A Fabian policy is a policy of delays and cautions. It is so called after the style of policy used by Fabiu Maximus, who, by carefully avoiding decisive contests, foiled Hannibal, harassing his army by marches, counter- marches, and Ambuscades. Research Fabian Policy
Alfred Rethel was a German painter. He was born in 1816 at Diepenbend and died in 1859. He studied at Dusseldorf under Schadow, and became famous by his fresco, 'Scenes from the Life of Charlemagne' for Aix-la-Chapelle painted in 1844, and the water colour 'Hannibal crossing the Alps'. Research Alfred Rethel
The Boii were a Celtic people whose original seat is supposed to have been between the Upper Saone and the higher parts of the Seine and Marne. They migrated to Cisalpine Gaul, crossed the Po, and established themselves between it and the Apennines, in the country previously occupied by the Umbrians. After a more or less constant strife with the inhabitants of Southern Italy they attacked the Romans in support of Hannibal in 218 BC, and though defeated, maintained the war until their subjugation by Scipio Nasica in 191 BC. The remnant of the tribe sought refuge among the Tauriscans in the territory since called after them Bohemia, from which there was a later migration, about 58 BC, to Bavaria, to which also they gave their name. Research Boii
The Brutti were an ancient people of southern Italy, occupying the interior of Bruttium. They helped Hannibal during the second Punic war and after its conclusion their territory was confiscated and they were declared as public slaves. Research Brutti
Caius Flaminius was a Roman general. He was tribune in 232 BC, praetor in 227, consul in 223, censor in 220, and again consul in 217. He had a triumph for defeating the Insubrian Gauls; and during his second consulship he constructed the Flaminian Way and built a circus. In 217 he was sent against Hannibal into Etruria, and was defeated and killed in the battle of Lake Thrasymenus . Research Caius Flaminius
The Carthaginians were a powerful Phoenician people based in the city of Carthage. Carthage was the most famous city of Africa in antiquity, capital of a rich and powerful commercial republic, situated in the territory now belonging to Libya. Carthage was the latest of the Phoenician colonies in this district, and is supposed to have been founded by settlers from Tyre and from the neighbouring Utica about the middle of the 9th century BC. The story of Dido and the foundation of Carthage is mere legend or invention.
The history of Carthage falls naturally into three epochs. The first, from the foundation to 410 BC, comprises the rise and culmination of Carthaginian power; the second, from 410 to 265 BC, is the period of the wars with the Sicilian Greeks; the third, from 265 to 146 BC, the period of the wars with Rome, ending with the fall of Carthage.
The rise of Carthage may be attributed to the superiority of her site for commercial purposes, and the enterprise of her inhabitants, which soon acquired for her an ascendency over the earlier Tyrian colonies in the district, Utica, Tunis, Hippo, Septis, and Hadrumetum, Her relations with the native populations, Libyans and nomads, were those of a superior with inferior races. Some of them were directly subject to Carthage, others contributed large sums as tribute, and Libyans formed the main body of infantry as nomads of cavalry in the Carthaginian army. Besides these there were native Carthaginian colonies, small centres and supports for her great commercial system, sprinkled along the whole northern coast of Africa, from Cyrenaica on the east to the Straits of Gibraltar on the west.
In extending her commerce Carthage was naturally led to the conquest of the various islands which from their position might serve as entrepots for traffic with the northern shores of the Mediterranean. Sardinia was the first conquest of the Carthaginians, and its capital, Caralis, now Cagliari, was founded by them. Soon after they occupied Corsica, the Balearic, and many smaller islands in the Mediterranean. When the Persians under Xerxes invaded Greece the Carthaginians, who had already several settlements in the west of Sicily, co-operated by organizing a great expedition of 300,000 men against the Greek cities in Sicily. But the defeat of the Carthaginians at Himera by the Greeks under Gelon of Syracuse effectually checked their further progress (480 BC).
The war with the Greeks in Sicily was not renewed until 410. Hannibal, the son of Gisco, invaded Sicily, reduced first Selinus and Himera, and then Agrigentum. Syracuse itself was only saved a little later by a pestilence which enfeebled the army of Himiico (396). The struggle between the Greeks and the Carthaginians continued at intervals with varying success, its most remarkable events being the military successes of the Corinthian Timoleon (345-340) at Syracuse, and the invasion of the Carthaginian territory in Africa by Agathocles in 310 BC. After the death of Agathocles the Greeks called in Pyrrhus, king of Epirus, to their aid, but notwithstanding numerous defeats (277-275 BC), the Carthaginians seemed, after the departure of Pyrrhus, to have the conquest of all Sicily at length within their power. The intervention of the Romans was now invoked, and with their invasion in 264 BC, the third period of Carthaginian history begins.
The first Punic war in which Rome and Carthage contended for the dominion of Sicily, was prolonged for twenty-three years, from 264 to 241 BC, and ended, through the exhaustion of the resources of Carthage, in her expulsion from the island. The loss of Sicily led to the acquisition of Spain for Carthage, which was almost solely the work of Hamilcar and Hasdrubal. The second Punic war, arising out of incidents connected with the Carthaginian conquests in Spain, and conducted on the side of the Carthaginians by the genius of Hannibal, and distinguished by his great march on Rome and the victories of Lake Trasimene, Trebia, and Cannae, lasted seventeen years, from 218 to 201 BC, and after just missing the overthrow of Rome, ended in the complete humiliation of Carthage. The policy of Rome in encouraging the African enemies of Carthage occasioned the third Punic war, in which Rome was the aggressor. This war, begun in 150 BC, and ended in 146 BC, resulted in the total destruction of Carthage.
The constitution of Carthage, like her history, remains in many points obscure. The name of king occurs in the Greek accounts of it, but the monarchical constitution, as commonly understood, never appears to have existed in Carthage. The officers called kings by the Greeks were two in number, the heads of an oligarchical republic, and were otherwise called Suffetes, the original name being considered identical with the Hebrew Shofetim, judges. These officers were chosen from the principal families, and were elected annually. There was a senate of 300, and a smaller body of thirty chosen from the senate, sometimes another smaller council of ten. In its later ages the state was divided by bitter factions, and liable to violent popular tumults. After the destruction of Carthage her territory became the Roman province of Africa.
Twenty-four years after her fall an unsuccessful attempt was made to rebuild Carthage by Caius Gracchus. This was finally accomplished by Augustus, and Roman Carthage became one of the most important cities of the empire. It was taken and destroyed by the Arabs in 638. The religion of the Carthaginians was that of their Phoenician ancestors. They worshipped Moloch or Baal, to whom they supposedly offered human sacrifices; Melkart, the patron deity of Tyre; Astarte, the Phoenician Venus, and other deities, which were mostly propitiated by allegedly cruel or lascivious rites, though these accounts are most likely exagerated propaganda by enemies of the Carthaginians. Research Carthaginians
Hannibal or Annibal was a Carthaginian leader. He was born in 247 BC and died in 183 BC after taking poison to avoid capture by the Romans. He was the son of Hamilcar Barca, also a general and leader of the popular party amongst the Carthaginians. He was just nine years old when his father made him swear at the altar eternal hatred to the Romans. He grew up in hia father's camp in Spain, but returned to Carthage when his father fell in battle, in 229 BC.
At the age of twenty-two he returned to the army in Spain, then commanded by his brother-in-law Hasdrubal, and three years after, on the murder of Hasdrubal, received the chief command by acclamation. Hannibal now prepared to carry out his great designs against Rome.
His siege and capture of Saguntum, a city in alliance with Rome, led to a declaration of war from the Romans, who made preparations to carry on the war in Spain. But Hannibal, judging that Rome could be overthrown only in Italy, undertook his great march on Rome across the Pyrenees, the Rhone, and the Alps. He set out with 90,000 foot-soldiers, 40 elephants, and 12,000 horsemen. When he readied the northern foot of the Alps he still had 50,000 foot-soldiers, 9000 horse, and 37 elephants. When he arrived at the southern foot, after 15 days of incredible toils, his force had diminished to 20,000 foot-soldiers and 6000 horse. The point at which he crossed is generally believed to have been the Little St Bernard.
On the banks of the Ticino he first encountered a Roman army under Publius Scipio, and defeated it mainly by the superiority of his Numidian cavalry, 218 BC. Shortly after another Roman army, under Sempronius, was totally routed on the Trebia. After wintering in Cisalpine Gaul, Hannibal opened next year's campaign in 217 by defeating the Roman general Flaminius, whom he enticed into an ambush at Lake Thrasymenus. In this battle half the Roman army died, and the rest were taken prisoner.
Hannibal now marched into Apulia, spreading terror wherever he approached. Rome, in consternation, proclaimed Fabius Maximus dictator, who sagaciously resolved to hazard no more open battles, but exhaust the strength of the Carthaginians by delay. But for some time the wisdom of this policy was not understood by his countrymen, who, dissatisfied with his inactivity, appointed Minutius Felix his colleague. The result was that the latter was drawn into a battle by Hannibal, and would have died but for the aid of Fabius. After this the Roman generals avoided engagements, and Hannibal at this critical period saw his army wasting away in inactivity.
Next year, 216, however, the rashness of the new consul Terentius Varro gave Hannibal the last of his great victories. The battle was fought at Cannae, the Romans under Aemilius Paulus and Terentius Varro numbering more than 80,000 men, the Carthaginians about 50,000, and ended in a total defeat of the Romans, 40,000 or 50,000 of whom were killed and the rest scattered. Instead of marching on Rome, Hannibal now sought quarters in Capua, where luxurious living undermined the discipline and health of his troops.
The campaigns of 215, 214, and 213 were comparatively unimportant. While Hannibal was seizingTarentum in 212, Capua was invested by two Roman armies. To relieve Capua Hannibal marched on Rome, and actually appeared before its gates in 211, but the diversion remained fruitless, and Capua fell. In 207 a reinforcement tardily sent by the Carthaginians to Hannibal, under command of his brother Hasdrubal, was intercepted by the Romans and destroyed at the Metaurus. Hannibal now retired to Bruttium (the toe of Italy), where he still maintained the contest against overwhelming odds, until, in 203, he was recalled to defend his country, invaded by Scipio.
In Africa he was defeated by the Romans at Zama in 202 BC and the second Punic war ended, after a bloody contest of eighteen years, in Carthage having to accept the most humiliating conditions of peace. Hannibal now devoted himself as civil magistrate to restoring the resources of Carthage, and was working at reforms of administration and finance when the jealous Romans sent ambassadors to demand his surrender. He fled to the court of Antiochus of Syria, and offered his services for the war then commencing against the Romans. They were accepted, but Hannibal's advice for the conduct of the war was not followed, and he himself as commander of the Syrian fleet failed in an expedition against the Rhodians. In 190 BC Antiochus was forced to conclude a disgraceful peace with the Romans, one of the terms of which was that Hannibal should be delivered up. Hannibal, again obliged to flee, took refuge with Prusias, king of Bithynia, and is said to have gained several victories for Prusias against Eumenes, king of Pergamus, an ally of the Romans. But the Roman senate once more sent to demand the surrender of their inveterate enemy, and Hannibal, finding that Prusias could not protect him, took poison rather than fall into the hands of the Romans. Research Hannibal
Hannibal Hamlin was an American politician. He was born in 1809 and died in 1893. He was admitted to the bar in 1833. He was a member of the Maine Legislature from 1836 to 1840 and in 1847, being chosen Speaker in 1837, 1839 and 1840. He was a Democratic Representative in Congress from 1842 to 1846, was elected a US Senator in 1848 and served until 1857. He changed his party affiliation on account of anti-slavery sentiments, and was chosen Governor by the Republicans in 1857. He resigned and served in the US Senate from 1857 to 1861, when he was elected Vice-President of the United States on the ticket with Abraham Lincoln, and was a member of the Senate from 1869 to 1881, when he was appointed Minister to Spain and served one year. Research Hannibal Hamlin
Hasdrubal (more correctly Asdrubal, 'Baal is his help'), was the name of several Carthaginian leaders, particularly the brother of Hannibal, the hero of the Second Punic War. On the departure of Hannibal for Italy, in 218 BC, he was left in command of the army in Spain, in which capacity he carried on a long series of military operations against the Roman troops, which were commanded by Cnaeus and Publius Scipio. His brother Hannibal requiring his assistance in Italy, Hasdrubal led an army from Spain into that country in 207 BC, but before he could join forces with his brother he was defeated on the right bank of the Metaurus by Nero and Livius. Nero is said to have thrown Hasdrubal's head into Hannibal's camp, by way of announcing the defeat and death of his brother. Research Hasdrubal
The Probert Encyclopaedia was designed, edited and programed by
Matt and Leela Probert
Abbreviations
Research Fabian Policy
