\n Fig. 1.<\/strong>Political map of Spain during the Second Punic War. Years 237 to 218 BCE The area of Carthaginian colonization stretching from the city of Gades to the vicinity of New Carthage is marked in dark blue. The area of Carthaginian military domination stretching from the Guadiana River in the southwest to the Iber River in the northwest is marked in blue. The area of Carthaginian political influence at the beginning of the Second Punic War is marked in light blue, and the Iberian tribes north of the Iber River were conquered by Hannibal already during his march towards Italy. <\/div>\n \n \n \u201eAuthor <\/div>\n \n <\/div>\n \n
Interestingly, Sagunt was located south of the Iber River, and therefore in Carthage’s sphere of influence. However, he placed himself under the protection of Rome many years before Hannibal took over in Spain. This circumstance allowed Sagunt to maintain its independence. The exact circumstances, time and reasons under which friendly relations were established between the two countries are unknown. It should also be ruled out that Saguntus and Rome had an official foedus<\/em> (covenant)^{7<\/sup>. Despite this, the Saguntines, concerned about the growing Carthaginian influence in the region, sent embassies to Rome with requests for support and help. The matter was further complicated by the fact that in Sagunta itself there were riots between two mutually warring parties, one of which opted for an alliance with Carthage, and the other, on the contrary, for an alliance with Rome. Finally, after Saguntu’s insistence, the Republic decided to send envoys to Hannibal^{8<\/sup>. Hannibal, who had just returned from one of his military expeditions to the winter lair, found Roman envoys at the turn of 220\/219 BCE in New Carthage^{9<\/sup>. The Roman envoys urged him to stop trying to bring Saguntu under Carthaginian rule and to abide by the treaty concluded in 226 BCE by Hasdrubal the Fair not to cross the Iber River in his further conquests. Hannibal replied to the Roman envoys that he did not intend to stand idly by and watch the harm that the Saguntines were doing to his Iberian allies. After the meeting with the Roman envoys, Hannibal sent envoys to Carthage to ask what steps should be taken towards Saguntu, who – as he informed the authorities in Carthage – was harming Carthage’s allies in Spain. The answer that the authorities in Carthage gave to Hannibal is unknown. Most likely, however, Hannibal received instructions from the metropolis, according to which he was to act towards Saguntu as circumstances required at a given moment. Soon he besieged Sagunt. However, the city surrounded by powerful walls put up fierce resistance to the besieging Carthaginians, which was intensified by the besieged waiting for the arrival of Roman help. However, Roman relief did not come. In the spring of 218 BCE – after eight months of siege – Sagunt was captured. Most of the inhabitants were murdered. Shortly after these events, Rome declared war on Carthage^{10<\/sup>.<\/p>\n}}}}
<\/span>Carthage invades Italy, or briefly about the situation of the parties to the conflict in Italy in the years 218 to 211 BCE<\/span><\/h2>\n
Hannibal realized that the appearance of Roman armies in Africa and Spain was only a matter of time. Therefore, he decided to take the initiative and invade Rome himself on its own territory before it could prepare an invasion of the Carthaginian possessions. Due to the overwhelming advantage of the Romans at sea, Hannibal could not, however, cross to Italy in the fastest way possible at that time, i.e. by sea. The Carthaginian army therefore had to get from Spain to Italy by land, which was not so easy and obvious at that time^{11<\/sup>.<\/p>\n}
At the end of May 218 BCE, Hannibal, at the head of a large army, set out from New Carthage and marched towards Italy (see Fig. 1). Reaching Italy by land required crossing the Pyrenees, then the Rhone River, and finally the Alps. Crossing an entire army through mountains, especially ones like the Alps, was quite a feat in ancient times. However, precisely because it was so difficult and risky, Hannibal intended it to surprise the Romans and, thanks to the surprise effect, enable them to be defeated in their own territory before they could prepare an effective defense ^{12<\/sup>.<\/p>\n}
To understand why it was so important for Hannibal to defeat Rome on its territory, it must be explained that when the Second Punic War began, the Roman state was not ethnically and linguistically homogeneous. Only a few dozen years earlier – in 264 BCE – Rome completed the conquest of Italy, which was inhabited by many tribes (peoples) differing in language and ethnicity. The most important tribes that were conquered by the Romans include the Latins, who shared a common Latin language with the Romans, but also the ethnically and linguistically different Etruscans living in Etruria in the north-west of Italy, the Samnites living in Samnium in central Italy, the Lucanians and Bruttii in southern Italy, and Greeks living in the coastal colonies of southern Italy, such as Kyme, Locri, Tarentum, Heraclea, and which, before the Roman conquest, formed the area of the so-called Magna Graecia (Latin: Magna Graecia<\/em>). The Roman state in Italy was therefore a kind of federation, consisting of various Italian communities conquered by Rome, inhabiting the area of the Italian Peninsula, collectively known as Italics. The conquered Italics were bound by alliances with Rome, the terms of which depended on whether they were entered into voluntarily or whether they were forced into them as a result of losing the war. A common feature of the alliances concluded between Rome and the Italics was the necessity for the latter to pay tribute to Rome, as well as the obligation to provide Rome with military assistance and the prohibition of concluding other alliances apart from the alliance concluded with Rome. In this way, the Romans controlled the foreign policy of the conquered Italian tribes and made it difficult for them to communicate with each other, for example in order to disobey him. In return for fulfilling the obligations specified in the alliance, the Italic communities allied with Rome retained their full political and religious independence ^{13<\/sup>.<\/p>\n}
Transferring the war to the territory of Italy and defeating the Romans on their territory was therefore intended by Hannibal to be eye-witness evidence for the Italian communities they conquered about the weakness of the Roman hegemon and to make them disobey him, which would result in the collapse of the Italian federation. The collapse of the Italian federation would, in turn, deprive Rome of the financial and military resources necessary to wage the war and thus force it to enter into peace negotiations, which – as Hannibal assumed – would result in the end of the war on terms favorable to Carthage^{14<\/sup>.<\/p>\n}
Meanwhile, Rome, as Hannibal predicted, decided to attack the Carthaginian possessions in Spain. Around the same time, when Hannibal and his army set off for Italy, an army set off from Italy towards Spain under the command of Publius Cornelius Scipio (father of the later famous Scipio Africanus) assisted in command by his brother Gnaeus Cornelius Scipio (uncle of the same Scipio Africanus) . Both armies came into contact in Gaul near the mouth of the Rh\u00f4ne River into the Mediterranean Sea. Hannibal decided to avoid a clash with the Roman army heading towards him and escaped up the Rh\u00f4ne. The Carthaginian did not want to waste time and strength in a battle with the Romans in Gaul, but to attack and defeat them in Italy as soon as possible. Although Publius Cornelius Scipio did not manage to arrive in Spain before Hannibal set out for Italy, he did not pursue the Carthaginian leader heading up the Rh\u00f4ne. He gave command of the army to his brother Gnaeus Cornelius Scipio with the order to continue the march towards Spain in order to take action against the Carthaginian troops stationed in the area. He, however, returned with a small unit to Italy with the intention of organizing defense and blocking Hannibal’s path when he crossed the Alps and descended from the mountains in its northern part, called the Po Plain. It can therefore be concluded that the two armies passed each other, obviously as a result of conscious decisions made by their commanders^{15<\/sup>.<\/p>\n}
In November 218 BCE, Hannibal’s troops descended from the other side of the Alps to the Po Plain. After Hannibal’s initial lightning-fast and brilliant victories in Italy (the first loss in November 218 BCE on the Ticinus River, the Battle of the Trebia in December 218 BCE, the Battle of Lake Trasimene in 217 BCE and finally the greatest of Hannibal’s victories at Cannae in 216 BCE), Hannibal’s strategy started to bring success. The following year, after the Battle of Cannae, Capua, which was the most important city in the region called Campania and the second largest and most important city in Italy after Rome, declared its obedience to Rome. Capua’s conversion to Hannibal’s side was therefore a major success for the Carthaginian leader. In addition to Capua, several other Campanian cities also fell to Hannibal’s side, which allowed Carthage to gain influence in a large part of Campania, which was the most fertile region of Italy ^{16<\/sup> In the same 215 BCE, Hannibal also managed to capture several Greek cities on the southern coast of Italy . As a result of the siege, Petelia was occupied, and after the fall of the latter Constance also surrendered. Crotona was taken by storm. Another port city, Locra, itself went over to the side of the Carthaginian leader^{17<\/sup>. Hannibal’s successes in Italy prompted him to break the alliance with Rome and choose Syracuse, which was the largest Greek city and the port of Sicily, on the side of Carthage. The breaking of the alliance with Rome by Syracuse caused the war to spread to all of Sicily. In addition to the Greek cities, other Italic communities also crossed over to Carthage’s side, such as the most important Samnite tribes and the Lucan and Brutian tribes. By 214 BCE, most of the Roman allies in southern Italy from the regions of Campania, Apulia, Lucania and Bruttium turned against Rome and became allies of Hannibal. In 212 BCE, the Greek Tarentum, the main port city of southern Italy, joined Hannibal’s side, followed by other Greek cities of southern Italy, such as: Turie, Metapontus, Heraclea. This meant that in 212 BCE the entire coastline of the “sole” of the Italian Peninsula was controlled by a Carthaginian leader^{18<\/sup>. However, the transfer of Rome’s Italian allies to the side of Carthage turned out to be only a partial success for Hannibal. Carthage’s new allies had no sense of community with Carthage. They provided relatively few recruits to augment Hannibal’s forces, but required constant defense against Roman attempts to recapture their cities and restore Roman influence in their area. Rome, which still had large human resources, despite devastating defeats, fielded new legions, but, mindful of the severe defeats inflicted on it by Hannibal (especially the defeat suffered in the Battle of Cannae), despite its huge numerical advantage, it did not dare to give the Punians another major battle in the field. Instead, he adopted a strategy of a war of attrition. Therefore, as soon as Hannibal moved his army from one subjugated area of Italy to another, the Romans appeared in the area abandoned by his army, threatening the cities that supported Carthage and looking for an opportunity to defeat the smaller Carthaginian troops or their local allies left in these areas. Having much smaller forces than his opponent, Hannibal was unable to ensure the safety of all allied cities threatened at a given moment. Therefore, he moved with his army around southern Italy and lost strength in subsequent small clashes of the war of subjugation that the Romans waged against him. Not sufficiently supported by Italian allies, and without reinforcements from his native Carthage, the Carthaginian commander was unable to sufficiently compensate for the losses suffered in battles and numerous skirmishes to be able to undertake a new, large-scale offensive against Rome. In this way, he gradually lost the initiative that he had when entering Italy, which, despite the painful defeats he suffered, was slowly but systematically taken over by his opponent, Rome ^{19<\/sup>.<\/p>\n}}}}
In the summer of 212 BCE, after a siege lasting several months, the Romans captured Greek Syracuse in Sicily. The fall of this largest Sicilian city with a strategic location allowed the Romans to take control of the area of the southern coast of Sicily, thus preventing Carthage from using the island as an intermediate point in sending Hannibal reinforcements from Africa by sea. The next year – 211 BCE – the Romans managed to close the siege of Capua. Despite Hannibal’s attempts to come to the aid of the besieged city, Capua was captured. By losing Capua, Hannibal lost his most important Italian ally, whom he had promised to defend. After the Romans regained Capua, the Carthaginian leader no longer managed to shake the loyalty of any of his Roman allies. And although the war would last for many years, and Hannibal would repeatedly take its toll on the Romans, both of these events marked the end of Carthage’s successes in Italy^{20<\/sup>.<\/p>\n}
The impasse could only be reversed if the Carthaginian leader received significant military reinforcements. Only by increasing the forces with which Hannibal arrived in Italy in 218 BCE, which were systematically exhausted in the course of hostilities, could he have regained the initiative and taken large-scale military actions that would have persuaded Rome to conclude peace on terms favorable to Carthage. ^{21<\/sup>. Hannibal could receive reinforcements from two directions: by sea from Africa or by land from Spain. However, while until the fall of Syracuse, providing Hannibal with supplies directly from Carthage, although difficult due to the superiority of the Roman fleet over the Carthaginian fleet, was nevertheless possible^{22<\/sup>, after their capture it was possible to deliver supplies from Africa to Italy by road the sea was basically cut off. In the current situation, the Carthaginian possessions in Spain, where it would be easiest to recruit, equip and dispatch the reinforcements expected by Hannibal, became particularly important, especially since in the same year 211 BCE, events took place in this theater of war that allowed Hannibal to hope that help would come from this very place. direction.<\/p>\n}}
<\/span>Rome invades Spain, or briefly about the situation of the parties to the conflict in Spain in the years 218 to 211 BCE<\/span><\/h2>\n
Gnaeus Cornelius Scipio arrived with a fleet in Spain in the late summer of 218 BCE. The Roman troops disembarked at Emporia (Latin:Emporiae<\/em>, now Ampurias). Emporia was a Greek trading settlement located on the Spanish coast at the foot of the eastern end of the Pyrenees (see Figure 2). They were founded by nearby Massalia (now Marseille), which was a Greek polis<\/em> allied with Rome, located on the coast of southern Gaul^{23<\/sup>.<\/p>\n}
Hannibal entrusted his younger brother, Hasdrubal Barkas, with command of the entire Carthaginian forces left to defend Spain^{24<\/sup>.<\/p>\n}
Soon the first clash between the Romans and the Carthaginians took place. In the fall of 218 BCE, at the Battle of Cissa (Latin: Cissis<\/em>), Gnaeus Scipio managed to defeat a Carthaginian force of about 11,000. warriors led by a certain Hannon, Hannibal left this unit north of the Iber River to supervise the Iberian tribes, which had just been subjugated to Carthage during his march to Italy. The victory at Cissa, located near Tarrakona (Latin:Tarraco,<\/em>now Tarragona) or Tarrakona, which is the Iberian name, allowed the Romans to establish permanent control over the area of Spain between the Pyrenees and the Iber River. Occupied Tarrakona, however, became a Roman base against the Carthaginian dominium<\/em> in Spain^{25<\/sup>.<\/p>\n}
In the following 217 BCE, in a sea battle that took place at the mouth of the Iber River, the Roman fleet under the command of Gnaeus Scipio defeated the Carthaginian fleet under the command of Hasdrubal Barca. As a result of this victory, the Romans secured permanent dominance over the Carthaginian fleet in Spain until the end of the war. The victories of Gnaeus Scipio resulted in the senate’s decision to send his brother Publius Cornelius Scipio to Spain in the same year 217 BCE (the same one who returned to Italy from the Rhone a year earlier, intending to stop Hannibal after leaving the Alps). He brought reinforcements numbering 8,000. on foot and on horseback, and a huge amount of supplies. In 215 BCE, at the Battle of Ibera (also called the “Battle of Dertosa”), the Scipios won an important victory over Hasdrubal Barkas, who with a newly recruited army moved to meet them with the intention of defeating the Roman army operating in Spain and then joining his brother at the head of the gathered forces. in Italy. The Battle of Ibera, which was victorious for Rome, did not resolve the war in Spain, but nevertheless it effectively prevented Hannibal from providing reinforcements in a very sensitive period for Rome, resulting from the devastating defeat a year earlier at the Battle of Cannae. The Battle of Ibera is interesting for another reason, namely that Hasdrubal used tactics similar to those used by Hannibal at Cannae, which, however, in this case ended with a severe defeat of the Carthaginian army. The victory at Ibera, together with the diplomatic action skillfully conducted by the Scipio brothers, also had the effect of causing some Iberian tribes south of the Iber River to move to the Roman side^{26<\/sup>.<\/p>\n}
The defeats suffered by the Carthaginians also caused unrest and rebellions among the Iberian tribes living in the southern areas of Spain still controlled by Carthage. Having to suppress the rebellions of the Iberian tribes, the Carthaginians were pushed to the defensive, using the bulk of their forces to calm the situation in their rear. Thus, in the next few years after the victory at Ibera, the Romans were able to establish control over a strip of the Mediterranean coast extending far to the south of the Iber River. In 212 BCE, the Scipio brothers even regained Sagunt, whose capture by Hannibal 7 years earlier had caused the outbreak of war. The situation on the Iberian Peninsula became increasingly difficult for Carthage (see Figure 2). In this situation, it was still impossible for Hasdrubal to send his brother Hannibal the much-awaited reinforcements that would help him regain the initiative in Italy. Moreover, the successes of the Scipio brothers in Spain contributed to the fact that most of the reinforcements that Hannibal was to receive from Carthage had to be sent to Spain instead of Italy. By 211 BCE, Hasdrubal Barca’s forces in Spain were reinforced with two armies recruited in Africa. One of them was brought by Hannibal’s youngest brother – Magon – who, after Hannibal’s victory at Cannae, was sent by him from Italy to Carthage to inform the metropolis about the great victory and at the same time ask for reinforcements. The second army was brought by Hasdrubal, called Giscon (not to be confused with Hannibal’s brother, who was still in command in Spain). The reinforcements received by Hasdrubal Barcas caused the situation in Spain, unfavorable for Carthage, to unexpectedly reverse^{27<\/sup>.<\/p>\n}
In 211 BCE, both Roman generals felt confident enough to start a campaign much further south of the Iber River than they had previously operated, as far as the upper reaches of the Betis River (Latin: Beatis<\/em>, currently Guadalquivir). They decided to catch and defeat the Carthaginian armies in the field and thus victoriously end the war in Spain. After being reinforced with a contingent of 20,000 Iberian warriors provided by those Iberian tribes that had defected to the Roman side, they divided the forces they now had into two. Publius Scipio led two-thirds of the Roman army (i.e. the Romans and their Italian allies) against the armies of Mago and Hasdrubal Giscon. However, his brother Gnaeus Scipio, with one third of the Roman army supplemented by Iberian allies, headed towards the army of Hasdrubal Barkas. Thus, as it soon turned out, the Scipio brothers made a fatal mistake. They underestimated neither the still great influence of Hasdrubal Barkas on the Iberian tribes, nor the variability of the latter. As a result of secret negotiations and generous monetary donations, Hasdrubal Barkas regained the loyalty of the Iberian tribes who supported the Romans militarily. As a result, at the most important moment of the campaign, Iberian warriors in Roman service abandoned them, claiming that they had heard news of the Carthaginian invasion of their homeland, to which they must return. First, the army of Publius Scipio was defeated and moved against the armies of Mago and Hasdrubal Giscon. Already while marching towards the armies of Magon and Hasdrubal Giskon, the Roman forces were constantly harassed by the Numidian cavalry led by the Numidian prince Massinissa who came from Africa. Soon, news reached Publius Scipio that the Iberian leader Andobales (Indibilis), allied with Magon and Hasdrubal Giscon, leading 7.5 thousand troops, was heading towards him. Iberian warriors. Publius decided to break away from the Numidian cavalry harassing him at night and moved as quickly as possible towards the approaching Iberian unit, wanting to prevent it from joining the armies of Magon and Hasdrubal Giskon. However, the plan failed. The Roman commander caught the approaching Iberians, but after he engaged them in battle, the Numidian cavalry caught up and attacked him, and in addition, Magon and Hasdrubal Giskon managed to arrive with their armies. Surrounded on all sides, Publius Scipio died, along with most of the army he commanded. After being abandoned by his Iberian allies, Gnaeus Scipio, lonely and with too few forces, began to retreat. During the retreat, however, he was caught up by the Numidian cavalry, which harassed him so effectively that Hasdrubal Barkas came and, after the pogrom of Publius Scipio, was joined by the armies of Magon and Hasdrubal Giscon. Forced to fight a numerically superior enemy, Gnaeus managed to take up a defensive position on a rocky hill, where he tried to defend himself behind improvised fortifications hastily prepared from army luggage tied together. These fortifications, however, were of little use in the face of a much larger enemy who broke through them shortly after the battle began. Geneius Scipio was killed in battle and the forces he commanded were routed (see fig. 2)^{28<\/sup>.<\/p>\n}
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