Hannibal (25 page)

XXIII

SCIPIO THE YOUNGER

The man who now emerged as one of Republican Rome’s greatest soldiers came from an illustrious patrician family to which Rome was ultimately to be more indebted than to any other for the empire of the world. As their family tomb has revealed, the Scipios had been men of the greatest distinction in Roman history since the early fourth century B.C., consuls following consuls in a long line of merit on the field of war and in civil affairs.

Publius Cornelius Scipio was the son of the Publius who had recently been killed together with his brother Cnaeus during the fighting in Spain. As a youth of seventeen he had saved his father’s life when the latter had been wounded at the battle of Ticinus, Hannibal’s first major success in Italy. Two years later, after the disaster at Cannae, he had been one of the few survivors who had never lost heart and who had helped to rally the others and persuade some of the young noblemen not to flee the country in despair as they were preparing to do. His background was in some respects similar to Hannibal’s—aristocratic and rich, powerful and intelligent—and he had had the opportunity from the time that Hannibal burst into Italy to study his great opponent’s strategy and tactics. Another curious point of resemblance which was to display itself was that where the Barca family, ever since the arrival of Hamilcar in Spain, seem almost to have treated the land as a private province of their own, the Scipios also acquired a somewhat similar and accepted association with that strange, hot land—probably sealed by the blood of the two brothers who had recently died there. Scipio the Younger had been elected
aedile
(one of Rome’s magistrates) three years after Cannae although he was extremely young for the position and was strongly opposed by many of the tribunes, on the surface because of his youth, but largely because they pursued the interests of other patrician families. In 210 Scipio, although only in his middle twenties, was elected to take the command in Spain. There were some who felt almost immediately that they had been rash to appoint such a young man to so important a post (he was about the same age as Hannibal when the latter had mustered his army for the invasion of Italy), yet the decision was soon seen to have been one of the wisest that Rome ever made.
 

The character of Scipio was complex and of a degree of sophistication that was little understood by his Roman contemporaries, or even by later historians such as Polybius and Livy. Like Hannibal he had been educated in the culture of Greece and he had the same intellectual curiosity and textbook knowledge of warfare, among other things, as Hannibal had had at his age—although less of the latter’s experience in the field.

Scipio [writes Livy] was remarkable not only for his real abilities, but thanks to a certain skill had adapted himself to their display, doing much of his actions before the public either as if they were prompted by visions in the night or inspired by a certain superstition, or in order that men might carry out his commands and advice, as though emanating from an oracular response…. From the time when he put on the manly gown, there was not a day on which he did any business public or private without going first to the Capitol, and after he had entered the temple, sitting down and usually passing the time there alone in seclusion. This custom, which he maintained throughout his lifetime, confirmed in some the belief, whether deliberately circulated or by chance, that he was a man of divine race.

Two modern historians, Dorey and Dudley, have assessed him perhaps more sympathetically, describing his superior intellectual gifts, his natural courtesy, genuine culture, and real sympathy for people of other races. ‘That he stood so clearly apart from the ordinary Roman nobles is the reason why he excited so much jealousy among them. As a soldier his greatness is undisputed. He was one of the greatest creative thinkers in the field of warfare, and the tactics that he developed made the Roman army supreme for many centuries. He was also an outstanding field commander with a wonderful sense of timing, and could carry out complicated manoeuvres with success in the face of the enemy.’

He had learned much from Hannibal, and the major lesson was to be flexible in his thinking and not to approach every issue or every battlefield in the old Roman mould of unyielding consistency. In the event, the appointment of Scipio to the important command in Spain fully justified the senators’ faith in him. Within a year of his arrival in Spain he had struck such a blow at the Carthaginian empire that he had directly changed the course of the war. The Romans, dispirited on so many accounts—loss of prestige, virtual bankruptcy, immense taxation, and consciousness always of the dark shadow of Hannibal looming over the land—were to be uplifted by almost unbelievable news: Cartagena, New Carthage, capital of Carthaginian Spain, had fallen to the forces under Scipio. At one blow he had deprived the Carthaginians of their finest harbour in Spain, the administrative capital of their Spanish empire, and the main source of their wealth and power in the West.

Arriving in Spain at the end of 210 with 11,000 reinforcements, Scipio at once moved down to Tarraco (Tarragona). Throughout that winter he met as many representatives of the Spanish tribes as possible, men who were confused by the constant shifts of fortune in the war between Carthage and Rome, but who seem to have been reassured by Scipio’s confident air and invariable good manners. Like Hannibal himself, he seems to have possessed an Innate, ability to get on with the native people of other countries: not for these two patricians the arrogance of ordinary generals or the bluster of plebeian politicians. Thus Scipio’s brilliance, it was soon revealed, lay not only in the field of warfare but also in a statesmanlike approach to the local inhabitants. The Spanish tribes, passionate, proud, and sensitive to slights, already bore the unmistakable mark of the nation that has evolved in the peninsula over the centuries. During that first winter Scipio learned to under-stand their nature, to make friends among their chiefs, and to lay the first stone in that mighty and prosperous province which would ultimately be Roman Spain.

In the spring of 209 he crossed the Ebro with 30,000 men and marched south on Cartagena, his army being accompanied down the coast by a Roman fleet. It was a well-planned amphibious operation and Scipio did not move without good prospects of success. He knew from his informants that the Carthaginian forces were divided into three, and that all were far apart: one under Hasdrubal near Saguntum, another under Mago in the interior, and the third under Hasdrubal Gisgo far to the south-west in Gades. This separation of command was not only due to rival ambitions among the leaders, but was also prompted by the very nature of the country itself. There was at that time no single area in which a large concentration of men could be based and live off the land. ‘Spain’, as Henry IV of France was to remark centuries later, ‘is a country where large armies starve and small armies get beaten.’ Scipio moved with the assurance that Wellington was one day to display when confronted by French marshals similarly rapacious and at odds with one another.

The garrison of Cartagena, small but confident because of the supposed impregnability of the city, launched a brave sally against the investing Roman army but was repulsed. The Roman fleet blockaded them from the sea, and Scipio, making use of local knowledge, had learned that a lagoon which protected the Carthaginian capital to the west could be forded through certain shallows when the wind was from the north, something which lowered its level by a foot or more. Over-confident about the protection afforded by this lagoon, the Carthaginians had left the walls on that side far less well fortified than those at the landward end of the peninsula on which Cartagena then stood (the neck of this peninsula has long since been filled in and is no longer discernible). Having tested the strength of the main walls and found that they were too high and too well defended for a successful assault, Scipio waited until a strong northerly was blowing, then, while the garrison was kept involved on the landward side, had part of the army attack Cartagena across the lagoon. The manoeuvre was successful, the Romans burst into the city and soon had the gates open for the main body of their army.

The Carthaginian commander withdrew to the citadel while the town was delivered to the usual rapine and massacre. Then, seeing that the situation was hopeless both by land and by sea—the investing fleet had drawn in to destroy and capture the vessels in the harbour—he surrendered. New Carthage, the capital of the rich province of Spain which had so largely funded Hannibal’s war-effort, was lost. At this moment Scipio’s control over his troops, so unlike that of Marcellus at Syracuse, was immediately exerted: the troops were called to heel and from then on Scipio displayed that courtesy towards the conquered, especially the Spaniards, that was to become the hallmark of his success. ‘Of male free men about ten thousand were captured. From that number Scipio released those who were citizens of New Carthage and restored to them their city and also all the property which the war had spared to them.’ Livy goes on to record how several thousand trained artisans were declared slaves of the Roman people but were encouraged to carry on working with the prospect of freedom in the near future if they exerted themselves in the armament industry. (They were also very necessary to keep the docks and shipbuilding industry going.)

Cartagena was a great prize in every way. Quite apart from the plunder that was divided among the Roman soldiers, there was an immense amount of gold and silver that would go far towards replenishing the empty chests of the Roman treasury. There was also a vast store of barley and wheat, quantities of bronze and iron, and all the necessary reserves for maintaining a fleet—as well as the fleet itself. Eighteen Carthaginian warships were captured and Scipio enrolled many of the slaves to serve as oarsmen. Sixty-three merchantmen with all their cargoes intact also lay in the harbour. The Romans had indisputably extended their control over the seaways of the Mediterranean, and now dominated the western and central areas as well as the Adriatic and the Ionian. Among the large amount of war material which fell into Roman hands were over a hundred of the largest type of catapults, as well as rock- and spear-hurling instruments and all the equipment for a large siege train—something which Hannibal had lacked throughout his years in Italy, and which the Carthaginians had never been able to transport across the Roman-dominated sea.

Scipio was able to make good political capital out of the Spanish hostages who had been held in Cartagena as surety for the good behaviour of their tribes. ‘On learning the names of their states he made a list of captives, showing how many belonged to each people, and sent messengers to their homes, bidding that each man should come and recover his own children. If ambassadors of any states happened to be there, he restored their hostages to them directly.’ When the sister-in-law of Indibilis, prince of the important Ilergetes, fell weeping at his feet beseeching him to ensure the safety of her beautiful young daughters, Scipio ‘handed them over to a man of proven uprightness’ and ordered him to protect them as if they were his own. ‘Then’, Livy goes on, ‘there was brought to him a grown maiden of such beauty that, wherever she went, she drew the eyes of everyone.’ Scipio’s fellow officers knew well enough that he was fond of women and thought they were making him a most suitable present. Scipio, however, did not forget that he was not only the conqueror of Cartagena but the man upon whom future policy towards Rome’s new subjects in Spain might be founded. Having inquired about the girl’s parentage and found out that she was betrothed to a young Celtiberian of some consequence, he had him summoned into his presence and entrusted to him his future bride, stipulating that he wanted no thanks but that he should be a friend of the Roman people. Her parents in the meantime, having thought to ransom her, brought Scipio a large sum of gold: he in his turn gave it to the young nobleman as a wedding present. This, and similar actions, played a large part in securing the transfer to the Romans of the allegiance of the tribes who had hitherto provided so many of the men for the Carthaginian army. Large numbers of tribal levies who were serving in Hasdrubal Barca’s army deserted the Carthaginians over the next few months.

Having shown his ability as general and statesman Scipio now turned to the immediate practical aspects of war. He had observed in Italy and again in Spain the advantages of the Spanish sword, which could be used both for cutting and thrusting, over the Roman
gladius
, suitable mainly for thrusting. During that winter, while the armouries of Cartagena resounded to the clang of hammers, Scipio exercised the legions in more flexible tactics than the old Roman frontal attack, which relied so much upon the sheer weight of the legions. He had seen that fail at Cannae. At the same time he did not neglect the fleet, and the oarsmen and marines were exercised regularly in sham battles whenever the weather permitted.

Most of the other Roman generals in the war so far had been blinded by the brilliance of Hannibal and by the fact that he was roaming at large throughout the length and breadth of Italy. To them, Hannibal was the enemy. Scipio, on the other hand, knew that it was Carthage, and that the North African city must be brought to her knees in her own territory before the war could end. The first step towards achieving this desired aim was to deprive her of her empire in Spain; to cut off her supplies from the silver and other mines, and to transfer the allegiance of the hardy fighting men of the country from Carthage to Rome. Hannibal, despite his unquestioned brilliance on the battlefield, was no more than a distraction. Scipio, like all great commanders, took a far-sighted view of the aims and objects of a war. The capture of Cartagena was not just a victory to be acclaimed in Rome when the spoils and tribute arrived: it was the beginning of the end.