Great Names in History

This is the tower of the Castle of Oreja.

It can’t have long. Already in the eighteenth century a traveller wrote in his journal: “… any day now it will collapse.” The cracks in the walls are big enough to put your arm in. And after a good rain whole shoulders of the great gypsum cliffs come crashing down. One that fell some years ago shaved away the very ground in front of the tower, so that just left of the main door—watch your step as you look inside the tower!—there is a drop of two hundred feet.

Oreja is nothing special. There are more than a thousand ruined castles and fortresses in Spain. Many like Oreja are now out in the middle of nowhere because the roads they guarded are no longer used.
Oreja watches over a ford of the Tagus River. She has been guarding the ford for well over 2000 years. The Romans called her Aurelia. There must have been at least a watchtower on the cliffs in ancient times.

The present tower that is ready to fall is all that is left of a huge complex of defense works built by both Moors and Christians. There were fierce battles here and at the foot of the cliff, in the river valley. The Moors took the castle away from the Christians in 1113; and the Christians didn’t get it back until 1139. King Alfonso VII sieged Oreja with a huge army but still it took him more than nine months to force the Moorish defenders to surrender the castle. Afterwards he handed it over to the Knights of Santiago (St. James) to defend for him.

That’s one of the famous battles Oreja saw, and that one is fact. But there is another one that would make Oreja more famous if anyone could be sure it happened here. Both Livy and Polybius mention it. Somewhere on the Tagus about where Oreja is Hannibal defeated a big army of native Iberians—Olcades and Carpetani—before he started off with his troops and his elephants for Rome. He made the enemy army cross the river to come after him and then cut them down with his cavalry while they were swimming. “It was certainly here at the foot of the castle,” said a nineteenth century writer. “For years farmers have been finding in the fields and on the banks of the river old battle detritus, spearheads, clay sling pellets, even a Carthaginian helmet and an old sword.”

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1. Take the initiative, keep the initiative. This gave Hannibal a tremendous advantage. His enemy had constantly to try to guess his intention and defend himself against several alternative attacks. The enemy Roman consul was forever on the defensive, waiting, wondering, guessing, bracing himself for the blow.
When the consul Longus, bent on making Hannibal stand and fight him, lined up his army for the battle, Hannibal ordered his men to go back to camp. He refused to fight. At that time he was not prepared for a general battle, says Polybius, “and made it a principle never to be drawn into a decisive engagement unless by deliberate choice, and certainly not on a casual impulse.”

2. Be quick. Surprise. Hannibal decamped by night from Capua and got to Rome before the Romans in Capua ever realized he was gone. He crossed Etruria through a swamp because that was the way everyone assumed he wouldn’t go.

3. Be crafty, lay a trap. Hannibal’s plans were always ways of fooling his enemy, misleading him, enticing him into combat, surprising him with hidden forces, seeming to be somewhere else. Everyone remembered the way he got out of the difficult pass in Campania, with Fabius’s army all around him. Along a path that paralleled the only road out, which was heavily guarded by Roman troops, he stampeded a herd of cattle at night with lighted torches on their horns. The guards, thinking the cattle were Hannibal’s soldiers, rushed to confront them, abandoning their positions on the mountain. While they were dealing with the bulls, Hannibal quickly sent his amy through the pass. That was his most ingenious trick. But all his tactics were ploys and ruses and feints, even when not outright traps.

4. Be flexible. Have a plan but be able to alter it or even drop it as circumstances change. Bad generals believe they will one day meet the enemy squarely on the field and have a nice pitched battle. Those generals toy in their minds with troop dispositions—where to put their cavalry, where to stand their light-armed soldiers, how deep to build their phalanx, and so on. “That will be the decisive day,” they tell themselves, and hope for good luck.
For Hannibal every day was that decisive day. The great battle was now, it was always going on. He didn’t merely march until he came to a perfect situation for battle. He created the situation or took advantage of one. He was stubborn only about his objective, not about his means.
He was at every moment aware of his advantages and disadvantages. And of the enemy’s.

5. Fight for tomorrow as well as today. Think two steps ahead, not just one.

6. Understand your enemy; learn his weaknesses. Hannibal always sent out spies to learn the enemy’s plans. He interviewed prisoners and guides to get information. As soon as new Roman consuls were given command, he sent informers to find out who they were. Was the new general a hothead? Had he ever led troops in battle? What was the result? Was he cocky or impatient, did he like to tip the bottle?

After Hannibal had beaten his first consuls, along came another one called Flaminius with his army. Hannibal learned from his informers that this Flaminius was “on fire with ambition” and that he believed in his own good luck. “Here’s a man after my own heart,” thought Hannibal and arranged a trap for Flaminius’s army. He knew the man would attack with his whole force at the first opportunity, good or not, so Hannibal lured him along a narrow road between a mountain (where his own army lay hidden) and a lake. Flaminius was fool enough to believe that HE had the advantage and sent his whole army into Hannibal’s trap, where it was annihilated.

7. Be daring. Come down with your army across the Alps with elephants and attack Rome on Roman ground, far from your own country and without logistic support except what you can steal.

8. Keep your mouth shut. Hannibal never told anyone what he was doing.

9. Be all of the above except when you are faced with an enemy who is all of the above. In that case, be like Fabius, the Roman general. Cautious, prudent, unrisking, defensive, back-holding. No war manual ever told anyone to be like Fabius. But under the circumstances his was the winning strategy.

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Hamilcar Barca, Hannibal’s father, went to check in with the priests at the temple just before setting out for Spain. His army was waiting for him in their ships at the port of Carthage.

The priests told him the omens were good, so he went ahead and performed the usual ceremonies, which included the sacrifice of a sheep.  His nine-year-old son Hannibal stood with him at the altar and watched his dad make the sacrifice and go through the prayers.

When they were finished, Hamilcar asked the priests and other men present to stand back a little from the altar while he spoke to his son.  “Would you like to come along with me to Spain?” he asked the boy. He had been given the mission of subjugating Iberia in preparation for the coming war with Rome.
“Oh yes!”  Hannibal had been told that he would have to wait to go until he was older.  “Please let me go!” he begged. “Please, father!”
“All right,” said Hamilcar.  “I’ll show you how to fight.  And do you know why?  So you will always beat a Roman.”

And then he made the little boy swear.
He led him to the altar and lifted him up to the dead sheep that he had just sacrificed; and he made Hannibal put his little hand on the still-warm body and swear that he would never, ever, become a friend to the Romans.

So deep and so strong was the resentment Hannibal’s father felt after that first lost war with Rome.

A legend?  The story came from Hannibal himself.  That is and isn’t reason to believe it, since he was a most wily old fox and was known to mislead all his life. But that he hated Rome no one ever doubted and so it might as well be true.

He told it years later to a Greek king.  Hannibal had lost his last battle with the Romans and was on the run. In Greece King Antiochus took him in, which was a bit of humanity the Romans didn’t appreciate, of course.  Rome was tired of the way Greece had always intrigued against them. Now Rome spread the rumor that Hannibal had become their secret ally.  This made the king doubt and he asked Hannibal outright if it was true.  That’s when he told the swearing story and added: “Now that you know this, which I’ve never told to anyone, be sure that as long as you are hostile to Rome, you can count on me as your most trustworthy supporter.  But if ever you turn around and become an ally of Rome’s, then watch out for me—you won’t need to call and ask me how I lean.  There is nothing in this world—nothing—that I won’t do to harm Rome.”

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Erika wrote:

Pretty impressive, a great general [Hannibal] was. What puzzles me most is why these extraordinary gentlemen hesitated to take Rome when it was within their reach. Attila had a chance to do it, but stopped short. Was it the name, the fame of Rome? Or what was it?

Hannibal was near Rome twice with his armies and both times decided against going ahead with an attack. Why?

The first time he gave up the idea because taking Rome would have meant a siege and his strength, his safety, was in movement. He couldn’t afford to let himself get stuck anywhere. He had no siege machines and no supply line back to Carthage. His larger strategic plan for Italy was to turn Rome’s allies against her one by one and to form a coalition. So, though he was near Rome and had no Roman army in front of him, he turned and marched away.

The second time, seizing Rome had not been part of his plan and one of his rules was to avoid being forced into doing anything that he was unprepared for. The plan was wonderful enough. He had been stuck sieging the siegers around Capua. What?

When the city of Capua had declared itself an enemy of Rome and friend of Hannibal, the Roman senate sent an army to punish it. Hannibal came to their aid with HIS army and surrounded the besieging Roman force. For a long time both armies stayed camped around the starving city and their squirmishes produced no result. Hannibal realized he would have to do something fast because the city couldn’t hold out much longer and the senate was preparing another army to fight him. So he came up with one of his tricks.

One night, leaving his campfires burning to fool the enemy, he marched his army secretly to Rome, which he thought was not well-defended. He knew that when it became known that his army was just outside the capital, the Roman forces everywhere, including the one at Capua, would drop what they were doing and hurry to defend it. The ruse worked.

But if Rome was so weak, why didn’t Hannibal quickly take it?

As it happened, there WAS a force in Rome. The latest group of conscripts had been told to report to the city for service on that day. Seeing them, Hannibal decided taking Rome would be too risky, and went back to Capua, following his original plan.

My sources are Livy and Polybius.

As you see, erika, there was nothing spooky—the city of Rome had no mysterious power to intimidate—at least over clear-headed leaders like Hannibal and Caesar. I don’t know much about Attila’s reasons. I always heard it was Pope Leo who made him change his mind about taking the city.
Remember there were 650 years between Hannibal’s Rome and Attila’s. In 200BC the town could not have been imposing.

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Everyone knows that Hannibal led an army with elephants over the Alps to attack Rome. That was one of the boldest and most colorful deeds in military (or any other) history.

(Click twice on thumbnail to enlarge)

But more astounding and a much greater achievement was what Hannibal did AFTER that.

Though he was never able to seize Rome itself, he led his small army of mercenaries around Italy for nearly twelve years, living off the land, with no real base of operations or help from Carthage; and he beat every Roman army ever sent against him, sometimes two at a time. He was without doubt one of the most astute men who ever lived. The best Roman general Fabius decided that the only way to deal with him was to stay out of his reach.

Hannibal’s most famous trick was the one he used in Campania to get his army out of a trap. His army was in a valley locked in by mountains and Fabius’s army was all around him. There was only one way out: a pass through the mountains; and it was heavily guarded by Roman troops. What did Hannibal figure out? Along a path that ran parallel to the mountain road he stampeded a herd of cattle at night with flaming torches on their horns. The guards, thinking the cattle were Hannibal’s soldiers, rushed to confront them, abandoning their positions on the mountain. While they were dealing with the animals, Hannibal quickly sent his army through the pass and got free.

If that had been old America and Davy Crockett, he might have told everyone the cattle ruse was an old Indian trick he’d learned from them when he was a boy.
Hannibal learned it in Spain. At least he saw bulls with candles on their horns running through the streets during certain Celtiberian festivals. But thinking of how to use them when they could help his army out of a jam–that was his genius.

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