The Rise of Rome

led to the destruction of Carthage. They were not Punic citizens, and their first loyalty was, very naturally, to themselves, not to their employers. The cash-strapped authorities paid them only a small proportion of the money owed, and the men promptly revolted. It was a mortal crisis, for the rebels were the national army and there was no other soldiery with which to resist them. The Carthaginians were obliged to recruit in short order a citizen force and, with the small amount of cash in its coffers, hire some new mercenaries.

To begin with, an incompetent commander was appointed and the war went very badly. So Hamilcar was given a small force to try his hand at defeating the insurgents. Both sides perpetrated disgusting acts of cruelty. Hamilcar trapped the mercenary army and eventually the revolt collapsed. Anyone luckless enough to fall into his hands was crucified. One of the main leaders, an African named Matho, endured a parody of a triumphal procession through the streets of Carthage. He was led along by young men who, Polybius writes, “inflicted on him all kinds of torture.” What this may have meant in practice was imagined by Flaubert in his novel Salammbo:

A child tore his ear; a young girl, with the point of a spindle hidden in her sleeve, split his cheek. They tore out handfuls of hair and strips of flesh; some had sponges steeped in excrement on the end of sticks and rammed these into his face. Blood was streaming from his throat and the sight of it excited the crowd to a frenzy. To them this man, the last of the barbarians, symbolized the entire barbarian army; they were avenging themselves on him for all their disasters, their terror and their shame.

One final twist in the story deepened the rancor against Rome among leading Carthaginians. Mercenaries on the Punic island of Sardinia revolted in solidarity with their comrades in Africa. They came under pressure from native inhabitants and appealed to Rome for help. In 238/7, the Senate decided to send an expedition to take over the island. When the Carthaginians learned of this, they reminded the Senate that Sardinia was still regarded as their possession and they intended to recover it. The response was both surprising and cynical. Despite the fact that they had not a shred of justification, the Romans claimed that Carthage’s preparations were a hostile act and delivered an ultimatum demanding an abdication of all its rights to the island and an indemnity of twelve hundred talents. These new conditions were added to the treaty of 241. Rome took possession of Sardinia and, with it, Corsica, which became a single province, like Sicily.

This was grand larceny. The historian Polybius was a great admirer of Rome, but even he condemned the annexation out of hand. He observed, “It is impossible to discover any reasonable ground or pretext for the Romans’ action,” and noted that men like Hamilcar neither forgot nor forgave the injustice.

IMMEDIATELY AFTER THE war ended, Hamilcar set off for Spain. Carthage was no place at present for a child, and it was little wonder that he took young Hannibal with him. But the motive for his departure was not personal; it was nothing less than to reverse the misfortunes of his motherland.

Little is known of internal Carthaginian politics, but there appear to have been two factions—one representing the landed interest, which much preferred expansion in Africa and the development of agriculture to risky foreign escapades, and the other consisting of merchants and traders who sought military protection for their activities in international waters. The former represented the governing oligarchy, and the latter advocated democratic reform.

Hamilcar was a leading figure in the second group. Although he was respected as a prudent statesman, the defeat in Sicily and the agony of the Mercenary War appear to have radicalized him. According to Diodorus:

Later on after the conclusion of the Mercenary War, he formed a political power base among the lower classes, and from this source, as well as from the spoils of war, amassed wealth. Perceiving that his successes were bringing him increased power, he gave himself over to demagoguery and to currying favor with the People. In this way, he induced them to put into his hands for an indefinite period the military command over all Spain.

Hamilcar was behaving very much like a common Hellenic political type—the turranos, whose one-man rule was backed by the ordinary citizen. However, as it turned out, he had no ambitions to stage a coup d’etat at Carthage. He merely wanted a free hand in Spain.

Two basic and interlinked challenges faced Carthage. How was it to rebuild its ruined economy? Both trade abroad and agricultural production at home had been gravely damaged by the recent military struggles, and the huge indemnity was an annual financial hemorrhage. And, taking the longer view, how was Carthage ever to get its own back on the Romans?

For Hamilcar, the answer to both questions lay in the Iberian Peninsula, which boasted a large human reservoir of potential military recruits and a seemingly inexhaustible supply of silver, iron, and other metals. He accepted that the loss of Sicily was permanent. Like all Carthaginians, he was humiliated by Rome’s decision to annex the Punic islands of Corsica and Sardinia, a clear and scandalous breach of the peace treaty. The Phoenicians had long had mercantile outposts in Spain, and Gades was a great city and port. Hamilcar now decided to create a large and powerful Carthaginian province in the peninsula. Predictably, even those tribes which were accustomed to a Phoenician coastal presence put up resistance. Hamilcar applied the combination of clemency and cruelty that had served him when dealing with the rebellious mercenaries.

He brought with him his son-in-law-cum-lover, the beautiful Hasdrubal, who turned out to be as persuasive a diplomat as he was an aggressive and resourceful commander. Hasdrubal tactfully chose a Spanish princess as a second wife. During the next decade, the two leaders conquered most of southern and southeastern Spain. The Carthaginians also reorganized the silver-mining industry, massively increasing its productivity. It has been calculated that in later centuries a labor force of forty thousand slaves worked the mines and created a hundred thousand sesterces of profit every day. There is no reason to suppose that the Carthaginians in Hamilcar’s day were any less efficient.

Having no strategic interest in Spain or assets to protect, the Romans paid little attention to these developments, but after a time decided to look into reports of Punic expansion (not that this meant Carthage had in any way breached an agreement). They sent an embassy to Hamilcar to ask for a briefing. It was received with carefully controlled courtesy. The Carthaginian general replied to its inquiries with a plausible explanation. “I have to make war on the Spaniards,” he asserted, “to find the money to pay our indemnity to Rome.” This very effectively silenced the envoys.

In 229, Hamilcar suffered a rare military setback at the hands of a Spanish chieftain. Hannibal and another son were with him, but he saved their lives by turning off onto a different road, the enemy following after him rather than the rest of his force. He was overtaken by the chieftain. To escape from him, he plunged on horseback into a river and drowned. Hamilcar’s death did not dent Punic dominance in the peninsula, and a successor was swiftly appointed. At eighteen, his son Hannibal, though popular and able, was too young to be considered. So the Council of Elders in Carthage confirmed Hasdrubal, who had shown himself to be far more than a pretty face.

The new commander-in-chief continued his predecessor’s good work, achieving as much by negotiation as by force of arms. This included a treaty with Rome: the Senate realized it had been “fast asleep” and let Carthage recruit and equip a large army. It sent a second embassy to Spain, and Hasdrubal agreed not to cross the river Hiberus (the present-day Ebro). This was some way north of territory then controlled by Carthage and was an easy concession; and, from Rome’s point of view, the accord satisfactorily protected the interests of its anxious ally, Massilia, and its colonies on the coast of northeastern Spain. The larger issue of the unwelcome Punic revival remained unsettled, and, indeed, even the most obdurate senatorial envoy could hardly expect Carthage to renounce its acquisitions simply on request.

Even if Rome had wanted to issue any threats at this time, it would not have been able to follow them up, for the Republic was facing a major crisis in northern Italy. The Celtic tribes that formed the population of the Po Valley were infuriated by Roman encroachments and had mobilized a vast horde of warriors. In 225, they were defeated at the Battle of Telamon but remained discontented and ungoverned neighbors.

Hasdrubal’s enduring accomplishment was the foundation of a new port, one of the best harbors in the Western Mediterranean, which he called Carthago Nova (New Carthage, today’s Cartagena). The name was appropriate, for, like the mother city, it was built on a promontory between a shallow lagoon and a bay. An island at the mouth of the bay broke the waves of the sea. Occasionally, a southwest breeze raised a slight swell, but otherwise few winds ruffled the surface of the water inside. It was an ideal spot, not merely for fishermen and