In Our Time - Hannibal

Episode Date: October 11, 2012

Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the life and achievements of Hannibal. One of the most celebrated military leaders in history, Hannibal was the Carthaginian general who led an entire army, complete with elephants, across the Alps in order to attack the Roman Republic. He lived at a time of prolonged hostility between the two great Mediterranean powers, Rome and Carthage, and was the Carthaginians' inspirational leader during the Second Punic War which unfolded between 218 and 202 BC. His career ended in defeat and exile, but he achieved such fame that even his enemies the Romans erected statues of him. Centuries later his tactical genius was admired and studied by generals including Napoleon and Wellington.With:Ellen O'Gorman Senior Lecturer in Classics at the University of BristolMark Woolmer Senior Tutor in the Department of Classics and Ancient History at the University of DurhamLouis Rawlings Senior Lecturer in Ancient History at Cardiff University.Producer: Natalia Fernandez.

Thank you for downloading this episode of In Our Time, for more details about In Our Time, and for our terms of use, please go to BBC.co.com.uk slash Radio 4. I hope you enjoy the programme. Hello, anybody walking the riverbank near the northern Italian town of Piacenza on a freezing cold morning in December 218 BC would have seen an extraordinary spectacle. About 60,000 troops accompanied by scores of war elephants battled through driving snow to attack and rout to the Roman army encamped on the other side of the river.

At their head was one of the greatest generals the world has ever seen. His name was Hannibal. He came from Carthage in northern Africa, and he led his forces, elephants and all across Spain, across France, excuse me, and into Italy, across the Alps. His victory at the Battle of the Treviour struck fear into the hearts of the Roman Republic, and it was the first skirmish in one of the most celebrated

of 15 years of conflicts in Roman history, the Second Punic War. Hannibal was an inspirational leader whose tactical genius earned the respect not just of his enemies, but of modern generals, from Napoleon to Wellington to Storm and Norman Schwarzen. Women to discuss Hannibal and the Second Punic War

are Eleanor Gorman, Senior Lecture in Classics at the University of Bristol. Mark Woolmer, senior tutor in the Department of Classics and Ancient History at the University of Durham, Louis Rowlands, senior lecture in ancient history at Cardiff University. Anna Naguong, Hanimel came from Carthage in Northern Africa. Can you tell us a bit about the Carthaginian Empire he came from?

Well, the Carthaginians were a Phoenician people, so they'd originally settled from Tyre in Lebanon, and Phoenicians were traders, so initially their empire took over existing Phoenician settlements along the coast of North Africa, going as far as Morocco, and also in southern Spain going as far as Cadiz, so they were controlling the Straits of Gibraltar.

The Carthaginians themselves also established considerable control of western Sicily. And since Carthage was on Capon, or just south of Capon, in North Africa, this gave them control of the narrowest part of the middle of the Mediterranean, if you were heading west, going between Sicily and North Africa. They also controlled Sardinia, Corsica, Ibiza. They were starting to establish quite a strong empire in Spain, which gave them control of silver mines. And in North Africa, them itself,

they also had rich agricultural lands south of Carthage in Libya. So their empire was wealthy both because of trade and because of agricultural wealth, because they were exploiting the natural resources of Sardinia and southern Spain and the incredibly fertile Sicily. They also got a lot of manpower from these different places. but it's also clear from the locations that they'd chosen

that they were aiming at control of the Western Mediterranean and that control was clearly imperial, not just a sort of trade control. So we have a fairly long-standing, the greatest Mediterranean Empire at about that time, which has been built up over quite a number of years. Yes, I mean the Phoenicians had been settling North Africa and southern Spain from about the 11th, 10th century

and Carthage was established around about the 9th,000. 9th century. So yes, they were very long established. The first serious conflict between Carthagin-Rome was the first Punic War, which ended in 241 BC. What effect did that have on Carthage, which was defeated in the first Punic War? The effect on Carthage was, I mean, that was a 23-year war, so that was an extraordinarily long war, which was fought tenaciously, mostly in Sicily. By the end of that war, the Carthaginians had been driven out of Western Sicily, where they had previously held control. and the Romans had now established control of that island.

And in the immediate aftermath of that war, the Carthaginians returning back to Carthage found themselves embroiled in a mercenary war. Unlike Rome, the Carthaginians tended to employ mercenaries in their armies. This did give them some military advantages because they had a very diverse fighting force from different parts of their empire. the problem was when they lost this war

and didn't have money to pay the mercenaries, the mercenaries revolted. And while they were engaged in attempting to sort out that war, the Romans annexed Sardinia. So they were slowly losing grip on certain parts of their empire. So Rome, quite recently, Citi states, the new young bull in the Mediterranean, taking on the old bull of Carthage,

to put it in quite simplistic terms at that time. But more or less, well, I'm accurate, isn't it? Yes, that's more or less accurate. Mark Woolma, Hannibal's first. father was a famous general, Hamil Carr. Tell us something about him. It was he who lost the first Punic War, or was a general in charge of the Carth, Jinianswish lost the first period. To his fury, he thought the Senate should let him keep fighting, didn't he? Well, that's certainly the way that the Roman sources portray it, and it very much sets up the Second Punic War by having him

aggrieved by the Carthaginian Senate. So by suggesting that he'd been betrayed by his own people, they could then portray the Second Punic War as a Bark adventure. But this is a necessarily accurate and we have to view this through the lens of Roman propaganda. So what about Hannibal's father? What about Hanelker? I set us off on slightly a red herring there. Well, not much is known about his early life. We can make some assumptions based on from evidence in the source material that we have. So we know he was an aristocrat and this must have been the case because he was given control of a large army for six years in Sicily at the end of the first Punic War. And to take command of an army,

at such an early age, suggested that he was around 30 when he took control of the army. He must have had aristocratic backgrounds. He must have had support from a wide cross-section of Carthaginian politicians in order to gain the support necessary to be elected to the generalship. So this suggests that he had aristocratic background. Can we pause for a second? You had the Carthaginian Senate had to elect you to a generalship? The Carthaginian Senate would meet and would then discuss who they would put

forward as general. This sometimes gets overruled so the army can elect a general as we'll see later with Hastrable and Hannibal himself and they'll make their representative their chosen candidate known and then the Senate will ratify but essentially the Carthaginian Senate would make

the decision of who was a military commander. So he was in Sicily, he was leading the army he was only 30, he was an Irish secret and he was a good general and he got defeated in Sicily. Why was he so aggrieved about that? I mean he wasn't a... Anyway, Well, he was actually tasked with not necessarily winning the first Punic War,

but not losing the first Punic War. So he was giving limited resources and limited manpower to achieve that objective. So it was never the case that anyone had any illusions that he was going to win this. It was basically to maintain the status quo and ensure that there was an equitable settlement at the end of the conflict. So he wasn't really charged with winning. So he undertakes a series of basically guerrilla raids on the Italian. coastline which gained a lot of propaganda credit for him. He gains

a lot of kudos from this. But actually the venture itself is relatively minor skirmishers. So the idea that he's perhaps feels betrayed is I think an illusion because he was never given the support or the resources to win the war.

So this idea that he felt aggrieved at the end of the first puny war I think is a misnomer. But he certainly didn't feel happy about it. I'm not going to go on about you. You know a lot more than I do. From everything I've read, being defeated because you've starred the resources, wasn't something a general would live with sleep quite happily at night with, would he?

No. It would certainly have been something that was a challenge to his social standing and his ranking amongst the Senate having lost the war, but he's never prosecuted for it. And the Carthaginians are more than willing to execute generals at the drop of a hat. they come up with numerous innovative methods of execution, crucifixion, perhaps being the most popular. So if there was any hint that the general had performed badly,

he would have faced punishment at home. He doesn't face any of these charges, and he doesn't seem to have, there don't seem to have been any political repercussions. What about his son, Hannibal's childhood? Very little is known about Hannibal's early childhood that the first mention of Hannibal really have is at the age of nine. So prior to that, we don't even know who his mother is.

We know that he was born probably at the end of the first Punic War when Hasdrable, Hamukar was back at home. And then we hear of him again at the age of nine when he pleads with his father to take him to Spain and let him accompany him on the military venture over to Spain. And a lot of the sources make a big issue out of this supposed oath that he swore, which was that he would never be friends with the Romans' Jews. during his lifetime. And again, this buys into the idea

that the Second Punit War was a real Bark adventure that Hamelcar was grooming. Parker, your listeners weren't understand what you're saying, this is the family. The family's called the Barker. The Barker family,

who become the sort of most important, powerful family, even though they're not the ruling family, the most important family. So he's one of that family. He's one of this family. So he's pleased to the fly to go to Spain. His father says yes, as I understand it.

So he's on or around the battlefield when he's nine, he scarcely leaves it. Yeah, absolutely. And I think this is, where he gets a lot of his military expertise from. He lives with the men. He grows up and we know that he's spoken using military jargon.

He understood what motivates men because he spent a lot of time living with them and watching how his father managed his armies, managed his troops. And so he gains a lot of experience from an early age of military camps, military ventures, military operations. And then slowly over time he rises up through the ranks and by 2-24 he's made his brother-in-law, makes him chief of the cavalry.

Louis Rawlins, Hannibal's father, Hamelka, he launched, as as Mark said, he goes to Spain to reinforce him to develop the empire in Spain and to get the money from the silver mines, which is worked by slaves at the time. Can you say what Hamelka achieved there, and if we know anything about Hannibal's part in this? Yes. His primary achievement is essentially to put Carthage back on a financially stable footing. At the end of the mercenary war, at the end of this truselous war, which was a terrible thing. Hamilcar actually is the general who wins that war. So they come back after losing the first war. The mercenaries can't be paid because of the heavy tax the Romans have put on them. So they've got three years, the mercenaries revolt massively, take time for three years.

And Hamilcar's problem then is to put them down, panes. them, sort them out. He does that and then he takes them to Spain. Absolutely. If you've got an army and you need to do something with it really. And so he takes this now veteran army of loyal mercenaries and loyal soldiers to Spain, essentially to expand in Spain to generate income and revenue through booty, through conquest, gaining control, even more control of the silver mines, in order to allow Carthage to regain its financial status because it had been completely destroyed financially after the First Punic War

so much so that it couldn't actually have paid its mercenaries. So one of the great achievements that Hamilcar has is to actually bring in a vast amount of wealth into Carthage and into his own imperialistic venture in Spain. So he spends the period from... 237 BC down to 229 campaigning in Spain and expanding aggressively against various Spanish tribes. But he's killed in battle in 229. And leaving a Carthaginian army, which is well established in Spain, is well organised and he has relatives and political allies who can take over the army.

So his son-in-law, a chap called Hasturbal, who is therefore Hannibal's brother-in-law, takes over the command. And Hasdribal has his own power base in Carthage. He's a demagogue. He's got popular support. So Hamelcar, with his military reputation and Hasdrabel, with his political support, together, form this very good alliance. And so Hashtrable takes over and consolidates in Spain. Hasdribles killed on the battlefield. and decapitate him and throw his body back, are we told that.

That's a different Hasterball. It's a different Hasterball. Yeah, the Carthaginians don't have very many names. Very good of me, but with the Hesribles I therefore found. Yeah, the Carthaginians don't have very many names than Hannibal's and Hamel cars and Hasterpals. Well, I want to wait quickly to Hesrable got killed. The Hesrable who was leading got killed or got ousted or died in his bed, whatever. He moved over and Hannibal became the leader.

That's where we want to get to. Yeah, absolutely. So Hustrable gets assassinated in 221. and the young Hannibal, who is about 25, part of this family, takes over the army. And the army, because they're familiar with him, they know he's a good commander of cavalry,

he's grown up with the army, they support his bid for the generalship. Exploiting the connections that the Barker family have in Carthage, the Popular Assembly in Carthage also ratify that and also support. So he's only 25 when he's. takes over the army. That's right. But he's been on the battlefield, let me try to work it out. Since he, for 16 years then already.

More or less, yes. Yeah. Yeah. So he's extremely experienced. He knows all the officers. He knows many of the men. And so he's developed. He's cut his teeth in the fields of Spain. So we've got Hannibal in Spain, charge of the army. The Carthaginian coffers filled up again, faster than the Romans. Got their money back as it was money together. Eleanor Gorman.

We're coming to the second Punic War now, which is often called the Hannibalic War, in 218 BC. The Romans and the... They resumed hostilities in 218 BC. Was there one particular cause or when they just gathered their strengths for another go in this battle for the control of the Mediterranean? That's a very good way of putting the question, and some historians insist on calling the Hannibalic War the second bout of the Romano-Carthaginian War to suggest that there's a sort of continuity. The explanations we have for the outbreak of hostilities have to do, they focus around the city of Saguntum in Spain, which had put itself under the protection of Rome some years before. It seems that what Suguntum was worried about was not so much the Carthaginians as other local tribes

that they were engaged in hostility with and political factions within their own town. but by calling on the protection of Rome and the aid of Rome in organising themselves politically, they had established a link with Rome. Rome doesn't seem to have paid much attention to them until Hannibal started aggressively moving the Carthaginian bases in Spain outwards.

He wasn't just moving west, he was also moving northeast, but this triggered the Romans or gave the Romans an opportunity to visit Hannibal and warn him away from Saguntum that this was a city under Roman. protection. And Hannibal obviously took this as a challenge

and laid Suguntum under siege. The Romans reacted remarkably slowly to this, which is quite interesting to think about in terms of what their plans are. By the time they had protested to the Carthaginian Senate and sent aid to Suguntum. Suguntum was in ruins.

Hannibal had taken it. And moving north. I mean the speed factor, if we can establish this from the beginning. One of the characteristics of Hannibal at the time was the speed compared with everybody at which he moved. So by the time they decided to summon up a protest, he'd raised the town and he was still moving north in Spain.

Mark Woolmer, this takes us to Hannibal's most famous achievement. People, we know that he crossed the Alps with war elephants and with a massive army, but we didn't know that he took his army through Spain, he took it across France, and then he crossed the Alps.

What do we know now of that journey, I'm sure it's been reassessed and revised. How many troops did he take across and how many of them survived? He set out, I think it was with around 80,000 troops, that's including perhaps the baggage train as well. So that's including hangers-on and logistics officers and things like that. And all these elephants?

And all his elephants, yeah. Again, we're not entirely clear on how many elephants he had. He probably only had around 30 elephants at this. point and he decides to set out in the middle of autumn to cross the Alps which is recognised as being the worst time to attempt to crossing even as an individual alone with an entire army in tow. Did it extraordinary, are you just going 80,000 men over? Going up Spain, across France and crossing down.

As far as he knew, except for some mythical figure, was it Heracles? Nobody had done this before, not with 80,000 men in elephants. What a bold move. Do we know why he decided this was the way to go? There was no way that he could reach Italy, apart from a land march. The Romans had improved their naval capacity, were now dominant and replaced Carthage as the superior naval power of the Mediterranean. So they could quite easily prevent him from sailing across to Italy.

He also needed to supply his army, so he uses this as an opportunity to collect provisions on the way. And so therefore collect plunder, collect booty, he bloody his soldiers to make sure that they were at full fighting efficiency when they reached. What did that entail, bloodying his soldiers? Basically, he undertook. He didn't march directly to Italy after the war was declared. He actually spent time in the northeast of Spain, taking out minor cities and minor tribes. And this seems to have been an opportunity to, again, just make sure that he was full fighting efficiency.

He also knew that he was going to have to fight a number of the Gallic tribes prior to his crossing of the Alps. So this wasn't going to be just an easy march. It was going to be a march where they were going to have to fight their way through hostile tribes before they even crossed the mountain range itself. And the feeding off the land as they go? Absolutely, yeah. I did an organisation, isn't it? It is.

Well, another Hannibal, Hannibal Monomachus, actually says the only way that this will be feasible as if Hannibal feeds his army using the bodies of dead prisoners. And he sort of says this is the only way you're going to achieve this is by feeding off the dead. This is a very sort of sensationalist story. But it shows that even in Carthage itself, it was recognised that this was going to be a very risky venture. And what's interesting is later Hannibal's brother,

Hasdrabel, another Hasdrubal, actually marches across the Alps following the same route as Hannibal during the spring and suffers no losses, according to our sources. Yet Hannibal was to suffer crippling losses by the time he actually reached the other side. Well, Lou Rons, can you take up the story? You say crippling losses, but he went on to win 15 years of battle,

so he can't have been that crippled, but never mind, let me be corrected on this. So he gets across the house. How many of his men are left? And come to something else in a moment. According to an inscription that he actually erected in southern Italy, much later in the war, he has 20,000 infantry and 6,000 cavalry of his original 80,000 or so troops. And what they lost across the Alps?

He'd left some in northern Spain because he knew there was a Roman army coming in the opposite direction. Some had deserted en route. Some had been left in garrisons on route as well. But quite a lot of the casualties appear to have occurred in the crossing of the Alps. So he's lost 54,000 people?

Somehow, yes. Many of those through desertion and through attrition of various sorts. So that's why Mark is saying that it's a crippling, crippling result for him, because if you imagine if he'd arrived with 50,000 men, his chances and his prospects must have been much greater. So to be only 26,000 men, he was up against it.

Why did you take the elephants? He took the elephants because the elephants are very important in terms of propaganda value. They demonstrate the power and the prowess of the Carthaginian army. The Carthaginians have been using elephants for a good 50 or so years and it's a kind of a Hellenistic what's the word I'm thinking

it's a Hellenistic motif to have elephants in your army you're a great army if you have elephants and Alexander the Great and his successors have all kind of been enamoured with the elephant as an engine of war, an animal of war Are these trained? I've called them war elephants are they trained to, are they armored and so on? They are trained. There's some debate about the extent to which

they're armoured and also the Carthaginian elephants are more than likely to have been quite small forest elephants, African forest elephants, which are a different breed from the big African elephants. So smaller than the Indian elephants. They did have one or two Indian elephants which they'd imported and one famously is named and he's called the Suras or the Syrian and he actually had a prosthetic tusk, he had a metal tusk. So they're spectacular and they're also terrifying on the battlefield. They're very difficult to deal with. And, you know, if they get grumpy, they're quite terrifying. And they can disrupt an enemy formation.

So they're quite important for the barcades. And the barcids in Spain have campaigned with large forces of elephants. So we have Hannibal in Italy with a much smaller force than he said off with. And your use of the... I'm just questioning your use of the word crippled mark, because then he goes about destroying Roman battle. One battle after another, he destroys the Roman art. He just doesn't beat them. He seems to destroy them.

So, Eleanor Gorman, can you tell us about the first Kermish and how with the Romans? Well, Kermish is at Trebia and Lake Trasimine. How does he set about chasing the Romans there? Well, this issue of numbers, I think, demonstrates Hannibal's military skill. At the Battle of the River Trebia, he is outnumbered by the Romans. But I think he takes advantage. of a number of issues with the terrain. So he checks out the terrain beforehand.

He finds a flat area of land which has a watercourse running through it, which is not visible when you're looking across the land. And by charging towards the Roman camp, he enrages the consul, Sampronius Longus, so much that Longus orders his men to come out and fight the Carthaginians. The Carthaginians, therefore, provoke the battle, but the Carthaginians already fed, exercised and warmed, and they know more about the terrain.

The Romans race out of the camp. There are more of them. They haven't been fed. It's cold and snowy, as you said in your introduction. And they have to for the river to get to the Carthaginians. So they go across an ice cold river into land. They haven't been fed, and they're facing a well-fed army. As they move forward, with their superior infantry,

they seem initially to prevail against the slightly smaller infantry. numbers of Hannibal's army. Hannibal then deploys two of his killer skills. First is the maneuverability of his army. So he gets the cavalry to charge the Romans on one flank and the skirmishers to charge on the other. And then his famous trickery, he's actually hidden some of his soldiers in the water course and they rise up behind the Romans. So the Romans are suddenly attacked from all sides and they don't have the maneuverability to turn around. The Romans at this time tend to wheel in formation if they want to move around. So if they're moving forward

and suddenly they're pressed from all sides, they can't wheel, they're not accustomed to turning around individually, and thus a smaller force beats a larger force. Yeah, it's extraordinary. You mentioned the searching out this land. One of the things he's famous for is taking a great interest in, not more than interested in, paying particular attention to the terrain on which he fought,

getting reports before and what was it like, was it flat, was it hilly with the woods or the rivers, what was going on. that's seeing that a lot of future generals right up to the present century praise him for, the Kerry talk. Yes, absolutely, and it probably relates to his skills later on in his life in city planning. And we see the same sort of use of terrain in the Battle of Lake Trasimini the following year. The next consul, Flaminius, pursues what he thinks to be at the fleeing army of Hannibal. Hannibal leads his army into the valley close to the lake and the shore of the lake.

But Hannibal's army is actually silently waiting in the slopes above. It's early morning, mist is rising from the lake. And you worked out which where the sun was going to be directed, is it right? Well, he must have noticed from the east, obviously, but I mean, he saw that where he was going to be. Yes, I mean, I think he took all of those sorts of factors into consideration. So in the case of the Battle of Lake Trazimini, the Romans were simply trapped by the terrain. Some of the army was driven into the lake and drowned. some of them simply had to stand and fight where they stood

and apparently it took three hours. They just stood and fought until they were cut down. We were talking about, we were talking in your notes anyway, of some sort of slaughter in a good description. Louis-Rollins. Hannibal's most famous victory came at Cannes, is that how he pronounces? Yes. In 216 BC. Now, why is that so famous? Again, he's quite considerably outnumbered, so I understand it?

So why is it so famous? It's famous because it becomes a blueprint for generals to emulate. It's one of the perfect battles of all time, really. It's a double envelopment, which is where a weaker force is able to surround by capturing the wings of the enemy force and then driving in from the sides and from behind and surrounding a much larger force. So Hannibal's great trick in that battle is actually to ambush the Roman army without any use of terrain at all. It's a completely flat. We're on planet.

Yeah, right. Canaan is completely flat. Yeah. And they're lined up against each other like we see in boys' books in the 1940s and 50s. Yes. The Romans are, they've put twice as many troops into the field as they have done in previous battles. So they now number about 70,000 in this battle. And what's Hannibal down to now? Hannibal, with his original 26,000, he's been augmented by Gauls from the north of Italy.

and so roughly 50% of his army is Gallic by this time and so he's got roughly 20,000 Gauls so he's got between 45,000 and maybe 50,000 men himself he stretches his own battle lines which are mainly Spanish and Gaulish infantry in the centre into a crescent shape in front of the Romans so that they look as if they're coming towards the Romans but they're actually more or less stationary and the Romans charge that force

and the line is very thin because they have to stretch to match the huge Roman numbers. Gauls are very good in initial attacks, but they tire quickly, and the Romans understand that they've been fighting Gauls in the north of Italy for many, many centuries. And they give up after a bit. And the Romans expect the Gauls to fight hard for a bit and then start to retreat and give in. And that's exactly what happens. However, Hannibal has positioned on the flanks his African infantry, and then beyond those infantry he has his cavalry on the far flanks which are completely destroying the Roman cavalry opposite them.

So the Romans advance into this crescent formation, start pushing it back and pushing it back and pushing it back. But the Gauls and the Spaniards are able not to run away. They manage to hold but they give ground and eventually the Romans create the reverse crescent shape. They go in, they get sucked into a bag essentially. the Africans on the flanks turn in and attack the Romans and pin them and that stops the Romans from advancing. It means they have to turn to the sides which as Ellen said is very difficult. And then finally the Carthaginian cavalry comes in from the rear and closes up the bag and so the Romans can't escape. And whenever people are caught together, whenever crowds are pushed together, they don't react very well.

And so even though they outnumber the Carthaginians almost two to one, they just can't fight enough. And there's a terrifying statistic, which is that 100 people a minute were killed at that battle. And by the end of the battle, there were over 50,000 Romans dead on the battlefield. The Carthaginians lose roughly 12,000, which sounds like a great victory, but actually is quite decimating to the Carthaginian army in itself. It's 10% casualties. Mark Warmer, what did Hannibal do after Canaan? He'd won in ancient times,

what any time had been called a great victory. You would have expected it. The Romans would say, okay, you win. It's all over. What do you want? Now, what did happen? Well, this is, that's what you've described, is certainly what Hannibal expected,

and certainly a number of Hannibal's generals expected this. You beat an army on a few occasions, and then they come to terms. And that's certainly the way that, warfare had worked prior to this. But the Romans are shown when they were fighting against Pyrrhus, for example, a previous invader,

that this wasn't the case. They didn't know when to stop. They saw it as a war of attrition, and they weren't going to come to terms. So the expectation would be that Hannibal would march on the city of Rome and bring the city to its knees. Why didn't he? Now this is a question

that much ink has been spilled over. There are a number of reasons. I think partly going back to what I was saying, the losses that he suffered across the Alps. He didn't have enough troops to have tactical flexibility. So he would have to besiege the city, which means keeping your army in one place static for a long period of time. You needed to have enough troops to be able to blockade the city

and also provision your own troops, which means sending out a smaller army perhaps to forage to collect provisions. He didn't have enough troops to do this. So he couldn't besiege the city and have an army that would be of sufficient numbers to be able to collect. provisions. So is it now thought in scholarship people like you, three, that he was sensible not to

attempt to capture Rome, or was that a missed opportunity? It still divides opinion. Some people would say that it's a missed opportunity, others would say it's probably the most sensible move he made. Unfortunately, after, having chosen not to march on the city, which confounds his generals, his cavalry command, Marhoble says, Hannibal, you know how to win a victory,

but sadly you don't know how to use one. So clearly the expectation was that he should march on the city because that was the done thing. And there were lots of loot there? And there would be a lot of loot in terms of wealth, but not a lot of provisions. So even having taken the city, he wouldn't necessarily be able to reprovision his army.

All of the grain supplies are in sort of Middle Italy and Southern Italy, and these are in fortified towns. And so this is where Hannibal heads. He heads to southwards to try and isolate Rome from its allies and try to separate Rome from its Italian allies and its Etruscan allies. And also he comes up against Fabius the Delaya, one of the names that I particularly like in this particularly. Fabius the Delia decides, when you tell everybody what Fabius the Delia does,

it's fairly obvious from his name, but still. Yes, he delayed. Well, since Hannibal had already shown in several battles that when you tried to face and face to face, it was his maneuverability, his skill was such that he tended to destroy. the Roman army, destroy their manpower and destroy their morale. Fabius, an elder

statesman who became dictator after Trazimini, though you can correct me if I've forgotten that, if I've misremembered that. Decides actually the way to do this is simply not to engage Hannibal, but to attempt to starve him out, so to hurry him, to attempt to keep him away

from lands. It was sort of guerrilla warfare, scorched earth, wasn't it? It was a scorched earth policy. It wasn't popular in Rome. And so So Fabius had to not only deal with trying to manage Hannibal, but trying to manage a party in Rome who were saying, no, we should just have Atom again. It was really the experience of Can I that showed the Romans

that Fabius's tactic was correct. And people then started to pursue that more fully as a policy, which is I think why he was known in poetry as the man who by delaying saved the state. So, yes, Lou, come in. So how did, I'm sorry to push this on a bit. David, how did Hannibal react to not being offered the opportunity of pitch battles? Because we're talking about years, it's 15 years here, and how was he eventually, as it were,

almost well driven from Italy? Yeah, well, I'd like to just pick up on what Ellen says. I think Fabian tactics work in the short term. They are not popular in Rome, and even after a year after Can I, the Romans are back with armies dogging Hannibal's steps and trying to seek it So it's not the case that the Romans are avoiding Hannibal. And in fact, Hannibal's army in Italy fights 22 battles in those 14 years, major battles these are. So it's not really...

And he wins them all, doesn't. He wins most of them, or he doesn't lose any of them. That's the key thing. And even the ones that are claimed that he loses, he clearly doesn't because he still carries on. He fights in southern Italy and he tries to... His victory at Cannae gives him a problem because allies do go over to him. Capua goes over to him Tarentum goes over to him

Many states in samnium And brutium in particular Go over to him But now he has a problem Because he has to protect those allies From the Romans And the Romans now can not They don't have to worry so much about Hannibal

They can worry about these recocetrant Communities and attack them But the Romans decide Pushing on Mark Woolmer And they've got Scipio African as their general now very fine general who we are told, copied Hanimov, studied Hannibal's tactics and copied them.

The Romans decided that they wanted to get him out of Italy and the clever way to do it was to go to Carthage and attack Carthage and he would have to come back and defend Carthage. So that's what they did and that's what he did and there was the Battle of Zama, which was a crucial battle. Can you tell us about that on North African soil? Yeah, this was something that Hannibal feared. He didn't want the Romans getting to North Africa.

In fact, he tried to stop them. in 2-11 by marching on Rome, making a fake march on Rome to try and distract them from attacking North Africa. But the Romans had started to realise the value of hitting North African target. So they send a large army across, and Hannibal is finally recalled to North Africa to meet the threat of Scipio. So essentially, you've got the two probably greatest commanders of the time

with two of the largest armies at the time, meeting head on the battlefield. But Scipio has learned what Hannibal's strategies are, and he's worked out how to nullify the threat of the elephants. And also the elephants that are used as armour are untrained. Carthage doesn't have time to train up a new core of elephants. So they're using young, untrained elephants, which are as much of a menace to his own troops as they are to the Romans,

because they're easily panicked. They flee and they flee through the Punic lines, and this causes more chaos to Hannibal's army than they did to the Romans. So the battle is closely fought It's not a clear-cut battle And both sides fight doggedly In fact, Hannibal's Italian allies Actually fight the hardest

And he says that they're the last to leave the battlefield But he loses his cavalry, doesn't? The Numidian cavalry decide to go across It's supposed to be 20,000 of them You'll tell me that's the wrong number But it's in somebody's notes Anyway, they go away And they're the good cavalry

So he loses a bit And he's a cavalry man Absolutely So he loses his maybe his strongest And this is where Skipio has learned. He's seen the impact that the Numidian cavalry can have. They're an elite unit. They're a powerful unit.

They can use hit-and-run tactics. They can fight on horseback or on foot, so they can be used as foot skirmishes as well. They're a very tactically flexible unit that can be deployed quickly and efficiently. Why did they leave Hannibal? Well, they'd never been comfortable with Punic rule. They'd been subjugated by Carthage,

and during the Merchantry Awards, for example, they'd also tried to leave Carthaginian influence. So they were uncomfortable bedfellows with the Carthaginians. They were treated as subjects rather than allies. And so they were quite happy to try and throw off the yoke of Punic control. And they saw the Romans as offering an opportunity to do so. So he lost that battle. He went back to Carthage and had a political career,

which seems to be characterized by his taking the tactics of the battlefield into the Senate. And then he was pushed into exile, really. I'm sorry to rush, but we haven't got much time left, Ellen. That's more or less, yeah, it is. That sums it up nicely, yes. Exile seems to be rather sad. He drifted, no, you didn't. He went round the Mediterranean offering his advice to one person after an hour,

and those who ignored it got defeated, so he flitted to the next one. Can you do better than I did with that? Well, you've already done pretty well. Yes, he seeks out the kings who are attempting to oppose Roman annexation or Roman rule. He offers his expertise and his service, his capacity to attract more manpower. The king's Antiochus of Syria first, then the king of Armenia and finally the king of Batinia. He's a mixed blessing as an advisor. He's got the experience.

He's got the clout. But he doesn't have immediate loyalty to that king. So they always treat him with a certain degree of suspicion. He ends up in Batinia Antiochus of Syria has already been defeated The Romans are closing in on Batinia and forcing Batinia to accept these reasons Are they after Hannibal? Are they after Batinia?

Are they, we've got to get this man? They're also attempting to establish control of the East slowly. So it's not just a Hannibal hunt But the fact that Hannibal is involved in these things is obviously part of their negotiations. So they get the King of Batinia to accept peace terms and one of the terms is hand over Hannibal. The King of Bettinias surrounds his villa with all its secret exuts

so he can't escape and Hannibal says it's time to release Rome of its fear of this old man and he takes poison. What imprint does Hannibal left in not only in military culture but generally? He's a romantic figure. He's one of the great losers, a man who drives the Romans to the wall. Well he won't 22 battle. Exactly. Yeah, but people think of only, they only think, exactly.

But you don't get anything if you don't win the premiership. That's true. So it is the case that he loses the last battle. And he's regarded as one of the great generals. So he has a romance to him that other characters may not have had. We benefit from very, very detailed narratives from our ancient sources. Many commentators, aren't there? Many commentators like to talk to him.

He's a bogeyman for the Romans and they terrifies Roman children in the classroom. and at bedtime for many, many decades and centuries to come. So he has this legacy of being the man who might have been, if he'd beaten the Romans, would it have been a Carthaginian world rather than a Roman world? Alan, you want to get in? Well, it's not so much romance, I think, as myth. He becomes more than just the extraordinary content. He becomes associated, as you've said, with fear and destruction.

Finally, Mark? I think he's attractive as the underdog figure as well, whether or not this is actually a true depiction, as we've seen, Carthaginian forces were equal to the Romans. But he's seen as a sort of underdog, and he becomes champion of the underdogs. So, for example, in Ireland, they adopt him as their sort of ancestral, as an ancestral figure.

And so in their fight against the British Empire, they pose it as them, the Irish as being the Carthaginians and the British as the Romans. Thank you very much, Mark Wulver, Eleanor Gorman, Louis Rawlins. Next week, William Caxon and the first printing press. On we go. Thank you for listening. There are many more Radio 4 arts and discussion programmes to download for free. Find these on the website at BBC.com.uk slash Radio 4.