The Classical Review http://journals.cambridge.org/CAR Additional services for The Classical Review: Email alerts: Click here Subscriptions: Click here Commercial reprints: Click here Terms of use : Click here Punic War in Spain between 211 and 206 b.c. E. S. Shuckburgh The Classical Review / Volume 6 / Issue 09 / November 1892, pp 381 - 385 DOI: 10.1017/S0009840X00186640, Published online: 27 October 2009 Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0009840X00186640 How to cite this article: E. S. Shuckburgh (1892). Punic War in Spain between 211 and 206 b.c.. The Classical Review, 6, pp 381-385 doi:10.1017/S0009840X00186640 Request Permissions : Click here Downloaded from http://journals.cambridge.org/CAR, IP address: 193.61.135.34 on 20 Apr 2015 The Classical Review NOVEMBER 1892. PUNIC WAR IN SPAIN BETWEEN 211 AND 206 B.C.1 THE difficulty of the chronology given by deed he is so eager for support that he has Livy for the war with the Carthaginians in made Livy contradict himself, when such Spain from 218 to 206 is well known. contradiction arises entirely from misunder- Numerous attempts have been made to standing Livy's words ; but as a rule he clear up the matter as regards the earlier marshals his texts clearly and correctly, and part of this period, from 218 to 211. As is not to be misled by imaginary repetitions regards the later part scholars till quite re- or ' doublets ' which Genzken found in Livy's cently have acquiesced in the despair of Ar- text. nold, Mommsen, and Ihne as to the possibility Though Genzken's 2 pamphlet is not now of disentangling the puzzle, or with the last- under review, it is necessary to say a word named have regarded the attempt as ' lang- upon one of his results, because with it weilig und fructlos.' Of late years however Jumpertz starts on his investigation. some vigorous attempts have been made, Genzken argues that the fall of the Scipios first by Keller in the Rheinisches Museum took place in the year 211, whereas Livy for 1874 (xxix. 88—96) in an essay ' Zu den places it in 212. With this conclusion, which Quellen des Hannibalischen Krieges': and is in fact not necessary for Jumpertz's theory, again in 1891 by Soltau in the 26th volume I must first state my reasons for disagree- of Hermes ' Zur Chronologie der hispanis- ing. It rests chiefly on the authority of chen Feldziige 212—206. Ein Beitrag zur Eutropius, who seems to place it in the Quellenkritik bei Livius.' And almost year of Hannibal's march to Rome (211), simultaneously with this last we have the and on the indication in Livy xxv. 32 of his inaugural dissertation of Max Jumpertz. having omitted much that had previously As I shall have to express disagreement happened, including the place of the winter in more than one point with Jumpertz, I quarters, from which he abruptly announces would begin by saying that the essay ap- the departure of the Romans. The Scipios pears to me to be both ingenious and original. also, according to Genzken, perished early Herr Jumpertz has studied all the accessible in the spring, and therefore, if this took sources, and has in several respects made place in 212, we have nearly two years to fruitful suggestions and thrown light on account for between that event and the difficulties. If he is in some degree too arrival of Africanus, during which Livy ready to throw over Livy, and even Polybius, recounts scarcely anything. In answer it and to put excessive value on the chrono- may be fairly maintained that Eutropius' logical information of such authors as authority on such a point of chronology Eutropius, Appian, and Zonaras, when their is worth next to nothing. His narrative is information tallies with his theory, that is the barest summary, and in the same chap- only what one must expect in a writer with ter in which he mentions the fall of the a thesis to maintain. In one passage in- Scipios he briefly alludes to Marcellus' 1 Der Somisch-Karthagische Krieg in Spanien 211 —206. Eine historische Untersuchung, von Max 2 De rebus a P. et Cn. Corneliis Scipionibus in Jumpertz. Berlin 1892. Hispania. geslis, Hermann Genzken, Gbttingen 1879. NO. LV. VOL. VI. D D 382 THE CLASSICAL REVIEW. actions in Sicily as though they might all counted for by the fact that its whole be included in the same year 211, and yet attention and energies were devoted first to Syracuse had been taken in 212 and Mar- the repulse of Hannibal's advance on Rome cellus had been in Sicily two years before and secondly to the siege of Capua. It that event. Nor can we rely upon Livy's was not till the fall of the latter that omission of events in one year to prove they at last felt able to send an army and that he has misdated such as he does give. an imperator to Spain, C. Claudius Nero; He gives nothing like a. continuous or full although if we are to accept a statement history of the Spanish part of the war, made in xxxvi. 37—to which I shall have seeming only to intend to point to impor- to refer again—some , reinforcements had tant and decisive events. So far moreover already left Rome for Spain. For some nine from placing the fall of the Scipios in the months then, if the Scipios fell in the later ' beginning of spring' he commences his part of 212, we have to regard Spain as chapter with 'eadem AESTATE in Hispania'; without a Roman imperator, and only the and though he goes on to describe the province north of the Ebro being success- events as following upon the Roman iin- fully held by Marcius : we then have to perators' breaking up from winter quarters allow some months for Nero's unsuccessful (egressi hibernis), it is not clear how long he campaign, in which, though not defeated, conceives the intermediate events to take. he was outwitted by Hasdrubal son of I may add a suggestion that may perhaps Hamilcar ; and which, whether in the valley give a clue to more than one difficulty in of the Baetis as Livy indicates, or north of Livy's Spanish narrative. In Spain, as is the Ebro as Jumpertz maintains (being often mentioned in modern wars, the heat obliged thereby to find room for two en- renders a midsummer campaign almost im- tirely new towns in North Spain), seems possible. It is therefore customary for likely to require all the time between the troops to go into quarters from about June fall of Capua and the going into winter to August. May not Livy, finding in his quarters for 211—210, in which Seipio authorities the breaking up of quarters Af ricanus found the army on his arrival. I mentioned, have sometimes mistaken this to therefore submit that the charge against mean the breaking up of winter instead of Livy of having misdated the fall of the summer quarters 1 But there are stronger Scipios is at any rate not proved with any- reasons for doubting the change of chrono- thing like certainty. logy, founded on circumstances which there is no good reason to dispute. On the fall of It is time however to come to Jumpertz's the Scipios the Roman power in Spain was own pamphlet. The principal difficulties saved from ruin by the heroism of a Roman with which he proposes to grapple are three. eques, Lucius Marcius, who collected the I. Livy puts the capture of New Carthage scattered remnants of the two armies, en- in 210, Polybius apparently in 209. II. trenched himself in safe quarters on the Polybius, with whom Livy perhaps may be north of the Ebro, and even inflicted a made to agree, puts the battle of Baecula in defeat upon Hasdrubal son of Gisco [Livy the year after the capture of New Carthage, xxv. 37]. The soldiers rewarded him by i.e. in 208, immediately after which Has- electing him by acclamation to be their drubal crosses the Pyrenees on his way to commander with the rank of pro-praetor. Italy. The Annalists, represented by the He sent a despatch to the senate, witli an accounts preserved in Zonaras, Appian, account of his actions, in which he gave Eutropius, and Silius Italicus, place it in such offence to the senators by assuming 209, soon after the capture of New Car- the pro-praetorial style without authority" thage. III. Livy, who assigns very few from home, that when it was read in the events to 208 and none to 207 in Spain, senate by the new consuls (i.e. 15 March crowds 206 with operations for which ' the 211) the proposal for supplying clothes period of one summer however liberally and food for his army was postponed, along measured is too short.' with the question as to who was to be sent In the first of these questions Jumpertz to take command of the army [Livy xxvi. elects to stand by Polybius and reject the 1—2]. This implies that Marcius' actions chronology of Livy. With this conclusion and consequently the fall of the Scipios I am on the whole inclined to agree, al was in the previous consular year, i.e. be- though it is not neaily so certain as he fore 15 March 211, and probably in the seems to suppose, nor are the arguments latter part of 212. That no resolution was with which he supports it entirely free from taken earlier by the senate is easily ac- objection.