SHE ROMANCE OF HANNIBAL.

Otago Witness, Issue 2203, 21 May 1896, Page 49

SHE ROMANCE OF HANNIBAL.

By W. D. S. The life of Hannibal as it is portrayed for us even by the most unimaginative historians is one of the most fascinating in all the annals of hiatory. In the matter of ancestry Hamilcar, the father of Hannibal, was a native of Carthage on the north coast of Africa. He was one of the foremost leaders of the Carthaginians during the first Punic War in their contests and rivalry with Rome, and there are not wanting critics who assert that did we know as much of Hamilcar as we do of his son Hannibal he would prove to have been a man equally as great. Hannibal was early inured to the hardships of war. In Spain he was by a unanimous vote of the soldiers invested with supreme command. This was at the age of 85, and from that period the story of his life reads more like a romance thr.n a chapter in history. In three years of uninterrupted success he subdued all the tribes of Spain which opposed the Carthaginian power. At last he openly challenged the Romans to war by besieging one of their allied towns. As Bosworth Smith says, " The die was now oast, and the arena cleared for the foremost man of bis race and his time, perhaps the mightiest military genius of any race and of any time— one with whom in this particular it were scant justice to compare either Alexander or Caesar or Marlborougb, and who, immeasurably above him as he is in all moral qualities, may on tbe score of military greatness be named without injustice in the same breath as Napoleon, and Napoleon alone." What was the most outstanding feature of Hannibal's character may be questioned. Bat almost the first feat he accomplished in his invasion of Italy was one which places him in (he front rank of the world's generals — the crossing of the Alps. This feat forms one o of the most thrilling chapters in the pages of history. What it cost him may be judged from the fact that when the lowlands of Italy were reached not more than one-half of his army had Bumved. This might have been enough to make the ablest general retreat-, eeeing that the .real contest had not yet begun. But when we learn from the accurate and unimaginative historian that his men were reduced to the condition of beasts, and from the Roman general whom he was about to encounter that bis soldiers looked not like men but like their phantoms, and when we consider further that with 20,000 soldiers he was about to attempt the conquest of a power which bad only lately shown that it could put an army of 170,000 unrivalled soldiers in the field, we are astounded at his utter foolhardiness. Our amazement at his daring, however, soon gives place to our amazement at his wonderful genius and generalship. What perhaps forms by far the most notable trait In bis character is his originality, his powers of stratagem, and his fertility of resource. He broke all the known rnles of war by leaving a hostile force of 60,000 men in his rear and upon his line of communication. The result, however, was one of his most famous stratagems— the so-called battle of Lake Trasimene. The term "bo called " may be well applied, for it was not a battle, but a carnage, and a carnage only. The Roman army was completely annihilated. At another time, wishing to deceive the enemy as to his whereabouts, he tied brushwood to the horns of 2000 oattle, and when the night was well advanced, having lighted the brushwood, he drove them past the position held by th 9 enemy. No ruse was ever more successful. The enemy, thinking Hannibal's army was escaping, left the pass unguarded, and Hannibal calmly marched through. The only other event which can be mentioned is the battle of Cannae — the most famous of all his victories. Once more the inequality of forces may be judged from the fact that Hannibal placed in the field 30,000 men as opposed to the Roman 80,000. And once more the result may be judged from the fact that after eight hours' carnage 50,000 Roman corpses lay stretched on the field. " " Never- perhaps," says Momeen, " was an army of sucb siza annihilated on the field of battle so completely and with so little loss to its antagonists as was the Roman army at Cannae." It has been customary to censure Hannibal for not marching on Rome after this great victory. It has been said that had he done so the whole subsequent history of the world would have baen altered. Even Napoleon has joined in the general chorus of condemnation. " Send me on with the horse," said tbe cavalry leader to Hannibal, " and in five days thou shalt sup in the Capitol." But Hannibal's judgment was too clear to be unsettled by such a victory. He knew that his troops would probably be only dashed against the walls of such a well-garrisoned city as Rome. "The soundness of judgment," says one critic, " the patience and self-control which he evii.ced in thi3 hour of intoxicating success, is banlly less marvellous than the genius by which success had been won." But to deal more closely with the character of Hannibal, by far the best introduction to the study of any great man's life is Carlyle's " Heroes and He\-o Worship," in which the sage of Chelsea shows us the true principles that lie under all great men's lives. To pick out one thought almost at random he states that a great man has an aptitude for becoming anything thafe necessity or expediency compels him — politician or warrior, philosopher or poet. The truth of the statement is most strikingly illustrated in Hannibal's life". When he was recalled to Carthage he turned his attention to politics. He amended the 1 constitution, he overthrew the oligarchy, he checked corruption, and placed the finances of the city on a sounder basis/ And if he shone in the field he also distinguished himself by his studies. He applied himself to Greek, and even wrote gome books in that language on different Bubjects. But by far the most notable and interesting side of Hannibal's character is that in which he appears as a leader of men. It

was not till he was an old man living in exile at the court of King Antloohuß that he told the simple story of that which far more than military ambition, more even than the love of country and the consciousness of his supreme ability, had been the ruling motive of his life. In his ninth year when his father was about to set out for the wars in Spain he asked Hannibal if ho would like to go with him. Tbe boy eagerly assented, and his father then made him swear eternal enmity to the Romans. This had been to a large extent the moving force of his father's life, but it proved to be the sole aim and object of Hannibal's to an extent which, in Shakespeare's words and without exaggeration, " beggars description." The labours which he undertook to carry out this oath, the battles he fought, and tbe victories he won were tbe marvel of the world then, and have remained so ever since. For 15 years he sojourned in Italy ravaging and devastating the fertile plains, scattering or annihilating army after army of the very best soldiers the ancient world ever saw, and yet during all that long period he was never once beaten. What is still more wonderful, he was never once reinforced from home; never was there one single murmur of mutiny in his army ; and never in all history were such brilliant despatches sent home by a general to hia government. The messenger who carried borne to Carthage the news of the battle of Cannae is said to have poured out on the floor of the senate house three bushels of golden rings taken from the fingers of Roman kuighta killed in ths battle. His career in Italy was, in the words of Horace, as the rush of the flames through a forest of pines. It is true indeed that during the latter years of his stay in Italy he was often forced to stand at bay, but it is equally true that no Roman general dared to meet him in open fight. Whenever he came into the open country the Romans scattered like jackals before the lion. His right hand never once lost its cunning, nor was his natural force abated. " The second Punic war was," as Arnold says, " of a man against a nation, and the war which iB perhaps the most wonderful in all history." Napoleon is the only general who can plausibly challenge his military genius. But Napoleon through the greater part of bis career had an immense superiority over his adversaries in the quality of the forces which he wielded. He had the enthusiasm of the Revolution behind him, and he was unhampered by authorities at home. Hannibal, on the contrary, saw his magnificent plans thwarted, and indeed finally wrecked, by the unpatriotic citizens of Carthage — the city he strove so hard to save. He had not, like Alexander, to lead picked troops against untrained and effeminate Asiatics. He had to mould his reinforcements, and to replace his veterans from barbarous tribes. With his motley army of Libyans, Gauls, and Spaniards he bad to fight with the greatest military nation of antiquity. It is a fact also never to be forgotten in judging of' Hannibal's life and achievements that- for all we- know of him we are indebted to -his lifelong enemies. No Carthaginian record has come down to us of his astounding career. The Roman historians have done all that unscrupulous malignity can to blacken, calumniate, and- belittle the most terrible of their foes. They have charged him with cruelty, but there is not a single instance of it to be found. Livy states that he was a man "of worse than Punic faitb, with no reverence for what was true and sacred, serving no God, and keeping no oath." Tha accusation refuteß itself. It is untrue in every point. Hannibal after his victory at Lake Trasimene carefully sought out the body of the Roman general, and buried it with all due honour. The Romans, on the contrary, were guilty of all manner of sinister practices and revolting crnelty. When they had killed Hannibal's brother they cut off his head and threw it into the Carthaginian camp. Yet though calumny ha« done its bitterest, Hannibal's deeds speak for themselves. He stands out as the incarnation of patriotism, magnanimity, military genius, and selfsacrificing heroism.