Hannibal’s march into Italy. Hannibal’s preparations were more advanced than those of the Romans and, early in the spring of 218 B. C., he set out from New Carthage for the Pyrenees. Forcing a passage there, he left the passes under guard and resumed his march with a picked army of Spaniards and Numidians. His brother Hasdrubal was left in Spain to collect reinforcements and follow with them. Hannibal arrived at the Rhone and crossed it by the time that Scipio reached Massalia on his way to Spain. The latter, failing to force Hannibal to give battle on the banks of the Rhone, returned in person to Italy, but decided to send his army, under the command of his brother, to Spain, a decision which had the most serious consequences for Carthage. Meanwhile Hannibal continued his march and, overcoming the opposition of the peoples whose territory he traversed, as well as the more serious obstacles of bad roads, dangerous passes, cold, and hunger, he crossed the Alps and descended into the plain of North Italy in the autumn of 218, after a march of five months.[7] His army was reduced to 20,000 infantry and 6,000 cavalry. Practically all his elephants perished.
Hannibal at once found support and an opportunity to rest his [pg 81]weary troops among the Insubres and the Boii, the latter of whom had already taken up arms against the Romans. At the news of his arrival in Italy Sempronius was at once recalled from Sicily, but Scipio who had anticipated him ventured to attack Hannibal with the forces under his command. He was beaten in a skirmish at the river Ticinus, and Hannibal was able to cross the Po. Upon the arrival of Sempronius, both consuls attacked the Carthaginians at the Trebia, only to receive a crushing defeat (December, 218).
Hannibal invades the peninsula: 217 B. C. Hannibal wintered in north Italy and in the spring, with an army raised to 50,000 by the addition of Celtic recruits, prepared to invade the peninsula. The Romans divided their forces, stationing one consul at Ariminum and the other at Arretium in Etruria. Hannibal chose to cross the Apennines and the marshes of Etruria, where he surprised and annihilated the army of the consul Flaminius at the Trasimene Lake (217 B. C.). Flaminius himself was among the slain. This victory was soon followed by a second in which the cavalry of the army of the second consul was cut to pieces. Hannibal began his attempt to detach the Italians from the Roman alliance by releasing his Italian prisoners to carry word to their cities that he had come to set them free. Thereupon he marched into Samnium, ravaging the Roman territory as he went.
The Romans in great consternation chose a dictator, Quintus Fabius Maximus. Fabius recognized the superiority of Hannibal’s generalship and of the Carthaginian cavalry, and consequently refused to be drawn into a general engagement. But he followed the enemy closely and continually threatened an attack, so that Hannibal could not divide his forces for purposes of raiding and foraging. Still he was able to penetrate into Campania and thence to recross the mountains into Apulia, where he decided to establish winter quarters. The strategy of Fabius, which had not prevented the enemy from securing supplies and devastating wide areas, grew so irksome to the Romans that they violated all precedent in appointing Marcus Minucius, the master of the horse and an advocate of aggressive tactics, as a second dictator. But when the latter risked an engagement, he was badly beaten and only prompt assistance from Fabius saved his army from destruction.
Cannae: 216 B. C. Next spring found the Romans and Carthaginians facing each other in Apulia. The Romans were led by the [pg 82]new consuls, Lucius Aemilius Paulus and Gaius Terentius Varro. The over-confidence of Varro led to the battle of Cannae, one of the greatest battles of antiquity and the bloodiest of all Roman defeats. Of 50,000 Romans and allies, about 25,000 were slain and 10,000 captured by the numerically inferior Carthaginians. The consequences of the battle were serious. For the first time Rome’s allies showed serious signs of disloyalty. In Apulia and in Bruttium Hannibal found many adherents; ambassadors from Philip of Macedon appeared at his headquarters, the prelude to an alliance in the next year; Syracuse also, where Hiero the friend of Rome had just died, wavered and finally went over to Carthage; and, most serious of all, Capua opened its gates to Hannibal.
Still the courage of the Romans never wavered. They at once levied a new force to replace the army destroyed at Cannae. The central Italian allies, the Greek cities in the south, and the Latins, remained true to their allegiance, and the fortified towns of the latter proved to be the pillars of the Roman strength. For Hannibal, owing to the smallness of his army and the necessity of maintaining it in a hostile country, had to be continually on the march and could not undertake siege operations, for which he also lacked engines of war. Thus the Romans, avoiding pitched battles, were able to attempt the systematic reduction of the towns which had yielded to Hannibal and to hamper seriously the provisioning of his forces. At the same time they still held command of the sea, kept up their offensive in Spain, and held their ground against Carthaginian attacks in Sicily and Sardinia.
Rome recovers Syracuse and Capua: 212–11 B. C. In 213 the Romans were able to invest Syracuse. The Syracusans with the aid of engines of war designed by the physicist Archimedes resisted desperately, but Marcellus, the Roman general, pressed the siege vigorously, and treachery caused the city to fall (212 B. C.). Syracuse was sacked, its art treasures carried off to Rome, and for the future it was subject and tributary to Rome. And in Italy, although Hannibal defeated and killed the consul Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus, and was able to occupy the cities of Tarentum (although not its citadel), Heraclea and Thurii, he could not prevent the Romans from laying siege to Capua (212 B. C.). The next year he thought to force them to raise the blockade by a sudden incursion into Latium, where he appeared before the walls of Rome. But Rome was garrisoned, the [pg 83]army besieging Capua was not recalled, and Hannibal’s march was in vain. Capua was starved into submission, its nobility put to the sword, its territory confiscated, and its municipal organization dissolved.
Operations against Philip V. of Macedon. Upon concluding his alliance with Hannibal, Philip of Macedon hastened to attack the Roman possessions in Illyria. Here he met with some successes, but failed to take Corcyra or Apollonia which were saved by the Roman fleet. Furthermore, Rome’s command of the sea prevented his lending any effective aid to his ally in Italy. Before long the Romans were able to induce the Aetolians to make an alliance with them and attack Macedonia. Thereupon other enemies of Philip, among them Sparta and King Attalus of Pergamon, joined in the war on the side of Rome. The Achaean Confederacy, however, supported Philip. The coalition against the latter was so strong that he had to cease his attacks upon Roman territory and Rome could be content with supporting her Greek allies with a small fleet, while she devoted her energies to the other theatres of war.
The war in Spain: 218–207 B. C. The fall of Capua came at a moment most opportune for the Romans, since they had immediate need to send reinforcements to Spain. Thither, as we have seen, they had sent an army in 218 B. C. under Gnaeus Scipio, who obtained a foothold north of the Ebro. In the next year he was joined by his brother Publius Cornelius. Thereupon the Romans crossed the Ebro and invaded the Carthaginian dominions to the south. A revolt of the Numidians caused the recall of Hasdrubal to Africa, and the Romans were able to capture Saguntum and induce many Spanish tribes to desert the Carthaginian cause. However, upon the return of Hasdrubal and the arrival of reinforcements from Carthage, the Carthaginian commanders united their forces and crushed the two Roman armies one after the other (211 B. C.). Both the Scipios fell in battle and the Carthaginians recovered all their territory south of the Ebro.
Publius Cornelius Scipio sent to Spain: 210 B. C. Undismayed by these disasters the Romans determined to continue their efforts to conquer Spain because of its importance as a recruiting ground for the Carthaginian armies and because the continuance of the war there prevented reinforcements being sent to Hannibal in Italy. The fall of Capua and the fortunate turn of events in Sicily enabled [pg 84]them to release fresh troops for service in Spain, and in 210 B. C., being dissatisfied with the cautious strategy of the pro-praetor Nero, then commanding north of the Ebro, the Senate determined to send out a commander who would continue the aggressive tactics of the Scipios. As the most suitable person they fixed on Publius Cornelius Scipio, son of the like-named consul who had fallen in 211. However, he was only in his twenty-fourth year and having filled no magistracy except the aedileship, he was technically disqualified from exercising the imperium. Therefore, his appointment was made the subject of a special law in the Comitia, which nominated him to the command in Spain with the rank of a pro-consul. This is the first authentic instance of the conferment of the imperium upon a private citizen.