Wednesday, November 7, 2012

Hannibal's Strategy-"The First major move"

The Roman force managed to induce Nola without being intercepted, whereupon Hannibal turned temporarily aside from Nola and attacked Nucera. Nucera had no consent of holding out; instead, the entire population evidently broken-down the town, which was left for Hannibal's troops to plunder.

Hannibal now returned to Nola, apparently in fancy that in spite of the Roman garrison now in place, internal political divisions in the city might keep open it over to him. Livy here tells a story that may specify the nature of the political and personal dynamics operating in cities across southern Italy. Marcellus, according to Livy, held on in Nola

non more by confidence in his force than by the good-will

of the leading citizens. He was apprehensive of the

common people, and above whatever of Lucius Bantius, who was impelled by the consciousness of an seek revolt and

by fear of the Roman praetor, now to betray his native

city, now, if luck should not favour him in that, to desert.

Bantius was closely certainly not himself a commoner. At least, he is described as "a young man of spirit and at that time almost the best-known horseman among the all in allies" --hence presumably an aristocrat, the equivalent at least of equestrian rank. He had been wounded while percentage with the Roman allied cavalry at Cannae, and had been well-treated and sent household by Hannibal. Hannibal's intent, as wi


The other(a) point to be made is that the similarities between Cannae and Hibera--apart from the latter's dismal outcome--point toward a common tactical doctrine that guided the intended have a bun in the oven of the two battles. Since we do not know the nature of communication theory between Hannibal and Hasdrubal, at this time or antecedently, we cannot say when or how this tactical doctrine originated. It may be that Hannibal himself had devised the plan and communicated it to his chum salmon at some point. Alternatively, it may well be that Cannae did not spring from the mind of Hannibal alone, but was the masterful execution of a long-established tactical doctrine within the Barcid armies.
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If the latter is the case, it takes away real little from Hannibal's genius as a general, because as give tongue to above the genius lay real much slight in the plan itself than in knowing how to make it work. If in fact the sort of double envelopment that worked at Cannae and was attempted at Hibera was a standard Barcid tactical doctrine, it was a precise high-risk one, since it could scarce be successfully executed by an exceptional general.

In the wake of the defeat at Hibera, the reinforcements that Carthage had before intended to send directly to Hannibal (and which should have been sent the previous year) were diverted to Spain. Another force, as noted above, was sent to Sardinia, only to be defeated by the Romans. Only after all this, it appears, did some kind of reinforcement reach Italy, one Bomilcar come at Locri "with the soldiers sent as reinforcements from Carthage and with elephants and supplies." These elephants might be those mentioned at the siege of Casilinum, though in that case Livy's chronology is confused. In any event, there is no indication that the reinforcement was a very substantial one.

number of men were slain there, and if the Spaniards had

as briefly as the Mauri and the Numidians saw the centre

The modern editor of Livy notes that Polybius denies thes
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