TreacheryWorse Than Punic - Livy & Hannibal

8/11/2019 TreacheryWorse Than Punic - Livy & Hannibal

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Treachery Worse Than Punic: LivysLandscape and Hannibals Invasion of Italy

Scot McpheeUniversity Of [email protected]

October 13, 2012

Livys history of the city operates at a discrete annalistic pace. As shown by

Luce, Miles, Jaeger and Kraus,1 his cyclic structures produce a polyrhythmic

set of discrete tempos starting from the annalistic year which begins with the

consuls election, ascension to office and assumption of military command. The

geographic pattern of the history also follows this same cyclic tempo. Each year

starts at Rome with the consuls inauguration to command, then proceeds into

the fields outside Rome where enemies are confronted and defeated, and finally

returns into the city to elect the next years consuls. The annual oscillation be-

tween centre and periphery reinforces the centrality of the city in Livys history.2

At a larger scale, as Romes power grows throughout the history, the geographic

cycle centering on Rome exhibits a pattern of ever-greater expansion, further and

further away from Rome, as Romes power increases.

While many of the authors previously mentioned concentrate their efforts on

using this pattern to explain the centrality of Rome in the history and to draw

the parallel between the object of the history and its text,3 my thesis examines the1Luce 1971, 1977; Miles 1986, 1988, 1995; Jaeger 1993, 1997; Kraus 19942Jaeger 1997: 453Kraus 1994: 268; Miles 1995; Edwards 1996: 67; Jaeger 1997: 78; see also Nicolet 1991 and

Feldherr 1998

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turning point in that cycle: the pivot in the fields (and nations) outside of Rome.

In order to fully understand the centrality of Rome, its relations to the periphery

must also be understood; without the edge there can be no centre.

Slide #2 - map of locations

To achieve this, in part, this paper examines the representation of landscape

in books 21 and 22 of Livys history. It shows how the representation of the

landscape acts neither as a simple receptacle for the display ofexempla, nor as

an inert backdrop around which the narrative unfolds, but rather in the same

way that Mary Jaeger found Livys city worked to reinforce actively his inter-

pretation of events.4 This paper will also show that Livys representation of the

landscape, is linked to the way that Hannibal is represented. In Livys literary rep-resentation, the Roman defeats at the start of the Second Punic War came about

not so much through the military genius of Hannibal, but by a correspondence

between the general, on one hand, and the landscape, on the other.

Slide #3 - quote Handout #1 - description of Hannibal

These great qualities of the man were equalled by his unnatural vices:

his inhuman barbarity, his treachery far worse than Punic, he had

nothing of truth, nothing of sanctity, he lacked in fear of the gods,had no lawful oaths, and no religious feeling. (21.4.9)

In Livys text, for the Romans, any absence of fear of the divine nearly always

resulted in utter devastation. So why was Hannibal, a man lacking all proper

feeling, successful in the early stages of the war when Romans of similar vices

were not? We discover that at 21.21, Hannibal makes vows to Hercules at Gades.

Slide #4 - dream Handout #2 and 3

Having established a divine connection, at 21.22.69 he is granted a dream-vision of a divine youth who tells Hannibal to follow him into Italy but not to

look about. When Hannibal of course looks about, he sees a monstrous serpent

4Jaeger 1993: 350

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destroying the landscape, specifically trees and bushes. On inquiring its meaning

he is told that this represented the wasteland of Italy, but his own fate would

have to be unknown.

Slide #5 - devastation

Thus allied to the divine, having become its agent, or at least aided by it, he

would be able, for a time at least, to inflict great damage on his Roman opponents.

I want to highlight that in the vision as Livy presented it to us. In the vision, the

monster wasdestroying the trees and bushes, that is, the landscape of Italy; not a

people (i.e. Romans, Italians), nor a political power (the Roman republic).

Slide #6 - monstrous Handout #4

While crossing the Alps Hannibals enemy was simultaneously nature and bar-

barian men more monstrous than human:

Yet from the approach, a vision of mountain heights and snows

near merged with sky, shapeless huts clinging to the rocks, flocks

and beasts of burden parched from the cold, unshaven and uncultured

men, all animate and inanimate things stiffened with frost, in other

respects more repugnant to see than to speak of renewed their ter-

ror. (21.32.7)

Here was a combination of fantastic nature, towering mountains, freezing cold,

sky and earth undifferentiated, and the unspeakably revolting monster-men that

inhabit such a world: animals, men and nature all integrated to paint a picture of

ghastly terror. Here, his enemy is the monstrous brutality of nature at its most

raw. By conquering nature, Livy painted Hannibal as entering into an alliance

with it, and he perhaps becomes more of a monster because it yields to his will.

Slide #7 - pictureThrough these struggles, Hannibal might be understood to battle and defeat

nature as much as the Romans. Alternatively it can be argued that the way he was

depicted by Livy made Hannibal out as a force of nature itself: when the two met

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in battle, a symbiotic relationship was forged which imbued him with a unique

identity. In order to become nature, to make it his ally in the war with Rome,

Hannibal must first overcome and subdue it, much like capturing an enemy cityand claiming its resources.

Slide #8 - J.M.W. Turner Snow Storm: Hannibal and his armycrossing the Alps, 1812. Tate Gallery, London

This identification with nature explains his capacity for cruelty and capricious-

ness, a characteristic found in nature itself, and perhaps arising from qualities that

could be read as similar to those found in the concepts offortunaandfatum. Han-

nibal is an agent offatum, and these supernatural elements are mediated through

the natural order.

The Alpine crossing was not the occasion on which Hannibal battled against

the Italian landscape. In a sort of minor repeat of the Alpine crossing, to reach

Lake Trasimene, Hannibal force-marched his army through an Arno swamp,

showing as little respect to it as he does to the Romans, as his men were swal-

lowed by the bottomless quagmire. Thus in Livys books 21 and 22, there is a

toposin which Hannibal suffers, battles and overcomes the natural world. In the

battles to come, especially at the battle of Lake Trasimene but also at the Trebia,

the landscape was also the means of Roman destruction. In Livys reckoning,Hannibal was as ruthless as nature itself, and having conquered it in the Alps and

the Arno swamp, his representation of the Romans battle is that it was as much

withnatureas with Hannibal. Thus Hannibal and landscape operate in tandem,

as the mechanism which fate shall use to destroy unworthy Romans and allow

other, more excellent and worthy Romans to shine forth.

Slide #9 - consul ferox Handout #7

Now, to turn our attention to the Romans. For the purposes of this paper

most of the attention will be on the battle of Lake Trasimene. In terms of theRoman commanders, C. Flaminius stands alone in book 22 as a shining beacon

of unrestrained tempestuousness that led straight to the black gates of doom at

Lake Trasimene. Livys narration worked relentlessly to show Flaminius as an

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impious and unworthy individual who was not fit to lead the Roman forces.

Recklessness being his watchword, Flaminius threw off the advice of his senior

officers, and plunged straight into action, having been easily provoked by Han-

nibal, and in the process resolutely ignored an entire series of omens that should

have prevented his marching from the camp.5 This includes the omen of the Earth

holding the standards firm in the place, unable to be pulled up until Flaminius or-

dered them dug out. The Romans not only rushed blindly into the trap, but their

commander seemed to have openly clamoured to do so. Hannibal, by contrast,

is presented as the natural master of the battlefield, at one with the terrain, read-

ing it easily and skilfully. Flaminius made no reconnaissance, and led his army

straight into the trap. Slide #10 - nebulous Handout #8

Its not just a simple trap set by Hannibal that Livy gives us as responsible for

the forcoming Roman destruction. At this critical moment there was a fog a

weather effect, that settled on the landscape: having arisen from the lake, a fog

had settled more densely on the field than the mountains orta ex lacu nebula

campo quam montibus densior sederat. This sealed the doom of Flaminius and his

army, but for Livy it does not seem to have hindered the Carthaginians, even after

they charged from the mountains to the field to engage the Romans.

Slide #11 - numbed Handout #6

Here nature has numbed the Romans minds, or more specifically, their percep-

tion. Earlier, at the battle of the Trebia, it numbed the Romans bodies.6 These

blunders were not just simple tactical mistakes by Roman commanders (although

of course that was probably the underlyingrealityof what happened), these inci-

dents were the very landscape of Italy devastating the Roman armies on behalf of

its conquerer, Hannibal.

522.3.713. Clearly Livy made Flaminius seem desperate to rush headlong to his doom. For

elaboration, see Levene 1993 : 41 The forms that they take make them manifestly the gods last

warning to Flaminius; they both are things that should physically prevent one marching, unless

one were perversely determined to do so.6Levene 2010: 26970

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Both experiences of the Romans in these two battles had clear parallels in the

representation that Livy gave to the prior experiences of Hannibals army crossing

the Alps. The Romans were earlier frozen with cold and hunger just as Hannibalsmen were in the snowy peaks of the Alps.

Slide #12 - clamour Handout #8 (2nd half) and 9 cf. 5

At Trasimene, trapped in the fog of sensory deprivation, the Romans perceived

the battle mostly through the irrational, terrifying sense of hearing, rather than

through the rational clarity of sight. Trapped in the fog, the Romans found them-

selves in a field of sound, surrounded at every side by an unseen, but not unheard

enemy. Their experience perhaps mirrored the experience of Hannibals army

with the discordant yells of the Alpine tribes.7

Slide #13 - earthquake Handout #10

Nature had conspired with Hannibal to deny the Romans the use of all their

fighting faculties: the mountains and the lake hemmed them in, and the fog pre-

vented them from perceiving the threat correctly and acting accordingly. The

fog was indeed, so sense-dulling, that even when the landscape itself shook in the

middle of the battle, from a devastating earthquake, no-one could perceive it.

. . . and such was the passion of their spirits, and so intent were they

on the battle, that an earthquake which overthrew large portions of

many towns of Italy, turned the course of rapid-flowing streams, car-

ried the sea into rivers, and pulled down mountains in mighty land-

slides, was not felt by any of the fighters. (22.5.8)

The earth was unable to make the insolent commander perceive his fate through

the production of omens like the holding fast of the standards. It then com-

pounded this arrogant display of wilful ignorance on the of Flaminius by shroud-ing the battlefield in mist and destroyed the Romans ability to clearly see their

situation. Finally then, once Hannibals trap was sprung, it violently shuddered

721.33.6clamoribus dissonis

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in shock, overturning Italy in the process, perhaps in fulfillment of the vision

granted to Hannibal in his dream.

Slide #14 - Death of Flaminius, Sylvestres, 1882

But the Romans are not, at this point of the battle, completely defeated. In the

midst of this battle of imperception, where the visibility was blanketed by the fog,

the hearing of orders was overwhelmed by noise, and even an earthquake isnt felt

by the combatants, the unseen and unheard Flaminius is suddenly, miraculously

visible.8 Up to this point Flaminius has been invisible and inaudible to most of

the soldiers.9 Now he is spotted by a Gaul, who recognises Flaminius, and then

kills him.10

It is only at this point once the the consul had been made visible and killed

that the rout of the Romans really began, and nature no longer obstructs the

Romans as they rush to their doom. The landscape itself is represented by Livy

as an extension of the enemy, the fog at first blotting out the Romans ability to

detect the Carthaginians, then once the impious commander was visibly sacrified

on the battlefield, finally the landscape actively worked to destroy the Romans,

swallowing them up in the lake and in small canyons:

Slide #15 nec lacus nec montes Handout #11

The greater part thence first began to flee; and now neither lake nor

mountains was obstructing the panic; gorges and precipices were all

alike in blind escape, and arms and men were being hurled down head-

long on top of each other. (22.6.4)

The supernatural elements of Livys account of the early part of Hannibals war

in Italy, make sense as a unified whole, rather than the collection of confusing

and contradictory parts as it is often considered. Once Hannibal was given adivine vision of the destruction of Italy, Livys literary depiction worked to

8Levene 2010: 2699Levene 2010: 269, 283

1022.6.14

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create identification between himself and nature as he defeated his main enemy

in the Alps, which is to say he subdued nature itself and caused it, in a literary

sense, to be allied to him. When he starts to fight the Romans in Italy they arethen defeated through the effects of the natural world. Cold, hunger, rain, wind,

and fog combined with rivers, mountains, valleys and lakes, in alliance with the

Carthaginian general, devastated a series of Roman armies and their commanders.

Slide #16 - not Flaminius, but a bronze of a Flavian generalstorso in the Getty Villa

After Trasimene, especially once the corrective religious action was taken at

Rome, the focus of Livys narrative returns to the political manoeuvering and the

effect this has on the Roman victory: the defeat at Cannae is represented throughthe lens of politics, not natural or divine influence. The supernatural element of

Livys narrative is greatly reduced after this point: the dictatorship of Fabius Max-

imus, apart from the early correction of Flaminius religious errors, is devoid of

supernatural elements. The landscape for Fabius is a mirror of the political strug-

gle over strategy between himself and Minucius Rufus. It is as if Flaminius was a

sacrifice to divinities of nature and once this occurred, and along with the earth-

quake which appeared to fulfil the divine promise to Hannibal of Italys destruc-

tion, then Livys narrative returns to its more familiar cycle of political conflict

and warfare.

Slide #17 - end

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TreacheryWorse Than Punic - Livy & Hannibal