General history. Punic Wars Two Punic Wars have something in common

Until the beginning 3rd century Rome is waging continuous wars with its neighbors. There was a crop failure in Rome, the solution was to die or steal from neighbors. Last var. Preferred. But crop failure also occurred among neighbors. Then things went so well, they stole in reserve. It is also interesting to subjugate, and they began to slowly unite the lands, but in a cunning way. Besides Rome - favorite and unloved allies.

By the 3rd century. Rome claims to unify Italy. They are hindered by the Greek. cities.

And then it turns out that there is Carthage (the western part of the Mediterranean basin) - the era of the Punic Wars begins.

First Punic War (264–241). The expansion of Rome's borders and its access to Sicily led to aggravation of contradictions with the Carthaginian power.

Upon request Messana(city in Sicily) in 264 Rome intervened in her internal war with Syracuse and captured not only Syracuse, but also Messana itself. The west of the island was occupied by Carthage, which created fortified bases in the cities Lilybey, Panorm And Drepana. The Romans advanced towards the Carthaginian cities and besieged them. IN 260 g. at Milah The Romans inflicted the first major defeat on Carthage at sea.

V 256 Carthage was besieged, which was ready to surrender, but Rome was not satisfied with the peace terms proposed by the besieged. The Punes began to defend themselves to the last, and the Romans, closer than ever to victory, were defeated. The fleet rushing to their aid was lost in a storm, and the defeat turned out to be worse than ever.

The world was concluded in 241 Carthage liberated Sicily, paid a huge indemnity (almost 80 tons of silver) and handed over Roman prisoners.

Second Punic War (218–201). Revanchist sentiments were strong in Carthage, ideas arose for the forcible return of the territories conquered by Rome, which led to second Punic war(218–201 ). Carthage relied on an offensive war, moving troops to Rome through the Iberian Peninsula.

IN 219 the city was captured by the Carthaginians Saguntum. A brilliant military leader became the head of the Carthaginian troops Hannibal. The trek started from Spain. Hannibal, with elephants and a huge army, made a heroic transition through the Alps, losing almost all the elephants and three-quarters of the army in the mountains. Nevertheless, he invaded Italy and inflicted a series of defeats on the Romans in 218 city ​​(near rivers Titsine And Trebia) and in 217 g. (ambush at Lake Trasimene). Hannibal bypassed Rome and moved further south. The Romans avoided major battles and wore down their enemies with small skirmishes.

The decisive battle took place near the city Cannes V 216 g. Hannibal, with much smaller forces, defeated the Roman army, led by two warring consuls: a plebeian and a patrician.

IN 211 a turning point came in the war. The Romans took the main stronghold of the Carthaginians in Italy, the city I'm dripping, and Hannibal found himself completely isolated. WITH 210 became the head of the Roman troops Publius Cornelius Scipio the Younger. He quite successfully fought with the Carthaginians in Spain and advocated for the transfer of hostilities to North Africa, wanting to expel Hannibal from Italy. After Scipio's landing in Africa 204 Mr. Hannibal was hastily recalled to his homeland. At Zame V 202 The Carthaginian army was defeated, and Hannibal fled. In the next one, 201 g., Carthage capitulated. According to the new peace terms, he was deprived of his overseas possessions, did not have the right to maintain a navy, and had to pay an indemnity for fifty years. He retained only a small territory in Africa.

Third Punic War (149–146). Carthage managed to recover from the defeat and began to trade extensively. Rome was wary of his new strengthening in the Western Mediterranean. "Carthage must be destroyed." Rome issued a strict ultimatum to Carthage, all points of which were satisfied, with the exception of the clearly impossible one: moving the city inland. The Romans sent an army to North Africa, which, after a long siege, took Carthage in 146 The city was razed to the ground, and the place where it was located was plowed up. From now on, a Roman province was created here Africa, whose lands became the state property of Rome.

The main object of conquest during the wars started by Rome during the Republican period (late 6th - early 3rd century BC) (Early Republic) was the land necessary to solve the problem of land hunger. Wars were a form of intra-Italian colonization. In the Republican era, cases of colonies being withdrawn from Italy were practically unknown, since the Romans sought to maintain internal unity with the Italics and the peoples that fell under their subordination.

Initially, the Romans ensured their own security in the lands surrounding Rome. Having subdued and weakened its closest neighbors, the need arose to protect itself from larger opponents outside the peninsula - then the Punic Wars began.

First Punic War (264–241). The expansion of the borders of Rome and its access to Sicily led to an aggravation of contradictions with the Carthaginian power (Punians - the second name of the Carthaginians), which, being the heir of the Phoenicians, was very powerful and had great trade connections. Until the beginning of the 3rd century. Rome fought wars on its territory - Carthage also had its own problems, so its first clash with Rome occurred when Rome began to lay claim to hegemony in the Mediterranean, trying to push its borders beyond Italy. The slightest reason was enough for a clash between two states.

At the request of Messana (a city in Sicily) in 264, Rome intervened in its internal war with Syracuse and captured not only Syracuse, but also Messana itself. The west of the island was occupied by Carthage, which created fortified bases in the cities of Lilybaeum, Panormus and Drepana. The Romans advanced to the Carthaginian cities and besieged them, but at sea they were unable to compete with the new enemy, who defeated the Roman fleet in the first naval battle. In Rome, the same situation arose as under Themistocles during the Greco-Persian wars, when the need arose to create a powerful military squadron, which was immediately built. In 260, at Milae, the Romans inflicted the first major defeat on Carthage at sea.

Inspired by the victory, the Romans transferred hostilities directly to North Africa and in 256 besieged Carthage, which was ready to surrender, but Rome was not satisfied with the peace terms proposed by the besieged. The Punes began to defend themselves to the last, and the Romans, closer than ever to victory, were defeated. The fleet rushing to their aid was lost in a storm, and the defeat turned out to be worse than ever.

Peace was concluded in 241. Carthage liberated Sicily, paid a huge indemnity (almost 80 tons of silver) and handed over Roman prisoners. Thus ended the first Punic War, reflecting an approximate equality of forces, since for almost twenty years both powers fought without a definite advantage on one side or the other.

Second Punic War (218–201). Revanchist sentiments were strong in Carthage, ideas arose for the forcible return of the territories conquered by Rome, which led to the second Punic War (218–201), the most terrible for Rome, which for the first time found itself on the brink of destruction. Carthage relied on an offensive war, moving troops to Rome through the Iberian Peninsula.

In 219, the Carthaginians captured Saguntum (modern Sagunto), which was a Roman ally on the eastern coast of Spain, which was almost completely occupied by the Punics, which was the reason for a new war. The brilliant military leader Hannibal became the head of the Carthaginian troops. The trek started from Spain. Hannibal, with elephants and a huge army, made a heroic transition through the Alps, losing almost all the elephants and three-quarters of the army in the mountains. Nevertheless, he invaded Italy and inflicted a series of defeats on the Romans in 218 (at the Ticinus and Trebia rivers) and in 217 (an ambush at Lake Trasimene). Hannibal bypassed Rome and moved further south. The Romans avoided major battles and wore down their enemies with small skirmishes.

The decisive battle took place near the city of Cannes in 216, it was included in all textbooks of military art. Hannibal, with much smaller forces, defeated the Roman army, led by two warring consuls: a plebeian and a patrician. Hannibal placed weak units in the center of his army, and concentrated his main forces on the flanks, lining up the army in the form of an arc, with the curved side towards the Romans. When the Romans struck the center and broke through it, the flanks closed and the attackers were “in the bag”, after which the beating of the Roman soldiers began. Neither before nor after 216 did Rome suffer defeats equal to this.

It is not clear why Hannibal did not immediately march on Rome, since after the defeat at Cannes all the necessary conditions for this arose. If Hannibal, without wasting time, moved towards the capital, he would have every chance of capturing it. Obviously, the Carthaginians relied on the collapse of the Roman-Italian alliance, which had stood the test of war, since most of the Italian cities did not go over to Hannibal’s side, and the anti-Roman coalition did not take shape.

In 211, a turning point came in the war. The Romans took the main stronghold of the Carthaginians in Italy, the city of Capua, and Hannibal, who had not suffered a single major defeat in Italy, found himself in complete isolation, abandoned even by Carthage, who did not send help. The final collapse came after the promotion of a personality equal to Hannibal in terms of military talent. From 210 Publius Cornelius Scipio the Younger became the head of the Roman troops. He quite successfully fought with the Carthaginians in Spain and advocated for the transfer of hostilities to North Africa, wanting to expel Hannibal from Italy. After Scipio's landing in Africa in 204, Hannibal was hastily recalled to his homeland. At Zama in 202, Scipio used the same technique as Hannibal at Cannae - this time the Carthaginian army was drawn into the bag. It was defeated, and Hannibal fled. The next year, 201, Carthage capitulated. Under the new peace terms, he was deprived of his overseas possessions, did not have the right to maintain a navy, and had to pay an indemnity for fifty years. He retained only a small territory in Africa.

Third Punic War (149–146). Carthage managed to recover from the defeat and began to trade extensively. Rome was wary of his new strengthening in the Western Mediterranean. The prominent senator Marcus Porcius Cato expressed these fears vividly: “Carthage must be destroyed.” Rome issued a strict ultimatum to Carthage, all points of which were satisfied, with the exception of the clearly impossible one: moving the city inland. The Romans sent an army to North Africa, which, after a long siege, took Carthage in 146. The city was razed to the ground, and the place where it was located was plowed up. From now on, the Roman province of Africa was created here, the lands of which became the state property of Rome.

From the beginning of the 2nd century, by the time the Punic Wars ended, Rome had become the only major power in the Mediterranean. Until the middle of the 2nd century. he still fought with Macedonia and the Seleucid kingdom, but, according to the Greek historian Polybius, a contemporary of the events, from that time the worldwide dominion of Rome began.

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Beginning of the Second Punic War

During the whole winter after the conquest, Sagunta prepared for a campaign in Italy and moved with an army from New Carthage, before the Roman ambassadors sent to Carthage to declare war managed to return to Rome. He calculated very correctly that the Romans could only be defeated in Italy. Their power rested primarily on Italian cities and lands, and as soon as Rome’s relations with its Italian subjects were shaken, it could have as little at its disposal as Carthage in the event of the appearance of an enemy army in Africa and the indignation of its subject peoples. In addition, Hannibal could hope to win over some of the Italians to his side in the Second Punic War, and thus not only weaken the forces of Rome, but also turn them against the Romans. To invade Italy, Hannibal had to, instead of the fastest and most convenient sea route, choose the incomparably more difficult one, along the coast, through Gaul, since at that time not a single harbor on the Italian coast was accessible to Carthaginian ships. Even in winter, he several times sent commanders of detachments and ambassadors to southern Gaul and Piedmont, to various Gallic peoples, to negotiate with them about allowing the Carthaginians through their lands and to scout roads and mountain passes through the Alps. When crossing the border of Spain, Hannibal's army consisted, according to historians, of 50 thousand infantry, 9 thousand cavalry and 37 elephants. Hannibal left another army of 15 thousand under the command of his brother Gazdrubala in Spain, in addition, 11 thousand, under the command Hanno, settled in the Pyrenees Mountains to guard their passes.

The Second Punic War began with Hannibal's transition from New Carthage through Spain, southern Gaul and the Alps to Italy. It belongs to the greatest enterprises known to history. This transition through the most inhospitable countries and possessions of semi-savage, warlike peoples, undertaken without maps and precise knowledge of the areas through which they had to go, was happily completed in five months. Already in Spain, Hannibal's army was detained by some tribes of the eastern part of the peninsula, in one part of Gaul it had to make its way with weapons, and in the Alps it had to endure cold and snow, overcome the terrible difficulties of crossing a mountain range, through which there was not yet roads, and at the same time fight with the strong mountain peoples who attacked the Carthaginian army and pursued it. We will not describe the path of Hannibal, who began the Second Punic War, because time has erased all traces of this campaign, and the very properties of these countries have changed so much that scientists do not agree in their opinions about the places through which the Carthaginians passed. Recently, many scientists have been studying Hannibal's route through the Alps at the beginning of the Second Punic War. But it is still unknown whether he crossed the Little St. Bernard, Mont Genèvre, or some other pass of the French-Sardinian Alps. The difficulties with which the Carthaginians moved through the lands of hostile peoples in Spain, through the Pyrenees, Gaul and the Alpine snows and gorges, can best be seen from the fact that Hannibal, during the transition from the Pyrenees to the Rhone, lost 13 thousand people, and from the Rhone to the Italian base of the Alps - 20 thousand, and reached Italy with only 26 thousand, that is, with less than half of his army. Of the elephants taken on the campaign, some died in France and the Alps, the rest in Upper Italy.

The first battles of the Second Punic War - Ticinus and Trebbia

Rome did not even imagine the possibility of the transition undertaken by Hannibal, but from the very beginning they decided to move the Second Punic War to Africa and Spain. One of the consuls Titus Sempronius Long, sailed with 160 warships and 26 thousand troops to Sicily to make a landing in Africa from there, another consul, Publius Cornelius Scipio, with 24 thousand, went by sea to Spain, the third army, consisting of 19 thousand, was sent under the leadership of the praetor to Upper Italy, to observe the newly conquered Gauls. Scipio sailed, as usual, along the ancient coasts and had already reached Massilia (Marseilles) at the very time that Hannibal was preparing to cross the Rhone. Having learned about this, Scipio immediately set off with his army to meet the enemy to prevent his crossing, but did not overtake Hannibal, because the Carthaginian commander, forewarned of the approach of the Roman army, accelerated his movement and overtook the Romans by three days' journey. It was impossible to chase him; sending part of the army, under the leadership of his brother, Gnaeus Cornelius Scipio, to Spain, Scipio put the rest of the army on ships and hurried with him to Upper Italy in order, together with the detachment located there, to attack the Carthaginians as soon as they descended from the Alps. He met Hannibal at the lower reaches Ticina, present-day Ticino. Both commanders were looking forward to this first battle of the Second Punic War: Scipio was counting on it to keep the Gauls from an alliance with the Carthaginians, who a year ago, through ambassadors, asked Hannibal to invade their land, and Hannibal wanted to enter the battle before reinforcements arrived to Scipio from Rome, so that the victory would be all the easier. Happiness favored the Carthaginian commander. At the Battle of Ticinus, he defeated the Romans and forced them to retreat across the Po River. Some of the Gauls immediately entered into an alliance with the Carthaginians.

The news of the beginning of the Second Punic War and the victorious appearance of the Carthaginian army in the newly conquered land of the Italian Gauls spread the greatest horror in Rome; The Senate immediately sent back the second consul sent to Africa. Sempronius, who was still in Sicily, hastily set off with his army by sea to northern Italy and, having landed on the shore, united with his comrade at the river Trebbii. Burning with a desire to distinguish himself, he demanded a fight. The second big battle of the Second Punic War took place at the Trebbia River and ended in the complete defeat of both consuls, who suffered a huge loss in killed. Victory at the Battle of Trebbia gave Hannibal the opportunity to gain a foothold in Upper Italy and encouraged all the Gallic peoples to join him. The Roman people, amazed by the news of Hannibal's victory, did not lose energy, but, on the contrary, hurried to arm themselves and prepare to fight back. The Senate formed a new army, sent ships to guard the coasts of Sicily, Sardinia and Italy, and established military stores in some points in the northern part of Central Italy.

Major battles of the Second Punic War

Battle of Lake Trasimene

Hannibal, for his part, also prepared to vigorously continue the Second Punic War. After his second victory, he settled into winter quarters, deciding, with the onset of spring, to invade Etruria as soon as possible. This was especially encouraged by his relationship with the wild Gallic tribes, who did not want to submit to any order, did not show any sympathy for the Second Punic War, which was fought in the name of interests completely alien to them, and were even less inclined to feed the Carthaginian army on their own land and at their own expense . When they began to express their displeasure, Hannibal was forced to leave so as not to deprive himself of their help. Therefore, before the end of the harsh season, he moved to Etruria, where the Romans had already sent two armies, under the command of two new consuls: Gnaea Servilia Gemina And Gaia Flaminia Nepota(217 BC).

At that time, three roads led from Upper Italy to Etruria. One of them was too far for Hannibal, the other was occupied by Servilius, the third by Flaminius, and therefore Hannibal chose the fourth path, through one of the most unhealthy areas of Italy. This transition cost him great losses and he himself lost one eye from inflammation, but he first met with one of the consuls whose victory was easier and, in addition, he met only him alone. It was the consul Flaminius, who, being a tribune of the people, passed, to the detriment of the aristocrats, a law on the division of lands Senones. Throughout his entire life, he was an enemy of noble families, constantly distinguished himself by his stubborn struggle against them, and owed his consular dignity only to the disposition of the common people towards him inspired by this struggle. Lacking the talents of a commander-in-chief, he could not fight such a skilled commander of the Second Punic War as Hannibal. Most of the detachment leaders in the Roman army belonged to the most noble families and, therefore, their unconditional obedience to the will of the commander-in-chief could not be counted on. In addition, fearing that the aristocrats, through auspices and other ceremonies completely dependent on the Senate, would prevent the appointment of their sworn enemy as commander-in-chief of the army, Flaminius, when accepting consular dignity, neglected the performance of ordinary religious rites and this aroused even among the common people unfavorable rumors about himself and in your enterprise. Finally, Flaminius, a highly ardent and impatient man, had to act against the extremely cunning and cautious Hannibal. Taking into account all these circumstances, we will understand that the third major battle of the Second Punic War ended in a terrible defeat for the Romans at Lake Trasimene(Lago di Perugia). Hannibal completely surrounded and destroyed almost the entire army of Flaminius. He himself and most of the army fell in the Battle of Lake Trasimene, the rest of the Romans were taken prisoner (217 BC).

Quintus Fabius Maximus Cunctator

Having won this victory only a few marches from Rome, Hannibal still did not dare to attack the city itself; he knew well the strength of the Romans and understood that even the happiest outcome of the attack would not have any beneficial consequences for him. Thus, instead of heading towards Rome, he went to continue the Second Punic War in Umbria, and from there, through the lands of the Marsi, Marrucini and Peligni, to Apulia, in Lower Italy, in order, according to his plan, to incite the conquered people to war against the Romans. them the Italian peoples. The Romans then resorted to a measure that was used only in the most extreme cases: they elected a dictator. Since the cause of all the misfortunes of the Romans in the Second Punic War was the excessive ardor of the consuls of recent years, and now everything depended on the ability to take advantage of circumstances, the Romans elected an elderly, experienced and prudent dictator Quinta Fabius Maxima, later nicknamed for his extreme caution Cunctator(i.e., a procrastinator). He found the right way to weaken Hannibal: without engaging in open battle with his enemy, but constantly following him, taking advantage of his every unsuccessful step and trying to deprive his army of food, Quintus Fabius Cunctator tired Haninbal with transitions. The tactics adopted in the Second Punic War by Cunctator put Hannibal in a most difficult position. The Carthaginian commander thought to weaken Rome with a series of defeats and tear Italy away from it. Fabius Cunctator prevented him from carrying out this plan. Despite all the speeches and proclamations in which Hannibal assured that he had come to Italy only to liberate it from the Roman yoke, the Italian peoples did not fall away from Rome. So, before another significant victory over the Romans, Hannibal could not expect to gain allies in Italy; but neither he himself nor the impatience of the Roman army could force Cunctator to engage in a decisive battle with the Scarthaginians. Even the victory won in his absence by the impatient chief of the horsemen Minucius Rufus and increased the confidence and impatience of the people and troops, did not shake their firmly accepted decision. After six months, Fabius had to relinquish his dictatorial power, which, according to Roman law, could not last more than six months; but the Senate ordered the two consuls, who took command of the troops from Cunctator, not to deviate from the system of the former dictator. Thus, almost another year of the Second Punic War passed without a decisive battle, and the Romans achieved the goal they sought when electing Fabius Cunctator: Hannibal failed to gain the trust of the Italians, he had to rely only on his own strength and, being forced to support war with robbery, every day he became more and more hated by precisely those whom he wanted to win over to his side.

Second Punic War. Map

Battle of Cannes

The following year (216 BC) the troops were elected consuls and commanders Gaius Terence Varro And Lucius Aemilius Paulus. Paul, by his character, could not have been more suited to the current state of affairs in the Second Punic War; on the contrary, the choice of the frivolous Varro as consul was an important mistake of the Romans. The Roman troops were extremely strengthened in order to finally give a general battle at the first opportunity; but it could only be dared with great caution and only under the most favorable circumstances. The army of both consuls consisted of 80 thousand infantry and 6 thousand horsemen, while Hannibal had only 40 thousand infantry and 10 thousand cavalry. Having delved into the then state of affairs and discussed them sensibly, Aemilius Paulus did not want to lightly expose the last army to the danger of defeat, which Italy, exhausted by frequent Roman recruitment and the prolonged devastation of Hannibal, readily equipped. He decided to continue the Second Punic War for some time under the system of Quintus Fabius. But Varro, not wanting to remain inactive at the head of such a brilliant army, demanded a fight and thus caused more trouble for his comrade than Hannibal himself. The cunning Carthaginian, who always well understood the character of his opponents, managed to take advantage of Varro’s reckless audacity and imprudence. Since the consuls alternated daily in the main command over the army, Hannibal proposed battle to the Romans on the day when Varro was commander-in-chief. The latter accepted the challenge. This fourth - and most tragic - battle of the Second Punic War, took place in Apulia, under Cannes, in an area very convenient for the action of the Carthaginian cavalry, ended in a terrible defeat for the Romans. Hannibal, whose cavalry was much better and more numerous than the Romans, positioned his army in the Battle of Cannae with amazing skill, made excellent use of the diversity of the peoples who made up his army and the variety of their weapons, and thereby deprived the Romans of the benefit that their twice as numerous infantry could have provided them. The Romans lost more than 50 thousand in the Battle of Cannae, both in the battle itself and immediately after it; many later died from wounds and up to 10 thousand were taken prisoner. Among the dead was the consul Aemilius Paulus, who did not want to survive this unfortunate day and fell in battle with the enemy. Comrade, his Varro escaped the common fate. Hannibal's loss at the Battle of Cannae extended to six, and according to other sources, up to eight thousand people.

The Battle of Cannae was accompanied by all the consequences that could only be expected from such a terrible defeat. Many in Rome itself believed that the Second Punic War was now lost. As soon as the news of the Carthaginian victory spread, the Samnites and almost all the peoples and lands of southern Italy fell away from the Romans and offered their services to Hannibal. However, the cruel blow that befell the Romans at Cannae did not break their power. Although Hannibal took advantage of his happiness, he still remained a stranger to the peoples of the peninsula; The Italians were not connected among themselves by any social ties, and the Italian Greeks could not be relied upon, and the day of victory at Cannae brought the Carthaginian commander more glory than benefits. On the other hand, the course of action of the Romans in the continuation of the Second Punic War, despite the misfortune they experienced, was distinguished by the same firmness and calmness that more than once saved them in moments of greatest danger. Having gathered the remnants of their army, numbering 10 thousand, they elected a dictator to form new troops, recruited all the youth of Rome and Latium into the ranks and, taking victory trophies from the temples that had long hung in them, armed 8 thousand slaves with them. To reassure the common people and inspire them to steadfastly fight the Second Punic War, the Roman Senate even decided to resort to cruel, long-forgotten human sacrifices and ordered four prisoners to be buried alive in the ground in the city square. The main means of salvation was that the Romans, after the Battle of Cannae, did not enter into open battle with the Carthaginians, but tried in every possible way to take away from the enemy all the means of waging war, while at the same time looking for new forces in Sicily and Spain to fight . Thus, in the following years the Second Punic War took on a completely different character. Sicily and Spain became the theater of military operations; in Italy, the Romans did not dare to take a single decisive step, tiring Hannibal with minor skirmishes. They tried in every possible way to oppress and disturb him, cruelly punished the cities and lands that fell away and were re-conquered by them, and in those of them that still wavered, they placed their garrisons, thus making all attempts at uprisings impossible.

Second Punic War in Sicily

In Upper Italy and Sicily, the Second Punic War also did not go well for the Romans; Only in Spain did fortune favor Roman arms. In Upper Italy, the praetor, sent to conquer Cisalpine Gaul, died along with his entire army, shortly after the Battle of Cannae, while in Sicily the Romans lost their faithful ally. With the help of the Syracusan tyrant Hiero II, the most reliable ally the Romans had ever had, they repelled all attacks of the Carthaginian fleet during the Second Punic War. To help the Romans with bread and money, Hiero offered them most of the treasures he had accumulated. His son Gelon, tried, on the contrary, to break the painful alliance with the Romans, which in essence was subordination, and leaned towards the Carthaginians. The quarrel between father and son had not yet had any consequences, when suddenly both of them died one after the other, and at the very height of the Second Punic War, the small Syracusan state went to the son of Gelon, Hieronymus, an early depraved youth who ascended the throne at the age of fourteen (215 BC). His late grandfather appointed three equally unfit and cruel people as advisers to the young sovereign. Two of them belonged to the Carthaginian party, and the third, Thrason, was loyal to the Romans. Hieronymus himself did not care at all about politics, being more willing to do things of a completely different kind: he indulged in sensual pleasures, transgressing all prudence with the autocracy of a despot, and sought only brilliance and splendor, while his Grandfather lived almost as a private person and held neither a guard nor yard The king's advisers who made up the Carthaginian party tried first of all to get rid of Trason and, accusing him of conspiracy, on the false testimony of one criminal, removed him from participation in government. After that, they decided to continue the Second Punic War in alliance with Hannibal, who sent the most skilled ambassadors to Sicily. Two of them, natives of Syracuse, Hippocrates And Epikid, managed to acquire enormous influence over the young king, who thought only about satisfying his whims, married a public woman and surrounded himself with the most vile court bastard. They persuaded the reckless youth to enter into an alliance with the Carthaginians and take part in the war, but in the thirteenth month of his reign, Hieronymus was killed by one of his bodyguards, who, having committed the murder, called on the Syracusans to restore the republic. The citizens followed his call, but the restoration of freedom was only a pretext for unrest and a struggle between the Carthaginian party and the Roman one. Several ambitious people wanted to take advantage of this and become the head of the government, but they aroused an uprising of the common people, in which both the right and the wrong alike fell victims to the most savage rage and cruelty. A senseless democracy was established on the bloody corpses - at the most critical moment of the Second Punic War - which, as elsewhere, led to military despotism. Finally, Hippocrates and Epicydes, through a new bloody revolution, achieved supreme power and asserted it for themselves with the help of the common people and mercenary troops.

Immediately after the death of Hieronymus, the Romans sent the best of all their then commanders to Sicily against the new republic, Mark of Claudius Marcellus . At first he entered into negotiations, but when the rise of Epicydes and Hippocrates destroyed all hope of an alliance between Syracuse and Rome, Marcellus approached the city with an army and began a siege (214 BC). The Carthaginians sent troops to help Sicily, and the Romans became embroiled in a new difficult war, at the same time they had to fight the Second Punic War in Italy with Hannibal and the cities that had joined him. For more than a year, Marcellus besieged Sicilian Syracuse in vain (214-212 BC). The natural position of the city, its strong and skillfully placed fortifications and the inventions of the mathematician Archimedes, to whom the siege of Syracuse brought immortal glory - all this made the capture of the city completely impossible. Marcellus was forced to lift the siege and, limiting himself to a blockade, tried to take the city by treason, but his relations with the dissatisfied Syracusans were open, and eighty citizens, convicted of treason, paid for it with their lives. Marcellus continued the siege of Syracuse for another whole year, without any hope of success, because he could not cut off the supply of food supplies from Carthage from the city, and only a new betrayal and a particularly happy combination of circumstances gave him the opportunity to finally take possession of the city (212 BC. ), which significantly made it easier for Rome to conduct the Second Punic War. Syracuse was given over to the soldiers for plunder, but not because of the cruelty and rudeness of the Roman commander, but solely out of policy. He ordered the inhabitants to be spared, but many of them, despite his orders, became victims of angry Roman soldiers. Among those killed was, to the great regret of Marcellus, Archimedes, who, regardless of his military qualities, was distinguished by meekness, a noble way of thinking and a love of science and education. They say that when Roman soldiers burst into the city, Archimedes was so deep in his mathematical studies that he did not even notice what was happening on the streets. One of the soldiers robbing Syracuse burst into his room at the same time that the scientist was drawing some mathematical figure in the sand. The mathematician only managed to shout to the soldier: “don’t trample on the drawing,” and at that very moment he was stabbed to death by him. The booty of the Romans during the capture of Syracuse, as they say, exceeded even the booty they subsequently captured in the center of world trade - Carthage. The conquest of Syracuse is important not only as part of the history of the Second Punic War, but also for the history of art, because so many works of art were brought to Rome from this city. With the fall of Syracuse, the rest of Sicily also fell to the Romans.

Second Punic War in Spain - Scipios

At the same time that Sicily was permanently torn away from Carthage, the Second Punic War in Spain also took a completely different turn. Gnaeus Cornelius Scipio, at the very beginning of the second Punic War, sent with a fleet and army to Spain, and his brother, Publius Cornelius Scipio, who the next year brought auxiliary troops to him, acted extremely happily against the Carthaginians and their allies, commanded by Hannibal's brothers , Gazdrubal And Magon. At the very beginning of the Second Punic War, the Scipios conquered the entire country between the Pyrenees and the Ebro River, established Roman supremacy at sea and, both with their weapons and with their meekness, peacefulness and generosity, persuaded many tribes to ally with Rome. For six whole years, a bloody war continued in Spain, both between the natives themselves and between the Romans and Carthaginians. But the small details of this part of the Second Punic War are not included in the circle of general history, for which only their result is important. The Romans gained superiority on land and at sea, and the successes of the Carthaginians to save Spain exhausted all their means, just as Rome had previously exhausted its forces in the fight with Hannibal for Italy, and as a result, Hannibal received almost no help from Carthage, neither money, neither ships nor troops. In the very year of Marcellus' conquest of Sicily, the Romans were threatened with the loss of all their conquests in Spain. Relying on their allies, both Scipios each decided on a separate enterprise and, having lost most of their troops, lost their lives themselves. A horseman appeared as an unexpected savior and restorer of Roman rule in Spain. Marcius, whom the Roman army, after the death of both commanders, elected as leader. Marcius did more than could be expected in such a predicament. He not only stopped the successes of the Carthaginians on the Spanish front of the Second Punic War, but with his minor victories he again awakened in the Romans their former self-confidence, so that he could transfer to his successor, sent from Rome, a well-disciplined and vigorous army.

New commander Gaius Claudius Nero, however, did not show in Spain the talents that he later discovered in the fight against Hannibal. Therefore, the Romans decided to look for a more decisive and enterprising person to continue the Second Punic War in Spain and found him in the son and nephew of both Scipios who fell in Spain. The main command over the troops in Spain was entrusted to a 24-year-old youth, Publius Cornelius Scipio the Elder, who subsequently acquired such great fame under the name African. Despite his youth, he already combined in himself all the virtues of a soldier and commander with the art of a people's orator and the courtesy of a man who wants to rise through the people. He studied military science in the first campaigns of the Second Punic War and had already distinguished himself in the battle of Ticinus by saving his father, and at Cannae by his greatest presence of mind. His appointment as commander-in-chief in Spain was accepted by the Roman people with shouts of joy (210 BC).

Arriving at the Spanish theater of the Second Punic War, Scipio decided to mark his appearance with an act that, even in case of failure, was supposed to bring him great glory, namely, a surprise attack on New Carthage. The Carthaginian troops were located in remote parts of Spain, their commanders did not act unanimously and unconditionally trusted the natives, from whom they had hostages in New Carthage. The unexpected capture of this city by the Romans during the Second Punic War was a double loss for the Carthaginians: on the one hand, they were cut off from the coast, and on the other, having taken hostages of the native tribes, the Romans could encourage the Spaniards to abandon Carthage. These considerations probably forced Scipio to attack New Carthage. Having revealed this plan only to his friend, Gaius Lelia, the commander of the fleet, Scipio moved there with an accelerated march, and before word of his approach reached the Carthaginian troops, he was already standing in front of the city taken by surprise. Having discovered one place from the sea, which was accessible at times, and making a second attack, he captured New Carthage. This city, containing all the shops, arsenals and shipyards of the Carthaginian possessions in Spain and serving as the center of all trade between Spain and Carthage, delivered untold booty to the victors. To accomplish this successful undertaking, Scipio set his main goal to distract the Spanish peoples from the alliance with Carthage and win them over to the side of Rome in the Second Punic War. He treated the hostages extremely friendly and, having sent some of them to their homeland, promised to release the rest as soon as their fellow tribesmen agreed to an alliance with Rome. With similar measures he manages to bind many of the native tribes to himself, and soon some of them have already become his allies. Having thus prepared the conquest of Spain, Scipio directed all his forces against the Carthaginian generals. Having entered into a decisive battle with Hannibal's brother, Hasdrubal, Scipio inflicted such a terrible defeat on him (in the summer of 209 BC) that he soon forced him to completely leave Spain and head through the Pyrenees and the Alps to Italy, so that with those troops that he managed to gather and rush to the aid of his brother (208 BC). In the next two years, after the removal of Hasdrubal, Scipio, having defeated the rest of the enemy commanders, forced them to almost completely clear the peninsula, suppressed two uprisings of the Spanish tribes and subjugated most of the country to Roman rule. The conquered Spaniards were so surprised by Scipio that after the victory over Gazdrubal they greeted him with the name of the king. Surrounded by glory that far surpassed that of other generals of his time, Scipio, in the fall of 206 BC, left the field of the Second Punic War in Spain and returned in triumph to Rome.

Second Punic War in Italy after the Battle of Cannae

Despite the fact that many Italian peoples went over to Hannibal’s side, his position was very difficult. Without receiving any reinforcements from the fatherland, without any outside help, he managed to wage the Second Punic War in Italy for thirteen whole years with his great talents alone and on his own. By this he gained himself in the eyes of all those who judge a person by his merits, and not by luck and the success of his actions, much greater glory than Alexander the Great's conquest of the world. Hannibal received almost no reinforcements from his compatriots from Africa during the Second Punic War. Only once, immediately after the battle of Cannes, did an auxiliary army of 4 thousand people come to him, led by Bomilcara; nevertheless, other troops and ships intended to help him were sent to Spain at the very time when they were already preparing to sail to Italy. Even Bomilcar was sent to Sicily, soon after his departure for Italy. What prompted the Carthaginians to leave their great commander without help remains completely incomprehensible to us, despite the war in Spain. According to generally accepted opinion, a party hostile to the House of Barkov, headed by the surname Hanno, constantly prevented the sending of any help to Hannibal; but such a strong and lasting influence of the Hannos during the Second Punic War is difficult to reconcile with the constant command of Hannibal over the troops in Italy and his two brothers in Spain. It is much clearer to us why Carthage supported Hannibal so weakly at sea: he had not yet managed to completely restore his fleet, lost in the First Punic War. Hannibal was forced to seek funds for his enterprises himself and support the war with war; but circumstances were such that for so many years he could only carry it on with the greatest difficulty. At first, most of the Italians went over to his side, but, despite all their irritation against Rome, they soon saw all the inconvenience of having foreign troops in the country, which they had to support at their own expense, and the Romans were not slow to take advantage of this displeasure. In addition, the attitude of the Italians towards Hannibal during the Second Punic War was completely different from the attitude of the Roman allies towards the main commander of the Roman army. The latter had long been accustomed to unquestioning obedience, while the Carthaginian allies were in completely new relations with Hannibal and, dealing with a foreign commander, understood very well that they constituted his support and that to a certain extent he should be lenient towards them.

After the Battle of Cannae, Hannibal went to continue the Second Punic War in Campania, where the popular party immediately opened the gates of Capua to him. In this city and its environs he settled down for the winter and thereby caused himself a lot of harm, because the moral depravity of the inhabitants of the cities of Campania infected his troops. Due to the pampered and luxurious life in Capua, they were significantly weakened in strength and number. At the beginning of the next year (215 BC) the Romans showed the same tact in recognizing things and people that is so often visible in the history of their state. They needed a man who could reawaken the spirit of the army, undermined by the failures of the Second Punic War. They found such a personality in one of the praetors of the previous year, Marche Claudius Marcellus , who, after the battle of Cannae, acted with his small detachment extremely skillfully and intelligently, and during a sortie from the Campanian city of Nola, he repulsed Hannibal, inflicting great damage on him. Having given Marcellus 6 legions of troops, the Romans elevated him to the rank of proconsul or vice-consul, and the next year they confirmed him, at the same time as the cautious Fabius Maximus Cunctator, with the rank of consul and sent him to Sicily, where he commanded the army for three years and conquered the entire island . Upon his return to Rome, they again elected him consul, at the end of the consulate they left him as proconsul at the head of a separate army, and after another year they again elected him consul. Claudius Marcellus justified the hopes placed on him: already at the beginning of 215 BC he fought a battle in which he defeated Hannibal. In this battle, the Carthaginian commander suffered a significant defeat for the first time and lost several thousand people. Such an important event for the Second Punic War encouraged the Romans all the more and increased the glory of Marcellus, because after the battle 1,200 Numidian and Spanish horsemen went over to the side of the Romans. The following year, Marcellus, with several bold enterprises in Italy, again restored the fallen respect for the Romans, while at the same time the course of the Second Punic War in Sicily and Spain made all the successes of Hannibal fruitless. In the next 213 BC, nothing remarkable happened in Italy, because most of the Roman army, under the command of Marcellus, was besieging Syracuse, and Hannibal was mainly busy with the siege of Tarentum. Both cities submitted to their enemies in 212 BC, but the Roman garrison still retained the Tarentum fortress. While Hannibal made every effort to force her to surrender, the Romans attacked Campania and began the siege of its capital, Capua. Hannibal sent one of his commanders, Hanno, to her aid, but he was repulsed with significant damage. Then, in order to force the Romans to lift the siege of Capua, Hannibal himself moved to Campania. He was so happy that in a short time he almost completely destroyed two Roman detachments in Lucania and Apulia, one of 8, and the other of 18 thousand, commanded by very bad generals. Both of these victories forced the Roman army besieging Capua to adopt the tactics that Cunctator had previously followed in the Second Punic War: with the approach of Hannibal, they settled behind the fortifications of their camp, without engaging in open battle against the Carthaginian commander. Hannibal tried several times to attack the Romans, but he was unable to lure the latter out of their fortified camp.

To force them to leave there and lift the siege of the city, Hannibal decided to attack Rome itself (211 BC). He had just as little hope of taking the city by surprise as of taking it by storm, realizing what great spiritual powers and military abilities the Roman people possessed, in which every official was at the same time a military leader, educated in the school of war, and every citizen seasoned in battles as a warrior. Therefore, after the Battle of Cannae, he rejected the proposal of his commanders to continue the Second Punic War with a campaign against Rome and in this case surpassed them with prudence, although one of them Maharbal reproached him for the fact that, although he knew how to win, he did not know how to use the victory. When Hannibal approached Rome with his army and set up camp 3 thousand steps away, panic spread throughout the city, which, however, did not force the Romans to either decide to fight or lift the siege of Capua. The Senate only ordered 15 thousand of the best troops to be detached from the local corps, and, by agreement with both consuls, accepted the necessary worlds for defense. They even say that at that time, by chance, part of the field on which Hannibal was camped was being sold at auction, and that the price of the land did not decrease at all as a result. If this fact is true, then it could have been artificially caused by the Senate, as a means of calming the citizens, whose fear, at the appearance of Hannibal, is already sufficiently proven by the proverbial expression (Hannibal before the city gates). They also say that Hannibal, having learned about the above fact, ordered the property of the Roman money changers to be sold at auction to his soldiers. But this story is only suitable for a collection of anecdotes, unless the Carthaginian commander wanted to joke in this way about the boasting of the Roman Senate. Hannibal stocked up on food for only 10 days and, seeing that the purpose of his appearance before the walls of Rome was not achieved, he returned to resume the Second Punic War in Campania, and from there he went to Lucania and Bruttium. Exhausted by hunger, Capua was forced to surrender to the Romans and was punished by them in the most cruel way for its apostasy and stubbornness. Seventy of the noblest citizens were executed, three hundred others were imprisoned, the rest were sold into slavery or scattered throughout the Latin cities; the city itself was repopulated by freedmen and other commoners and placed under the unlimited power of the prefect, and its vast and fertile territory was converted into state property.

Over the next three years of the Second Punic War (210 to 208 BC), both Hannibal and the Romans strained every effort to overcome their predicament. The Romans, who fielded about twenty-five legions, had to, while losing many people, make constant recruitment; the war was a difficult time for themselves and their Italian subjects, and it seemed that the moment was approaching when the latter would refuse to provide the Romans with the means to wage war. On the other hand, Hannibal, who already had very few troops left, could only with great difficulty hold out between the Italians, because the Romans managed by various means to lure some of his allies back to their side, and many cities occupied by the Carthaginians handed them over to the enemies. During these three years, Claudius Marcellus remained the Roman commander in chief in the Second Punic War; defeated several times by Hannibal, who still remained invincible in the open field, he, however, sometimes prevailed over him. Marcellus not only supported the honor of Roman weapons, but also contributed more than any other Roman commander to the gradual falling away from Hannibal of most of the cities and lands he occupied in Italy. In 208 BC, Claudius Marcellus was killed, thanks to one of those masterful strategic sabotages with the help of which Hannibal always managed to take advantage of the character of enemy commanders. Placed for the fifth time at the head of the army as consul, Marcellus, eager to fight the enemy, was ambushed by Hannibal and dragged his comrade Crispinus with him. Having recklessly ventured into battle, he was killed and his comrade mortally wounded.

Gazdrubal's campaign in Italy and the Battle of Metaurus

Despite the fact that the death of Marcellus was great happiness for Hannibal, the Second Punic War was now going badly for him. Having a very limited number of allies, he suffered a shortage of money and military supplies and, with his relatively small army, could barely hold out in Italy. All this forced him to summon his brother Gazdrubal from Spain. Hasdrubal went to Italy along the same route that Hannibal had taken ten years before, and passed through Gaul and the Alps much more quickly and with less difficulty. Having learned of the approach of Hasdrubal, the Romans concentrated all their forces to prevent the possible fatal turn of the Second Punic War. They brought Italy almost to despair and only with difficulty and the most cruel worlds recruited their troops. In the spring of 207 BC Gazdrubal appeared in Upper Italy. The Romans immediately sent one of their consuls against him, Stamp of Livius Salinator, while the other, Gaius Claudius Nero, was supposed to head to Lower Italy to occupy Hannibal and prevent him from uniting with his brother. Claudius Nero tirelessly pursued the Carthaginian commander and not only achieved the intended goal, but with his courage even prevented the danger that threatened from Upper Italy. He managed to intercept a letter from Gazdrubal, in which the latter asked his brother to move to join him in Umbria. Claudius Nero immediately decided to leave the camp unnoticed with part of his army, go on a forced march to Umbria, unite there with his comrade and, concentrating superior forces against the enemy, defeat one brother before the other had time to receive news of his arrival. This bold step of the Roman consul decided the outcome of the Second Punic War in Italy. Leaving the camp at night with 7 thousand selected soldiers, Claudius Nero incredibly quickly reached the Umbrian city of Sena, near which the troops of Marcus Livius and Hasdrubal were located. Approaching them very carefully, he entered the Roman camp, unnoticed by the enemy. So that the Carthaginian commander would not guess about his arrival, Claudius did not order any new tents to be pitched, but placed his army throughout the camp. However, Gazdrubal was not deceived by this trick. While still in Spain, he noticed that when there were two military leaders of equal rank in the Roman camp, the evening dawn was played twice. Therefore, on the very first evening he guessed about the arrival of Claudius Nero, but this very guesswork was disastrous for Gazdrubal and his fatherland. Unable to explain the unexpected appearance of another consul except by the defeat of Hannibal, he thought to save his army and the fate of the Second Punic War by a quick retreat, but was overtaken by the Romans and forced to give battle, which he could have avoided for several more days by remaining in camp until he received news from Hannibal or before his arrival.

This is an important battle that took place along the river Metavre , near present-day Fossombrone, ended in the defeat of the Carthaginians. Both in the disposition of his troops and in controlling the course of the battle, Gazdrubal showed himself to be a skillful commander and was already gaining the upper hand in the Battle of Metaurus, when suddenly a completely extraordinary movement of Claudius Nero snatched victory from his hands. Gazdrubal fell on the battlefield, having done everything that can be asked of a skilled commander in a similar position; His army was completely destroyed: fifty-six thousand lay down on the spot, the remaining five thousand were taken prisoner. The Romans bought victory at Metaurus with the loss of 8 thousand people. The Battle of Metaurus predetermined the outcome of the Second Punic War. On the first night after the battle, Claudius Nero went back to his own camp and made this campaign even faster, covering 45 German miles in six days. Thus, he was absent for only 14 days. Fortunately for the Romans, Hannibal had no idea what was happening during this entire time. If the movement of Claudius Nero had been known to him, he would have hastened after the consul or tried to take possession of his camp. So, it was not the mind of Claudius Nero and not the courage of the Romans that decided the outcome of the Second Punic War, but fate itself, which seemed to want to elevate Rome and humiliate Carthage with the outcome of the Battle of Metaurus. She, as Aeschylus put it, broke the yoke of the scales and tilted the bowl. Tradition says that Claudius Nero, like some New Zealander, sent the severed head of Hasdrubal to his brother, and that, looking at it, Hannibal exclaimed: “I recognize in this head the fate of Carthage.” Whether this anecdote is fair or not, it is in any case certain that, after the loss of Spain and Sicily, the destruction of a significant Carthaginian army at Metaurus was supposed to destroy all the hopes of Hannibal; it is all the more surprising that, having concentrated all his forces in the southernmost part of Italy, he fought the Second Punic War for another four whole years and during all this time he not only found the opportunity to replenish his army, but also to maintain it in this very poor country. If we were asked in what era of the Second Punic War Hannibal seems to us the greatest: then, when he conquered Spain and paved a new path through the land of the wild Gauls, climbed the Alps inaccessible to the army, crossed Italy and threatened Rome itself, or during that difficult the time when, after the death of his brother, abandoned by everyone, he held out for four years in a corner of Italy, and, recalled to Africa, had to see how one battle at Metaurus destroyed all the fruits of his victories - we, without hesitation, will point out for the last era. The one who does not fall in misfortune and even at that moment when fate itself is armed against him, who stands firmly to the end and boldly gives up life, seems to us the highest ideal of humanity.

After the Battle of Metaurus, Hannibal returned to Bruttium and from that time on limited himself in the Second Punic War to only defensive actions, waiting in vain for help from Carthage. The Romans did not attack him; content with observing him, they punished at that time all the peoples who had fallen away from them, completed the conquest of deserted Italy, and in 206 BC they subjugated the Lucanians, the last allies of the Carthaginian commander. In the summer of the following year, Hannibal's brother, Mago, appeared in Upper Italy with a 14-thousand-strong auxiliary army, but despite the fact that about 7 thousand more people soon arrived to him, he could neither undertake anything important nor unite with his brother, who was on the the opposite end of Italy.

Scipio moves the Second Punic War to Africa

The Romans decided to move the Second Punic War to Africa and thereby forced Hannibal and Mago to leave Italy to defend their own fatherland. The struggle in Africa, which ended 17 years later in the bloody Second Punic War between Rome and Carthage, is closely related to the character and family relationships of Scipio the Elder. The position of this man in the history of the Roman people is a completely new phenomenon, and only a detailed study of it can show us its real reasons and explain the enormous influence that the character of Scipio had on the end of the Second Punic War and the events that followed it in the external and internal history of Rome. From the time of Scipio the Elder and partly also from the appearance on the political field of Marcus Claudius Marcellus, who was not inferior to Scipio in meekness, education and military talents, the influence that acquaintance with the Greeks and the spread of the Roman state beyond the borders of Italy must have had on them became noticeable among the Romans. Almost until the First Punic War, the Romans dealt only with Italians and therefore, to manage their state, they did not need either foreign government wisdom or foreign customs, and could well be content with their ancient, national military art and jurisprudence. But when they entered into constant intercourse with the refined Greeks in Lower Italy and Sicily, their natural conditions and strength alone proved insufficient, and the Romans felt the need for more meek morals and Greek science. This more refined education and the arts and morals associated with it took root only in a few families, such as in the families of Marcellus and Scipio. But these few individuals were opposed by the rest, the majority of the Roman aristocracy, so in order to maintain and increase their importance in the state, they had to turn to the people and try by all means to gain popularity. Added to this was the fact that, as a result of the uneven distribution of wealth caused by the Second Punic War and the conquests, some families, and among them the family of Scipio, greatly rose above the rest of the aristocracy. During the years of the Second Punic War, the Senate was little by little divided into patrons and protected, and thus the aristocracy was preserved only in appearance, in reality turning into an oligarchy. If one part of this oligarchy wanted to oppose the other, it had to seek support among the people, or, in other words, turn to demagoguery, so common in the democratic states of Greece, but previously completely alien to Rome.

These are the relationships that determined the course of action and the significance of Scipio the Elder and his family during the Second Punic War and in the first years after it. Scipio was the first Roman who, through demagoguery, achieved almost the same monarchical power that Pericles and other statesmen enjoyed in Athens. Following the example of Scipio, other aristocrats of Rome secretly followed the same road, until Mari followed it completely openly, and Caesar achieved autocracy this way. Already before, the Scipio family had significant influence on state affairs, sharing it with many other families; but since the beginning of the Second Punic War it has risen above all other aristocratic families of Rome. From this time on, the Scipios took over almost all the highest positions for a long time and, in most cases, became the head of the most important state enterprises. Already at the very beginning of the Second Punic War, the first two battles were given to Hannibal by one of the Scipios. Despite their unfortunate outcome, Scipio, along with his brother, was entrusted with continuing the Second Punic War in Spain, and both of them commanded the Roman army there for several years. When the Scipios’ own carelessness destroyed both themselves and the army, in their place they were appointed not by the one who saved the remnants of the army, but first by a man of the same noble surname Claudius, and after that again a member of the surname of the Scipios, Scipio the Elder Africanus, despite the fact that that he was only 24 years old. Of course, this young man had merits, but his main merit was that he belonged to one of the most noble and powerful families. His first appearance in Spain was exactly like the beginning of Alcibiades' social activities in Athens. Throughout Scipio's entire stay on the peninsula, he looked more like a king or a sovereign prince than a citizen and official of the republic. His exploits in the Spanish theater of the Second Punic War earned him the sympathy and trust of the people in Rome. But what made Scipio even more an idol of the people was the latter’s respect for his family and his flattering, refined and calculatedly friendly treatment of him. He owed these qualities to the Greek education he acquired along with Greek habits.

In 206 BC, he returned to Rome amid the joyful cries of the people, with the firm intention of seeking a consulate and transferring the Second Punic War to Africa. The respect that Scipio enjoyed was envied by many of his enemies who belonged to the ancient aristocracy; they feared him as a demagogue and a man with boundless ambition. But their enmity, even more than Scipio’s merits, contributed to the fact that the people preferred him to all other applicants and elected him consul. Since Scipio intended to make Africa the theater of the Punic War, his enemies arranged that his comrade was appointed a man who, being the high priest (pontifex maximus), could not, according to Roman law, leave Italy. The majority of the Senate, which prescribed the course of action for the consuls, spoke out strongly against Scipio's intentions, but was forced to yield to the predominance of this man and his name. The Senate allowed him to go to Sicily, and from there, with a fleet and army that he managed to gather through his personal influence, cross to Africa. This was all Scipio needed. His family ties, influence on the people and the patronage that he and members of his family could provide not only to individuals, but even to entire conquered states, gave Scipio much more power than the title of consul. As soon as he appeared in Sicily, at his one call, crowds of hunters began to flock to him from all sides to wage the Second Punic War on the African continent, and the conquered Italian states hastened to equip and place their ships at his disposal.

In Spain, Scipio had relations with two Numidian rulers and based his plan for his African campaign on this. The Numidian peoples, who were vassals of Carthage, and their leaders, like all nomads living by robbery, had no concept of honor and conscience. Scipio won over the Numidian ruler Masinissa, distinguished by courage, amazing abilities and ambition, and when the latter’s nephew was captured by the Romans, Scipio richly gifted the captive and sent him to his uncle, showing at the same time his straightforwardness, courage and generally some similarity in character with Masinissa, which was necessary to attract Numidian ruler on his side. Some time later, Masinissa met with Scipio in Spain and promised him to break the alliance with Carthage that he had supported until the Second Punic War. Another Numidian ruler, Sifax, was a low man, guided only by vile motives. Scipio attracted him to his side with flattery and arousing his greed. Relying on hospitality, which the most insidious nomads do not violate, Scipio went without an armed retinue to Africa, to Syphax, met at his court with his former enemy on the Spanish front of the Second Punic War, Hasdrubal, the son of Giscon, and even shared dinner and overnight with him in order to attract the Numidian ruler to himself with such imaginary gullibility. With this masterfully calculated, flattering and feigned friendship, Scipio completely achieved his goal: Syphax entered into an alliance with him, but the Carthaginians again attracted him to their side, resorting to a means that was also designed for his greed and sensuality. Syphax had previously liked the beautiful daughter of Gazdrubal, Sofonisba, who has long been engaged to Masinissa; The Carthaginian Senate gave her, without the knowledge of her father, to Syphax. They say that Sofonisba, despite her love for Masinissa, agreed to this marriage out of patriotism. Masinissa decided to take revenge for the insult and took advantage of this reason to break away from Carthage in the Second Punic War. But that it was not this act of the Carthaginians alone that prompted him to an alliance with the Romans, is clear from the fact that he had previously concluded a condition with Scipio. As soon as the Romans landed on the African coast, Masinissa joined them. He was very useful to Scipio, because the Carthaginians and Syphax fielded such a large army that without his help it would have been very difficult for Scipio to cope with the enemy in the open field.

Before the last decisive minute of the Second Punic War, the position of Rome and Carthage was almost identical. Mago and Hannibal were on Roman territory, and Scipio on Carthaginian territory; both states relied primarily on the peoples they conquered, and each of them entered into an alliance with the subjects of the other. Scipio persuaded Masinissa to fall away, Mago initiated conspiracies in Etruria that threatened Rome. Realizing the difficulty of their position, the Romans, at the end of Scipio’s consulate, made a hitherto unheard-of decision to leave Scipio in command of the army until the end of the Second Punic War, and entrusted his comrade with arrests and investigations in Etruria. This peace forced the main conspirators to flee Italy and prevented the implementation of their plan. Throughout his entire consulate and most of the next year (204 BC), Scipio was busy with preparations for war, and only at the end of the summer of 204 BC did he cross to Africa. Having happily landed on the African coast and settled down in a fortified camp, he skillfully occupied the Carthaginians with negotiations throughout the winter, and at the beginning of spring, thanks to the happiness or, rather, the carelessness of the Carthaginians, he managed to finally turn the tide of the Second Punic War. The Carthaginians, despite the disastrous fires that often destroyed their camps, continued to build them according to previous models, without any order and from the first available materials. This circumstance gave Scipio the idea to set fire to their camp and, during the fire, attack the enemy army. The success exceeded all expectations. The united army of the Carthaginians and Syphax was scattered, and the surrounding area of ​​the camp was plundered by the Romans; Soon after, Scipio defeated the second Carthaginian army, already in an open field. Only after this second defeat did the Carthaginian Senate, although very reluctantly, decide to summon Mago and Hannibal from Italy, that is, to concentrate the Second Punic War in Africa. Meanwhile, Scipio moved towards Carthage itself, sending Masinissa, with part of the Roman army, against Syphax, who had retired to his possessions. Syphax was defeated in a cavalry battle and fell into the hands of Masinissa, who then conquered all the possessions of his enemy. Sophonisba was also captured and Masinissa married her. Syphax, by order of Scipio, was taken to Rome and soon died in captivity, and Sophonisba was subjected to the most petty persecution of the famous hero. She gave her hand to her husband’s winner because in this marriage she saw the only way to save her life and to be useful to her homeland with her influence on her new husband. But Scipio considered it necessary to oppose this marriage, foreseeing the danger it threatened for Roman interests in the Second Punic War, and ordered Masinissa to hand over his new wife to the Romans, since according to the agreement they alone had the right to decide the fate of prisoners of war. Masinissa obeyed, but did not betray his wife, and, with or without the knowledge of Scipio, gave her poison. Death saved Sophonisba from slavery. Thus, two people, almost deified by the orator Cicero, sacrificed all human feelings to political necessity in the most terrible way. As a reward for killing his wife, Masinissa received some honors from the Romans and received the possessions of Syphax.

Return of Hannibal to Africa and the Battle of Zama

Extremely reluctantly, slowly and with sad foreboding, Hannibal carried out the order to end the Second Punic War in Italy. In the autumn of 203 BC, he returned from the Apennines to Africa and happily landed on the shores of his homeland, which he had not seen for thirty years, and was appointed commander-in-chief of all Carthaginian troops. His arrival improved the affairs of the Carthaginians. The people's trust in Hannibal was so great that many hunters gathered to join him, significantly strengthening his army. However, upon returning to Africa, the Carthaginian commander did not dare to measure himself with the enemy in the open field for a long time and therefore, throughout the winter, he waged the Second Punic War against Masinissa, from whom he took part of his possessions. In the spring and summer of the following year, Hannibal, although he turned against Scipio, avoided a decisive battle, trying to achieve the opportunity to begin negotiations and end the Second Punic War on terms that were not too difficult. Scipio was not averse to starting negotiations, especially since the consuls in Rome had already been looking for an opportunity for a whole year to take away his command of the troops and at the same time the honor of ending the war. Thus, it came to concluding a truce and the preliminary articles of the treaty had already been signed when the Carthaginian democrats gained the upper hand in the Senate and frivolously refused to approve these articles. A decisive battle in the Second Punic War was inevitable, and the armies moved against each other. Although the desire of both commanders to make peace led to new negotiations and even a personal meeting between them, Scipio proposed conditions that Hannibal could not agree to. Both commanders parted and began to prepare for battle; the next day (October 19, 202 BC) the decisive battle of the Second Punic War took place, known as Battle of Zama. Happiness failed the great Carthaginian commander, who had hitherto remained invincible in all decisive battles. Hannibal strained all the forces of his great talent to win, but he met a worthy opponent in Scipio. He was completely defeated by Scipio at the Battle of Zama and lost most of his army, over 20 thousand people killed and almost as many captured. But even after the unfortunate battle of Zama, Hannibal showed his amazing abilities with a masterful retreat with the rest of his army to Hadrumet. From here he hurried to Carthage, which he had left thirty-five years ago as a boy and where he now returned as an honored but unhappy commander. Of all the services he rendered to Carthage in the Second Punic War, one of the greatest was that he used every means to persuade his compatriots to peace, although he was clearly aware that sooner or later he himself would have to become its victim.

End of the Second Punic War

Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus

The Carthaginians agreed, although reluctantly, to the conditions prescribed by Scipio and approved by the Roman people the following year (201 BC). According to this peace, which ended the Second Punic War, the Carthaginians had to renounce all their possessions outside Africa, seek permission from the Romans for every war they wanted to wage in Africa itself, give them all their prisoners, defectors, war elephants and all their ships except ten , recognize Masinissa as Numidian king, pay the Romans over a period of fifty years, at certain times, all the costs of the war and give one hundred hostages. Such an end to the Second Punic War was supposed to reduce Carthage from the heights of a first-class power to the level of an African state dependent on Rome and little by little lead to destruction. Hannibal foresaw all this very clearly; but other Carthaginians - which was typical in such a trading state as Carthage - attached most importance to those articles of the agreement that related to the payment of money. They looked very calmly as their elephants were taken away on Roman ships and their ships were burned in sight of the Carthaginian harbor; but when the conversation began in the Senate about the means of obtaining the amount that should have been paid to Rome, everyone began to grieve and complain. At the same time, Hannibal laughed ironically and, when they began to reproach him for this, said that they should have cried when their ships were burned and they were forbidden to wage war. He clearly saw that Carthage could not avoid war with the Numidians and other African peoples, although he could not foresee the main thing, that Masinissa, the most terrible enemy of the Carthaginians, would, unfortunately, live to a ripe old age. Under the terms of the peace that ended the Second Punic War, Masinissa received all of Numidia and, as a favorite of the Scipio family, could constantly insult the neighboring republic he hated. Returning to Rome, Scipio was greeted with such triumph as had never been seen in Rome, and received the nickname from the state African.

Hannibal showed himself to be great during peace, showing the same abilities in government as in the Second Punic War. He used all his strength to carry out the necessary reforms in the structure and administration of the republic. Despite all the opposition of the aristocracy, he achieved his goal, was elected to the suffets, broke the overly strengthened power of the council of one hundred and brought the finances of the state into such order that ten years after the end of the Second Punic War, the Carthaginians were able to pay the entire indemnity to the Romans at once. But Hannibal could not resist when the aristocrats, in order to overthrow him, resorted to the help of the Romans, who agreed to become an instrument of the party opposed to him. They accused Hannibal of secret relations with the Syrian king Antiochus III, who at that time was preparing for war with the Romans, and forced him to seek refuge in flight from the death that threatened him (195 BC). He went through Phenicia to Syria, to the king whose preparations for war with Rome served as a pretext for his expulsion. Hannibal dreamed of turning this war, started by Antiochus, into a continuation of the Second Punic.

Having finished the Second Punic War, Scipio returned from Africa to Rome through Lilybaeum. The winner was greeted with delight throughout the crowded cities of Italy. Rome was joyful when Scipio Africanus, with a crowd of people, made a triumphal procession through the decorated streets to the Capitol to offer thanks to Jupiter, who guided his hand to victories. His warriors received rich rewards and returned to their families to lead a prosperous life in their liberated fatherland or dispersed throughout Apulia and Samnium to establish new farms on the plots of land given to them.

Results of the Second Punic War for Italy

Roman and Latin citizens who lived to see the end of the gigantic struggle could remember the past with pride and look boldly to the future. Firmness in happiness and misfortune, devotion to the state, sparing no sacrifice, triumphed over all dangers, all disasters. In the Second Punic War, the Romans conquered Italy for the second time, and the measures they now took showed that they considered themselves complete masters of it. The Senate punished those cities and tribes that, during the Second Punic War, betrayed Rome or behaved ambiguously: their former rights were taken away from them, they were completely subordinated to Roman rule. For example, many cities and rural communities of Etruscans, Apulians, Lucanians, Samnites, and other tribes were punished; part of their lands was taken from them and distributed in plots to Roman colonists or left as state property, which was used especially by the rich citizens of Rome; from allies these cities and tribes became subjects; The Senate sent commissioners to search for and punish people guilty of treason, and to transfer the management of community affairs into the hands of people loyal to Rome. The coastal Greek cities were settled by Roman and Latin colonists after the Second Punic War; the rights of these cities were reduced, the Greek nationality in them weakened, they quickly began to decline. The punishment of the Campanians and Bruttians, who were Hannibal's most loyal allies, was especially severe. After the capture of Capua, the fertile area of ​​this city was turned into Roman public land, and the state, dividing it into small plots, began to lease them out. At the end of the Second Punic War, the Bruttians were deprived of the right to join the ranks of soldiers and were made villagers deprived of political rights. Their fate was so difficult that agriculture in their area was replaced by cattle breeding, the free villagers became impoverished and disappeared; their place was taken by slaves. After the Second Punic War, the fate of the Picenti living along Silar was also harsh: their main city was destroyed, its inhabitants were transferred to live in villages, and the fortress of Salernos was built to supervise them. Campania became a favorite summer place for noble Romans, who built rural houses for themselves near the beautiful bay where the city of Baiae stood; the seaside city of Puteoli, near the place where Cuma stood, became a center for trade in oriental luxury goods, Syrian toilet oils and Egyptian linen.

But the triumph of the Romans was bought dearly: many brave citizens died on the battlefields of the Second Punic War, in many houses the sacred fire on the hearth went out; the number of Roman citizens decreased by almost a quarter; After the defeat at Cannae, only 123 senators remained alive, and the composition of the Senate was replenished with difficulty by the appointment of new ones. For 17 years, the Second Punic War devastated Italy and spoiled the morals of its population: about 400 cities were burned or destroyed; rural houses were looted and burned, fields were devastated; a long life on the march has accustomed people to violence; the former simplicity of rural morals was destroyed by long stops in rich, luxurious enemy cities. Many of the disasters caused by the Second Punic War were erased over time: the fields were cultivated again, covered with abundant harvests; Instead of the fallen Greek cities, Roman colonies developed along the coast and far from the sea. The depleted state treasury was quickly filled with indemnities and confiscations. But some of the disastrous consequences of the Second Punic War were never healed, passed on like a hereditary disease from generation to generation: communities, deprived of their rights, lost love for their homeland; the working life of a farmer began to seem difficult to the new generation; The villagers abandoned agriculture and preferred the wandering life of a warrior, merchant, tax farmer to the poor life of shepherds and tillers. Agriculture declined after the Second Punic War and was replaced by cattle breeding; the shepherds were not citizens, but slaves; Italy ceased to produce enough bread for itself and had to rely on bread imported from Egypt and Sicily; This foreign grain, stored in state stores, was sold by the government to citizens at a cheap price. The Italian villager had no interest in extracting from his land through hard labor what he could get from the state easier and cheaper. The generation of the Second Punic War became addicted to military service, the dangers and hardships of which were rewarded with pleasures, honors, and booty. The thoughts of the Italians rushed far from their homeland; small-scale agriculture disappeared; quiet, modest home life soon became just a memory of antiquity.

Results of the Second Punic War for Spain

The consolidation of Roman rule over the Italian tribes was not the only or most important consequence of the Second Punic War: it gave a new direction to Roman politics. Before her, Rome's ambition was limited to the desire to conquer Italy and the neighboring islands; after the victory over Carthage, this desire acquired a much wider scope, although it probably did not yet seem possible for the Romans to think about the conquest of all the peoples known to them, as they began to think in the next century. As a result of the Second Punic War, they captured Spain, something they had never dreamed of before; They drove out the Phoenician and Carthaginian colonists from there, subjugated the natives by force of arms or treaties and took measures to preserve what courage and unexpected luck had given them. After the Second Punic War, Spain was annexed by the Roman state and divided into two provinces; one province covered the lands along the Ebro River (present-day Aragon and Catalonia); the other was made up of the former Carthaginian possessions (present-day Andalusia, Granada, Murcia, Valencia); Previously, the Romans had two provinces, now there are four. The natives for a long time did not allow the Romans to calmly enjoy dominance in Spain; first one tribe, then another, after the Second Punic War, rebelled; The Romans had to re-conquer mountainous regions that had a warlike population several times. But Spain, thanks to the fertility of its southern parts, the abundance of gold and silver mines, which even Judas Maccabeus heard about (1 book Macc. VIII, 3), was a precious acquisition for Rome, which received tribute from its tribes and took brave Spanish men into its service young men.

The coastal colonies of the Greeks and Phoenicians, such as Emporia (II, 218), Tarraco, Saguntum, New Carthage, Malaka, Gades, quickly and willingly submitted to the Romans, whose patronage protected them from attacks by predatory natives; The Celtiberian tribes of central Spain hated the Roman yoke, but, being at enmity with each other, they could not raise a common uprising, and the Romans defeated them separately. Those tribes that had already achieved some civilization, such as the Turdetans, who lived near present-day Seville, soon after the Second Punic War adopted Roman culture and took up agriculture, mining, and urban industry. The Turdetans adopted Roman customs, laws, and language, although they had their own ancient collection of laws written in verse, they had old songs, and other oral traditions about antiquity. The brave tribes of the central, western and northern mountains who, according to the custom of antiquity, considered courage and physical strength to be the most important virtues of a person and fought, like the Gauls, in duels, resisted the establishment of Roman rule for a longer time as a result of the results of the Second Punic War. Their beautiful girl herself invited the brave young man to marry her, and the mother, sending her son to war, encouraged him with stories about the exploits of his ancestors. In general, these tribes spent their time fighting among themselves, and when there was no fight with their neighbors, the brave men went to plunder distant lands or went to serve foreigners. In single combat, they fought courageously with their short swords, which the Romans later introduced; the onslaught of their dense columns was terrible, but they could not fight off Roman rule. They skillfully waged guerrilla warfare, which had long been familiar to them, but in proper battles they could not resist the Roman infantry. Four years after the end of the Second Punic War, when Roman legions were fighting in Macedonia, both Spanish provinces rebelled against the Romans and greatly pressed the remaining Roman troops in Spain. But the consul Marcus Porcius Cato defeated the insurgents in a bloody battle between Emporia and Tarraco, again conquered Spain, took away weapons from all the indignant tribes, took huge crowds of Spaniards to the slave market and thus strengthened calm in Spain for a long time. He ordered the walls of all cities from the Pyrenees to Guadalquivir to be torn down in one day and took such measures that this order was actually carried out. As he put it, he conquered more cities in Spain than he lived there for days. The uprisings of conquered tribes that arose after the Second Punic War, the raids of the Lusitanians who lived in what is now Portugal, and other highlanders forced the Romans to constantly keep four legions (about 40,000 people, most of whom were Latin allies) on the Iberian Peninsula. With such a large army, gifted commanders, such as the praetor Gaius Calpurnius and especially Tiberius Gracchus, a brave, intelligent and kind man, gradually pacified the Spaniards in the years after the Second Punic War. Gracchus began to found cities in the mountainous regions and distribute land to farmers, accustoming the population to a settled life, and tried to lure princes and their close comrades to serve in the Roman troops; this brought great benefit to Roman rule, and subsequent rulers followed the example set by Gracchus. The Romans willingly concluded treaties with the Spanish tribes on easy terms for them, took taxes from them in an amount that was not burdensome, and gave the Spanish cities greater rights, for example, even the right to mint coins; This prudent policy gradually transformed the uprisings, and the Roman rule established as a result of the Second Punic War was strengthened. Gracchus was highly praised both in Rome and in Spain: according to Appian, his triumph was brilliant.

Results of the Second Punic War for the Gauls of the Po Valley

Even more than the conquest of Spain, the Romans were concerned about strengthening their rule in northern Italy - in the Po Valley inhabited by the Gauls - and about Latinizing them. They started this business before the Second Punic War; she stopped him. After the Second Punic War, the Senate had plausible motives to complete the conquest of the Gauls, who joyfully accepted Hannibal. Insubri, Boii, Ligurians fought in the armies of him, Gazdrubal, and Mago; After Mago left for Africa, a Carthaginian detachment remained in northern Italy under the command of Hamilcar, and excited the Celts to continue the war. All this provided sufficient justification for sending Roman troops against the Gauls.

A common danger united their tribes. Even the Cenomanians, who had long been allies of the Romans, were carried away by the national impulse, and after the Second Punic War they took part in the struggle for freedom. A large Gallic army, the main part of which were insubri and boii, went to the border to repel the Roman legions. The Gauls laid siege to the Roman fortified colonies, Placentia and Cremona. They took the placentia, and only 2,000 people from its population managed to escape. A bloody battle was fought under the walls of Cremona, in which Roman military skill overcame the discordant crowds of Gauls, and Hamilcar was killed. But this defeat did not shake the courage of the Gauls. The same army that won at Cremona was almost completely exterminated the next year by the Insubri, who took advantage of the carelessness of the Roman commander. But the Insubri and Boii quarreled, the Cenomanians shamefully betrayed their fellow tribesmen in the battle of Mintia, and with this betrayal bought themselves forgiveness from the Romans. After that, the Romans began to defeat other Gauls. The main city of the Insubrians, Kom, was taken by the Romans; The exhausted Insubres made peace with the victors. The Romans left them their independent government, the old laws, the previous division of the country into tribes, on the condition that they would be loyal to Rome and would protect the Alpine passes from the invasion of predatory northern tribes. The Cenomani also retained their independent management. Thus, following the Second Punic War, the population of the country between the Po and the Alps retained more independence than the tribes south of the Po; it was not annexed to the Roman state; it was even decided that none of the Gauls living beyond the Po River could become Roman citizens. It seems that the Transpadanian Gauls were not obliged to give troops to the Romans and did not pay tribute to Rome. Their duty was to guard the Alpine passes; After the Second Punic War, they were a garrison for the Romans, guarding the natural border of Italy. But the influence of Roman culture and the Roman language was so strong that soon the Celtic people completely disappeared beyond the Po River; The Gauls there, wearing a toga, adopted Roman customs and language. Thus, following the results of the Second Punic War, the Alps became not only a geographical stronghold, but also a national border. The Romans were extremely careful that barbarian tribes did not penetrate into Italy through the passes of these mountains.

The Romans acted differently after the Second Punic War with the Celts south of the Po, especially with the brave warriors, their old enemies. In Rome, it was decided to exterminate the Boii, just as the Senones were exterminated. Guessing this intention, the Boii defended themselves with the courage of despair, and the Romans found it difficult to carry out their plan. More than once the Roman legions saw themselves in very great danger; more than once there was a threat of new destruction of the restored Placentia. But finally, in the long, fierce battle of Mutina, all the Boii warriors died, so that the victorious military leaders in their report to the Senate said: “Only old men and children remain from the Boii people.” Half of the land was taken from the vanquished. Military colonies were founded in the conquered area: Mutina, Bononia, Parma; the influence of these cities on the remnants of the native population was so strong that after several decades the descendants of the Boii merged into one people with the victors, and the very name of their tribe after the Second Punic War became only a historical memory. The Romans did exactly the same thing after the Second Punic War in the west with the predatory Ligurians who lived between the Arno and Macra: all this land was cleared of the native population; part of it was exterminated, the other was resettled in southern Italy. The poor mountaineers asked not to be separated from their homeland, from the houses in which they were born, from the tombs of their fathers; this plea was not heard. At the end of the Second Punic War, they were taken with their wives, children, and property to Samnium. The seaside town of Luna was founded, the Via Aemilia was established, other roads were laid out, and Roman culture soon spread throughout the newly acquired area.

A large trade and military road ran along the sea coast from Pisa through Genoa to the base of the Maritime Alps, from which the Massalians paved the road through southern Gaul to Spain. The Romans' campaigns against the poor, warlike tribes of the Ligurian mountains, valleys and cliffs had the main goal of securing this coastal road from predatory raids. After the Second Punic War, the Romans had to constantly fight with the Ligurians and with the wild mountain tribes of Corsica and Sardinia - even after Tiberius Gracchus defeated the Sardinian highlanders in a great battle and sent so many of them to be sold into slavery that the expression became proverbial : “cheap as a Sardinian.” Accustomed to unbridled freedom and continuous fights, they were every minute ready to rebel and often provided the Roman commanders with opportunities to receive triumphs, which, however, the Romans laughed at due to the insignificance of the defeated enemies. The Ligures, who lived in the mountains above Nicaea [Nice] and Antipolis [Antibes], were, after many battles in which the Romans sometimes lost many people, forced to give hostages to the Massalians and pay them tribute. Ten years later, the warlike Salassi, who lived on Dora Baltia, were also conquered by the Romans. They were forced to give the Romans the gold mines and placers located in their land, which began to be developed for the benefit of the Roman treasury. To guard the western passage through the Alps, the Romans subsequently founded the colony of Eporedia [Ivrea].

Results of the Second Punic War for Carthage

Meanwhile, Rome used the first years after the Second Punic War to strengthen its rule over Italy, to completely conquer the Spanish peninsula, Sardinia, Corsica, dominion over which put the entire west of the Mediterranean Sea under its control; While he, interfering in the discord between the Greeks and the Macedonians, prepared the expansion of his possessions in the East, the Carthaginians were not inactive. They tried to heal the deep wounds inflicted by the Second Punic War through reforms and putting finances in order, and partly succeeded in this, although the matter was very difficult due to party discord in Carthage and attacks from external enemies. The sad outcome of the Second Punic War placed the control of Carthage in the hands of aristocrats who wanted peace and were loyal to the Romans; but the patriotic party, based on the people and grouped around the name of Hamilcar Barca, remained powerful as long as it was headed by the great Hannibal, who at the end of the war became Sufet and Chairman of the Council of Sta. Hannibal now devoted himself not to the military, but to the internal affairs of the state, carrying out the reforms necessary for Carthage. He reformed the Council of the Hundred, overthrowing the self-serving oligarchy and replacing it with democratic institutions. Hannibal increased state revenues and introduced frugality, thanks to which Carthage paid the Romans the indemnity established following the Second Punic War without overburdening citizens with taxes. Ten years after the conclusion of peace, the Carthaginian government invited the Romans to immediately pay the entire balance of the indemnity. But the Roman Senate rejected this proposal, because it wanted to continue to keep Carthage in constant dependence on itself.

The Carthaginian aristocrats did not like being curbed by their greed and lust for power. They first tried to falsely accuse Hannibal of using the power of the commander-in-chief for his own benefit, and then the aristocrats began to make denunciations to the Roman Senate about Hannibal’s plans to take advantage of the war being prepared by the Romans with Antiochus, about his plans to make a military landing in Italy after the departure of the Romans. legions to Syria. The Senate sent envoys to Africa. Hannibal saw that the Romans would seek his extradition, and in 195 he secretly left Carthage, thinking in the east to resume the war against Rome. He sailed to the Syrian king Antiochus III, who was then preparing for war with the Romans. At home, Hannibal was sentenced to death in absentia as a traitor. Antiochus kindly received the famous exile. Hannibal gave him smart advice, and if the king had followed them, then the unsuccessful war with Rome could have taken a completely different turn.

The aristocratic party, loyal to Rome and upon the departure of Hannibal, seized all power into their hands, very carefully avoided everything that could give the Romans a reason for displeasure; but still she failed to put Carthage on good terms with the Romans and gain their trust. After the Second Punic War, the Romans did not trust the Carthaginians in anything, continuing to consider them friends and accomplices of Hannibal. Speeches were made in the Roman Senate hostile to Carthage. The merchants of the Roman state saw the defeated Carthaginians as dangerous rivals, with whom they could not withstand competition even after the Second Punic War, not having such commercial experience and such extensive connections with the foreign trading world.

Therefore, the Numidians and other Libyan tribes gave vent to their old hatred of Carthage with impunity, raided its possessions, captured cities and districts that had long belonged to the Carthaginians, who, as a result of the treaties that ended the Second Punic War, could not defend themselves against them without the permission of Rome and did not receive this permission. The cunning, energetic Masinissa, who retained his physical and moral strength until the age of 90, deftly knew how to take advantage of the Romans’ dislike for Carthage. No matter how much he expanded his kingdom by seizing Carthaginian possessions, he could not acquire such property as to become dangerous to the Romans or at least cease to need their protection; therefore, they willingly allowed him to offend the Carthaginians and take away their border lands. Actually, this is why they forbade the Carthaginians to wage war without their permission, so that the neighbors would press the Carthaginian state and interfere with the restoration of its strength. The uncertainty of the borders established after the Second Punic War favored Masinissa's ambition. He gradually captured the land from the sea to the desert, occupied the rich valley along the upper reaches of Bagrad and the city of Vacca; captured in the east that part of the coast where the old Phoenician city of Big Leptida stood; he captured the trading city of Emporia and the neighboring district, seized land up to the borders of Cyrene. The Carthaginians complained to the Romans, but there was no benefit: the Romans listened to their ambassadors, sometimes sent Masinissa prohibitions to take away lands from the Carthaginians, but he did not pay attention to this, knowing that the Romans considered everything that he took from the Carthaginians to be their own acquisition. When the Carthaginians renewed their complaints in 157, an embassy was sent to Africa to investigate the matter; the head of the embassy was Cato. The Carthaginians, tired of the envoys' partiality, refused to continue their explanations with them, saying that the justice of the Carthaginian cause was obvious. Cato was deeply offended by this and, returning to Rome, began to irritate the Senate’s hostility against the Carthaginians with stories about their pride and the increase in their power.

After the Second Punic War, Masinissa probably at times dreamed of capturing Carthage itself and making it his capital; among the Carthaginians there were people who favored his plans, ready to recognize him as their master in order to get rid of his enmity. Masinissa diligently tried to spread the Phoenician language and Carthaginian culture between the settled and nomadic native population, curbed the predation of the nomads, accustomed them to agriculture, to a settled life, built villages and cities; he wanted the state to which he would annex Carthage to become educated to some extent; he hoped that Numidia would play an important role. But fate decided otherwise. The results of the Second Punic War led to the fact that soon there would be no states left on the Mediterranean Sea except the Roman one. Before the embryos of independent existence could develop in Numidia, it was absorbed by the Roman state.

Towards the middle III century BC e. The strongest states in the western Mediterranean were the Carthaginian power, which had dominated here for a long time, and the newly formed Roman slave-owning confederation.

Both Carthage and Rome pursued an aggressive foreign policy, determined by the nature of the slave economy, for which military expansion was a necessary condition for its development. Each of them aspired to become the hegemon of the Western Mediterranean world. In the middle III century BC e. contradictions between them led to the beginning of the first Punic War (the Romans called the Carthaginians Punics).

The cause of the first Punic War was the struggle between Rome and Carthage over Sicily, most of which (west) was in the hands of Carthage, and the smaller (eastern) part of the island was owned by the Syracusan tyrant Agathocles.

The reason for the war was the capture of the Sicilian city of Messana by mercenaries from the campaign. After the death of the tyrant of Syracuse, Agathocles, for whom they were in the service, the Mamertines took possession of Messana. The new ruler of Syracuse successfully opposed them Hieron II, who besieged Messana.

The twenty-three-year war exhausted the strength of the warring parties. Therefore, Carthage's proposal to begin peace negotiations was accepted by the Roman Senate. By peace treaty of 241 BC e. Carthage had to pay Rome an indemnity of 3,200 talents for 10 years, hand over tribal members, agree not to hire warriors from the tribes of the Apennine Peninsula into its army, and, most importantly, surrender its possessions in Sicily to Roman rule.

Syracuse remained an independent city. The Romans adhered to the principle of “divide and conquer” here too.

Second Punic War (218-210 BC) in its scale, scope and historical significance it was one of the largest wars of antiquity. The reason for it was the events associated with the seaside city of Saguntum, which concluded an alliance treaty with Rome. IN 219 BC e. new commander-in-chief of the Carthaginian army Hannibal besieged Saguntum, captured and plundered it, and sold its inhabitants into slavery.

Determining the essence of the first two Punic wars, we can say that the reasons for Rome's victories were due to the numerical superiority of its troops, distinguished by high fighting qualities and the availability of material resources. The large Italian rural population, which made up the bulk of the Roman army, fought for their own lands.

The brilliant victories of the Carthaginian Hannibal were due to the talent of the commander, the surprise of the invasion of Italy, and the temporary weakening of the Roman Confederation. But Hannibal did not have the means to consolidate his successes. Hannibal's hopes for the rapid collapse of the Roman-Italian confederation were not justified.

IN 19 BC e. At the initiative of Rome, the third Punic War began.

The reason for the war was the conflict between Numidia and Carthage. The Numidian king, using the support of Rome, began to seize Carthaginian territory. Armed clashes occurred. Carthage had no right to begin military operations without the permission of Rome. Rome declared war on Carthage. The Carthaginians were ready to make peace on any terms. But the Romans invited the Carthaginians to leave the city and move to a distance of 15 km from the sea.

The Carthaginians decided to defend themselves to the end. The Romans eventually defeated the Carthaginian army. The Roman province of Africa was formed on lands that belonged to Carthage.

As a result of the wars of conquest, Rome became the strongest slave-holding power in the Mediterranean.

Hamilcar Barca(ca. 270-228 BC) - military and political leader of Carthage. Led an army in Sicily in 248 BC. and led the military operations against the Romans, inflicting painful and sometimes very unexpected blows on them. So, in 247-246. BC A fleet under the command of Hamilcar raided Italy. The commander’s victories were reversed in 241 BC. the conclusion of a peace treaty with Rome, which meant the defeat of the Phoenicians in the first Punic War. Obsessed with the idea of ​​revenge, Hamilcar made every effort to restore the power of Carthage. He authorized a number of military actions and campaigns of conquest, which increased the chances of the Phoenicians in the fight against Rome. Unfortunately, he did not have time to realize his plans, having fallen in one of the battles during the conquest of Spain. His father's work was continued by his sons: Hannibal, Hasdrubal and Magon.

Hasdrubal the Handsome(about 270-221 BC) - son-in-law of Hamilcar. He was his close ally, accompanying him on all military campaigns, including during the conquest of Spain. After the death of Hamilcar, Hasdrubal continued the conquest of the Iberian Peninsula and founded the city of New Carthage. Killed by a Celtic mercenary sent by him.

Hannibal Barca(247-183 BC) - son of Hamilcar. From early childhood he took part in his father's military campaigns in Spain, and after his death - under the command of Hasdrubal the Handsome. He combined the skills of a commander, politician and reformer, which were especially clearly manifested in the Second Punic War, when Hannibal destroyed one Roman army after another with smaller forces: at Trebbia, at Lake Trasimus, at Cannae, etc. He used his talents not only on the battlefield, carefully studying the enemy and conducting reconnaissance. Even in Rome itself, Hannibal had spies who brought him information. The turning point in the war and the defeat of Carthage did not break the commander’s position. Immediately after the end of the Second Punic, he took a number of measures that allowed the Phoenicians to quickly recover from the humiliating peace imposed by the victors. He tried to create a new coalition against Rome, but after a series of failures he was forced to flee first to Syria and then to Armenia. He was betrayed and was about to be handed over to Rome, and in order to avoid capture, Hannibal took poison. In his own words: “It was not Rome, but the Carthaginian Senate that defeated Hannibal.”

Hasdrubal Barca(died in 207 BC) - brother of Hannibal. During the Second Punic War, commander of the Carthaginian troops in Spain. For several years he resisted superior enemy forces, pinning down the troops of Gnaeus and Publius Cornelius Scipio. During the military campaign he managed to fight in Africa and follow Hannibal with his army to Italy through the Alps. He fell in the battle of Metaurus. Hasdrubal's head was sent by the Romans to Hannibal.

Magon Barca(243-203 BC) - younger brother of Hannibal. After the victory of the Carthaginians at Cannae, he went to recruit a new army. The change in the political situation forced him to stay in Spain, defending it in 215-206. BC from the Romans. To help his brother, in 205 BC. sailed with a small army to Italy, but was defeated and forced to return to his homeland. Died of wounds on the way to Carthage off the coast of Sardinia.

Scipioni

The glorious Roman family of Scipios was known long before the start of the Punic Wars. Representatives of this family were elected consuls more than once. And after the final defeat of Carthage, they continued to occupy various high positions both during the period of the Roman Republic and in the Empire that replaced it. But we are interested in those representatives of the Scipios who contributed to the defeat of Carthage.

Lucius Cornelius Scipio(about 300 - about 250 BC) - successfully acting against the troops of Carthage, he completely cleared Corsica of them. In Sardinia he besieged the powerful fortress of Olbia. Due to the arrival of the Carthaginian fleet with troops on the island, he was forced to lift the siege of the city and retreat.

Gnaeus Cornelius Scipio- brother of Lucius Cornelius Scipio. While commanding a fleet, he fell into the trap of the Carthaginian commander Hannibal (not the same commander, but another with a similar name) at Lipara, for which he received the nickname “Donkey.” In 254 BC. was able to rehabilitate himself in the battle during the capture of Panorma in Sicily.

Gnaeus Cornelius Scipio Calvus- son of Lucius Cornelius Scipio. He distinguished himself in the battles for Spain during the Second Punic War. Began with victory at the Battle of Cissis in 218 BC. Died in 211 BC. in one of the battles.

Publius Cornelius Scipio- younger brother of Gnaeus Cornelius Scipio Calva. He led one of the Roman armies during the Second Punic War and was defeated by the troops of Hannibal (the same one) in the Battle of Ticinus. For a long time he fought in Spain against the Carthaginians. Died along with his brother in 211 BC.

Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus the Elder(235-183 BC) - son of Publius Cornelius Scipio. As a military tribune, he fought with the Carthaginians at Cannae, where the Roman army suffered a crushing defeat. After the death of his father and uncle, he was sent to command the army in Spain. In 208 BC. Scipio's troops took New Carthage and defeated the armies of Mago and Hasdrubal. In Iberia, the Roman commander was able to win a number of more victories, freeing it from the Carthaginians. Further fighting spread to Africa. And here Scipio was able to win decisive victories over Hannibal and force Carthage to peace. After completing the Second Punic War, he received the nickname "African". After the military triumph, he fought with the Gauls in northern Italy, carried out diplomatic missions in Africa, and participated in the Syrian War. The last years of the commander were overshadowed by persecution, because of which he was forced to flee to Syria (in the footsteps of Hannibal).

Lucius Cornelius Scipio(d. 183 BC) - younger brother of Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus the Elder. He fought with his brother in Spain. He became famous for his military exploits in battles with Antiochus III. After the death of his older brother, Lucius's career went downhill. He was imprisoned, from which he was released at the request of Tiberius Gracchus. He tried to run for censor, but lost the election to Marcus Porcius Cato.

Publius Cornelius Scipio Nasica Korkul(d. 141 BC) - grandson of Gnaeus Cornelius Scipio Calva. He did not have to show military talent on the battlefields against Carthage. Rather, on the contrary - he was the only one of the Scipios who defended the defeated enemy. In 159-149. BC he was a political opponent of Marcus Porcius Cato, who said: “Carthage must be destroyed!” In contrast to the speaker, Publius said that Carthage should be preserved, since otherwise it would destabilize the situation in the region, and in addition, it would negatively affect the morality of the republic. His voice was not heard. Another Publius Cornelius Scipio helped in the destruction of Carthage.

Publius Cornelius Scipio Aemilian Africanus (the Younger) of Numantius(185-129 BC) - stepson of Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus the Elder. During the Third Punic War, he led the Roman army, captured and destroyed Carthage, for which he was awarded the title “African”. During the Numantine War, he took the city of Numantia and received a second nickname “Numantine”.

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