Warfare in the Classical World by John Warry

Author:John Warry
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
ISBN: 9781849943154
Publisher: Pavilion Books
Published: 2016-05-01T16:00:00+00:00

■ Hannibal’s Victories

Publius Cornelius Scipio, consul in 218 BC, having dispatched his own army into Spain under the command of his brother Gnaeu, returned with exemplary speed to North Italy and took command of the legions there. He met Hannibal’s invading army, which had already occupied the area of Turin, in the angle of the Po and the Ticinus, its northern tributary. In the cavalry battle which followed, Scipio was repulsed and wounded, and retired on Placentia. The fight had proved Hannibal’s cavalry superiority and the consul hoped to divert future warfare away from the open country which favoured cavalry tactics.

In face of Hannibal’s threat, the other consul, Tiberius Sempronius Longus, preparing for an invasion of Africa, was posted northward to join forces with Scipio. With Scipio severely wounded, Sempronius virtually took charge of the situation and, encouraged by a successful cavalry skirmish, fought a battle on the Trebia, a southern tributary of the Po, in bitter winter conditions. Hannibal, after a personal reconnaissance, had cleverly used wild country to mask a cavalry ambush. The Romans lost about two thirds of their army. But even so, 10,000 Roman legionaries, although encircled, forced their way through the enemy centre and found safety in Placentia. The Roman horses, though not the Roman soldiers, were still terrified by elephants. But Roman light-armed troops (velites) managed to turn back the big animals and, by spearing their rumps, almost succeeded in stampeding the poor creatures.

Icy conditions prevented Hannibal from following up his victory, and as he picked his way southward in the following spring, his own army suffered badly in areas flooded by melting snow. Afflicted by an ophthalmic complaint which eventually cost him the sight of one eye, Hannibal himself rode on the one remaining elephant, barely high and dry. The rest of the elephants had succumbed either to war or weather.

Publius Scipio was sent into Spain with a new command. In Italy, the succeeding consul, Gaius Flaminius, who guarded the western side of the Apennines, was bent on a decision, and now followed the Carthaginian army. On the north shore of Lake Trasimene in Etruria, Hannibal lured the Romans through a bottleneck between the hills and the water on to a pocket of level ground. The ambush which he had posted on the high ground overlooking the lake was hidden by mist. As the Romans advanced to meet his frontal challenge, the troops from the mountain slopes swept down and, catching the legions still in column of march, drove them into the lake amid butchery and confusion. Two legions were annihilated and Flaminius killed. This victory was followed up by an ambush against the forces of the other consul, when the Romans lost some 4,000 cavalry.

Feeling the need for unified command as an emergency measure, the Romans now appointed a dictator, Quintus Fabius Maximus, and a Master of the Horse, to replace the surviving consul.

Hannibal, meanwhile, needed allies. The Gauls of North Italy, although he had recruited many of them, had proved disappointing.

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