Episode III.16 - The Second Punic War II: The War Begins

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“He had received a soldier’s training through 19 years in camp. He had disciplined his body to

hardship, his appetite to moderation, his tongue to silence, his thought to objectivity. He could

run or ride with a swiftest, hunt or fight with the bravest; he was the first to enter the battle…

and the last to leave the field.”

-Will Durant, describing Hannibal Barca in his book, Caesar and Christ

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Hello and welcome to the Western Traditions Podcast. My name is Rob Paxton and this is the

sixteenth episode of the Roman Empire, a series of podcasts about Roman history.

In the last episode, we looked at the events which occurred between the first and second

Punic Wars. Carthage recovered from her losses and reorganized her empire. Meanwhile, her

greatest general, Hamilcar Barca, took his son Hannibal and an army of mercenaries to Spain,

to expand Carthaginian control there and to plot against Rome.

Rome, meanwhile, incorporated the island of Sicily into her growing realm and continued to

expand her frontiers elsewhere, usually by means of warfare.

Now, as we proceed, a reminder about pronunciation. I have mentioned before that, for the

most part, I use typical English pronunciation for many ancient names. Thus, Marcus Claudius

Marcellus becomes Marcus Claudius Marcellus. (Veni, Vidi, Vici)

So, you will have to forgive me if I use the less-accurate but more-commonly-accepted

pronunciation of names as we move forward.

(Note about Spain, Iberia, Africa, etc as geographical names)

(And the muddiness of annals means that this is a fiction, of sorts, a compelling drama with

which I have taken artistic license)

Now, with that caveat out of the way, let us look back in time, to 219 BC, when the fragile

peace between Rome and Carthage was upset, as fragile treaties often are, when one side

makes a new alliance that does not sit well with the other side…

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We typically mark the Roman treaty with Saguntum, in eastern Spain, in 219 BC as the cause

of the Second Punic War. However, we might also assign blame for the outbreak of conflict on

the death of Hasdrubal, Hamilcar Barca’s son-in-law and the uncle of Hannibal Barca, the

same Hannibal who would terrorize Rome for many years to come.

Not that Rome had anything to do with Hasdrubal’s death. In fact, Rome was probably quite

content with Hasdrubal’s focus on affairs in southern Spain, well outside the sphere of Roman

interest. As later Roman history would show, the West was always a sideshow for the Roman

Senate, when compared to opportunities in the East. Even in the late Empire, the most

precious possessions of Rome were in the East, where wealth had been amassing for

thousands of years under the pharaohs in Egypt and the various kings in Mesopotamia,

Anatolia and Persia.And, in a digression, that is really something to think about. Just how long it took, for the

places that we typically think of as composing the “West”, just how long it took for these areas

to become developed, to become the centers of wealth and sophistication, Not only did it not

happen overnight, it took thousands of years for the financial and cultural tables to turn. We

think now of the Middle East as a poor place, except with regard to their riches in petroleum.

But that is a very new way to see the East. Even just a few centuries ago, the West was a

backwater compared to the Eastern realms overseen by the Ottoman Turks and the Persians,

in terms of riches and art and history.

When we study Roman history at this time period, over two thousand years ago, even Rome

itself understands that it is in the hinterlands of civilization. Rome and Carthage were two big

fish in a small pond. And it is only this perspective, narrowed by the limits of the environment in

which they struggle, that makes the conflict seem so eventful.

At the same time, in the East, great wars are taking place, immense edifices are being built,

great men are espousing new religions and philosophies. But we will hear very little about these

things, because we are studying our Western Traditions. By force, we must focus our eyes on

this back-ally knife fight that we call the Second Punic War, because it is in this comparatively

humble endeavor in which our present global supremacy finds its origins.

Getting back to the conflict, No, Rome probably had nothing to do with Hasdrubal’s demise. In

the course of that Carthaginian commander’s efforts at expanding power in the southern

Iberian peninsula, he had come into conflict with a Celtic peoples known as the Olcades. The

vast majority of people living in Iberia, the present-day location of Spain and Portugal, were all

Celts, descended from the the same Indo-European migration into Europe which had brought

the Latins and the Greeks into their own lands thousands of years before.

Far to the north, along the northern coasts of modern-day Spain, descendants of the much

earlier Anatolian farmer expansion, as well as descendants of the original hunter-gatherers of

Europe, lived on in isolation; Today we call these people the Basques.

Anyway, during his conflict with the Olcades, in 222 BC, the Celtic king Tagus was killed. A

river in Spain today still bears his name. The following year, one of this king’s slaves, in a

scenario which is not clearly described in any existing histories, assassinated Hasdrubal in his

own home, in revenge apparently for the death his master and king.

Whatever the circumstances, shortly after Hasdrubal’s death, the army would allow no one but

Hannibal, the son of Hamilcar Barca, to be their general. The council in Carthage, increasingly

sidelined by the force of the popularity of the Barca family, had little say in the matter. Hannibal,

just 26 years old, was now a great Carthaginian lord, with a massive, well-trained army at his

disposal. At his father’s side, when he was just a nine-year-old boy, Hannibal had stood before

a shrine of Baal Hammon, the king of Carthage’s pantheon of gods, and had sworn an eternal

blood oath against Rome. And now, the ghosts of his slain father and uncle must have surely

whispered vengeful thoughts in his ear.

All his life, he had studied Alexander the Great. There is every reason to believe that he wanted

to be another Alexander. He was not the only general who wanted to achieve such glory.

Centuries later, Julius Caesar would cry when he reached his early thirties and thought of how

much Alexander the Great had accomplished by that age.

But Hannibal needed more than a big army, a vendetta and ancestral rage in order to bring war

on the Romans. After a few years of brutal work subjugating more celtic tribes in Iberia, he gotthat little something more that he needed. In 219 BC, the Romans concluded a treaty with

Saguntum, a city which survives today by the name of Sagunto, in eastern Spain.

Now, Saguntum was an independent city, not subject to Hannibal, not a possession of

Carthage. But it was, and no one can reasonably deny this, it was in Carthage’s sphere of

interest, and quite far from any territory controlled by Rome. Indeed, Rome was still heavily

involved in the centuries-long struggle to wrest complete control of northern Italy from the

Gauls. Between them and Saguntum were, by an measure, several hundred miles and scores

of distinct cultures and tribes. Yes, Rome had an important ally in Massilia, modern-day

Marseilles, in southern Gaul, but that did not come anywhere near bringing Saguntum into

Rome’s “sphere of interest.”

But, let us also be clear about that treaty of the Ebro which I mentioned in the last episode. It

would be mistaken to construe that “treaty” as any sort of recognition of Carthaginian territory.

In 226 BC, facing down a certain invasion by the furious Gauls, the nervous Romans had

received an agreement from Hasdrubal that his forces would not cross the Ebro. The Romans

had eagerly accepted this accord because they feared Carthaginian support of the Gauls.

But to call that agreement a treaty is to perhaps glorify a mass of meaningless paperwork. The

so-called treaty did not recognize Carthaginian interests, not did it limit Rome’s. It simply

stated that Carthage would not cross the Ebro.

And Carthage had not done this. But they had allied with tribes near Saguntum, a city which,

by the way, was on Carthage’s side of the Ebro, many miles to the south of it, in fact. So

Carthage naturally came into conflict with Saguntum, a town which had nothing to do with

Rome and lay far far away from that capital.

So the true motives behind Rome’s alliance with Saguntum remains a mysterious matter, even

today, after thousands of years of research and puzzling about the matter. Why would Rome,

which was so busy on other fronts as it was, and getting more and more involved in Greece, a

distraction which we will discuss in a future episode, why would Rome spit in the face of

Carthage through this action and provoke a conflict that it really did not have the resources to

easily manage?

Consensus seems to be that it was not done out of any sort of imperialistic goal. Hindsight is

20/20 and it is easy from our perspective, since this war would lead to a serious expansion of

Roman size and power, it is easy to connect the dots and say, Oh, of course Rome provoked

the Carthaginians on purpose in order to bring on war and achieve empire. But historians tend

to agree that this is NOT the motive. Indeed, both Rome and Carthage itself, not Hannibal and

his army but the ruling aristocracy of Carthage, both Rome and the Carthaginian aristocracy

probably saw the coming conflict completely differently than Hannibal saw it.

After all, the Senate had been very cautious about taking Sardinia many years before, refusing

to do so as long as Carthage was the undisputed ruler of the island and only taking over after

Carthage had lost control.

So when the threatened city of Saguntum sent an embassy to Rome, requesting an alliance in

face of the Carthaginian threat, why would Rome accept, when the Senate surely must have

known of the dangerous implications and complications that would come with such an

alliance?

In the end, Rome likely saw all this as merely a muscle flex. They would show Carthage, and

the world, that they were not afraid. They would also possibly slow down or undermineCarthaginian progress in the peninsula, which, after all, was not that far away from already-

existing allies like Massilia in southerN Gaul. And any conflict that resulted would likely remain

isolated in Spain. Conveniently, it would give their consuls another place to earn experience in

war, safely distant from Rome and unlikely to bring consequences to the capital. The Senate

had no respect for the Carthaginian military, so they expected to lose few soldiers in combat,

and the war would ultimately cost nothing because at the end they would just inflict another

financial penalty on the Carthaginians, who had demonstrated their weakness already by

agreeing to decades of payments to Rome in order to avoid battle. Plus, they would have an

opportunity to kill Hannibal on the field of battle and bring an end to the threat which the Barcid

dynasty presented.

It is important to remember that both sides, Rome and Carthage, had their own internal

divisions which, in a possible oversimplification of the matter, could be identified as pro-war

and anti-war. In Carthage, the Barcid party wanted war with Rome. Another party wished to

focus on expanding their realm in Africa and keeping the peace with Rome. Rome was similarly

divided with regard to aggression toward Carthage. However, neither Carthage nor Rome was

truly anti-war, it was just the idea of global or large-scale war which turned off some members

of each government.

Once the war started, Carthage would also see a critical division in its perspectives. Hannibal,

from the very beginning, wanted to defeat Rome in the field, invade Italy, disintegrate the

league of allies which supported it, regain Sicily and Sardinia, and make Rome beg.

The aristocratic council in Carthage, however, was more than happy for Hannibal to attack

Rome and weaken it, while possibly getting himself killed. Even a failed effort on Hannibal’s

part would buy Carthage more time and space in Spain, while getting rid of a troublemaker.

This disparity between Hannibal’s goals and his government’s goals, in the long run, would

possibly be the only factor which prevented him from defeating Rome.

Nevertheless, as Caesar would come to say centuries later, the die was cast. The rulers of the

city of Saguntum, seeing no other way to stop the Carthaginian juggernaut in Iberia, threw

themselves upon the mercy of the Romans, and the city came officially within the Roman fold.

And, in this, bold Hannibal saw his opportunity. The Romans were finally within reach of his

vengeance. His real plan, which never came to fruition, was this: To attack and seize

Saguntum, which would cause the Romans to arrive with an army. He would destroy this army,

so far from its home, critically weakening the Romans and demoralizing her allies. Then he

would march north over the Pyrenees and then East to Italy, raising the countryside, gathering

Gaulic allies, and invade Italy itself. Just arriving with such an army would separate many allies

from Rome’s league and an actual siege and sacking of Rome would be possible. But he didn’t

need to actually sack the city. Just the ability to do it would bring Rome to the table, to

negotiate a peace that would restore Carthage to her former glory and elevate Hannibal among

the greatest heroes of history.

It would not work out this way, but in some respect, Hannibal would get his wish: Like his hero

Alexzander, he would never be forgotten.

And the Romans would be talking about him for centuries.

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There is some doubt about exactly how Hannibal began his march against Saguntum, thus

sparking the fire of the war that was to come. Sometime in late 220, or early 219 BC, Romanenvoys came to New Carthage, Hannibal’s local capital in Spain, to ask him just what his

intentions were with regard to the town, since the Saguntians had sent to Rome for help.

Hannibal made it clear that he was going to do what was best for the people in Spain,

including the people of Saguntum. Already he was using the language of the liberator, which he

would continue to do in the coming years when he invaded Italy. This is the kind of language

we continue to hear in the modern age, when so-called liberators take over foreign nations “for

the sake of the people living in them.’

While the Roman ambassadors went on to Carthage in Africa to further investigate

Carthaginian intentions, Hannibal also sent a missive to his leadership there.

But what was he asking, if anything, and were they his leaders? It is hard to say just how

much power and autonomy Hannibal had at this point. He certainly wasn’t a dictator over the

entirety of Carthage or anything. The shofetes and the council in Carthage certainly still

controlled the empire in terms of day-to-day matters, finances and so on. But where did

Hannibal fit into the power structure? He certainly seems to have had de facto supremacy in

matters regarding Spain and the army.

When the war truly gets underway, we will see him shift troops around, between Spain and

Africa, to suit his purposes and to keep Carthage safe. So it might be tempting to say that he

was like a Roman dictator, temporarily elected and given supreme power over military matters.

But there seems to have been no temporal limit on his power. At the same time, while we will

see that he is the army chief, the council in Carthage will practically forget about him once he

heads off to the war, and do a pretty lackluster job of supplying him while he is on the march

for 12 or 13 years.

Regardless, in the spring of 219 BC, Hannibal set off with a mostly mercenary task force to

besiege Saguntum. The timing was excellent and probably no accident. Just then the Romans

had become embroiled in another Greek conflict, which I will elaborate on in a coming episode.

Polybius tells us that Hannibal spent eight months besieging the town, eventually breaching the

walls and taking it by force. Hannibal would typically be much quicker about these matters

later in the war, that is, the taking of a city, so he may have been taking his time on purpose,

watching international matters. He initially offered to let the Saguntians leave the area with their

lives, but they refused, believing that Rome would come to help.

In the end, those that didn’t die in the siege were captured and taken as slaves. Their land and

other property became Hannibal’s booty, some of which he distributed among his men, some

he kept for his war fund, and the rest he sent back to Carthage, perhaps to give confidence to

his merchant masters in the capital that this was going to be a financially beneficial endeavor.

But historians do not consider the war to have begun yet. After all, no Roman army had been

defeated or even engaged. As we saw with the great Greek conflicts, such as the Persian War

or the Peloponnesian War, the dates of conflicts and their origins are always up for debate.

There are so many minor conflicts that precede the officially sanctioned dates for the

beginnings of wars.

There had been no official declaration of war by either party so far. But before we get to that,

we should inform ourselves a little about the internal politics of both Carthage and Rome.

(Music)More than once in the Greek Sun, my series about ancient Greek history, I delved into the

matter of how city-states were usually divided into at least two factions or parties. This should

sound familiar to those of us living today, particularly in the year 2025. These two political

factions often differed significantly in terms of their leadership and the way that they thought

matters both foreign and domestic should be handled.

In Greece, the parties were typically aligned with either democratic or aristocratic goals.

Occasionally, a tyrant would rise up, usually from democratic origins, but most often the cities

remained in this divided state of affairs. While today some people, Americans in particular, may

be shocked by the vitriol and violence presently noted between their political parties, this

would have been humdrum to ancient Greeks. It was not uncommon for one party to take over

a city and exile or even execute members of the other party. And then those exiled factions

would plot about returning, taking over and doing the same to their political enemies.

The Roman and Carthaginian nations were also divided politically.

In Carthage at this time, the Barcid faction was perhaps the strongest. We call them the Barcid

faction after Hamilcar Barca and Hannibal Barca, the father and son about whom we have

already heard so much. They desired war with Rome and overseas conquests.

The Barcids were opposed by Hanno and his followers. This Hanno is largely seen as

responsible for failing to support the Carthaginian navy during the First Punic War. He is also

the one who refused to pay the mercenaries after the war, leading to the disastrous African civil

war of which I spoke in the last episode.

Hanno and his followers preferred to keep their focus on expanding the empire’s African

holdings, and avoiding conflict with Rome. This faction was not powerful enough to keep

Hannibal from marching off to war, but, as we will see, they will hamstring Hannibal’s efforts

against Rome for years to come.

And we already know that the Carthaginian way of handling political conflict was often bloody.

It was not uncommon for an unsuccessful general to come back from war only to be crucified

for his failure.

In Rome, there were also factions but they tended to treat each other, at this point in Roman

history, with much less personal violence. Instead, honor and public disgrace were more

important factors. There were basically two factions in Rome during the Second Punic War,

each with different views regarding the war, but neither was really pacifistic.

As the war develops, we will see one faction eager for the war and for conflict with Carthage

and for battle with Hannibal. This faction was essentially the more democratic one, in the sense

that it included many Novus Homos, new men, who had risen from non-aristocratic origins in

Roman society and saw warfare as a means of further advancement in politics. It included men

such as Marcus Minucius Rufus and Gaius Terentius Varro. The latter was a plebeian who may

have been a butcher’s son, though that might just be exaggerated calumny from his

aristocratic political enemies.

The other faction, as I have implied already, was composed of more men of aristocratic

backgrounds, such as Quintus Fabius Maximus. These men were more conservative in their

views, less eager for the changes to the status quo that war with Carthage would bring and, as

the war progressed, less likely to engage Hannibal directly in battle, preferring to wear him

down rather than try to defeat him dramatically in the field.Nevertheless, as we shall see in the war’s continuation, remember two things. One, that

Rome’s factions were not so clear-cut into aristocratic and democratic. There were aristocrats

and democrats on both sides. The factions were truly divided by philosophies about the war.

And second, these two Roman factions would almost never resort to lethal punishments,

never crucify their political enemies, even when those enemies spoke out in the Senate in

vehement opposition to the war, or when generals made horrible, costly mistakes in the field

versus Hannibal.

I stated at the end of the last episode that I was happy that the Romans had eventually won

this cultural contest thousands of years ago, and here is another facet of Roman society which

fills me with gratitude for that eventual Roman victory. As much as we might criticize some

aspects of Roman law, religion, culture et cetera from our modern standpoint, they were far

more humane than the Greeks, the Carthaginians and others. Some of these Roman men that I

have already mentioned will suffer great failures on the battlefield. None of them will be tortured

or executed for it. Romans might shame one another, vilify one another publicly, but they left

the violence for their actual enemies, and lived with one another in comparative peace.

In this, we see how the culture of the Roman Republic became so attractive over time to the

peoples that they conquered. Here was a society in which one could live without fear of being

hung from the nearest tree simply because you disagreed politically.

A message for our own age, perhaps.

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The timeline of the official declaration of war is somewhat muddied, as are the motives. Roman

historians of two thousand years ago typically state that Hannibal started the war when he

crossed the Ebro, thus laying the blame for it squarely on the shoulders of the Carthaginians.

They had breached an official treaty by crossing the Ebro, the argument goes, and Rome was

forced to respond to this threat.

It seems like the Romans, though, were more likely motivated by Hannibal’s capture of

Saguntum, and may have been embarrassed by their failure to come to the aid of their allies.

So little focus is given to this event in their official histories, which would have us believe that

the declaration of war was not made until after Hannibal crossed the Ebro river in Spain. But

this would mean that the declaration of war was not made until well into 218 BC, by which time

we know that the Romans had already mobilized their legions. It seems more likely that the

embassy to Carthage complained about the treatment of their allies in Saguntum but, again,

this was likely an embarrassing matter for Rome, so emphasis is instead given to Hannibal’s

violation of the Ebro treaty.

Which is a little amusing, since the Romans could certainly be construed to have violated at

least the spirit of that very same treaty by allying with Saguntum, a city on the Carthaginian

side of the river.

Polybius and Livy, both of them pillars of ancient history, disagree on a number of other

matters surrounding the initiation of the war. So, as with many histories both ancient and

modern, there is plenty of disagreement and outright ignorance of certain events and their

timeline.

What we do know is that there is a famous depiction of the official declaration of war. The

Romans sent an embassy to Carthage, and this would have happened sometime in either late219 or early 218 BC. The ambassador presented the complaint about Hannibal’s activities to

the shofetes and the council of Carthage. The exact identity of this Roman ambassador is

unclear. Polybius does not name him. Some indicate that he was M. Fabius Buteo, leader of

the party in opposition to the consuls of the year, Tiberius Sempronius Longus and Publius

Cornelius Scipio. We will hear these names again.

The ambassador, whoever he was, protested the recent actions of the Carthaginians and made

demands that the Roman Senate must have certainly known would be rejected. The Romans

wanted Hannibal and his chief advisers to be surrendered to them for punishment. If Carthage

refused to do this, it would be choosing war with the Roman Republic.

The chief Roman ambassador told the Carthaginians that he had these two options for them in

the folds of his toga, which he lifted in his hands before them. One option was for peace, the

other for war. What would they prefer he let fall from his toga? The spokesman for the council

replied that the Roman should let fall whatever he wanted from his toga. When he assured

them that it would be war, the council shouted back, “We accept it!”

And so the greatest war to date in the West was officially underway.

Unofficially, for sure, by then things were already underway. As was customary, there were four

new legions prepared that Spring of 218 BC. The Romans had already planned out an

expeditionary venture into Spain with two of these legions, to take the war directly to Hannibal.

As for Hannibal, he had regrouped in Carthago Nova, New Carthage, over the winter. He now

set out from there with something like 90,000 infantry, maybe 12,000 cavalry and 40 elephants.

These men were mostly mercenaries, mostly experienced soldiers from either the Iberian

peninsula or from one of the many tribes in northern Africa over whom the Carthaginians ruled.

Hannibal, like Alexander a little over a century before, also brought with him an entourage that

included official historians to chronicle his endeavors. He quickly crossed the Ebro and began

to subdue the Celtic Iberian tribes that lived there.

Speed was his weapon now. He expected the Romans, based on their past performance, not

to waste anytime but to bring the war to Spain. He need to be ready to meet one, maybe two,

consular armies somewhere in Catalonia, in northeast Spain. There he could defeat them, and

then march on to invade a startled Italy. There he would rally the Gauls and encourage

insurrections among Rome’s Italian allies.

Hannibal had left sufficient forces behind him to keep their own allies and subjects in check.

These forces were commanded by his brother Hasdrubal in Carthago Nova. If everything went

according to plan, then Hasdrubal would be able to lead reinforcements into Italy the following

year, just adding fuel to the fire with which he planned to burn Rome down.

It was a great plan. But there is a saying about plans. It starts with a question. How do you

make God laugh? Answer: Tell him your five-year plan.

The spirit of Hannibal's own intentions, to raise the Gauls into renewed war with Rome, actually

foiled his strategy. As he was setting up in northeast Spain to receive the Romans, the Gauls in

northern Italy side up on their own. This distracted the Romans from their plan to invade Spain,

as they now had to divert their legions to fighting closer to home.

If he waited any longer, the Romans would have northern Italy locked down tight by the time he

arrived and his opportunity to stoke rebellions in the Roman provinces would have passed. Sonow Hannibal made the decision for lightning war, for a blitzkrieg over the Pyrenees, across

southern France and into northern Italy, hoping to arrive in time before the Romans had

completely subdued the Gauls and there were still some embers of anti-Roman aggression to

stoke back into a fire.

But his brother Hasdrubal did not have enough men to hold down all of Carthage’s Spanish

dominions and fight off a Roman invasion that was still possible in the near future. So he had to

split off men from his own massive army to leave behind for security. And anyway, the army he

had amassed to wait for the Romans was not the kind of army he would need to march so

quickly toward Rome. Furthermore, not all the mercenaries had envisioned leaving the

peninsula for their term of service. The plan had been to fight the Romans here, in Catalonia.

So it was, then, that Hannibal resumed his march, probably sometime in September of 218 BC.

He took with him probably just 50,000 infantry and less than 10,000 cavalry as well as the

elephants. The army climbed into the Pyrenees, toward the south of France, where they would

probably have to fight all those tribes that failed to see Hannibal as a liberator. And then he still

had to reach northern Italy.

We have talked before about the differing intentions of the combatants in this war. How many

in the establishment on both sides probably envisioned a colonial war, a war for expanded

frontiers, a war to end in another treaty with advantages and disadvantages, pros and cons for

both sides. Hannibal, though, had always envisioned a crusade, and crushing victory that

would crush Rome into humiliating submission.

Probably, though, Hannibal never imagined that he would spend over a decade in Italy,

roaming around, running from battle to battle, besieging Roman cities and trying desperately to

coax Roman allies and tributaries into betraying their masters. Unsupported by his rulers back

in Carthage, and only to be called home at the end of the conflict to try to save his beleaguered

fatherland.

But all that was yet to come. At the moment, Hannibal and his army were headed first north,

and then East, into the rising Sun, and toward a future in which only war was certain.

Until the next episode, I thank you for listening to the Western Traditions podcast.

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