ANNIBAL by Cornelius Nepos
I. Hannibal, son of Amilcar, was born in Carthage. If it is true, as no one doubts, that the Roman people were the most courageous in the universe, it cannot be denied that Hannibal was the greatest captain who ever lived, as superior to other generals as Rome has been to other nations. He remained victorious in all the battles he waged against us; and if the jealousy of his fellow citizens had not stopped him, he would perhaps have ended by triumphing over the Roman people; but the envy of the multitude must have prevailed over the merit of one. He preserved to his last breath that hatred which his father had sworn to the Romans, and which he received from him as an inheritance. Exiled from his homeland and reduced to imploring foreign help, his heart, if not his arm, always fought the Romans.
II. Not to mention Philip, whom he knew how to make an enemy to them despite the distance, he stirred up Antiochus, the most powerful king of that time, against them. This prince, inflamed by his advice, tried to carry the war into Italy, from the shores of the Red Sea where he reigned. Roman ambassadors having come to him to penetrate his intentions, sought by their intrigues to render Hannibal suspicious of him, representing him as a man seduced by them, and who had changed his feelings. They succeeded in deceiving the king. Hannibal, seeing himself excluded from all the councils, obtained an audience with Antiochus, and, after having protested his loyalty, said to him:"I was barely nine years old when my father, leaving for Spain as general , offered victims to Jupiter. During the sacrifice, he asked me if I wanted to go with him. I told him that I wanted to, and I even urged him to take me. - Yes, he continued, but on one condition:it is to make me the promise that I am going to ask you. At the same time he approached me to the altar, and, dismissing the assistants, he made me swear, with my hand on the altar, an eternal hatred of the Romans. This oath that I made to my father, I have kept it to this day, and my fidelity must answer for the future. If you want to unite with the Romans, you do well to hide it from me; but if you prepare to make war on them, you act against your interests by choosing another leader”.
III. It was therefore at the age of nine that Hannibal left for Spain with his father. After the death of Amilcar, Asdrubal, having become a general, gave him the command of the cavalry; and when Asdrubal had been slain, the army appointed him general in his place:this choice was approved at Carthage, and Hannibal saw himself at the head of an army before the age of twenty-five. Within three years he subjugated Spain, stormed the city of Saguntum, an ally of the Romans, and raised three armies. He sent one to Africa, left the other in Spain, under the orders of his brother Asdrubal, and marched with the last to Italy. He first crossed the Pyrenees, having to fight wherever he went, and everywhere remaining victorious. He arrived at the foot of the Alps, which separate Italy from Gaul. No one had yet crossed them with an army, with the exception of Hercules, which gave them the name of the Greek Alps today. Hannibal climbs them, defeats the mountaineers who oppose his passage, opens up new paths by dint of work, and manages to make a fully loaded elephant pass through paths where a single, unarmed man could barely slip. crawling. It was through there that he led his troops and descended into Italy.
IV. He had already met the consul P. Cornelius Scipio on the banks of the Rhone, and had beaten him. He meets him again near the Po and puts him to flight. The consul was wounded in this fight, where it was a question of occupying Clastidium. Scipio came for him a third time near Trebia, with his colleague Tiberius Longus. Hannibal accepted battle and defeated them. From there he entered Liguria, and crossed the Apennines to reach Etruria. On this march he was attacked by a violent eyeache, and since then he has never seen well with his right eye. He was still suffering from this inconvenience, which even obliged him to be carried in a litter, when he lured into an ambush, near the Trasimene river, the consul Flaminius with the legions, and defeated him; Flaminius was killed there. Soon after, Praetor C. Centenius, who occupied defiles with an elite troop, experienced the same fate. Hannibal then entered Apulia, where he had to fight the two consuls C. Terentius Varro and L. Paulus emilius. He defeated them in a single battle. L. P. émilius lost his life there, as well as other consular personages, among others Cn. Servilius Géminus, consul the previous year.
V. After this battle, Hannibal marched on Rome without finding resistance, and stopped on the heights near the city. After having camped there for a few days, he was returning to Capua, when the Roman dictator Q. Fabius Maximus came to dispute his passage through the territory of Falerno, and succeeded in shutting him up in defiles. Hannibal got out of it during the night, without feeling any loss. This is how he fooled Fabius, so cunning himself. Taking advantage of the darkness, he tied vine shoots to the horns of young bulls, set them on fire, and released these animals into the countryside. This strange sight terrified the Roman army, which dared not come out of its entrenchments. A few days later, Hannibal cleverly drew the general of the cavalry, M. Minucius Rufus, who shared the command with the dictator, into battle and put him to flight. Although absent, he caused Tib to fall and perish in an ambush in Lucania. Sempronius Gracchus, consul for the second time. Marcus Claudius Marcellus, then in his fifth consulship, perished in the same manner near Venus. It would take too long to cite all the victories of Hannibal:it will suffice, to show his superiority, to say that no army resisted him in pitched battle as long as he was in Italy, and that, from the day of Cannes, no general dared to camp in front of him.
VI. Called back to his homeland to defend it, this captain, hitherto invincible, had to fight the son of Father Scipio, whom he had defeated on the banks of the Rhone, on those of the Po, and near Trebia. Carthage was exhausted. Hannibal tried to bring the Roman general to a truce, in order to restart the war with advantage. They had a conference on this subject, but could not agree on the conditions. A few days later, they came to blows with Zama. Hannibal was defeated, and took (incredibly) only two days and two nights to reach Adrumetum, about three hundred miles from Zama. In this flight, the Numidians who had fled with him raised him up. pitfalls. He not only escaped them, but he exterminated them. He rallied the fugitives in Adrumète and rebuilt his army in a few days, by means of new levies.
VII. He pushed his preparations vigorously, when the Carthaginians made peace with the Romans. He nevertheless retained the command, and directed the African expeditions, as did his brother Magon, up to the consulate of P. Sulpicius and C. Aurelius. It was at this time that the Carthaginians sent ambassadors to Rome to thank the senate and the Roman people for the treaty made with them, and to offer them, as a mark of gratitude, a golden crown. They demanded, moreover, that the hostages be transferred to Frégelles, and that the prisoners be returned. They were told, by a decree, that their gift was approved, that the hostages would be transferred to the place requested; but that the prisoners would not be returned so long as Hannibal, the author of the war and the sworn enemy of the Roman name, was at the head of their troops, with his brother Mago. When this answer was known in Carthage, they recalled Hannibal and Mago. The first was appointed praetor on his return:he had been king twenty-two years previously. The Carthaginians had two annual kings, like the Romans two consuls. Hannibal showed himself as skilful in this new charge as in the command of the armies. He created new taxes, of which he devoted a part to the payment of the sums due to the Romans in consequence of the treaties. He had the rest paid into the public treasury. But a year after his praetorship, under the consulship of M. Claudius and L. Furius, Rome sent deputies to Carthage. Convinced that the Romans wanted his person and sent to be delivered to them, he did not wait for the deputies to be received by the senate. He embarked secretly and took refuge in Syria, at the court of Antiochus. The report of his flight having spread, two ships were sent in pursuit. His property was publicly sold, his house was razed and he was condemned to exile.
VIII. Three years later, under the consulship of L. Cornelius and Q. Minucius, he returned to Africa with five ships, and landed on the coasts of Cyrene. He wanted to incite the Carthaginians to restart the war, making them hope to be rescued by Antiochus, whom he had already decided to march on Italy at the head of his troops. He had, he said, the certainty that this king would not break his promises. He sent for his brother Mago; but as soon as it was known at Carthage of the latter's departure, they condemned him to the same penalties as had been pronounced against Hannibal. Having nothing more to hope for, the two brothers weighed anchor, set sail, and Hannibal returned to Antiochus. Magon perishes on the way. Historians are divided on his type of death:some say he was shipwrecked, others that he was killed by his slaves. As for Antiochus, if he had followed Hannibal's advice as he followed them by declaring himself the enemy of the Romans, it was on the banks of the Tiber that he would have disputed the empire with the Romans, and not at Thermopylae. . Despite the extravagance of his conduct during this war, Hannibal never abandoned him. Charged with the command of some vessels which he was to send from Syria to Asia, he fought the fleet of the Rhodians on the sea of Pamphylia. His people were overwhelmed by numbers; but on the side where he was he gained the advantage.
IX. After the defeat of Antiochus, Hannibal feared being handed over to the Romans, which would have happened if he had remained with the king. He went to the island of Crete, among the Gortynians, to advise on the choice of a retreat. He had taken with him considerable sums, and the rumor had spread. Knowing the greed of the Cretans, he understood that he had everything to fear from them. This is the trick by which he saved his wealth. He filled several amphoras with lead, which he covered with gold and silver on the surface, and deposited them, in the presence of the first of the city, in the temple of Diana, as if he had entrusted his fortune to their good friend. faith. Having thus deceived them, he hid his money in bronze statues which he had with him, and which he carelessly left in the vestibule of his house. Meanwhile, the Gortynians were carefully guarding the entrance to the temple, less to ward off thieves than to prevent Hannibal from recovering and taking with him the treasure that had been committed to them.
X. Having thus tricked the Cretans and preserved his fortune, the wily Carthaginian went to the court of Prusias, king of Pontus. Always faithful to his hatred against the Romans, he made every effort to arm this prince against them and raise up a new enemy for them. Prusias not being very powerful on his own, he made him enter into alliances with other kings and associated him with belligerent nations. This prince was then at war with Eumenes, king of Pergamum, entirely devoted to the Romans, which further excited Hannibal to his downfall. They fought on land and sea; but the alliance with Rome gave the superiority to Eumenes. His death alone could allow Hannibal to carry out his plans. Here is the way he imagined to get rid of it. The two kings were to engage in a naval combat without delay:Hannibal had fewer vessels; it was necessary to make up for the inequality of forces by cunning. He gave orders to take and lock up in clay vessels all poisonous snakes that could be found. When he had a large quantity, he assembled the officers on the day of the battle, and ordered them to run all together to the king's ship. 'The rest of the fleet,' he told them, 'will be busy enough defending themselves from the snakes. As for the royal ship, I undertake to make it known to you, and I promise a magnificent reward to whoever takes Eumenes, dead or alive”.
XI. After this harangue, the two fleets advance against each other. At the moment of engaging in battle, Hannibal, to point out Eumenes' ship to his followers, sends a messenger in a skiff with the caduceus. The latter, having arrived near the enemy fleet, shows a letter and says that he wants to speak to the king. He is brought before Eumenes, believing that these are proposals for peace. For him, having made known the royal ship, he withdraws. Eumenes opens the letter, and finds nothing but mockery about himself. Surprised by this move, the cause of which he cannot guess, he continues to engage in combat. The Bythinians, following Hannibal's order, all swoop down on the king's ship, which, unable to resist, flees and takes refuge in the middle of its moored reserve near the shore. He wouldn't have escaped without it. Meanwhile the other ships pressed those of Prusias and Hannibal. They are thrown to them the clay vessels of which I have just spoken. This maneuver of a new kind excites the laughter of the enemies, who do not understand the reason. But, seeing their vessels full of snakes, terrified and not knowing what danger they should prefer to avoid, they tacked on board and returned to their anchorage. Thus Hannibal cunningly triumphed over the forces of the king of Pergamum. This is not the only time he has resorted to such stratagems. He often used it on earth to destroy his enemies.
XII. While these things were happening in Asia, chance would have it that the ambassadors of Prusias being one day at supper in Rome with Lucius Quintus Flamininus, a consular person, they came to speak of Hannibal. One of these ambassadors says he was in the states of the king of Bythinia. The next day Flamininus communicated this news to the senate, and the senators, persuaded that Rome would always have something to fear as long as Hannibal lived, sent deputies to Prusias, among others Flamininus, to beg him not to keep to his court the most cruel enemy of Rome, and to place him in their hands. Prusias dared not refuse; he only asked that he should not be forced to violate the rights of hospitality. “Take it if you can,” he said to the ambassadors; you will easily find the place of his retreat”. Hannibal lived in a castle given to him by the king; and as he had always foreseen what would happen then, he had made escapes on all sides. The Roman ambassadors went to her residence and made her invest. A slave, who was standing at the door, having seen the soldiers, ran to warn his master. Hannibal ordered him to go and see if the other doors were invested. The slave having come to tell him, after a few moments, that the castle was surrounded on all sides, he saw clearly that it was not the effect of chance, but that they wanted his person, and that It was time to end his life, if he didn't want to fall alive into the power of his enemies. It was then that this great man, full of the memory of his former exploits, swallowed the poison he usually carried with him.
XIII. He thus rested in death, at the age of seventy. His life had been a continual series of fatigues and labors. It is not positively known under which consulate he died. Atticus says, in his Memoirs, that it was under the consulship of M. C. Marcellus and Q. Fab. Labeon; Polybius, under that of L. Emilius Paulus and Cn. Bébius Tamphilus; and finally Sulpicius, under the consulship of C. Cethegus and M. Bébius Tamphilus. This great man, although always occupied with the war, did not fail to devote some time to letters; we have several works by him in Greek, notably a history of Cn. Manlius Vulson's campaign in Asia. This story is dedicated to the Rhodians. Several historians have given us the account of Hannibal's campaigns. The two principal ones are Silenus and Sosilus of Sparta, who accompanied him on his expeditions, and lived with him as long as fortune permitted. It was Sosilus who taught him Greek. But it is time to finish this first part of my work and begin the history of the Roman captains, so that we can judge by comparison the merit of each of them.