Français – عربي – ⵜⴰⵎⴰⵣⵉⵖⵜ – English
Translation: Ibrahim Karmoum
The Carthaginian General Hannibal Barca, who invaded Italy during the Second Punic War, is considered as one of the most brilliant military strategists in history. Throughout his life, he had a supreme ambition: to destroy Rome. He did not give up on that ambition, even after his defeat.
Hannibal, the suffete
At the end of the Second Punic War, Hannibal was 46 years old. While his defeat significantly damaged his popularity at Carthage, he rebounded, arguing that the defeat was due to the Senate’s lack of support for his campaign.
Shortly after the end of the war, Hannibal was elected suffete, the supreme civil office of the Carthaginian Republic. A military man rarely held this position, but Hannibal proved to be as skillful as a statesman than as a general.
The peace treaty required Carthage to pay 10,000 talents over 50 years. Hannibal began by ordering an audit of the finances of all the institutions, which confirmed that the Carthaginian state had the necessary resources to pay this compensation without increasing taxes. Hannibal then initiated a series of reforms aimed at reorganizing the state’s finances, in order to fight corruption and recover funds diverted by the Carthaginian elite.
While these changes were very popular with the people, Hannibal also made many enemies among the oligarchs whose interests were thus threatened. The main beneficiaries of the misappropriation of funds were the members of the Council of the One Hundred, the Carthaginian Supreme Court. To reduce the council’s influence, Hannibal passed a law to elect its members, who previously exercised their power for life, for a one-year term, with a ban on running for a second term.
Exile
After a few years, worried about the renewed prosperity of Carthage and alarmed mainly by the contacts between Hannibal and the Seleucid Emperor Antiochus III, the Romans sent a delegation to Carthage, in order to accuse Hannibal of collusion with an enemy of Rome. Hannibal, aware that he had many enemies, especially among the victims of his financial reforms, decided to go into voluntary exile. He left Carthage in 195, seven years after the end of the war.
He first traveled to Tyre, the mother city of Carthage, then to Antioch, the capital of the Seleucid Empire, and finally to Ephesus, in Asia Minor. Antiochus III consulted him for his own plans of war against Rome.
Even in exile, Hannibal never renounced his hatred towards Rome and his desire to defeat the Romans. In the summer of 193, he planned a coup against the pro-Roman elite at Carthage, with the tacit support of Antiochus III. This project was never executed. Hannibal also advised Antiochus III to equip a fleet to invade southern Italy, offering to command the troops himself.
In 190, after Hannibal spent five years at his court, Antiochus III offered him his first military command. He commissioned him to build a fleet in Cilicia, which would then reinforce the Seleucid fleet at Ephesus. However, his fleet was defeated by the fleet of Rhodes, an ally of Rome.
Worried about being handed over to the Romans by Antiochus III, Hannibal fled to Crete, then to Bithynia, where he entered the service of King Prusias. In 183, the Romans demanded that Prusias hand him over. The latter agreed, but Hannibal refused to fall into the hands of his enemies and escaped again.
He died shortly after, at the age of about 65. Ancient historians recount different accounts of his death: according to Pausanias, he died of an infection after injuring his finger with his own sword; according to Titus Livius, he committed suicide by drinking poison in order not to be captured; According to Appian, he was poisoned by Prusias.
