Even those who aren’t particularly familiar with ancient history know of Hannibal. It was Hannibal who crossed the Alps — elephants in tow — and caused such havoc to Rome for the better part of two decades. It was Hannibal who, in one of Rome’s most stunning and disastrous losses, brought absolute carnage at the Battle of Cannae — a defeat which would be stamped permanently into the Roman psyche. And it was Hannibal who (some might also know) ended up dying in exile, thousands of miles away from home, despite so many glorious and unparalleled achievements.
Such was the life of Hannibal: extreme highs and lows, but someone whose actions had lasting influence not only on Rome and Carthage (or even the ancient Mediterranean world) but the way military leaders down to our own age strategize about war. Hannibal is, then, a figure worthy of careful study. And there are few better scholars out there to tell us about Hannibal than Patrick N. Hunt.
Archaeologist, historian, and seasoned explorer, Hunt is the near polar opposite of an armchair academic; he has decades of extensive experience with nearly all of the battle sites and passes. One of his most recent major expeditions was sponsored by National Geographic. And it’s in part because of his years of experiencing these places in person that he is able to describe in such insightful detail the routes, journeys, and strategic maneuvers made by Hannibal. What results is nothing less than a rich and detailed biography of this magnificent general.
Born around 247 BC, in Carthage, the young Hannibal underwent a life changing experience at the hands of his father, Hamilcar. According to the Roman historians Polybius and Livy, the heavily experienced general of Carthage took his nine-year-old son to the temple of Baal, where the latter was made to unequivocally swear one thing: undying hatred to Rome.
In bringing Hannibal’s story to life, Hunt takes care to set up the wider narrative of the overall story. Carthage (modern-day Tunisia), very much unlike Rome, does not figure prominently in the popular imagination. But it was, for a very long stretch of time, one of the most formidable powers in the Mediterranean. The Carthaginian colony was an offshoot of the Phoenician civilization centered in Tyre (modern-day Lebanon), and, like the Phoenicians, Hunt informs us, they were highly skilled mercantilists and seafarers. They were powerful, they were wealthy, and few could touch them. But Rome had been a steadily rising power while Carthage thrived — and by the 3rd century BC the former were ready to contend with this North African city which stood in the way of its expanding domination.
By time of the Second Punic War, 218 – 202 BC (the First Punic War spanned 264 – 241), Hannibal was firmly in the helm of Carthage’s military machine (composed primarily of mercenaries). Though still quite young, Hannibal’s many years at his father’s side gave him the confidence and skills he needed. And the people around him knew this. After Hamilcar died, and subsequently his uncle Hasdrubal, Hannibal had been “quickly elected commanding general.” And so it was that Hannibal would lead Carthage against a second war with Rome.
Hunt details the precursors and beginnings of the war, first with Hannibal fiercely making his way across Spain (and in the process violating the Ebro treaty made with Rome), eventually crossing the Pyrenees, and then, famously, the Alps. Though the latter is one of Hannibal’s most well-known and daring feats, Hunt gives it appropriate attention but no more than that. A sensible decision, for there is much other stuff to tell. Indeed it is Hannibal’s ingenious responses to a slew of Roman generals that made him a nearly unbeatable foe — and someone who could bring Rome to the brink of utter collapse.
As Hunt shows throughout the book, Hannibal took what was given him and made the absolute most of it. Indeed Hannibal and his troops were often at a numerical disadvantage (sometimes considerably so, as in the Battle of Cannae). But if there was a way to win, Hannibal nearly always found it.
This ingenuity can be seen in numerous ways, not least in Hannibal’s ability to effectively manage motley troops encompassing different languages and cultures. There was, as well, Hannibal’s meticulous planning, which included an uncanny understanding for the personalities of Rome’s military commanders. In the Battle of Trebbia, in 218, for example, he took full advantage of Rome’s (rather peculiar) custom of the joint consuls alternating days of command. When the rash and ready-for-war Tiberius Sempronius Longus was on command — as opposed to the more matured and reasoned Publius Cornelius Scipio — Hannibal exploited the opportunity. And it worked: the battle was played out on Hannibal’s terms, and Trebbia was a decisive victory.
Over time Rome would learn to combat Hannibal’s cleverness in getting Rome’s commanders to behave as he wanted them to. The ever-cautious Fabius Maximus was central to this. Though his strategy faced considerable backlash at many points in time, his “cautious policy toward Hannibal,” centered on “avoiding conflict wherever possible,” would eventually be taken seriously. But Hannibal was still Hannibal, and the Carthaginian commander seemed, at times, simply unstoppable.
Hunt emphasizes a specific element in Hannibal’s strategic arsenal in locating perhaps part of the reason for this. Speaking of Hannibal’s clever penchant for taking advantage of nature, Hunt writes that “He seems almost to have invented environmental warfare.” Indeed, along with Hannibal’s confident command of his troops and the ability to exploit Rome’s weaknesses, Hannibal found ingenious ways to use nature entirely to his advantage.
At the battle of Trasimene, in 217, it was fog that Hannibal used so effectively against his opponents. At the Battle of Cannae, in 216, Hannibal positioned his army so that the wind and dust would be blowing into the Roman’s faces, not those of his men. This brilliant use of nature as a weapon — though not a definitive reason for Hannibal’s success — was nevertheless influential. Hannibal simply outwitted and out-strategized the Romans in countless ways.
He would, however, make a questionable decision after his victory at Cannae. Why, when he had the chance, did he not follow up his overwhelming victory by marching on Rome? Though there can be no definitive answer to this, only educated guesses, Hunt suggests Hannibal ultimately felt a lack of confidence in such an operation. He writes, “[Hannibal] no doubt was thinking back to how Saguntum [in Spain, 219,] had taken six months to fall even with siege weapons, and Rome was much faster and better protected…” Whatever the thought process behind Hannibal’s decision, the temper and momentum of the war changed significantly in the years after Cannae.
Rome was able to rebound remarkably well after the disastrous loss, not only building up great manpower, but doing its part to prevent Hannibal from securing a string of allies in southern Italy. Hunt writes that Hannibal’s inability to unite this “south Italian patchwork of disorganized independence” was “an achilles’ heel.” Hannibal also had to contend with Rome’s increasingly smarter tactics, which included a more pervasive implementation of Fabian’s strategy of “avoiding direct open-field combat.”
In sharp contrast to the beginning of the war, Hannibal was much less able to employ his strategic brilliance. By 202, after a decade of Carthaginian and Roman fighting across southern Italy and Spain (with many key victories going to Rome), Hannibal would come to face his “Waterloo moment” in his home territory of North Africa, at the Battle of Zama. It was here he met his ultimate match, Scipio Africanus.
The battle was decisively won by Rome, and it effectively brought an end to the Second Punic War. But Hunt does not close his story of Hannibal just yet, for the defeated general would go on to live nearly 20 years — becoming for a short while a suffete at Carthage before the tides changed considerably and the ire of some Carthaginian nobility forced him to flee. His death, sometime in the late 180s, would ultimately come by his own hand — via poison — when he made the fateful decision rather than be handed over to Rome by King Prusias of Bithynia (who was under pressure from Rome to do so). It was death in exile, far from home, and the final act of the great general’s life.
Hannibal is an impressive and comprehensive look at a man who accomplished so much yet failed to achieve his ultimate goals. Hunt closely examines the many forces, personalities, and historical factors involved in the glorious rise and fall of one of history’s most studied commanders.
Spectatio 