The Fall of Carthage (14 page)
Polybius gives few details of this battle, but it seems that the Carthaginian army was deployed in more than one line, with a front line of infantry supported by a second containing more infantry and the elephants. It is possible that the intention was to tire out the Roman infantry, weakening their formation and destroying the impetus of their advance, but this is no more than conjecture. Presumably the cavalry formed the wings and the Romans were in their usual
triplex acies.
After a long struggle it was the Romans who drove back and routed the Carthaginian first line. As these mercenaries retreated, the panic spread to the reserve formations and these fled. The Romans captured the Punic camp and most of the elephants. Diodorus claims that Hanno lost 3,000 infantry and 200 cavalry killed, and 4,000 men captured, whilst eight elephants were killed outright and thirty-three disabled, but includes in this total the losses of the earlier cavalry victory. However, he also says that Roman losses in the siege and battle amounted to 30,000 foot and 540 horse, but this is from the total of 100,000 which he claims the besiegers mustered. Both the size of the army and the casualties seem too high, although the latter may well have been substantial.
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triplex acies.
After a long struggle it was the Romans who drove back and routed the Carthaginian first line. As these mercenaries retreated, the panic spread to the reserve formations and these fled. The Romans captured the Punic camp and most of the elephants. Diodorus claims that Hanno lost 3,000 infantry and 200 cavalry killed, and 4,000 men captured, whilst eight elephants were killed outright and thirty-three disabled, but includes in this total the losses of the earlier cavalry victory. However, he also says that Roman losses in the siege and battle amounted to 30,000 foot and 540 horse, but this is from the total of 100,000 which he claims the besiegers mustered. Both the size of the army and the casualties seem too high, although the latter may well have been substantial.
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Zonaras provides a different version of the battle in which Hanno hoped to co-ordinate his attack with a sally by Hannibal's garrison, but was thwarted when the Romans learned of the plan and ambushed the main force, whilst easily defeating the garrison's raid with the outposts guarding the camp and siege lines. Zonaras implies that the battle began late in the day, and the same thing is claimed by Frontinus who attributes to the consul Postumius the strategem of refusing battle and remaining close to the camp as he had done for several days. When the Carthaginians decided that the Romans were unwilling to fight and began to withdraw, satisfied that they had demonstrated their greater fighting spirit, the Romans suddenly attacked and defeated them. It is impossible to know how accurate these traditions are, but all our sources at least agree that the battle ended in a clear Roman victory. Hanno's use of his elephants has often been criticized, given their failure to support the first line. It has been suggested that the Carthaginians were still unused to employing elephants and unaware of correct tactics, this being the first recorded instance of their use by a Punic army.
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However, lacking a more detailed narrative we cannot be certain what Hanno's battle plan was, or precisely what went wrong. The failure of the different elements in his army to support each other effectively may be a reflection of its composition. Most of the troops were recently raised and had not had much time to learn to manoeuvre as an army or become familiar with their commanders.
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However, lacking a more detailed narrative we cannot be certain what Hanno's battle plan was, or precisely what went wrong. The failure of the different elements in his army to support each other effectively may be a reflection of its composition. Most of the troops were recently raised and had not had much time to learn to manoeuvre as an army or become familiar with their commanders.
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Aware that relief was no longer possible, Hannibal led the garrison in a daring breakout during the night, filling the Romans' ditch with baskets of earth and evading the vigilance of an army which was resting or celebrating after its victory. A pursuit the next morning failed to catch many of his men, but the Romans were able to enter Agrigentum unopposed after a siege lasting about seven months. The city was plundered and its inhabitants sold into slavery. It was a significant Roman victory, but the campaign had come close to disaster on several occasions, especially once the besieger's supply lines were cut, when the army had only survived because Hiero with great resourcefulness had been able to ensure that the barest minimum of supplies got through to them. The escape of the garrison also detracted from the success and it is notable that neither of the Roman consuls received a triumph. However, according to Polybius the fall of Agrigentum did encourage the Senate to extend their war aims to include the total expulsion of the Carthaginians from Sicily. As a result they made the critical decision to construct a fleet. Walbank criticizes Polybius' portrayal of events as being too schematic, but it is at the very least highly likely that the capture of the main Punic stronghold greatly encouraged the Romans.
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The defeat of Hanno outside Agrigentum was one of only four massed battles fought on land throughout the twenty-three years of war, a marked contrast with the Second Punic War where pitched battles were far more common. Two of these battles occurred in the relatively brief African campaign of Regulus, and only two in Sicily, despite the deployment of large numbers of soldiers there by both sides for much of the war. Part of the reason is topographic, for the rugged terrain of most of central Sicily does not favour the movements of large armies. With so many good defensive positions, it was difficult for a commander to force a battle on an unwilling adversary. More importantly, the bulk of the island's population lived in the numerous walled cities or their dependent villages. These were the key to Sicily and only through controlling these communities could the island be secured. The territories controlled by Syracuse and Carthage had little unity, being composed of a patchwork of these small city states, most of whom still enjoyed local autonomy. From the earliest actions to break the blockade around Messana, the operations of the armies were dominated by the need to secure each individual town and city. The outcome of a pitched battle was always uncertain and a defeat might well involve very high casualties and the demoralization of the rest of the army. Even a victory merely left the successful army to pursue its main task of subduing cities more freely. Under normal circumstances the potential gains were insufficient for both sides to be willing to risk joining battle. It is significant that both the major battles to occur in Sicily were fought outside, and for the control of, cities. A high proportion of the troops deployed in Sicily were probably dispersed in small garrisons to hold the various cities.
As we have seen, the advantage in siege warfare lay with the defender. The Romans began the war lacking the technical experience required to take a strong city by direct assault. The Carthaginians lacked the manpower both to provide the labour force such operations required and to risk the heavy losses that were likely to be entailed. Sometimes a city might be forced to surrender by repeated raiding of its territory, and it was common for other cities in the locality to defect after a major success by one side. Diodorus claims that sixty-seven cities went over to the Romans after their successes in 263, a factor which contributed to Hiero's willingness to seek peace. Blockade was the most common and successful means of taking a city employed by both sides, but it was still a difficult task, requiring a sizeable force to remain in one area for a long period of time. Nor was success guaranteed. In 263 Appius Claudius failed to take Echeda and, following the peace with Syracuse, the Romans failed to achieve anything after long sieges of Macella and Hadranon, the latter described as only a village by Diodorus. In 261 a seven-month siege of Mytistratus also ended in the Romans being forced to abandon the enterprise. More spectacular successes could be achieved by treachery and, according again to Diodorus, it was by this means that Hanno had so easily taken Herbesus. His successor Hamilcar recaptured Camarina and Enna, which had probably defected to Rome in 263, when they were betrayed to him by a faction in the population in 259. The Romans were readmitted to Enna in the next year by rival groups within the city, although some of the garrison escaped. Camarina also fell to the Romans in 258 after a full-scale siege aided by siege engines - and perhaps experts - provided by Hiero. As the war progressed, the Roman armies steadily began to show more proficiency at siegecraft, but neither side ever rivalled the professional Hellenistic armies in these skills.
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Reliance on traitors within a community produced some startling successes, but was inevitably dangerous. The first commander of Rome's newly constructed fleet, the consul Cnaeus Cornelius Scipio, was captured in 260 when he recklessly led an expedition to Lipara, acting on the promise of the city's betrayal. Our sources conflict as to whether or not this was a deliberate Carthaginian trap. The planning and implementation of attacks to exploit offers of betrayal were also fraught with difficulties. Diodorus claims that in 253 a Roman column was secretly admitted to Thermae by a traitor, but that the small assault party closed the gate behind them, eager to keep the booty for themselves. They were massacred when the defenders realized how small their attackers' numbers were. Either Hanno or his successor Hamilcar is supposed to have disposed of a group of mutinous Gallic mercenaries by sending them to take possession of a Roman-held city under promise that it was to be betrayed to them. The Gauls, given permission to plunder freely once they were inside the place, departed enthusiastically. However, the Punic general sent men pretending to desert to reveal the plan to the Romans. The latter prepared an ambush and the Gauls were massacred. Plunder figures very heavily in the accounts of the First Punic War.
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It is both very difficult and unprofitable to attempt to provide a detailed, chronological narrative of the campaigns in Sicily, given the poor quality of our sources. Polybius concentrates more on the naval operations after 261 and other sources are fragmentary, consisting of anecdotes, many of which seem implausible. The very nature of the war made it difficult for them to provide a coherent account. Sieges, surprise attacks and acts of treachery were interspersed with frequent raiding, much of it probably very small-scale. Our sources tend only to mention the spectacular successes, such as Hamilcar's surprise attack on Rome's Syracusan allies when they were camped alone at Thermae in 260, in which 4,000 were killed. The Carthaginians enjoyed several advantages from the relative permanence of their commanders and armies. Once the mercenary forces were recruited and shipped to Sicily they served for long periods under the same officers and acquired considerable experience of the type of fighting there. It is exceptionally difficult to trace the deployment of Roman legions during the war. It is uncertain whether every new consul brought newly raised troops with him and what proportion of the army returned to Italy when each magistrate left. Yet overall the Romans deployed far more troops in the area and continually replaced their losses, whereas Carthaginian commanders received few reinforcements. However, the annual replacement of commanders may well have made Roman operations less concerted and led to minor setbacks as Zonaras claimed.
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Africa 256-255
BC
BC
The development of the Roman navy and the string of remarkable successes which the Romans enjoyed at sea will be discussed in the next chapter. Carthaginian ships had raided the Italian coast as early as 261, but in 256, whilst the war continued in Sicily, the Romans mounted not just a raid, but a full-scale invasion of Africa. After a brief pause to regroup and rest following their great victory over the Carthaginian fleet at Ecnomus, the Roman consuls, Lucius Manlius Vulso and Marcus Atilius Regulus, sailed to Cape Bon, and landed near the city of Aspis, later known to the Romans as Clupea - both words mean 'shield'. The ships were drawn up onto the beach and surrounded with a rampart and ditch and Aspis besieged. Once the city had fallen and a garrison was installed, the consuls despatched a report to Rome and then sent the troops out on a series of plundering expeditions throughout this highly fertile region. Cattle were rounded up, the farmhouses of wealthy Carthaginians put to the torch and over 20,000 slaves were captured or defected, including numbers of Romans and Italians taken prisoner earlier in the war according to Zonaras. It was quite probably during these operations that the excavated settlement at Kerkouane on the coast was taken, and its defences destroyed. The Senate replied to the report, instructing one consul to return to Italy with the fleet and the other to remain in Africa with an army. Vulso took the bulk of the ships, along with the prisoners, back, leaving a squadron of forty to support Regulus' land forces.
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Many myths came to surround Regulus and, as with all the other important figures of the First Punic War including Hiero and Hamilcar Barca, it is now impossible to know what sort of man he was. He was clearly an able commander, and if he was perhaps over-aggressive this was a common trait in Roman commanders and not considered a vice. One tradition claimed that Regulus was impoverished by senatorial standards, and that it was only reluctantly, following an assurance by the Senate that they would provide for his wife and children at state expense, that he accepted the African command. However, the moralizing tone of this anecdote strongly suggests a later invention as part of the Regulus myth. Regulus' army in Africa consisted of 15,000 infantry and 500 cavalry. It was probably a standard consular army, if an understrength one, since Polybius later mentions a 'First Legion' which implies that he had at least two. The disproportionately low number of cavalry was a result of the difficulty of transporting horses by sea.
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Once the Carthaginians had realized that they were incapable of preventing the Romans from landing in Africa, they began to look to the immediate defence of Carthage itself. Two generals were elected, Hasdrubal, son of Hanno, and Bostar, whilst Hamilcar, the current commander in Sicily, was recalled from Heraclea Minoa with 5,000 foot and 500 horse. The three seem to have held a joint command, but the size of their united forces is not clear, although these evidently included a sizeable contingent of elephants and numerous cavalry. It is unlikely that they significantly outnumbered the Romans in overall numbers, since our sources do not imply a major disparity between the strengths of the two sides. In late 256 Regulus began to advance, plundering the countryside. Reaching the town of Adys (possibly Roman Uthina, modern Oudna), he began to besiege it. The Carthaginians had already decided that they must make some effort to prevent the Romans from devastating their territory with impunity, and moved their army to its relief. Arriving near Adys, they followed a similar policy to Hanno outside Agrigentum and built a fortified camp on a hill overlooking the town and the Roman siegeworks. Clearly their commanders were reluctant to commit themselves to a battle too hastily, before they had gained some advantage.
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