- Alberto Ruiz Cabrero
- Carlos Gonzalez Wagner
- Dexter Hoyos
- Lisa Marie Mignone
- Miguel Murado
- Patrick Hunt
- Yosan Mosig
Phoenician and Punic Studies Centre – Madrid Complutense University
Q. What do you find most compelling about Hannibal?
A. His tactical knowledge and military leadership ablities.
Q. What do you think of Wood Brothers aim to ride Hannibal’s route on bicycles from Cartagena to Carthage?
A. I think it’s a new way of showing off the past through appealing countryside and historical remains.
Q. A number of amateur and professional historians have retraced Hannibal’s route, can you imagine doing it yourself on a bicycle?
A. It’s never occurred to me, perhaps because of my poor physical condition, but it is an interesting approach.
Q. Would Polybius have approved of this type of investigation, ie retracing the scene of the action?
A. He was pratically there during some of the events. A knoweldge of geography does provide a lot of clues that can help us to understand Hannibal’s exploits.
Q. What is an example of an important question or mystery about Hannibal and or the Carthaginians that is still unanswered?
A. Why didn’t Hannibal break the Hellenistic rules of war with Rome, instead of waiting for Rome to surrender?
Q. Is there a piece of our historical record missing? I mean, is it fair to say that the Phoenicians and the Carthaginians are a bit of a mystery to us?
A. In spite of the fact that the Phoenicians brought the alphabet to the ancient world, because of the fact that they wrote on Papyrus, we’ve lost all their documentation. Their position between an Oriental or Semitic style court and the innovations on which Hellenistic societies were based is a great unkown for investigators.
Department of Ancient History – Madrid Complutense University
Q. What do you find most compelling about Hannibal?
A. His military and political genius.
Q. What do you think of Wood Brothers aim to ride Hannibal’s route on bicycles from Cartagena to Carthage?
A. It really is an innovative project that looks very interesting and could help to bring history closer to people.
Q. A number of amateur and professional historians have retraced Hannibal’s route, can you imagine doing it yourself on a bicycle?
A. If I was younger, I would love to try it.
Q. Would Polybius have approved of this type of investigation, ie retracing the scene of the action?
A. Polybius himself was a witness to a lot of the events that he related and the scenes where they occurred. I think he’d feel quite at home with the Wood Brothers approach.
Q. What is an example of an important question or mystery about Hannibal or the Carthaginians that is still unanswered?
A. Without doubt the explanation behind why he didn’t go on to attack Rome.
Q. Is there a piece of our historical record missing? I mean, is it fair to say that the Phoenicians and the Carthaginians are a bit of a mystery to us?
A. Yes. We lack all their literary, historical and scientific records.
Retired Associate Professor, Department of Classics and Ancient History Sydney University
Q. What do you find most compelling about Hannibal?
A. He became the chief general and effective leader of Carthage at 26, made her for ten years the greatest military power between the Atlantic and the Adriatic, after the war reformed and improved her domestic life, and earned the admiration of his old enemies as well as succeeding generations. Twice or maybe thrice he could have taken steps that would probably have won the war: he knew this at the time, and yet he didn’t. Why?
Q. Hannibal is often lauded as one of the greatest leaders of ancient history. Do you think he deserves this position even though in the end he lost the 2nd Punic War?
A. He was a great leader; whether one of the greatest depends on what the greatness should be. Certainly he ranks with the other 2 usual suspects for greatest ancient general – Alexander the Great & Julius Caesar. In politics & government, he had a small range of tasks and options (Carthage lost her empire and shrank to a city-state) but performed creditably, more so than AGr and at least as well as JC. But greater leaders, on many criteria, were Darius, Pericles, Augustus, Diocletian & Constantine.
Q. Did Hannibal ever have a chance against Rome? Why did he lose?
A. Yes he did. It’s mistaken to see Carthage as a sort of terrier taking on a bulldog, for both sides had fairly equal resources and skills, and H was a much better general than any Roman down to halfway through the war. But he made some strange mistakes or misjudgements. He lost because— (i) To lose part of one’s army on a 1,200-or-so-miles’ march is a misfortune, but to lose about two-thirds is carelessness. No one knows why he could cross the Pyrenees with 59,000 troops and yet reach North Italy with only 26,000, and many & various are the suggested solutions. Basically he shouldn’t have. — (ii) He could have, should have and was probably expected to have marched straight on Rome after Trasimene 217 BC. Instead he went off to Apulia. — (iii) Same thing after Cannae, except that now he was in Apulia and he took his time doing anything afterwards. — (iv) As c-in-c/worldwide operations/Carthage, he decided what forces and reinforcements should go where. He sent tens of thousands of troops, with funds and elephants, to Spain, Sardinia, Sicily and still later Liguria, but only a small contingent 215 BC to himself. — (v) His brother Hasdrubal in Spain was supposed to march to Italy in 216 but would not, could have done so in 211 but did not, and went only in 208–7, to North It., when H was becalmed in S. It. and it was predictably hopeless that they could join forces. — (vi) H’s brother Mago came to Italy four years later, but again to N. It. 700 miles from H, accomplished nil, and was expelled. — (vii) Scipio Africanus.
Q. What do you think of Wood Brothers aim to ride Hannibal’s route on bicycles, from Cartagena to Carthage?
A. A brilliantly engaging idea. This can bring to vivid life the places, problems and opportunities facing the Carthaginians on their epic anabasis (and, in the end, katabasis). Many places haven’t physically changed all that greatly in 2,200 years, so the visual impact will be strong in recreating the episodes in H’s career.
Q. A number of professional historians have retraced Hannibal’s route and you are one of them. Is it possible to confidently identify Hannibal’s route over the Alps and why?
A. Not firmly possible. It turns on how you interpret the written data, and the data are not unerringly clear about the locations, line of march, chronology or descriptions of surroundings. Polybius and Livy, the two detailed sources, don’t identically match in their accounts, besides having all those other flaws.
Q. What is the main reason why didn’t Hannibal attack Rome?
A. For this we need H’s memoir of his campaigns, inscribed on a temple-column at the shrine of Hera at Capo Colonna (now lost). Livy says that Cannae was too great a victory for him to take it in. Polybius states that he had been expected – but doesn’t say if he (H) himself had expected – to march on Rome after Trasimene. He may have believed that even with their armies wiped out, the Romans would defend the city to the death behind fortifications which would wear out his army; and that instead he could wear them out if he enticed all their allies in Italy to join him. So he gambled.
Q. When most people think of Hannibal they think of elephants? Were they really a major part of his arsenal?
A. Elephants in battle fascinate (see Lord of the Rings!). H won a big victory in Spain early on by using elephants and cavalry to smash Spanish warriors as they crossed the river Tagus and fell into disorder. His victory at the river Trebia in 218 was partly due to them too. But although he acquired more elephants from Africa in 215, they played no important part in his remaining battles in Italy. Nor did those in the armies in Spain. At Zama he had more elephants than ever before (80) and they ran wild with damaging effect on his cavalry. On the whole, one could say, he would have done better not to take them to Italy or later.
Q. What is an example of an important question/mystery about Hannibal and/orthe Carthaginians that is still unanswered?
A. Quite a few, but a fascinating one would be: how Grecised/Hellenised had he and the other Carthaginians become by that time? It seems as though most educated Carthaginians were fluent Greek-speakers, while a fair proportion at every social level seems to have had Greek (as well as Phoenician and Libyan) kinsmen or ancestors. Another: if Carthage had won the war and became dominant over Rome, Italy and the whole Western Mediterranean, might she have gone on – like Rome – to become the pre-eminent power also over the east? She would have had Italian allies along with all the others, and who would still have been in his prime to lead the West against the East?
Q. Is there a piece of our historical record missing? I mean, is it fair tosay that the Phoenicians and the Carthaginians are a bit of a mystery to us, even though they were an important civilization?
A. Yes, because their own records were not preserved and all we have are scraps in a few quotations, plus religious and funeral inscriptions. In 146 the city was left in burnt ruins (though not sprinkled with salt, a habit which developed only around AD 1930), and 120 years later the entire summit of Byrsa Hill was taken off so that the Romans could build their massive temple of Apollo instead of the wreckage of the old temple of Eshmun. The Roman city spread over and beyond the Punic, so that much of current archaeology is to do with post-Punic Carthage. Ditto the Punicised towns elsewhere in North Africa, like Utica and Dougga. To figure out the Carthaginians is like trying to work out how a jigsaw originally looked, even though you have only maybe 50 out of 500 pieces left.
Assistant Professor of Classics, Brown University
Q. What do you find most compelling about Hannibal?
A. His legacy. As a historian, I say that with a nod to Toynbee. As a Punic-War enthusiast, I mean that Hannibal is, perhaps, the greatest loser of all time– and yet we love him for it. Long after the war had receded into memory, Hannibal became a sort of bogey-man for Roman children; this fact alone speaks to the pervasiveness of Hannibal as more than a historical figure. He was and remains a cultural icon.
Q. Hannibal is often lauded as one of the greatest leaders of ancient history. Do you think he deserves this position even though in the end he lost the 2nd Punic War?
A. Without a doubt. There’s that wonderful, and surely apocryphal, anecdote in Plutarch’s Life of Titus Flaminius. The defeated Hannibal tells the triumphant Scipio that history’s three greatest generals were first Alexander, then Pyrrhus, and finally himself, (Hannibal). Excluded from the canon, Scipio then asks how the Carthaginian would have ranked the generals had the Romans not prevailed under Scipio’s leadership. Hannibal’s response? Had Hannibal prevailed, he himself would have ranked first. (So much for Scipio).The showcasing of Hannibal’s brilliance and genius was instrumental to the celebration of Roman victory. A triumph is honorable only when a worthy adversary has been crushed. Given the mostly unbridled economic, demographic, and geographic expansion of the Roman empire after the fall of Carthage, we can safely assume that Hannibal’s ancient reputation as one of the greatest strategists and tacticians was not simply some rhetorical creation of Greek and Roman authors. Hannibal had earned it.
Q. Did Hannibal ever have a chance against Rome? Why did he lose?
A. If Hannibal didn’t have a chance against Rome, we wouldn’t be discussing him right now. The Wood Brothers would have a much less strenuous autumn ahead of themselves.As for why Hannibal lost, now that’s a complicated problem. A short answer can be no more than suggestive and simplistic at best: manpower, perseverance, strategy, and the flexibility of the Roman army. Let’s not forget the strategic brilliance of Fabius Maximus “Cunctator” and Scipio “Africanus.” Of course the Romans themselves also claimed that they, unlike the Carthaginians, had the gods on their side– especially Juno. After she was propitiated in 207, the balance of success favored the Romans.
Q. What do you think of Wood Brothers aim to ride Hannibal’s route on bicycles, from Cartagena to Carthage?
A. I think it’s fantastic, and I’m quite jealous. Precisely half a century ago, an Oxford engineering student by the name of John Hoyte managed to convince the zookeepers of Torino to lend him an elephant so he could try out some of the passes. Today, riding bicycles seems a bit more realistic– and readily available– than riding pachyderms. In many ways the former is a lot more treacherous. The Wood Brothers won’t be relying on animal power, but on the strength, endurance, and resilience of their own bodies and spirits. They may, in fact, have to summon the encouragement of Hannibal to help get themselves motivated to climb the Apennines– but it’s one of Livy’s greatest indirect speeches, so it’ll be well worth the recitation.
Q. A number of professional historians have retraced Hannibal’s route. Is it possible to confidently identify Hannibal’s route over the Alps and why?
A. This is a question for Patrick Hunt.
Q. What is the main reason why didn’t Hannibal attack Rome?
A. Excellent question, and one that continues to mystify many fans and scholars of the Second Punic War. Perhaps the simplest explanation is that Hannibal knew he wouldn’t have been able to take Rome without siege machines. Ever the strategist, he therefore attempted to rally Rome’s allies for the Carthaginian cause. If he could get important towns like Capua to defect, he would be able to starve the Romans of resources: not just food, but also manpower. What we call the Second Punic War would become an Italian revolution as well, with Rome’s former allies now feeding and reinforcing Hannibal and his men against Rome. Securing the allegiance of Rome’s allies would be the only way to crush Rome once and for all.
Q. When most people think of Hannibal they think of elephants? Were they really a major part of his arsenal?
A. Yes and no. Certainly Hannibal’s elephants have been glamorized. One has only to think of the elephants maimed and killed in “Scipione l’Africano”, a Fascist propaganda film issued by the Italian government in 1937. Because real elephants –and real soldiers– were used in that film, you can get a very real sense of their strength, their power, and the sort of fear they inspire; but you also see their inflexibility. Elephants cannot be maneuvered. They charge forward in a straight line. The Romans quickly recognized this limitation and accommodated their formations accordingly– and they did so long before Hannibal had even been born. This point is important.Most people think of Hannibal’s elephants as a complete novelty. The fact is the Romans had already met a brilliant enemy on elephantback: Pyrrhus, the king of Epirus. Pyrrhus, to a lesser extent than Hannibal, has played an important role in popular memory; he provides us the expression “Pyrrhic victory.” It was the unleashing of his elephants that granted the king of Epirus victory over the Romans in the Battle of Heraclea (280 BCE). The Romans and their horses were completely helpless against this terrifying creature. Within a year, however, the Romans had figured out how to rout elephant forces; they were prepared with all sorts of anti-elephant artillery. They next met at the Battle of Asculum (279 BCE). The Greeks prevailed, but their victory was “Pyrrhic”; that is to say, the casualties suffered by the victors far outmeasured their gains. It was more than half a century later that Hannibal crossed the Alps with his elephants. By then, the Romans knew how to handle war elephants. In fact, at the battle at Zama, that decisive end to the Second Punic War (202 BCE), Scipio’s forces were able to render Hannibal’s elephants completely ineffective. All the Roman maniples had to do was step aside and let the charging elephant pass them by.
Q. What is an example of an important question/mystery about Hannibal and/or the Carthaginians that is still unanswered?
A. It’s not glitzy, but I’d like to know more about what Hannibal did after the war. Hannibal died by his own hand nearly two decades after the Battle of Zama. I’d like to learn more about his time in the Seleucid court where he served as military advisor to Antiochus III and later, at the court of Prusias I in Bithynia. Unfortunately the current state of the historical record forbids any further reconstruction.
Q. Is there a piece of our historical record missing? I mean, is it fair to say that the Phoenicians and the Carthaginians are a bit of a mystery to us, even though they were an important civilization?
A. Of course. We’re missing the whole Carthaginian side of the story. Hannibal had his own historians and chroniclers, but their texts have completely vanished. Rather than lament the loss, however, we should always keep in mind that it’s a miracle that even the Roman side, that is, the side of the winners has managed to survive all the vicissitudes of recovery and transmission for the past 22 centuries. We’ve lost Valerius Antias and Coelius Antipater, so what hope should we have of retaining a Carthaginian author?As for the Phoenicians and Carthaginians themselves, it is true that they remain, to a large extent, a mystery. They did, however, leave behind a rich material and archaeological record; continued investigation is quite promising.
Writer – Madrid
Q. Why is Hannibal and his war against Rome important to Spain?
A. Let’s say Hannibal is the first “celebrity” ever to set foot in the Iberian Peninsula. He makes up for the lack of Spanish historians in Ancient times and, therefore, for the lack of a properly “Hispanic” Ancient History.
Q. What do you find most interesting about Hannibal?
A. Not his warfare, impresive as it must have been, but his logistics, which I presume must have been as complex as D-Day. And I’m also moved by the idea of this general fighting to the bitter end for a country (so to speak) he barely knew until his own defeat.
Q. What do you think of Wood Brothers aim to ride Hannibal’s route on bicycles from Cartagena to Carthage?
A. It’s a great idea, particularly now that Rome is not at war with Britain anymore.
Director, Stanford Alpine Archaeology Project 1994-2010, Stanford University
Q. What do you find most compelling about Hannibal?
A. Hannibal seems so often to have gotten inside his enemies’ minds, understanding exactly how they would react when he set up his battle strategies that the Romans predictably followed. His traps were ingenious and disastrous to the Romans at Trebbia, Trasimene, Cannae and elsewhere. His march over the Alps to Italy was intrepid and surprising to Rome, which thought itself safe behind its daunting fortress mountains. If Hannibal’s vow as a boy to his father Hamilcar Barca that he would never be a friend to Rome has any historicity, Hannibal also seems to have never swerved from this oath to his father and his duty to force Rome to respect Carthage.
Q. Hannibal is often lauded as one of the greatest leaders of ancient history. Do you think he deserves this position even though in the end he lost the 2nd Punic War?Certainly Hannibal deserves this esteem. Rome’s very survival was never so tested before or for so long after until its gradual demise. Rome lost so many men between 218-208 BCE perhaps it is more of surprise Rome had the will to go on. Roman perseverance may have surprised Carthage when other enemies would have surrendered after most of the battles in the Second Punic War, repeating the same dilemma of the First Punic War, and where only the last battle decided the outcome that Rome was victorious.Q. Did Hannibal ever have a chance against Rome? Why did he lose?
A. Carthage, so often ruled by mercantile interests, never gave him adequate reinforcements. Supply lines over half a continent from Spain to Rome – or more if one starts from North Africa – were always problematic and when Scipio Africanus first isolated Spain from both Carthage and Hannibal and then finally used Hannibal’s tactic against him by marching upon Carthage, Carthage couldn’t handle this reversal.
Q. What do you think of the Wood Brothers aim to ride Hannibal’s route on bicycles, from Cartagena to Carthage?
A. I think the Wood Brothers are great adventurers and I admire their imagination. I somehow think that Hannibal himself and his two brothers would have approved of the spirit and journey of the three Wood brothers following Hannibal only by their own physical strength over so many miles.
Q. A number of professional historians have retraced Hannibal’s route and you are one of them. Is it possible to confidently identify Hannibal’s route over the Alps and why?
A. In attempting to match text and topography I certainly wouldn’t have spent so many years trying to do exactly that, identify Hannibal’s alpine route, if I didn’t think it possible. Several including myself have identified at least a dozen criteria that can be extrapolated from the ancient sources. Surely very few passes and maybe ultimately only one will match up to these likely criteria if they are realistic criteria. Our Stanford team since 1996 believes we can eliminate most of the more than 25 suggested pass routes (we’ve been over all of them) that don’t match up to the criteria Polybius and Livy suggest, especially the earlier Polybius who claims to have retraced the route himself not much more than a generation later and with a probable veteran or now lost accounts thereof. We are confident this matching can be done via careful scientific and historical research.
Q. What is the main reason why Hannibal didn’t attack Rome?
A. He found out from experience at Saguntum in Spain in 219 BCE how difficult and protracted a long siege could be if a city had adequate food and water as Rome certainly did, making Rome a much larger gamble than Saguntum which took at least half a year to succumb. Hannibal would have needed a much larger force to surround and take Rome as well as siege equipment his mobile army did not have. Although his lieutenants urged him to sack Rome, Hannibal seemingly waited judiciously even after the Roman debacle of Cannae when he almost owned Italy and the city of Rome was reduced to terror. Some years later, when his brother Hasdrubal’s reinforcements were annihilated in 207 BCE at Metaurus, a tactician as clever as Hannibal must have seen the future of Carthage diminishing and Rome’s destiny waxing. This severe loss of Punic reinforcements certainly gave Scipio opportunity to make his moves to preserve Rome even though Rome was not exactly behind Scipio at first.
Q. When most people think of Hannibal they think of elephants? Were they really a major part of his arsenal?
A. For awhile the Punic elephants were veritable war machines on the battlefield – albeit expensive to maintain with their huge food needs – and similar to modern tanks in their ability to mow imperviously through infantry when they charged as directed or goaded. Horses were also afraid of their smell and often stampeded before elephants, rendering cavalry ineffective in those contexts. But Scipio at Zama in 202 BCE made his army units smaller and more mobile, training them to move aside when elephants charged. This essentially made elephants superfluous.
Q. What is an example of an important question/mystery about Hannibal and/or the Carthaginians that is still unanswered?
A. As mentioned, one example of a mystery I am fascinated to examine is that we are still trying to pinpoint his exact routes. Another mystery for many to fathom is exactly why he marched to Italy and stayed so long, almost two decades in Italy without going for the jugular of the city of Rome itself, although I think both of these are also mostly deducible and I address these in detail in my forthcoming book on Hannibal.
Q. Is there a piece of our historical record missing? I mean, is it fair to say that the Phoenicians and the Carthaginians are a bit of a mystery to us, even though they were an important civilization?
A. We always opine that the victors write the history. Because the Romans ultimately won, they also seem to have destroyed whatever little annals Carthage had recorded, if any. Phoenician and Punic literary and historical annals seem to have not been a priority for these cultures in the main, although in some sense we may never know since the primary Punic archives have not survived. Perhaps somewhere in the Mediterranean some trove of Punic history including their Phoenician antecedents is still buried, perhaps an archive of inscribed ceramic tablets or something else waiting for that moment of archaeological discovery.
Professor of Psychology, University of Nebraska-Kearney
Q. What do you find most compelling about Hannibal?
A. Hannibal’s integrity and brilliance. Unlike Alexander, Caesar, and other distinguished military leaders, Hannibal was a genuine patriot who fought for the survival of his nation rather than for self-aggrandizement or personal profit. He was loyal to Carthage even when Carthage failed to support him, and after the end of the war managed to eliminate corruption and restore the city’s economic prosperity. His democratic reforms and the term limitations he established for the magistrates were significant political achievements, on a par with his military victories.
Q. Hannibal is often lauded as one of the greatest leaders of ancient history. Do you think he deserves this position even though in the end he lost the 2nd Punic War?
A. Absolutely. There can be little doubt that Hannibal was one of the greatest leaders of Antiquity as well as a genius without peer on the battlefield.
Q. Did Hannibal ever have a chance against Rome? Why did he lose?
A. Hannibal came very close to stopping the Roman Republic. After Cannae, Rome was on her knees. If at that point Carthage had made a supreme effort, sending all available reinforcements to Hannibal in Italy, there is little doubt that he would have brought the conflict to a favorable conclusion. Instead, the reinforcements were sent to Spain, to defend the silver mines, a colossal blunder on the part of the Carthaginian senate. Without reinforcements, although undefeated, Hannibal was forced to fight a defensive war. In the final battle, at Zama, it was the betrayal of Massinissa far more than the generalship of Scipio that decided the outcome.
Q. What do you think of the Wood Brothers aim to ride Hannibal’s route on bicycles, from Cartagena to Carthage?
A. A magnificent and worthwhile project, and one I wish I had been able to accompany!
Q. A number of professional historians have retraced Hannibal’s route. Is it possible to confidently identify Hannibal’s route over the Alps and why?
A. I find the arguments of Sir Gavin de Beer and others for the Col de la Traversette having been the one used by Hanibal most compelling, but we will not know for certain unless archeological digs in the area manage to uncover traces of the passage of Hannibal’s army.
Q. What is the main reason why didn’t Hannibal attack Rome?
A. There were many reasons why Hannibal did not march against Rome immediately after Cannae. Rome was a large city, defended by huge walls, which Hannibal’s troops would have been unable to breach, lacking siege equipment. Besides, his numbers were insufficient for a successful siege. Parking his relatively small army in front of the walls of Rome would have allowed them to be trapped between the city’s defenses and reinforcements arriving from all corners of the peninsula, and would have accomplished nothing but his own destruction. Additionally, without a permanent base of supply, Hannibal did not have the resources to feed his animals and men on a march of over 200 km without adequate preparation. After Cannae he also had to take care of an indeterminate, but certainly large, number of wounded. But there is another reason, which is perhaps even more important: Hannibal never intended the destruction of Rome. There is abundant evidence (including the text of the treaty with Philip V of Macedon, in 215 BCE, recorded by Polybius), that his intention was to limit the expansion of the Romans to the center of the Italian peninsula, rather than the obliteration of the city on the Tiber.
Q. When most people think of Hannibal they think of elephants? Were they really a major part of his arsenal?
A. While elephants will probably always be associated with the image of Hannibal, they took part in far fewer engagements than assumed by many. No elephants fought at Lake Trasimene or at Cannae, and it is very likely that the 80 pachyderms Hannibal is supposed to have had at Zama were a gross exaggeration, if not a total fabrication, of the pro-Roman historians. I have exploded this myth in one of my papers.
Q. What is an example of an important question/mystery about Hannibal and/or the Carthaginians that is still unanswered?
A. The fate of his wife and son!
Q. Is there a piece of our historical record missing? I mean, is it fair to say that the Phoenicians and the Carthaginians are a bit of a mystery to us, even though they were an important civilization?
A. Yes, the loss of the Carthaginian accounts of the wars with Rome has left us with a distorted picture painted by pro-Roman propagandists, and the destruction of the cultural treasures of Phoenician/Carthaginian heritage lost in the genocidal sack of Carthage in 146 BCE represents a tragic loss for all of humanity.