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FUGITIVE AND AN
EXILE.
 HANNIBAL'S
life was like an April day. Its brightest glory was in the morning.
The setting of his sun was darkened by clouds and showers. Although
for fifteen years the Roman people could find no general capable of
maintaining the field against him, Scipio conquered him at last, and
all- his brilliant conquests ended, as Hanno had predicted, only in
placing his country in a far worse condition than before.
In fact, as long as the Carthaginians confined their energies to
useful industry, and to the pursuits of commerce and peace, they
were prosperous, and they increased in wealth, and influence, and
honor every year. Their ships went every where, and were every where
welcome. All the shores of the Mediterranean were visited by their
merchants, and the comforts and the happiness of many nations and
tribes were promoted by the very means which they took to swell
their own riches and fame. All might have gone on so for centuries
longer, had not military heroes arisen with appetites for a more
piquant sort of glory. Hannibal's father was one of the foremost of
these. He began by conquests in Spain and encroachments on the Roman
jurisdiction. He inculcated the same feelings of ambition and hate
in Hannibal's mind which burned in his own. For many years, the
policy which they led their countrymen to pursue was successful.
From being useful and welcome visitors to all the world, they became
the masters and the curse of a part of it. So long as Hannibal
remained superior to any Roman general that could be brought against
him, he went on conquering. But at last Scipio arose, a greater than
Hannibal. The tide was then turned, and all the vast conquests of
half a century were wrested away by the same violence, bloodshed,
and misery with which they had been acquired.
We have described the exploits of Hannibal, in making these
conquests, in detail, while those of Scipio, in wresting them away,
have been passed over very briefly, as this is intended as a history
of Hannibal, and not of Scipio. Still, Scipio's conquests were made
by slow degrees, and they consumed a long period of time. He was but
about eighteen years of age at the battle of Canna, soon after which
his campaigns began and he was thirty when he was made consul, just
before his going into Africa. He was thus fifteen or eighteen years
in taking down the vast superstructure of power which Hannibal had
raised, working in regions away from Hannibal and Carthage during
all this time, as if leaving the great general and the great city
for the last. He was, however, so successful in what he did, that
when, at length, he advanced to the attack of Carthage, every thing
else was gone. The Carthaginian power had become a mere hollow
shell, empty and vain, which required only one great final blow to
effect its absolute demolition. In fact, so far spent and gone were
all the Carthaginian resources that the great city had to summon the
great general to its aid the moment it was threatened, and Scipio
destroyed them both together.
And yet Scipio did not proceed so far as literally and actually to
destroy them. He spared Hannibal's life, and he allowed the city to
stand; but the terms and conditions of peace which he exacted were
such as to put an absolute and perpetual end to Carthaginian
dominion. By these conditions, the Carthaginian state was allowed to
continue free and independent, and even to retain tike government of
such territories in Africa as they possessed before the war; but all
their foreign possessions were taken away; and even in respect to
Africa, their jurisdiction was limited and curtailed by very hard
restrictions. Their whole navy was to be given to the Romans except
ten small ships of three banks of oars, which Scipio thought the
government would need for the purposes of civil administration.
These they were allowed to retain. Scipio did not say what he should
do with the remainder of the fleet: it was to be unconditionally
surrendered to him. Their elephants of war were also to be all given
up, and they were to be bound not to train any more. They were not
to appear at all as a military power in any other quarter of the
world but Africa, and they were not to make war in Africa except by
previously making known the occasion for it to the Roman people, and
obtaining their permission. They were also to pay to the Romans a
very large annual tribute for fifty years.
There was great distress and perplexity in the Carthaginian councils
while they were debating these cruel terms. Hannibal was in favor of
accepting them. Others opposed. They thought it would be better
still to continue the struggle, hopeless as it was, than to submit
to terms so ignominious and fatal.
Hannibal was present at these debates, but he found himself now in a
very different position from that which he had been occupying for
thirty years as a victorious general at the head of his army. He had
been accustomed there to control and direct every; king. In his
councils of war, no one spoke but at his invitation, and no opinion
was expressed but such as he was willing to hear. In the
Carthaginian senate, however, he found the case very different.
There, opinions were freely expressed, as in a debate among equals,
Hannibal taking his place among the rest, and counting only as one.
And yet the spirit of authority and command which he had been so
long accustomed to exercise, lingered still, and made him very
impatient and uneasy under contradiction. In fact, as one of the
speakers in the senate was rising to animadvert upon and oppose
Hannibal's views, he undertook to pull him down and silence him by
force. This proceeding awakened immediately such expressions of
dissatisfaction and displeasure in the assembly as to show him very
clearly that the time for such domineering was gone. He had,
however, the good sense to express the regret he soon felt at having
so far forgotten the duties of his new position, and to make an
ample apology.
The Carthaginians decided at length to accede to Scipio's terms of
peace. The first installment of the tribute was paid. The elephants
and the ships were surrendered. After a few days, Scipio announced
his determination not to take the ships away with him, but to
destroy them there. Perhaps this was because he thought the ships
would be of little value to the Romans, on account of the difficulty
of manning them. Ships, of course, are useless without seamen, and
many nations in modern times, who could easily build a navy, are
debarred from doing it, because their population does not furnish
sailors in sufficient numbers to man and navigate it. It was
probably, in part, on this account that Scipio decided not to take
the Carthaginian ships away, and perhaps he also wanted to show to
Carthage and to the world that his object in taking possession of
the national property of his foes was not to enrich his own country
by plunder, but only to deprive ambitious soldiers of the power to
compromise any longer the peace and happiness of mankind by
expeditions for conquest and power. However this may be, Scipio
determined to destroy the Carthaginian fleet, and not to convey it
away.
On a given day, therefore, he ordered all the galleys to be got
together in the bay opposite to the city of Carthage, and to be
burned. There were five hundred of them, so that they constituted a
large fleet, and covered a large expanse of the water. A vast
concourse of people assembled upon the shores to witness the grand
conflagration. The emotion which such a spectacle was of itself
calculated to excite was greatly heightened by the deep but stifled
feelings of resentment and hate which agitated every Carthaginian
breast. The Romans, too, as they gazed upon the scene from their
encampment on the shore, were agitated as well, though with
different emotions. Their faces beamed with an expression of
exultation and triumph as they saw the vast masses of flame and
columns of smoke ascending from the sea, proclaiming the total and
irretrievable ruin of Carthaginian pride and power.
Having thus fully accomplished his work, Scipio set sail for Rome.
All Italy had been filled with the fame of his exploits in thus
destroying the ascendancy of Hannibal. The city of Rome had now
nothing more to fear from its great enemy. He was shut up, disarmed,
and helpless, in his own native state, and the terror which his
presence in Italy had inspired had passed forever away. The whole
population of Rome, remembering the awful scenes of consternation
and terror which the city had so often endured, regarded Scipio as a
great deliverer. They were eager to receive and welcome him on his
arrival. When the time came and he approached the city, vast throngs
went out to meet him. The authorities formed civic processions to
welcome him. They brought crowns, and garlands, and flowers, and
hailed his approach with loud and prolonged acclamations of triumph
and joy. They gave him the name of Africanus, in honor of his
victories. This was a new honor-giving to a conqueror the name of
the country that he had subdued; it was invented specially as
Scipio's reward, the deliverer who had saved the empire from the
greatest and most terrible danger by which it had ever been
assailed.
Hannibal, though fallen, retained still in Carthage some portion of
his former power. The glory of his past exploits still invested his
character with a sort of halo, which made him an object of general
regard, and he still had great and powerful friends. He was elevated
to high office, and exerted himself to regulate and improve the
internal affairs of the state. In these efforts he was not, however,
very successful. The historians say that the objects which he aimed
to accomplish were good, and that the measures for effecting them
were, in themselves, judicious; but, accustomed as he was to the
authoritative and arbitrary action of a military commander in camp,
he found it hard to practice that caution and forbearance, and that
deference for the opinion of others, which are so essential as means
of influencing men in the management of the civil affairs of a
commonwealth. He made a great many enemies, who did every thing in
their power, by plots and intrigues, as well as by open hostility,
to accomplish his ruin.
His pride, too, was extremely mortified and hum bled by an
occurrence which took place very soon after Scipio's return to Rome.
There was some occasion of war with a neighboring African tribe, and
Hannibal headed some forces which were raised in the city for the
purpose, and went out to prosecute it. The Romans, who took care to
have agents in Carthage to keep them acquainted with all that
occurred, heard of this, and sent word to Carthage to warn the
Carthaginians that this was contrary to the treaty, and could not be
allowed. The government, not willing to incur the risk of another
visit from Scipio, sent orders to Hannibal to abandon the war and
return to the city. Hannibal was compelled to submit; but after
having been accustomed, as he had been, for many years, to bid
defiance to all the armies and fleets which Roman power could, with
their utmost exertion, bring against him, it must have been very
hard for such a spirit as his to find itself stopped and conquered
now by a word. All the force they could command against him, even at
the very gates of their own city, was once impotent and vain. Now, a
mere message and threat, coming across the distant sea, seeks him
out in the remote deserts of Africa, and in a moment deprives him of
all his power.
 Years
passed away, and Hannibal, though compelled outwardly to submit to
his fate, was restless and ill at ease. His scheming spirit, spurred
on now by the double stimulus of resentment and ambition, was always
busy, vainly endeavoring to discover some plan by which he might
again renew the struggle with his ancient foe.
It will be recollected that Carthage was originally a commercial
colony from Tyre, a city on the eastern shores of the Mediterranean
Sea. The countries of Syria and Phoenicia were in the vicinity of
Tyre. They were powerful commercial communities, and they had always
retained very friendly relations with the Carthaginian commonwealth.
Ships passed continually to and fro, and always, in case of
calamities or disasters threatening one of these regions, the
inhabitants naturally looked to the other for refuge and protection,
Carthage looking upon Phoenicia as its mother, and Phoenicia
regarding Carthage as her child.
Now there was, at this time, a very powerful monarch on the throne
in Syria and Phoenicia, named Antiochus.
His capital was Damascus. He was wealthy and powerful, and was
involved in some difficulties with the Romans. Their conquests,
gradually extending eastward, had approached the confines of
Antiochus's realms, and the two nations were on the brink of war.
Things being in this state, the enemies of Hannibal at Carthage sent
information to the Roman senate that he was negotiating and plotting
with Antiochus to combine the Syrian and Carthaginian forces against
them, and thus plunge the world into another general war. The Romans
accordingly determined to send an embassage to the Carthaginian
government, and to demand that Hannibal should be deposed from his
office, and given up to them a prisoner, in order that he might be
tried on this charge.
These commissioners came, accordingly, to Carthage, keeping,
however, the object of their mission a profound secret, since they
knew very well that, if Hannibal should suspect it, he would make
his escape before the Carthaginian senate could decide upon the
question of surrendering him. Hannibal was, however, too wary for
them. He contrived to learn their object, and immediately resolved
on making his escape. He knew that his enemies in Carthage were
numerous and powerful, and that the animosity against him was
growing stronger and stronger. He did not dare, therefore, to trust
to the result of the discussion in the senate, but determined to
fly.
He had a small castle or tower on the coast, about one hundred and
fifty miles southeast of Carthage. He sent there by an express,
ordering a vessel to be ready to take him to sea. He also made
arrangements to have horsemen ready at one of the gates of the city
at nightfall. During the day he appeared freely in the public
streets, walking with an unconcerned air, as if his mind was at
ease, and giving to the Roman embassadors, who were watching his
movements, the impression that he was not meditating an escape.
Toward the close of the day, however, after walking leisurely home,
he immediately made preparations for his journey. As soon as it was
dark he went to the gate of the city, mounted the horse which was
provided for him, and fled across the country to his castle. Here he
found the vessel ready which he had ordered. He embarked, and put to
sea.
There is a small island called Cercina at a little distance from the
coast. Hannibal reached this island on the same day that he left his
tower. There was a harbor here, where merchant ships were accustomed
to come in. He found several Phoenician vessels in the port, some
bound to Carthage. Hannibal's arrival produced a strong sensation
here, and, to account for his appearance among them, he said he was
going on an embassy from the Carthaginian government to Tyre.
He was now afraid that some of these vessels that were about setting
sail for Carthage might carry the news back of his having been seen
at Cercina, and, to prevent this, he contrived, with his
characteristic cunning, the following plan: He sent around to all
the ship-masters in the port, inviting them to a great entertainment
which he was to give, and asked, at the same time, that they would
lend him the mainsails of their ships, to make a great awning with,
to shelter the guests from the dews of the night. The ship-masters,
eager to witness and enjoy the convivial scene which Hannibal's
proposal promised them, accepted the invitation, and ordered their
main-sails to be taken down. Of course, this confined all their
vessels to port. In the evening, the company assembled under the
vast tent, made by the main-sails, on the shore. Hannibal met them,
and remained with them for a time. In the course of the night,
however, when they were all in the midst of their carousing, he
stole away, embarked on board a ship, and set sail, and, before the
ship-masters could awake from the deep and prolonged slumbers which
followed their wine, and rig their main-sails to the masts again,
Hannibal was far out of reach on his way to Syria.
In the mean time, there was a great excitement produced at Carthage
by the news which spread every where over the city, the day after
his departure, that he was not to be found. Great crowds assembled
before his house. Wild and strange rumors circulated in explanation
of his disappearance, but they were contradictory and impossible,
and only added to the universal excitement. This excitement'
continued until the vessels at last arrived from Cercina, and made
the truth known. Hannibal was himself, however, by this time, safe
beyond the reach of all possible pursuit. He was sailing
prosperously, so far as outward circumstances were concerned, but
dejected end wretched in heart, toward Tyre. He landed there in
safety, and was kindly received. In a few days he went into the
interior, and, after various wanderings, reached Ephesus, where he
found Antiochus, the Syrian king.
As soon as the escape of Hannibal was made known at Carthage, the
people of the city immediately began to fear that the Romans would
consider them responsible for it, and that they should thus incur a
renewal of Roman hostility. In order to avert this danger, they
immediately sent a deputation to Rome, to make known the fact of
Hannibal's flight, and to express the regret they felt on account of
it, in hopes thus to save themselves from the displeasure of their
formidable foes. It may at first view seem very ungenerous and
ungrateful in the Carthaginians to abandon their general in this
manner, in the hour of his misfortune and calamity, and to take part
against him with enemies whose displeasure he had incurred only in
their service and in executing their will. And this conduct of the
Carthaginians would have to be considered as not only ungenerous,
but extremely inconsistent, if it had been the same individuals that
acted in the two cases. But it was not. The men and the influences
which now opposed Hannibal's projects and plans had opposed them
always and from the beginning; only, so long as he went on
successfully and well, they were in the minority, and Hannibal's
adherents and friends controlled all the public action of the city.
But, now that the bitter fruits of his ambition and of his totally
unjustifiable encroachments on the Roman territories and Roman
rights began to be realized, the party of his friends was
overturned, the power reverted to the hands of those who had always
opposed him, and in trying to keep him down when he was once fallen,
their action, whether politically right or wrong, was consistent
with itself, and can not be considered as at all subjecting them to
the charge of ingratitude or treachery.
One might have supposed that all Hannibal's hopes and expectations
of ever again coping with his great Roman enemy would have been now
effectually and finally destroyed, a7d that henceforth he would have
given up his active hostility and would have contented himself with
seeking some refuge where he could spend the remainder of his days
in peace, satisfied with securing, after such dangers and escapes,
his own personal protection from the vengeance of his enemies. But
it is hard to quell and subdue such indomitable perseverance and
energy as his. He was very little inclined yet to submit to his
fate. As soon as he found himself at the court of Antiochus, he
began to form new plans for making war against Rome. He proposed to
the Syrian monarch to raise a naval force and put it under his
charge. He said that if Antiochus would give him a hundred ships and
ten or twelve thousand men, he would take the command of the
expedition in person, and he did not doubt that he should be able to
recover his lost ground, and once more humble his ancient and
formidable enemy. He would go first, he said, with his force to
Carthage, to get the co-operation and aid of his countrymen there in
his new plans. Then he would make a descent upon Italy, and he had
no doubt that he should soon regain the ascendancy there which he
had formerly held.
Hannibal's design of going first to Carthage with his Syrian army
was doubtless induced by his desire to put down the party of his
enemies there, and to restore the power to his adherents and
partisans. In order to prepare the way the more effectually for
this, he sent a secret messenger to Carthage, while his negotiations
with Antiochus were going on, to make known to his friends there the
new hopes which he began to cherish, and the new designs which he
had formed. He knew that his enemies in Carthage would be watching
very carefully for any such communication; he therefore wrote no
letters, and committed nothing to paper which, on being discovered,
might betray him. He explained, however, all his plans very fully to
his messenger, and gave him minute and careful instructions as to
his manner of communicating them.
The Carthaginian authorities were indeed watching very vigilantly,
and intelligence was brought to them by their spies, of the arrival
of this stranger. They immediately took measures for arresting him.
The messenger, who was himself as vigilant as they, got intelligence
of this in his secret lurking-place in the city, and determined
immediately to fly. He, however, first prepared some papers and
placards, which he posted up in public places, in which he
proclaimed that Hannibal was far from considering himself finally
conquered; that he was, on the contrary, forming new plans for
putting down his enemies in Carthage, resuming his former ascendancy
there, and carrying fire and sword again into the Roman territories;
and, in the mean time, he urged the friends of Hannibal in Carthage
to remain faithful and true to his cause.
The messenger, after posting his placards, fled from the city in the
night, and went back to Hannibal. Of course, the occurrence produced
considerable excitement in the city. It aroused the anger and
resentment of Hannibal's enemies, and awakened new encouragement and
hope in the hearts of his friends. Further than this, however, it
led to no immediate results. The power of the party which was
opposed to Hannibal was too firmly established at Carthage to be
very easily shaken. They sent information to Rome of the coming of
Hannibal's emissary to Carthage, and of the result of his mission,
and then every thing went on as before.
In the mean time, the Romans, when they learned where Hannibal had
gone, sent two or three commissioners there to confer with the
Syrian government in respect to their intentions and plans, and
watch the movements of Hannibal. It was said that Scipio himself was
joined to this embassy, and that he actually met Hannibal at
Ephesus, and had several personal interviews and conversations with
him there. Some ancient historian gives a particular account of one
of these interviews, in which the conversation turned, as it
naturally would do between two such distinguished commanders, on
military greatness and glory. Scipio asked Hannibal whom he
considered the greatest military hero that had ever lived. Hannibal
gave the palm to Alexander the Great, because he had penetrated,
with comparatively a very small number of Macedonian troops, into
such remote regions, conquered such vast armies, and brought so
boundless an empire under his sway. Scipio then asked him who he was
inclined to place next to Alexander. He said Pyrrhus. Pyrrhus was a
Grecian, who crossed the Adriatic Sea, and made war, with great
success, against the Romans. Hannibal said that he gave the second
rank to Pyrrhus because he systematized and perfected the art of
war, and also because he had the power of awakening a feeling of
personal attachment to himself on the part of all his soldiers, and
even of the inhabitants of the countries that he conquered, beyond
any other general that ever lived. Scipio then asked Hannibal who
came next in order, and he replied that he should give the third
rank to himself. "And if," added he, "I had conquered Scipio, I
should consider myself as standing above Alexander, Pyrrhus, and all
the generals that the world ever produced."
Various other anecdotes are related of Hannibal during the time of
his first appearance in Syria, all indicating the very high degree
of estimation in which he was held, and the curiosity and interest
that were every where felt to see him. On one occasion, it happened
that a vain and self-conceited orator, who knew little of war but
from his own theoretic speculations, was haranguing an assembly
where Hannibal was present, being greatly pleased with the
opportunity of displaying his powers before so distinguished an
auditor. When the discourse was finished, they asked Hannibal what
he thought of it. " I have heard," said he, in reply, " many old
dotards in the course of my life, but this is, verily, the greatest
dotard of them all."
Hannibal failed, notwithstanding all his perseverance, in obtaining
the means to attack the Romans again. He was unwearied in his
efforts, but, though the king sometimes encouraged his hopes,
nothing was ever done. He remained in this part of the world for ten
years, striving continually to accomplish his aims, but every year
he found himself further from the attainment of them than ever. The
hour of his good fortune and of his prosperity were obviously gone.
His plans all failed, his influence declined, his name and renown
were fast passing away. At last, after long and fruitless contests
with the Romans, Antiochus made a treaty of peace with them, and,
among the articles of this treaty, was one agreeing to give up
Hannibal into their power.
Hannibal resolved to fly. The place of refuge which he chose was the
island of Crete. He found that he could not long remain here. He
had, however, brought with him a large amount of treasure, and when
about leaving Crete again, he was uneasy about this treasure, as he
had some reason to fear that the Cretans were intending to seize it.
He must contrive, then, some stratagem to enable him to get this
gold away. The plan he adopted was this:
He filled a number of earthen jars with lead, covering the tops of
them with gold and silver. These he carried, with great appearance
of caution and solicitude to the Temple of Diana, a very sacred
edifice, and deposited them there, under very special guardianship
of the Cretans, to whom, as he said, he in trusted all his
treasures. They received their false deposit with many promises to
keep it safely, and then Hannibal went away with his real gold cast
in the center of hollow statues of brass, which he carried with him,
without suspicion, as objects of art of very little value.
Hannibal fled from kingdom to kingdom, and from province to
province, until life became a miserable burden. The determined
hostility of the Roman senate followed him every where, harassing
him with continual anxiety and fear, and destroying all hope of
comfort and peace. His mind was a prey to bitter recollections of
the past and still more dreadful forebodings for the future. He had
spent all the morning of his life in inflicting the most terrible
injuries on the objects of his implacable animosity and hate;
although they had never injured him, and now in the evening of his
days, it became his destiny to feel the pressure of the same terror
and suffering inflicted upon him. The hostility which he had to fear
was equally merciless with that which he had exercised; perhaps it
was made still more intense by being mingled with what they who felt
it probably considered a just resentment and revenge.
When at length Hannibal found that the Romans were hemming him in
more and more closely, and that the danger increased of his falling
at last into their power, he had a potion of poison prepared, and
kept it always in readiness, determined to die by his own hand
rather than to submit to be given up to his enemies. The time for
taking the poison at last arrived. The wretched fugitive was then in
Bithynia, a kingdom of Asia Minor. The King of Bithynia sheltered
him for a time, but at length agreed to give him up to the Romans.
Hannibal learning this, prepared for flight. But he found, on
attempting his escape, that all the modes of exit from the palace
which he occupied, even the secret ones which he had expressly
contrived to aid his flight, were taken possession of and guarded.
Escape was, therefore, no longer possible, and Hannibal went to his
apartment and sent for the poison. He was now an old man, nearly
seventy years of age, and he was worn down and exhausted by his
protracted anxieties and sufferings. He was glad to die. He drank
the poison, and in a few hours ceased to breathe. |
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