HAMILCAR TRAPPED Hamilcar in His First Operation Had Shown Boldness

CHAPTER ELEVEN HAMILCAR TRAPPED Hamilcar in his rst operation had shown boldness—very unlike his confrère Hanno—and been blessed by luck. The smallness of his numbers had been more than compensated by rebel exuberance and indiscipline. His tactics of feigned retreat in face of the enemy turning into abrupt counterattack required troops con dent in drill and in their leader, though as military movements they were (and Hamilcar surely meant them to be) the simplest in the circumstances. But to see them foreshadowing Hannibal’s at Cannae or elsewhere, as is sometimes done, is hardly plausible. Nor are reconstructions that make them more Hannibalic persuasive, as shown above. A good deal more in Hannibal’s style—enemy centre held by infantry and then surrounded by cavalry—was the victory over Regulus’ Roman army in 255, thanks to the Spartan mercenary of\ cer Xanthippus.1 The victory at the Bagradas won back the strategic initiative for the Carthaginians. What Hamilcar did with his 2,000 prisoners Polybius does not say, but putting them to death would not have made a good impression on the Libyan population, which he was keen to win over. The economical thing to do was sell them into slavery ( perhaps leaving 1 For Loreto (1995) 147 with n. 67, the battle reveals ‘una vera e propria scuola barcide’ of tactics from contemporary Hellenistic warfare, with Hannibal in turn developing ‘una tradizione militare di ambito familiare’ based on ‘[ la] manovra agile ed ardita contro il crescente appesantimento della falange ellenistica’ (cf. Gómez (1996) 283). This misconceives not only Hamilcar’s manoeuvres but the rebel attack, which was the opposite of a ‘crescente appesantimento’. Walbank, Comm. 1.143, suggests that the last stages of the battle do foreshadow Hannibal’s methods. But only against the Carpetani in 220 and at Lake Trasimene did Hannibal trap an enemy against a natural barrier (the river Tagus and the lake, respectively) and in neither case achieved it using Hamilcar’s method. In turn, Hamilcar’s hardly matches or looks much like the inspired complexities of Trebia or Cannae. Contrastingly Seibert gives to rebel folly the credit for Hamilcar’s victory: ‘hätten sich die Söldner nicht durch dieses Manöver täuschen lassen, wären Hamilkar und seine Truppe vernichtet worden’ (FzH 99). This can of course be said of the losers in any battle involving skilful tactics, for instance Leuctra, Cannae, Blenheim and Austerlitz. Xanthippus’ victory: elephants and infantry held the Roman legionary foot while cavalry surrounded their anks and rear (Pol. 1.33–34; Lazenby (1996) 104–6). 126 chapter eleven Hanno or the Uticans to do this). At least captured mutineers from the army of Sicily might be sold off. Captive Libyan volunteers he might, just possibly, send home on a promise of good behaviour, as he was to do with prisoners later. Some Libyan towns began to reconsider their loyalties. The victory showed that the republic was not about to succumb to its attackers. This was a vital signal to the outside world too. Neighbours and former enemies, like Hiero of Syracuse and the Romans, could only be encour- aged by it to continue being helpful. Had Hamilcar been defeated, their favour would have cooled, perhaps would even have shifted to the Libyans. In the worst case, the Romans might have been prompted to consider intervening in North Africa themselves, rather than allow Carthage to fall into the power of unpredictable insurgents. It was mentioned earlier how the Romans had put in a complaint over the many Italian merchants under arrest at Carthage for trading with the rebels. With Cape Bon and the Byzacium coast, or much of it, still under Punic control, the only ready access for merchants dealing with the rebels was at Tunes and nearby—for instance the shoreline beside Maxula, just east of Tunes; perhaps too the siege-camps outside Utica and Hippacra. The tempting business opportunities these access- points offered were unpleasantly offset by vulnerability to naval patrols from Carthage. Quite a number of traders and their vessels must have been seized by the early summer of 240, for those from Italy alone numbered ve hundred. Luckily for the Italians, the authorities at Rome responded to their appeals, relayed, very probably, by fellow-merchants doing business at Carthage. Roman envoys arrived at Carthage. The Punic senate and sufetes promptly freed the traders. These no doubt recovered their ships as well, and maybe even their cargoes: for the Romans were so satis- \ ed with the Carthaginians’ cooperativeness that they stepped up their own aid to the republic. Italian traders were from now on forbidden to deal with the rebels at all but authorised ‘to deliver every necessity to the Carthaginians’. Just as welcome, the remaining Punic war-captives in Roman hands were sent home in a reciprocal gesture of liberation. We learn from later writers that they numbered 2,743. These prisoners were probably Carthaginian citizens, maybe also Libyphoenician allies. Ordinary Libyan soldiers would have been sold as slaves in the customary way long ago (nor would freeing Libyans now be clearly helpful to Carthage, given their uncertain loyalty). The captives were .

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