# Hannibal  ## Metadata - Author: [[Philip Freeman]] - Full Title: Hannibal - Category: #books ## Highlights - Then the look on Hamilcar’s face changed. In deadly earnestness he told the boy to put his hand on the still-warm body of the lamb on the altar and swear a most solemn oath before Ba’al and all the gods. If Hannibal were to sail with him to Spain to become a soldier for Carthage, he must first vow eternal hatred towards Rome1, never yielding in his anger and never giving up the fight until his final breath. ([Location 37](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09843BCNN&location=37)) - Hannibal appeals to many as the ultimate underdog—a Carthaginian David against the Goliath of Rome—but it wasn’t just his genius on the battlefield that set him apart. As a boy and then a man, his self-discipline and determination were legendary. As a military leader, like Alexander the Great before him and Julius Caesar after, he understood the hearts of men and had an uncanny ability to read the unseen weaknesses of his enemy. As a commander in war, Hannibal has few equals in history and has long been held as a model of strategic and tactical genius studied in military academies even today. But Hannibal was much more than just a great general. He was a practiced statesman, a skilled diplomat, and a man deeply devoted to his family and country. ([Location 51](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09843BCNN&location=51)) - The Greek philosopher Aristotle praised Carthage7 for having one of the best political systems in the Mediterranean. The city was not ruled by kings like Alexander’s Macedonia nor by a democratic assembly like Athens, but jointly by three different branches of government—elected magistrates, an aristocratic senate, and an assembly of the people—a system that provided a balance of power and offered checks on any would-be tyrant. ([Location 188](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09843BCNN&location=188)) - What set the Romans apart from Carthage and most states in the ancient Mediterranean was their ability to absorb other nations into their state. Former enemies were forced to become allies and served the legions of Rome in new wars as auxiliaries. ([Location 372](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09843BCNN&location=372)) - But while honor and patriotism were rooted deeply in its national soul, Rome also became a nation addicted to war and the riches it brought. ([Location 376](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09843BCNN&location=376)) - Hamilcar knew that an all-out war of conquest would be suicide with his small army, but a slow and steady campaign aimed at gaining allies and playing one tribe against another as his forces grew could work. ([Location 424](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09843BCNN&location=424)) - Hamilcar’s effective style of leadership, which Hannibal learned by closely watching his father, was to win the loyalty of his soldiers by treating them firmly but fairly and leading from the front, never asking anything of them he wasn’t willing to do himself. In this way Hamilcar was able to bring all of southern Spain under Carthaginian control in less than ten years. ([Location 432](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09843BCNN&location=432)) - By day, Hannibal moved with ease among the Numidians, Iberians, and Celts of the camp, learning their fighting techniques, languages, and customs, knowing that he would need to earn their respect if he were to lead these men in battle someday. ([Location 476](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09843BCNN&location=476)) - Hannibal would have also attended his father’s meetings with his lieutenants and stood respectfully in back as they decided which tribes to attack next, which to approach with diplomacy, how to assure there was enough food and water for the men and animals, which soldiers to execute for dereliction of duty, and the myriad tasks involved in running an army. For almost ten years, young Hannibal received the best military training imaginable for a future commander. ([Location 479](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09843BCNN&location=479)) - As Hamilcar would say: “My boys are like lion cubs reared for Rome’s destruction.”1 ([Location 484](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09843BCNN&location=484)) - Hannibal was untiring5 both physically and mentally. He could endure intense cold or heat with equal ease. He ate and drank only enough to sustain himself, not to indulge his appetites. He could be wide awake or sleep at any time of day, depending on when his duties allowed. He did not seek a soft bed in a quiet place in which to rest but was often seen wrapped in an army blanket asleep on the ground in the middle of the common soldiers on sentry duty. His clothing was in no way different from other young men his age, though his armament and horses were the very best. He was equally skilled as a fighting man both on the ground and mounted on a horse, always the first to attack and the last to leave the field. ([Location 521](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09843BCNN&location=521)) - The importance of Hannibal’s invasion of Italy went far beyond the devastating psychological impact it inflicted on Rome. It was a strategic masterpiece because it completely redefined the war between Carthage and Rome. ([Location 907](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09843BCNN&location=907)) - Hannibal rose before his assembled men and told them he had brought the prisoners before them to fight so that they might see the simple choice that lay before them all in Italy. Conquer or die, he told them,1 for victory or death were their only options. ([Location 949](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09843BCNN&location=949)) - Whoever is in command of an army must try to discover in an enemy’s general not the exposed parts of his body but the weaknesses in his mind. ([Location 1234](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09843BCNN&location=1234)) - The Romans hated the idea of a king and had designed their republican government to limit the power any one person might hold over them. Two independent consuls always shared chief executive authority for a year each. Nonetheless, even the freedom-loving Romans recognized there were times of extraordinary threat to the nation when they needed a single leader with unlimited power. This was the office of the dictator (“one who speaks”). If there was ever a time when such a man was needed, it was now. ([Location 1332](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09843BCNN&location=1332)) - Hannibal, a master of battle psychology, knew how to inspire his men. ([Location 1602](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09843BCNN&location=1602)) - Hannibal had played out all the possible battle scenarios in his mind many times so that he knew exactly what he would do as he watched the Romans line up. ([Location 1643](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09843BCNN&location=1643)) - The problem was that Rome was not like other nations. When the Greek general Pyrrhus had invaded Italy decades before and beaten the Romans in battle time after time, they always regrouped and never asked for terms. Unlike almost every other city in the Mediterranean at the time, Rome never considered backing down. The Romans neither accepted mercy from nor granted it to their enemies. If there was any failing that Hannibal had as a general, it was that he didn’t fully realize what kind of an opponent he was dealing with. ([Location 1727](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09843BCNN&location=1727)) - Rome didn’t care about these rules. One day in the not-too-distant future, the Romans would obliterate the city of Carthage, slaughter its people, and curse its ruins so that no one would live there again. That was how Rome played the game of war. ([Location 1732](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09843BCNN&location=1732)) - When Hannibal’s envoy Carthalo arrived at the gates of Rome he was met by a lictor bearing the symbols of the new dictator. In the name of Marcus Junius and the people of Rome, Carthalo was ordered to depart the city by nightfall. He would receive no hearing from the senate nor would Hannibal’s offered terms of surrender be considered. The ten Roman representatives captured at Cannae who accompanied Carthalo were told that neither they nor their fellow prisoners would be ransomed by the state. In addition, no private citizens would be allowed to pay for the release of their family members or friends with their own funds. ([Location 1761](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09843BCNN&location=1761)) - Other cities and nations might yield to defeat, but Rome would fight against Hannibal and his army to the last man. ([Location 1766](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09843BCNN&location=1766)) - During the five years since Cannae, Hannibal had lain awake at night pondering his decision not to attack the walls of Rome when it was weakest. Even though he had won many Italian and overseas allies after Cannae, he must have felt that he had missed his moment. ([Location 1902](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09843BCNN&location=1902)) - Although Scipio had learned a great deal from his family about war, it was the Carthaginian general he had never met who was his true teacher. Like Hannibal, Scipio combined meticulous preparation with swift and unexpected action. ([Location 1954](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09843BCNN&location=1954)) - Scarred by countless battles and graying though they might be, their devotion to their commander was absolute and speaks volumes about the kind of man that Hannibal was. ([Location 2058](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09843BCNN&location=2058)) - Thus in the year 203 B.C.E., fifteen years after first arriving in Italy, Hannibal watched from his ship as the mountains of southern Italy passed beyond the horizon. ([Location 2148](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09843BCNN&location=2148)) - From what little we know, Hannibal threw himself into his work with the same energy and administrative skill he had honed over years of leading an army. He organized the state finances so that Carthage could pay its war reparations to Rome without starving the common people. He supervised projects that helped the merchant fleet again trade up and down the African coast. Hannibal was so successful in building up Carthage’s new merchant connections that the city would in fact offer to pay back the entire war indemnity to Rome forty years early. ([Location 2250](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09843BCNN&location=2250)) - Ephesus was also reportedly the scene for a meeting between Hannibal and his old rival Scipio. The Roman general—now bearing the title Africanus for his victory over the Carthaginians—had been sent by the senate as an envoy to Antiochus. Scipio was now a middle-aged man out of favor in Rome. The two former enemies greeted each other warmly and spoke of old battles and the vagaries of fortune. After several glasses of wine, Scipio asked Hannibal who he considered the greatest general in history. Alexander was his reply, to which Scipio heartily agreed. He then asked Hannibal who he considered second best, to which the Carthaginian replied Pyrrhus, who had boldly invaded Italy a century earlier and caused the Romans such trouble before his ultimate defeat. Scipio again concurred. But now the Roman asked who was the third greatest, thinking that he would confer the honor on him as victor over the unbeatable Hannibal. But the Carthaginian only smiled and said he humbly believed that he himself had earned that title, since he had marched an army across the Alps and struck terror into Rome for years with little help from Carthage before his final defeat. Scipio laughed and asked where he would have placed himself on the list if he had been able to conquer Rome. Hannibal confessed that he would then have stood before Alexander. ([Location 2281](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09843BCNN&location=2281)) - Whatever the details, Hannibal, in his final act of defiance, would not allow his greatest enemy to take him alive. He would not be a prize for the vulgar amusement of the crowd in the Forum. He died alone far from his beloved Carthage, on his own terms, in a last, quiet battle against Rome. ([Location 2307](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09843BCNN&location=2307)) - Scipio was a master of battlefield tactics, but he had no patience for the petty, backstabbing politics of the senate. He was acquitted of the charges but chose to leave Rome behind forever even though he was only in his fifties and should have enjoyed many more years as a respected elder statesman. He retired to his country estates at Liternum in Campania and never returned to Rome. Bitter and heartbroken at the betrayal of his city, he died in the same year as Hannibal. The world is seldom kind to great men. He instructed his family to bury him in Campania, far from Rome. Two centuries later, a more appreciative Roman, Valerius Maximus,1 records that Scipio composed his own epitaph: “Ungrateful fatherland, you will not even have my bones.” ([Location 2315](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09843BCNN&location=2315)) - In centuries to come, whenever they debated whether a foreign people were a threat to their country, they remembered Hannibal marching over the Alps. In an effort never to permit such a thing to happen again, they became one of the most aggressive imperial powers in the history of the world. Hannibal may have taken his own life in a distant land, but his ghost haunted the streets of Rome for generations. ([Location 2339](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09843BCNN&location=2339)) - Even the Romans, in their fear and hatred of Hannibal, could not help but admire his determination, brilliance, and ultimately his humanity. We should do nothing less. ([Location 2357](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09843BCNN&location=2357)) - If it is true—which no one doubts—that the Romans surpass all nations in strength, it must not be denied that Hannibal surpassed other commanders in ability by as much as the Roman people exceed all nations in determination. For whenever he met the Romans in battle in Italy, he always won. If he had not been held back by the jealousy of his own citizens at home, he could have overcome Rome. ([Location 2360](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09843BCNN&location=2360))