, and to understand the role of terrain in the war.
19. Route of Hercules. The route the legendary demigod was supposed to have taken while carrying out his “Herculean” labors.
20. Montgenèvre Pass. That’s the modern name. Even the Barrington Atlas didn’t provide me with an ancient name. The pass crosses from France into Italy northeast of the French town of Briançon. Modern roads then take you either more southerly, along the Chisone River through Usseaux down into Turin, or more northerly, along the Dora Riparia through Susa into Turin.
21. “Stand outside the Senate’s doors and listen.” During most meetings, the Roman Senate kept the thirty-foot-high bronze doors of the Curia Hostilia (Senate House) open so citizens could listen in.
22. Did Hannibal have the elaborate “web of spies” I’ve described? Very likely, since he seemed to be the master of so many other details. And he would have needed specific, timely information on Roman movements and plans as well as on the Italian tribes he hoped to win over.
23. Lancel (1998, p. 38) says Hasdrubal the Handsome (or the “Fair”) married Hamilcar’s second daughter, hence Hannibal’s second eldest sister. Lancel suggests that she may have died or that Hasdrubal simply committed bigamy in marrying an Iberian princess as well, but I’ve chosen to have him divorce her. I’ve also invented a name for her: Tanitha (Tán-i-tha, not Tanéetha), after the Punic goddess Tanit, the consort of Baal Hammon.
24. I’ve omitted details of Hannibal’s marriage to Imilce (Ee-míl-kay), partly because she was apparently unimportant to him and partly because so little is known about everyday life in Carthage or in Spain of the time. We know far more about Rome than about Carthage, for the simple reason that Rome destroyed Carthage, supposedly razing the city to the ground, then sowing the ground with salt. Very little of Carthage’s history, literature, art, and life has survived, though bits of it have been reconstructed by the archaeologists.
25. Did Imilce bear Hannibal a son or a daughter? Tradition says it was a son, but I’ve chosen to make it a daughter, partly to minimize Imilce’s role in his life. If it had been a son, the long separation would have been a bigger factor in his life. He might even have brought the son to Italy at some point, if possible. I’ve used the birth of his daughter to illustrate male attitudes towards females in the ancient world.
26. Sidon and Tyre. These were the principal cities in old Phoenicia, modern Lebanon. Tyre was renowned for the purple dye she made from seashells, known throughout the ancient world as “Tyrean purple,” the color of kings. Carthage and a number of other cities and towns throughout the western Mediterranean Sea were colonies of Phoenicia.
27. Tophet. The open enclosure in cities that worshiped Baal Hammon and Tanit, where they made sacrifice, including the Moloch, described in the Prelude. Hasdrubal Barca mentions Carthage’s Tophet in his letter.
28. Palms and tamarisks. I borrowed this imagery for an otherwise largely unknown ancient city from Flaubert’s novel Salammbo.
29. Commercial harbor, military harbor. Carthage had a large rectangular harbor for commercial shipping and a smaller circular walled harbor for military ships.
30. Byrsa. The chief hill within the city of Carthage, which housed the sumptuous homes and palaces of the Carthaginian elite.
31. People’s Assembly, Senate, The Hundred. Carthage’s government at this time consisted of two elected Shofets (or Suffetes), roughly equivalent to Rome’s consuls and probably derived from Carthage’s ancient kings; a Senate, though of course they did not call it that; a body of 104 judges called The Hundred and Four or simply The Hundred, which supervised the Shofets and other magistrates and the military; and a People’s Assembly, again not called that, which more or less represented the people outside the ruling oligarchy. Aristotle wrote about Carthage’s constitution.
32. Did the ancient Mediterranean peoples have the stirrup? No. They rode with their legs dangling.
33. A note on the dating of events in the book. In many cases, the ancient sources tell what year an event occurred in but don’t provide much information about what date within the year—sometimes not even what season. I’ve therefore engaged in considerable guesswork and some invention in dating events. A few dates, such as that of the ambush at Lake Trasimene or the battle at Cannae, are known, but please take most of my dates as guesswork or, at best, educated estimation. In particular, I’ve had to make some assumptions about things like elections. In Caesar’s time, consuls and praetors were elected before the end of the calendar year, typically in the fall, because the consular term began on January 1. But in Scipio’s time, the consular year began on March 15. Thus I’ve assumed that most elections—which did not occur on a fixed date like American elections—took place early in the calendar year, in January, February, or even early March. For details about my date speculations, see my year-by-year chronology, in which I’ve dated items by first laying out the most plausible sequence and timing. I’ve tried in the Chronology to indicate inventions, such as dates, in blue print.
34. Gaius Licinius Varus. Varus was a historical figure, consul in 236 B.C., serving in Italian Gaul against the Boii and other Gallic tribes (Magistrates, 236 B.C.), then transferring to Corsica. He was also one of Rome’s ambassadors to Carthage at the commencement of the Second Punic War. I’ve used Varus as a useful observer character throughout the book, first inventing his cadetship under Marcus Atilius Regulus during the invasion of Africa in the First Punic War—the timing is right—then pairing him with a young Tiberius Sempronius Longus in Italian Gaul in 236, and finally making him, along with Regulus’s son, a crony of Quintus Fabius Maximus. All of this is plausible invention, as are Varus’s attitudes towards war in later life (as I have it).
35. Corvus. The extended conversation between Varus and Sempronius is my way of recapping the essential earlier history between Carthage and Rome (the First Punic War). But the conversation itself is based on an invention and a legend. I’ve invented the mini-story of Regulus’s son Manius, executed by his father for cowardice (you can read a whole chapter on Regulus and Manius that I abandoned). And the story of Regulus’s trip to Rome after the Carthaginians captured him in Africa, and his subsequent voluntary return to be tortured in Carthage, is most likely legendary rather than true. But both are good stories and help to make the bit of historical exposition more palatable.
36. Did Roman fathers actually ever execute their own sons? They did. I cite the case of Titus Manlius Torquatus in the chapter. Theirs was a hard code, a code of honor and reputation built atop the Latin machismo that existed even then.
37. The fustuarium. Connolly, Greece and Rome at War, p. 139, describes the fustuarium, in which the condemned soldier was first touched with a cudgel by the tribune, then beaten or stoned to death by his comrades. Roman military justice was harsh. I have Manius Atilius Regulus’s comrades beat him to death with cudgels aboard ship after his cowardly act.
38. Corvus. The story of the corvus is quite real. The special boarding ramp was a decisive advantage for the Romans during the First Punic War, until changing naval tactics and ships made it too ungainly to continue using. I’ve given you basically its whole story.
39. Most of the history of the First Punic War I’ve taken from Scullard, History 753 to 146 B.C. or from Polybius and Livy. Scullard is a very readable historian. See also his From the Gracchi to Nero and his Scipio Africanus: Soldier and Politician. My Bibliography lists some of his other titles, as he is my favorite authority on the Roman period.
40. “The Lesson of Regulus.” I’ve made this formulation of it up, paralleling the famous dictum that leaders should always avoid a land war in Asia. But the lesson itself, even if not called that, was a general dictum in ancient times, at least until Scipio Africanus.
41. The sacred chickens. See Glossary.
42. 3200 silver talents. The talent was an ancient measure, the weight of a substance (usually gold or silver) that a man could carry. Rome exacted a considerable price in demanding 3200 talents of silver.
43. Hannibal’s wound at Saguntum. I’ve invented much of the circumstances, but Polybius describes Hannibal’s wounding, XXI, 7. I have the wound administered by an arrow rather than a javelin, and Hannibal on foot instead of mounted. Hannibal’s wound is the kind of story that gets embroidered into historical accounts, though, so it’s hard to say whether it actually happened, let alone how. Polybius is generally a more reliable source than Livy, who is known to embellish and embroider a lot. But Polybius suffers from a close dependency on Scipio’s family, making him rather biased, at least on matters pertaining directly to the Scipios.
44. Women of Saguntum throwing themselves into the flames. This kind of tale is seen often in accounts of sieges and sacks, but the ancient sources do tell it in the case of Saguntum (as, later, in the case of Carthage itself). I try to use the incident to further characterize Hannibal and Carthage.
45. Surrus the Syrian, Hannibal’s favorite elephant. The ancient sources describe and name this animal.
46. The numbers of Hannibal’s army. These are amalgamated from a number of sources. All of the sources on Hannibal give such figures, but they vary somewhat. My goal was to show how formidable the army was.
47. Three great parallel columns a mile apart. I invented this detail both to magnify the size and power of the army by showing what a great host it was and to explain how so many men might have moved in a reasonably quick and efficient way.