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Against Rome |
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Back to section i of this chapter I. Hannibal, Spain, 221 - 218 B.C. ii Later,
as Hannibal and Hasdrubal Barca were leaving the palace, Mago caught up to them.
Hasdrubal the Handsome’s gaudy edifice rose like a beast behind them, its
mouth full of tall white columns. The other guests had vanished into the
darkness, so that the three of them had the lamp-lit pavement to themselves. “Why?”
Mago asked, taking Hannibal’s arm. He pointed back the way they had come. Hannibal
turned to face him, bringing his face fully into the light. All right, little
brother. “He
was in my way.” “Humph,
the way he was going,” Mago said, “he’d have been dead soon anyway,
probably of heart failure. Or a diseased liver.” “Not
soon enough. I needed his heart to fail now.” “For
what?” Mago paused. “No, don’t tell me. Don’t tell me. I do understand.
For Rome.” “Yes,
Mago. Rome. Hasdrubal should have attended to Rome,” Hannibal said, “not
Spain. Spain is only the catapult, not the target.” “So—”
Mago began. “It’s
time to get on with my work. The Handsome One wasn’t such a bad sort, had he
not been corrupt as a gaggle of Numidian chiefs—and—in—my—way! I swear
to climb over him, Old Hanno, or anything else.” Mago
stepped back a pace, though he was used to Hannibal’s passions. “Will
there be any—problems?” Mago indicated the palace where lay their fallen
former brother-in-law. “I
doubt it,” Hannibal said. “The assassin was the son of an Iberian chieftain
that Handsome crucified. The son died a happy death avenging his father.” Hasdrubal
Barca grinned and clapped Mago on the back. “Come,
Mago, it’s well done,” he said. “And
well done to you, Hasdrubal,” Hannibal said. Hasdrubal
nodded, having now given in completely. Time to ride the wind. Even Hasdrubal
could see that. “So
it was both of you did this,” Mago said, frowning. “And what was
Hasdrubal’s part?” “He
distracted the sodden fool, not that the Handsome One was all that attentive.”
Hannibal screwed up his mouth and emitted a bray to imitate Hasdrubal the
Handsome’s last fart. The
three brothers laughed, thumped one another on the back. “What
about the guards?” Mago asked. “We’ll
stop up their mouths with silver,” Hasdrubal said. “Why
didn’t you include me?” Mago said. “Oh,
but we did,” Hasdrubal said. “We counted on you to leap up and look
convincing.” Mago
gave a growl of disgust. “Don’t leave me out of things.” “Never!”
Hannibal said. “So
we’re really going to do it now?” Hasdrubal asked. “We
are. No more ‘you’re too young, Hannibal.’ No more Hamilcar, and no more
Hasdrubal the Handsome! Eight years of his diplomacy is more than enough. The
moon was a fat crescent, the hour late. They walked down the wide street,
footsteps echoing off the walls of the apartments they passed. The young oaks,
dark silhouettes in the milky wash of moonlight, rustled gently in a soft night
breeze. Fortune smiled. Hannibal
wished he were already stepping out the gates into the military camp—his
camp, now. Hasdrubal the Handsome’s city, built scant years ago as Qart
Hadasht, which the Romans would call Carthago Nova, still building in
many ways, was indeed handsome. Hannibal admired the tall, thick defensive wall
bristling with guard towers, surrounding five hills within, crisscrossed by
paved streets stuffed with elegant slate-roofed houses and shops. So too it was
with a military eye that he appraised the well-limited approaches to the city.
Outside, a large lagoon appeared to be a splendid barrier to the north, and the
bay came up to wide quays on the south and west. A small Carthaginian fleet lay
at anchor in the bay. The army camp lay a couple of miles to the east.
Everything was new. But
Hannibal had no use for the place and did not plan to live in it. He wanted to
get on with things. He was much more interested in the harsh, beautiful lands
beyond, and their deep treasury, the natural wealth that had funded this New
Carthage’s magnificence. He had other uses for it. Spain
beckoned, supplier of the silver, gold, timber, manpower, fine stone, and other
riches that Carthage had come to claim and that Hannibal was counting on. During
the reign of Hasdrubal the Handsome, more nearly a reign than a governorship,
Carthaginian control extended beyond Gades in the west all the way east to the
site of Hasdrubal’s new city and on northwards in central Spain to Castulo,
which dominated the Silver Mountains. New Carthage came to dominate all. But
New Carthage was not the point. And, except for her wealth, Spain was not the
point. Hannibal had said so ten thousand times, not that Hasdrubal the Handsome
had heard him. Hasdrubal
stopped under one of the occasional lamps that flickered along the street, deep,
round bowls filled with burning oil. “Do
you think Carthage will give you the governorship?” he asked. “Governorship?
It’s the army I want,” Hannibal said. “If the men will have me.” “If
they’ll have you?” Hasdrubal said. “They love you, Hannibal.” The three
young men had all fought in the ranks as soon as hair sprouted on their balls.
They knew every soldier personally. “We’ll
see—there could be some resentment over what I’ve done to Handsome. Some
will guess, and he was fairly popular with them.” “They
love you as they loved Father,” Hasdrubal said. “You’re so much like
him—but they’ve all but forgotten father. Now it’s you they love,
Hannibal.” Hannibal
frowned at the comparison to Hamilcar. His face was full of lines and planes,
the sharp blade of nose, the tightly curled black hair, the intense, deep eyes,
all like his father’s—and like his brothers’, too, though Hasdrubal’s
face was leaner, the brows bushier, and Mago’s face wider, almost round, yet
dark and much the same in eyes, nose, and mouth. “We’ll
see. Soldiers’ love can be fickle.” “Don’t
doubt them,” Hasdrubal said. He
was right, of course. Hannibal knew this army would follow him to Thermopylae if
he asked. But that was not where he planned to take them. Not there. Rome.
Though he kept his counsel well, so that only Hasdrubal knew it. Not even Mago
had known until now. Rome. Soon! “When?”
Hasdrubal asked. “Tomorrow,”
Hannibal replied, grinning. “I’d take command now, but it’s hours yet
before daybreak.” *
* * At
sunrise after the death of Hasdrubal the Handsome, it was Hannibal who put the
question to the troops assembled in their thousands. He stood before the ranks
and ranks of them in the camp outside New Carthage on a rough wooden platform,
deliberately clothed in his greasy workaday cloak. The air was chilly, but the
men stood still, not fiddling with their equipment, not talking among
themselves, waiting for Hannibal, all eyes on his reviewing stand. A
well-educated Carthaginian nobleman he might be, tutored in Greek and immersed
in Greek culture, but he’d made sure always to go among the soldiers dressed
as they dressed. He slept on the ground wrapped in the greasy fur robe. He ate
their mean rations of bread and porridge alongside them. He drank around the
campfire with them, often fought with sword and spear beside them in the
ranks—and above all, never led them badly. “Here
I go,” he said quietly to Hasdrubal and Mago. The men had already been told of
Hasdrubal the Handsome’s death. It remained to be seen how they would react.
He knew he should be more sure of them, but at this moment he was not. All
depended on two reactions: that of Carthage and, above all, that of the men. If
either failed, so did he. On
with it, then: “Who
will you have as your new general?” He cast his voice out over them with a
huge smile and a broad wink. There
was a moment of deep silence, which lengthened into a long pause. Men in the
ranks looked around at each other, waiting to see who would be first. And then
the silence broke. “Hannibal,”
cried a man in the front rank, a Greek mercenary he knew well, as he knew them
all. “Hannibal!” Yes,
he knew them. And they knew him. His
name became a chant, the cry of a mighty beast. “Hannibal! Hannibal!” It
rose, rose again, deafening. Thousands of voices rose as one, thousands of fists
shook on high. He
raised his arms over his head, palms out. They stilled for a moment. He laughed,
a deep, undulating laugh that engulfed them. “Yes,
you bastards, yes,” he cried. They
roared. They howled, they cheered, they whistled and stomped. “Hannibal!
Hannibal!” He
smiled. And with that, at twenty-six years old, Hannibal assumed the Spanish
command, replacing Hasdrubal the Handsome as provincial governor and general of
the Carthaginian army in Spain. Carthage
must ratify it, of course, a process strewn with potential obstacles. He had the
men, but did he have Carthage? The aid of the Barca family’s large following
of clients and supporters—and a few well-placed bribes—should help a great
deal. Hamilcar, who had built those alliances, could be of use one more time,
rot his shade. But the outcome was not inevitable given the presence of
political foes like Old Hanno, who had always been Hamilcar’s nemesis and who
was certain to play the same role for Hannibal. Old
Hanno. The man had been an immovable obstacle for generations, it seemed—a
vastly obese man, eyes, nose, and mouth lost in his great continent of a face.
“Africa!” Old Hanno cried constantly, incessantly, forever. “Africa!”
Carthage must turn away from the Mediterranean Sea and seek her future in the
deep, largely unexplored continent to the south, on whose northern shore
Carthage clung. One war with the Romans had been disastrous enough. Another
could not be tolerated, and those who cried for war with Rome must be stopped. Must—be—stopped!
Over
my lifeless corpse. Hannibal set his mouth in a tight line. After
Hannibal had dismissed the army, Maharbal, one of his lieutenants, walked with
him back into the city. The cavalryman carried himself crisply, whip trim and
somewhat short. He was lean and strong, a little bowlegged, with a leathery,
handsome face that women thought dashing, much to Hannibal’s amusement. “The
men seem pleased,” Maharbal said, grinning at his understatement. Maharbal had
long since become a particular friend to the young commander. “They say
you’re another Alexander.” “Do
they?” The
name and deeds of Alexander the Great towered over the entire world, most of
which the Macedonian had conquered only a hundred years ago. Alexander, eh? That
was a comparison to savor. Yet
had not Alexander’s conquests failed to outlast the conqueror? Alexander’s
empire had disintegrated behind him as he moved on, and what was left of it, the
parts near enough to govern still, had been as raw meat to his squabbling
lieutenants. “Even
better,” Maharbal went on, “some say you’re another Hamilcar.” Hannibal
looked his friend in the eye, then spat. He’d felt only pleasure when his
father had died. Only pleasure. “I hope he lacks a coin to pop in his mouth
for the Ferryman,” Hannibal had said when he knew his father was about to die.
Pursued by two Spanish tribes he’d been trying to subjugate, Hamilcar Barca
had drowned as he fled across a river. Hannibal
had felt pleasure, too, at the men’s reaction this day. But Maharbal had
unwittingly robbed him of the moment with the well-meant but unwelcome
comparison to Hannibal’s father—something that happened often enough that he
ought to be used to it. But he wasn’t. Maharbal hadn’t known Hamilcar,
hadn’t seen the way he raised his sons. With
his boys, as with his soldiers, Hamilcar Barca was a brutal master; he came from
a people who crucified lions for sport and generals for failure—and sacrificed
babies for the favor of god. “Get
up!” Hamilcar would tell Hannibal. And then knock him down again. “Get
up!” He’d learned gradually to avoid the blows, or to duck them or minimize
them. Or to stand the hurt without flinching. Nurtured
on his father’s hatred of the Romans, he grew strong, at first hating the
Romans as much as he hated—and loved—his father. But
gradually, as he studied the Romans, he grew to admire them as well. They were
practical men, hard-headed, strong. And capable of great deceit—yet in the
last they were as children to the Carthaginians. Hannibal’s people had
nurtured intricate thickets of betrayal and blood for hundreds of years longer
than Rome. The Carthaginians were a people whose ancient city on the African
coast had been founded centuries ago by a race—the Phoenicians—thousands of
years older still. Maharbal
apparently saw only what the soldiers saw in Hamilcar: successful governor,
former Shofet of Carthage, above all, great soldier. Governor
of Carthage’s long-held province in Spain, Hamilcar Barca governed a river of
silver and other precious metals flowing to Carthage—with a good deal into his
own purse, of course. Hamilcar
the hero—and the goat—of Carthage’s war with Rome over Sicily, forced to
conduct the punitive negotiations with conquering Rome. And Hamilcar the savior
of Carthage from a rebellion of her mercenary soldiers after the war. A
lot to live up to. Next section of I. Hannibal, Spain, 221 - 218 B.C. Back to Top
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