Question 1
Titus Livius was a roman historian who wrote in a poetic and archaic way. Livy saw Hannibal as a great military leader wherein he tended to every need of his troops, he gives the troops some time to see their families and he brought them to victory but even the best lose and for Livy this is the fate that befalls great leaders. Livy saw Hannibal as someone who has unending desire for power, has respected leadership skills, and has an unsurpassed military style (Torin 2003). Polybius was known for his ideas particularly on political balance of a government. Polybius was considered as one of the first historians that tried to look and discuss history as a sequence of causes and effects that he based on examination of tradition and then he conducted it with anxious criticism. Polybius tried to narrate his History upon what he had seen; he tried to use statements of various eye-witnesses and the participants in the historical events. Polybius stated that people thought of Hannibal as a person who was extraordinarily cruel. Polybius also mentioned that Hannibal was known as someone who likes to grasp money. Polybius did not agree with such comments, for Polybius Hannibal’s actions are due to the situation in the environment and the circumstances he faces at that time. Polybius viewed Hannibal’s military leadership as somewhat more dependent on other people’s ideas and strategies (Shuckburgh 1889). Polybius and Livy were reliable are their accounts because both of them had first hand information of those events. The outbreak of the second Punic war was described to the extent that the main events were based on Hannibal’s rise to power and Hannibal’s loss to the Romans.
Question 2
Hannibal inherit a hatred of Rome from his father Hamlicar, it started from Hannibal’s desire for his father to let him join the campaign to Spain. Hamlicar responded by making Hannibal solemnly swear eternal hatred of Rome. According to Livy, Hannibal was the one that came to his father and begged to go with him to his conquest; Hamilcar agreed and demanded him to swear that as long as he lived he would never be a friend of Rome. Other people claimed that it was Hannibal who said to his father that he will use fire and steel to gain the destiny of Rome. These instances lead Hannibal to have the drive to oppose Rome and its powerful empire.
Question 3
In less than two years Hannibal had met the best of the Roman legions and inflicted 50,000 Roman casualties, a number equal to 10 legions. With the victory at Trasimene the road to Rome lay open. If he wished, Hannibal could strike at Rome itself, something no invader had been able to do since Brennus two centuries earlier. Romans, Livy observed, become truly dangerous when threatened. And so it was that Rome reacted to Hannibal’s victory by authorizing a new army of eight legions, the largest army Rome had ever put in the field (Gabriel 2001). The victories of Hannibal were described and accounted for on the works of Livy, Polybius and other Historians. Various writers and authors provided accounts of how Hannibal won some battles. The events in Hannibal’s time were an important part of history because it showed one of the earliest examples of how a won war can be lost due to improper use of strategies.
Question 4
Hannibal's war aim seems to have been to weaken Rome and destroy her empire rather than to take the city. His army consisted largely of foreign mercenaries. He set out from New Carthage in May 218 with 90,000 infantry, 12,000 cavalry and some elephants, forced his way through northern Spain to the Pyrenees, where he awaited the expected arrival of a Roman force under P. Cornelius SCIPIO, and then advanced through Gaul, where he evaded Scipio, to the Alps, which he crossed during autumn in foul weather, losing many men and most of his elephants. In 203, after Scipio had invaded Africa and inflicted a defeat upon the Carthaginian and Numidian forces on the river Bagradas, Hannibal was recalled to Africa to defend his city (Hazel 2001). His return interrupted a treaty whose terms had already been agreed by both Carthage and Rome for Spain to be ceded, the Punic navy to be reduced to twenty ships, and an indemnity of 5,000 talents to be paid to Rome. He brought back a trained and toughened army which gave the Carthaginian hope of further resistance to Rome, and the negotiations were annulled. After landing at Lepcis, Hannibal met Scipio in summer 202 near Zama Regia, south of Carthage: here he was shown that Scipio had learnt all that Hannibal could teach him. The Numidian cavalry was now on the Roman side and Hannibal's army was rolled up as he had rolled the Romans up at Cannae. After frightful carnage, Hannibal surrendered and accepted worse terms than had been offered in 203 (Hazel 2001). The victory of the Romans can be attributed to the wrong decisions and the mismanagement of strategies used by Hannibal.
Question 5
Livy saw Hannibal as someone who has unending desire for power, has respected leadership skills, and has an unsurpassed military style. Polybius stated that people thought of Hannibal as a person who was extraordinarily cruel. Polybius did not agree with such comments, for Polybius Hannibal’s actions are due to the situation in the environment and the circumstances he faces at that time.
Question 6
Livy and Polybius did put Roman actions in the best possible light. Livy made sure that he wrote from the point of view of Rome’s opponents in order to give emphasis to the Romans' virtues in their conquest of Italy and the Mediterranean. Livy will always be identified with direct relation to the Roman Republic and a desire for its restoration. Polybius was a partisan and because of his loyalty to Scipio he lambasted Rome’s opponents.
Question 7
The Romans were successful with Hannibal because they had more resources, they were firepower at sea, they were persistent in gaining their goals, they had skilled generals and the Roman government made use of the right strategy and leadership styles. The Romans use their sea power, their persistence and perseverance to win wars, their harnessed generals and proper use of strategy to make the best move before the opponent could react. Opponents of Rome would win the first battles but after Rome starts to make the right movements, opponents can do nothing but accept their fate.
References
Gabriel, RA 2001, Great captains of antiquity, Greenwood
Press, Westport, CT.
Hazel, J 2001, Who's Who in the Roman world, Routledge,
London.
Torin, J 2003, Livy - the war with Hannibal, viewed 29
July, 2008, http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/ssc/labs/wilkinso/
authors/03S/191.php.
Shuckburgh, ES 1889, Polybius, The histories of Polybius,
Macmillan, London.
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