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What Were the Key Factors That Allowed Hannibal His Run Of What were the key factors that allowed Hannibal his run of military success that began at the Trebia and ended at the massacre at Cannae and why didn't he move forward from this success by marching on Rome? By Ben Sharpley Candidate Number: 8588 Institution Code: 58625 By Ben Sharpley TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract .................................................................................. 2 Introduction ............................................................................ 2 Literature Review ................................................................... 5 Discussion ............................................................................. 12 Hannibal’s Character ...................................................................... 12 Army Composition .......................................................................... 15 Hannibal’s Strategy ........................................................................ 19 Failures of the Romans ................................................................... 23 The Role of Propaganda ................................................................. 25 Why Hannibal didn’t march on Rome ............................................ 26 Conclusion ............................................................................ 29 Further Research ............................................................................ 31 Evaluation ............................................................................. 32 Bibliography .......................................................................... 35 1 | P a g e By Ben Sharpley ABSTRACT This research project aims to establish the amount of credit that Hannibal should be given as a general and to what extent other factors like his Roman opposition were important. It will also strive to differentiate between the individual factors that made Hannibal an effective leader rather than just assess his importance in general. Information on the subject has come from books provided by the King Edward VI’s School library and Classics department. The Amazon online store was also used to source some of the literature and the project used the website JSTOR extensively, as well as History Today occasionally in order to access academic journals and other materials. The project concludes that Hannibal should be praised greatly for his achievements although he did have the huge advantage of not having to worry about politics, which hindered the Roman War effort greatly. Nonetheless his creativity and ability to manipulate the battlefield are impossible to ignore as the key reasons for his success. The project explores other factors away from the battlefield, such as propaganda, however, it is clear that Hannibal’s success during the given period came almost entirely from the battlefield and thus they weren’t as crucial in explaining his triumph. INTRODUCTION Hannibal Barca is renowned in History as one of the greatest military generals to ever have lived, a reputation he shares with the likes of Alexander the Great and Napoleon Bonaparte. Biographical details around Hannibal are hard to come by due to the events of 146BC which signified the end of the Third Punic War, when the city of Carthage was sacked and burned. Thus any historical evidence of Hannibal’s life that might have been kept there was lost. From the information that we do have we know that Hannibal grew up a soldier. From an early age he partook in his father’s, Hamilcar Barca’s, campaigns in Iberia. It is said that he 2 | P a g e By Ben Sharpley inherited, from his father, a hatred of Rome which is what spurred him on to reignite a war with the Romans. The City of Carthage was founded as a city state of the Phoenician state of Tyre. It gained its independence around 650BC and began to build an empire that encompassed a lot of Spain, Sardinia, the North coast of Africa and Sicily. This was where they came into contact with the Greeks causing a prolonged period of friction which saw Carthage partake in the three Sicilian Wars and the Pyrrhic Wars. Neither civilisation was able to take complete control of the island before the Romans arrived at the scene. At this point the Carthaginians had developed a sizeable naval trade network and their Navy completely dominated the Western Mediterranean. This all changed with the First Punic War. The emerging Roman republic was growing in power and had control over the whole of the Italian Peninsula. Carthage had taken control of Messana which gave them a lot more influence in Sicily and hence the move was disliked in Rome, who decided to engage the Carthaginians over the issue and so began the First Punic War, in which Hamilcar Barca had fought and lost to the Romans. Thus they were forced to evacuate Sicily and they lost their naval supremacy in the area. In the intervening period, which Hannibal grew up in, Hamilcar fought in the Mercenary war which, although eventually won by Carthage was a bloody affair. Polybius had labelled it the “Truceless War” although it did increase the renown of the Barcid family in the Government. He also spent considerable time campaigning in Iberia and built up the Carthaginian influence there considerably. When he died, there was an intervening period before Hannibal took control in which Hasdrubal, Hamilcar’s son in law was in control in Iberia. During this period the Ebro treaty was signed which was important in the start of the Second Punic War. Signed by Rome and Carthage it decreed that Carthage had free reign over the Spanish Peninsula south of the River Ebro. Therefore when Hannibal laid siege to the city of Saguntum, an ally of Rome situated south of the Ebro it posed an interesting question over whether he was in the wrong for doing so and thus whether the Roman senate should declare war. It is in fact a 3 | P a g e By Ben Sharpley meaningless question because Hannibal wasn’t simply probing the Romans, seeing how far they might stretch, Hannibal was on a war path and Saguntum was the first stop. The city held out for 8 months but didn’t receive any military support from Rome and so eventually gave in. When the inhabitants refused to leave the city the adult population was put to the sword. With this the Second Punic War began and Hannibal began preparing for the long march to Northern Italy in which he would have to traverse the Pyrenees, Alps and the Rhone river whilst constantly in hostile Gallic territory. This route was forced upon him by the naval inferiority of Carthage which ruled out any sea route. This was partly just a hangover from the First Punic War but also due to the Barcid family’s neglect of the problem. Both Hamilcar and his son were renowned as great military generals on land but couldn’t replicate this on the waves. Although Hannibal was able to cross the Pyrenees more or less without issue, he suffered considerable losses owing to clashes with the local tribes. For this reason he had to leave a sizeable force in the area to quell those peoples and to protect from a Roman counter- offensive. At the Rhone Hannibal showed his military expertise when faced with a hostile army waiting on the opposite bank by sending his nephew Hanno with a large force of cavalry to cross up river. Hannibal then began the crossing as Hanno fell on the opposing army who were taken completely by surprise and fled almost immediately. Perhaps his greatest feat though was the crossing of the Alps. The crossing took place as late as October so the army faced harsh weather conditions while they constantly had to deal with mountain tribesman who regularly harassed the army, trying to take their supplies. Nevertheless Hannibal made it through, not without suffering heavy losses to his army however, which was seriously depleted, although the majority of the elephants had survived which was a huge achievement. The Carthaginian army descended into the Po valley where it recuperated. To gain the important support of the Gallic tribes in the area, Hannibal solved a local dispute by sieging and destroying the main settlement of the Taurini which acted as an example to the other Gauls. Soon after he won his first victory over the Romans in a small but decisive victory 4 | P a g e By Ben Sharpley against Publius Cornelius Scipio, one of the consuls of that year. Later that year was the first major engagement at the River Trebia where Hannibal’s run of great victories began. What Hannibal achieved in the following 2 years was astonishing. He obliterated three Roman armies, killing or capturing around 100,000 men in the process. The majority of the credit for this success should be given to Hannibal who far surpassed any of his Roman counterparts. He was able to galvanise his hugely diverse army and use that diversity to his advantage, using every type of soldier in the most useful way they could be used. The best example of this was the Numidian cavalry who played a key role in goading the enemy into battle when Hannibal wished and also in general reconnaissance which was a simple but imperative factor in the early success of the campaign, a lesson Flaminius learned at the cost of his life at Lake Trasimene. By using the terrain he gave himself an immediate advantage over the seemingly narrow-minded Romans and this added to the array of inventive techniques he employed to surround the enemy army, a rare sight on the ancient battlefield due to the rigidness and lack of manoeuvrability of infantry formations. The limitations of the Romans must also be taken into account though, both on the battlefield
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