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Back to section vii of this chapter

I. Hannibal, Spain, 221 - 218 B.C.

viii

“When the citadel falls, put to the sword all males old enough to fight,” Hannibal said, looking up at Saguntum’s defensive walls atop a high hill—really quite beautiful, built of good stone and equipped with excellent fighting positions, well protected by thick parapets. “I want the rest of Spain to know I mean business.”

Besides, the death of Saguntum would send a message to Rome, one that could not fail to ignite war. The town really was well within Carthage’s sphere of influence in Spain, a full eighty miles south of the Ebro. But she had the friendship of Rome, and he believed Rome would have to come to her rescue. That was the spark he sought.

And time was critical, for it was now two years since he’d taken the command, two years of mighty preparations for this moment. But those walls looked impregnable. Nonetheless, she had to fall.

Even if the spark did not ignite a conflagration, Hannibal would leave Saguntum’s charred ruins behind him as he marched for Rome. That much was certain in his mind already.

Besides her fortifications, Saguntum was only a mile from the sea, from which she earned much of her livelihood. With the sea so available, it would also be easy enough for Rome to aid her. His first step, then, was to protect his siege operations from the sea.

Hannibal built good fortifications between the city and her seaport. He set Mago to patrolling with a small fleet of Carthaginian ships outside the harbor against possible Roman incursions.

Which did not come.

He began his assaults, bombarding the town with catapulted stones and arrows. A siege tower was out of the question with those steep slopes before the walls, so it would have to be done with siege ladders—the hard way. Too bad, but he was ready to do whatever it took.

He’d find the patience—somewhere.

He launched flaming missiles over the walls. He cut off her water supply. He made his lines impenetrable to any messengers she might attempt to send out. Or any succor that might try to come in. She would capitulate, starve, or burn. By whatever means, she would fall.

He would have her.

The town fought hard. The siege stretched out for month after month. And still the Romans did not come. True, his intelligence system reported they were involved in Illyria and still patrolling their northern frontier in the Padus Valley against Gallic unrest.

But from Rome not a word.

“Well, they’ll wake up when Saguntum burns,” Hasdrubal Barca told him.

“Now, Hasdrubal. I need her to burn now.”

Hannibal led much of the early fighting himself. One day in midsummer, he ordered yet another assault to put pressure on the city’s defenders.

The city’s stout stone wall towered eighteen feet above the ground, and the assault forces had to scramble up a steep slope of treacherous, shifting ground just to reach the wall’s base. Defenders lined the wall, thickest on the side of the main attack, at least a man every four feet, each with just enough space for fighting. These hurled every sort of missile they could lay hands on, including those already thrown at the city earlier by Hannibal’s Cretan archers and catapulters. Some already had Saguntine blood on them.

Hannibal’s forces struggled up the slope under a storm of spears and arrows, even stones. But they unleashed their own shower in return. The combined sound of the missiles’ passage through the air sounded like the hard rain of a summer cloudburst—a rain whose drops struck with the sting of death. The arrows bore sharp iron points driven by the power of short bows strengthened with horn and sinew, wielded by hundreds of strong men. Above, he could see the defenders shrinking back, forced to shield themselves more thoroughly—and unable for a moment to launch more missiles at Hannibal.

“Now,” Hannibal shouted, and raced up towards the wall as a second flight of arrows followed the first. He gloried in the thousand heavy infantry screaming at his back, halting with shields up when the Carthaginian arrows had done their work and the defenders began reappearing atop the wall.

In a moment, the men behind him surged forward again as a barrage of stones flew at the walls.

With the defenders dodging missiles, Hannibal reached the wall. He turned to summon men with ladders, keeping his shield above his head. He could hear arrows striking it with loud thuds, so hard it stung his forearm under the shield.

A score of long wooden ladders thumped up against the rough stone wall, though many of those shoving the ladders up fell in the attempt. Others pushed the dead and dying aside and began to mount the ladders under another barrage of missiles from above.

Above him on the nearest ladder, a man struck by a heavy stone hurtled to the ground beside Hannibal. His helmet bounded off down the slope. His skull was smashed, a pulp of blood and brains.

Hannibal stepped back to watch the assault on the wall, shield down for a moment.

Pain shot through his thigh.

He looked down to see an arrow embedded there, piercing the muscle, its feathered shaft protruding. Another inch and it would have missed him completely. Three inches lower, and it would have destroyed his knee. A runnel of blood flowed down his calf. Nuisance.

He brought his shield back up, then snapped the arrow off, leaving part of it embedded, and turned again to the fight.

A moment later, his leg buckled, the pierced muscle unable to hold. He cried out as pain ripped through him. He fell to the ground clutching the leg.

Instantly, three soldiers rallied to cover him with their shields.

“We’ll get you out,” one of them said. Missiles rained down on the shields overhead.

“Get out of my way,” Hannibal cried with a snarl, trying to rise. It was not the arrow that angered him so, nor even the pain. It was the fact that he couldn’t continue the fight.

Maharbal arrived at a run, pulling several more soldiers with him.

“Get him to his feet,” Maharbal said, “but keep him shielded.”

When he had one of Hannibal’s arms around his own shoulders, and the other around a soldier, Maharbal began carrying Hannibal away from the wall, ignoring his protests. They stumbled and slid down the long slope, nearly falling several times. The rain of missiles continued all around them.

“What were you thinking, Hannibal?” Maharbal cried. “Gods! You’re a fool to be fighting in the ranks.”

“I’ll crucify you, Maharbal.” His anger transferred to Maharbal, now the symbol of his disability.

“No you won’t.”

“See if I don’t.”

“The men need your leadership, not your sword,” Maharbal said.

Nor did Hannibal crucify Maharbal for saving his life, for of course Maharbal was right.

The assault failed. It was too soon, the enemy’s resolve still too strong. But Saguntum would not recover from her wounds nearly as quickly as did her attacker.

Hannibal remained at a distance from the fighting after that, supervising from wherever he could see the field—sometimes standing on a tall platform he had built for the purpose.

The siege stretched on and on. He began to despair of the place ever succumbing. In the middle of it, he found it necessary to take some of the vast horde of troops Maharbal had gathered and punish the Carpetani and the Olcadi yet again. He left Hasdrubal in command of the siege.

And still the Romans did not come.

By now, with the trees changing colors, it was apparent Saguntum would not fall in time for Hannibal to depart for Italy that year. Frustrating, but Saguntum must fall.  

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