Reflections on the Rise and Fall of the Ancient Republicks / Adapted to the Present State of Great Britain

by Edward Wortley Montagu

The first instance, which we meet with in history, of the enmity subsisting between the heads of these factions, was in that destructive war with the Mercenaries, from which I have made this explanatory digression.

Hanno was first sent with a powerful, and well provided army against these mutinous desperadoes; but he knew little of his trade, and made perpetual blunders. Polybius,[211] who treats his character, as a soldier, with the utmost contempt, informs us, that he suffered himself to be surprised, a great part of his fine army to be cut to pieces, and his camp taken, with all the military stores, engines, and all the other apparatus of war.

The Carthaginians, terrified and distressed by the bad conduct of their general, were now compelled, by the necessity of their affairs, to restore Hamilcar to the chief command of their forces, from which he must have been excluded before by the influence of the Hannonian faction. That able commander with his small army (for his whole force amounted to no more than ten thousand men) quickly changed the face of the war, defeated Spendius in two pitched battles, and pushed every advantage to the utmost, which the incapacity of the rebel-generals threw in his way. Sensible that he was too weak alone to cope with the united forces of the rebels (which amounted to seventy thousand men) he ordered Hanno (who had still influence enough to procure himself to be continued in the command of a separate body) to join him, that they might finish this execrable war by one decisive action.[212] After they were joined, the Carthaginians soon felt the fatal effects of disunion between their generals. No plan could now be followed, no measure could be agreed on;[213] and the disagreement between these two leading men arose to such a height at last, that they not only let slip every opportunity of annoying the enemy, but gave them many advantages against themselves, which they could not otherwise have hoped for. The Carthaginians,[214] sensible of their error, and knowing the very different abilities of the two generals, yet willing to avoid the imputation of partiality, empowered the army to decide which of the two they judged most proper for their general, as they were determined to continue only one of them in the command. The decision of the army was,[215] that Hamilcar should take the supreme command, and that Hanno should depart the camp. A convincing proof that they threw the whole blame of that disunion, and the ill-success, which was the consequence of it, entirely upon the envy and jealousy of Hanno. One Hannibal, a man more tractable, and more agreeable to Hamilcar, was sent in his room. Union was restored, and the happy effects which attended it were quickly visible. Hamilcar now pushed on the war with his usual vigilance and activity, and soon convinced the generals of the rebels how greatly he was their master in the art of war. He harrassed them perpetually, and, like a skilful gamester,[216] (as Polybius terms him) drew them artfully every day into his snares, and obliged them to raise the siege of Carthage. At last he cooped up Spendius with his army in so disadvantageous a place, that he reduced them to such an extremity of famine as to devour one another, and compelled them to surrender at discretion, though they were upwards of forty thousand effective men.... The army of Hamilcar, which was much inferior to that of Spendius in number, was composed partly of mercenaries and deserters, partly of the city militia, both horse and foot (troops which the enemies to the militia-bill would have called raw and undisciplined, and treated as useless) of which the major part of his army consisted.[217] The rebel army was composed chiefly of brave and experienced veterans, trained up by Hamilcar himself in Sicily during the late war with the Romans, whose courage was heightened by despair. It is worthy of our observation therefore, that these very men who, under the conduct of Hamilcar, had been a terror to the Romans, and given them so many blows in Sicily towards the latter end of the first Punick war, should yet be so little able to cope with an army so much inferior in number, and composed in a great measure of city militia only, when commanded by the same general. Polybius,[218] who esteems Hamilcar by far the greatest captain of that age, observes, that though the rebels were by no means inferior to the Carthaginian troops in resolution and bravery, yet they were frequently beaten by Hamilcar by mere dint of generalship. Upon this occasion he cannot help remarking the vast superiority which judicious skill and ability of generalship has over long military practice,[219] where this so essentially necessary skill and judgement is wanting. It might have been thought unpardonable in me, if I had omitted this just remark of Polybius, since it has been so lately verified by his Prussian majesty in those masterly strokes of generalship, which are the present admiration of Europe. Hamilcar, after the destruction of Spendius and his army, immediately blocked up Mathos, with the remaining corps of the rebels, in the city of Tunes. Hannibal, with the forces under his command, took post on that side of the city which looked towards Carthage. Hamilcar prepared to make his attack on the side which was directly opposite; but the conduct of Hannibal, when left to himself, was the direct contrast to that of Hamilcar, and proves undeniably, that the whole merit of their former success was entirely owing to that abler general. Hannibal, who seems to have been little acquainted with the true genius of those daring veterans, lay secure, and careless in his camp, neglected his out-guards, and treated the enemy with contempt, as a people already conquered. But Mathos observing the negligence and security of Hannibal,[220] and well knowing that he had not Hamilcar to deal with, made a sudden and resolute sally, forced Hannibal intrenchments, put great numbers of his men to the sword, took Hannibal himself, with several other persons of distinction prisoners, and pillaged his camp. This daring measure was so well concerted, and executed with so much rapidity, that Mathos, who made good use of his time, had done his business before Hamilcar, who lay encamped at some distance, was in the least apprized of his colleague’s misfortune. Mathos fastened Hannibal, whilst alive, on the same gibbet to which Hamilcar had lately nailed the body of Spendius: A terrible, but just reward for the shameful carelessness in a commanding officer, who had sacrificed the lives of such a number of his fellow citizens by his own indolence and presumptuous folly. For Mathos crucified thirty of the first nobility of Carthage, who attended Hannibal in this expedition. A commander who is surprised in the night-time, though guilty of an egregious fault, may yet plead something in excuse; but, in point of discipline, for a general to be surprised by an enemy just under his nose in open daylight, and caught in a state of wanton security, from an over-weening presumption on his own strength, is a crime of so capital a nature as to admit neither of alleviation nor pardon. This dreadful and unexpected blow threw Carthage into the utmost consternation, and obliged Hamilcar to draw off his part of the army to a considerable distance from Tunes. Hanno had again influence enough to procure the command, which he was compelled before by the army to give up to Hamilcar. But the Carthaginians, sensible of the fatal consequences of disunion between the two generals, especially at such a desperate crisis, sent thirty of the most respectable amongst the senators to procure a thorough reconciliation between Hamilcar and Hanno before they proceeded upon any operation;[221] which they effected at last, though not without difficulty. Pleased with this happy event, the Carthaginians (as their last, and utmost effort) sent every man in Carthage,[222] who was able to bear arms, to re-enforce Hamilcar, on whose superior abilities they placed their whole dependance. Hamilcar now resumed his operations, and, as he was no longer thwarted by Hanno, soon reduced Mathos to the necessity of putting the whole issue of the war upon one decisive action, in which the Carthaginians were most completely victors by the exquisite disposition and conduct of Hamilcar.

I hope the enemies to a militia will at least allow these new levies, who composed by far the greatest part of Hamilcar’s army upon this occasion, to be raw, undisciplined, and ignorant of the use of arms; epithets which they bestow so plentifully upon a militia. Yet that able commander, with an army consisting chiefly of this kind of men, totally destroyed an army of desperate veterans, took their general, and all who escaped the slaughter prisoners, and put an end to the most ruinous, and most inhuman war ever yet mentioned in history. These new levies had courage (a quality never yet, I believe, disputed to the British commonality) and were to fight pro aris et focis, for whatever was dear and valuable to a people; and Hamilcar, who well knew how to make the proper use of these dispositions of his countrymen, was master of those abilities which Mathos wanted. Of such infinite advantage is it to an army to have a commander superior to the enemy in the art of generalship; an advantage which frequently supplies a deficiency even in the goodness of troops, as well as in numbers.

The enmity of Hanno did not expire with Hamilcar, who fell gloriously in the service of his country, in Spain some years after. Hannibal the eldest son, and a son worthy of so heroick a father, immediately became the object of his jealousy and hatred. For when Asdrubal (son-in-law to Hamilcar) had been appointed to the command of the army in Spain, after the death of that general, he desired that Hannibal, at that time but twenty-two years of age, might be sent to Spain to be trained up under him in the art of war. Hanno opposed this with the utmost virulence in a rancorous speech (made for him by Livy) fraught with the most infamous insinuations against Asdrubal, and a strong charge of ambition against the Barcan family. But his malice, and the true reason of his opposition, varnished over with a specious concern for the publick welfare, were so easily seen through, that he was not able to carry a point which he so much wished for.

Asdrubal not long after being assassinated by a Gaul,[223] in revenge for some injury he had received, the army immediately appointed Hannibal to the command; and sending advice to Carthage of what they had done, the senate was assembled, who unanimously confirmed the election then made by the soldiers.[224] Hannibal in a short time reduced all that part of Spain which lay between New Carthage and the river Iberus, except the city of Saguntum, which was in alliance with the Romans. But as he inherited his father’s hatred to the Romans, for their infamous behaviour to his country at the conclusion of the war with the mercenaries,[225] he made great preparations for the siege of Saguntum. The Romans (according to Polybius) receiving intelligence of his design,[226] sent ambassadors to him at New Carthage, who warned him of the consequences of either attacking the Saguntines, or crossing the Iberus, which, by the treaty with Asdrubal, had been made the boundary of the Carthaginian and Roman dominions in that country. Hannibal acknowledged his resolution to proceed against Saguntum, but the reasons he assigned for his conduct were so unsatisfactory to the ambassadors, that they crossed over to Carthage to know the resolution of their senate upon that subject. Hannibal in the mean time, according to the same author,[227] sent advice to Carthage of this embassy, and desired instructions how to act, complaining heavily that the Saguntines depending upon their alliance with the Romans, committed frequent depredations upon the Carthaginian subjects.

We may conclude that the ambassadors met with as disagreeable a reception from the Carthaginian senate as they had done from Hannibal, and that he received orders from Carthage to proceed in his intended expedition. For Polybius,[228] reflecting upon some writers, who pretended to relate what passed in the Roman senate when the news arrived of the capture of Saguntum, and even inserted the debates which arose when the question was put, whether, or no, war should be declared against Carthage, treats their whole accounts as absurd and fictitious. “For how, says he, with indignation, could it possibly be, that the Romans, who had denounced war the year before at Carthage, if Hannibal should invade the Saguntine territories, should now after that city was taken by storm assemble to deliberate, whether war should be commenced against the Carthaginians or not.” Now as this declaration of war was conditional, and not to take place unless Hannibal should attack the Saguntines, it must have been made before that event happened, and consequently must be referred to the embassy above-mentioned. And as Hannibal undertook the siege of Saguntum notwithstanding the Roman menaces, he undoubtedly acted by orders from the Carthaginian senate.

When the Romans received the news of the destruction of Saguntum, they dispatched another embassy to Carthage (as Polybius relates) with the utmost expedition;[229] their orders were to insist that Hannibal and all who advised him to commit hostilities against the Saguntines should be delivered up to the Romans, and in case of a refusal, to declare immediate war. Their demand was received by the Carthaginian senate with the utmost indignation, and one of the senators, who was appointed to speak in the name of the rest, begun in an artful speech to recriminate upon the Romans, and offered to prove, that the Saguntines were not allied to the Romans when the peace was made between the two nations, and consequently could not be included in the treaty. But the Romans cut the affair short, and told them that they did not come there to dispute, but only to insist upon a categorical answer to this plain question: whether they would give up the authors of the hostilities, which would convince the world that they had no share in the destruction of Saguntum, but that Hannibal had done it without their authority; or, whether by protecting them, they chose to confirm the Romans in the belief, that Hannibal had acted with their approbation? As their demand of Hannibal was refused, war was declared by the Romans,[230] and accepted with equal alacrity and fierceness by the majority of the Carthaginian senate.

Livy affirms that the first embassy was decreed by the Roman senate,[231] but not sent until Hannibal had actually invested Saguntum, and varies from Polybius in his relation of the particulars. For according to Livy,[232] Hannibal received intelligence of the Roman embassy, but he sent them word, that he had other business upon his hands at that time than to give audience to ambassadors, and that he wrote at the same time to his friends of the Barcan faction to exert themselves, and prevent the other party from carrying any point in favour of the Romans.

The ambassadors, thus denied admittance by Hannibal, repaired to Carthage and laid their demands before the senate. Upon this occasion Livy introduces Hanno inveighing bitterly in a formal harangue against the sending Hannibal into Spain, a measure which he foretells, must terminate in the utter destruction of Carthage.[233] And after testifying his joy for the death of his father Hamilcar, whom he acknowledges he most cordially hated, as he did the whole Barcan family, whom he terms the fire-brands of the state, he advises them to give up Hannibal, and make full satisfaction for the injury then done to the Saguntines. When Hanno had done speaking, there was no occasion, as Livy observes, for a reply.[234] For almost all the senate were so entirely in the interest of Hannibal, that they accused Hanno of declaiming against him, with more bitterness and rancour than even the Roman ambassadors, who were dismissed with this short answer, “that not Hannibal, but the Saguntines, were the authors of the war, and that the Romans treated them with great injustice, if they preferred the friendship of the Saguntines before that of their most ancient allies the Carthaginians.” Livy’s account of the second embassy, which followed the destruction of Saguntum, differs so very little from that of Polybius, both as to the question put by the Romans, the answer given by the Carthaginian senate, and the declaration of war which was the consequence, that it is needless to repeat it.[235]