Hasdrubal Barcid

Origins and early years

Hasdrubal Hamilcar Bark 's father belonged to the Carthaginian aristocracy and was descended from the legendary founder of Carthage Elissa ^[1] . Hasdrubal was the second son of Hamilcar; his elder brother was Hannibal , the youngest was Magon . The sources do not tell anything about the childhood of Hasdrubal. It is only known that Hamilcar gave education to his sons in the Hellenic spirit ^[2] , despite the presence in the Carthaginian legislation of a direct prohibition on it ^[3] , and that he tried to instill in his sons hatred of Rome: “he fed his sons like a lion, inciting them to the Romans ” ^[4]

Hasdrubal was born when Hamilcar fought with the Romans in Sicily at the final stage of the First Punic War . Concluding peace with Rome (241 BC) and suppressing the Great Mercenary Uprising (238 BC), Hamilcar went to Spain to begin the conquest of this country. It is known that the eldest son was with him ^{[5] [6] [7]} . Hasdrubal appeared in Spain no later than 228 BC. Oe., when he and his brother became the involuntary cause of the death of his father. Barkids were at the army during the siege of the city of Gelika, when the army of the Iberian Orissa tribe unexpectedly struck the Carthaginians in the rear. During the flight, Hamilcar took the brunt of the attack so that the squad that accompanied his sons could reach the main Carthaginian military base, Acre Leuvke . The Barkids were saved, and their father died while crossing the river ^[8] . In subsequent years, Carthage Spain was ruled by Hamilcar’s son-in-law Hasdrubal Handsome (until 221 BC) and the eldest son of Hamilcar Hannibal.

War in Spain: Sole Command

When Rome declared war against Carthage because of the capture of Sagunta , Hannibal moved to Italy together with the younger brother, Magon (218 BC), and Hasdrubala left to command the Carthaginian forces in Spain south of the Iber River, which included 11,800 Libyan 300 Ligurian infantrymen, 500 Balearic slingers, 2550 cavalrymen ( Numidians , ilergetov, Libo-Phoenicians) and 21 elephants , as well as a fleet of 5 triremes and 50 quinquirmas , of which only 32 were staffed by carriages ^{[9] [10]} .

In the same year, the Roman army appeared in Spain, commanded by the proconsul Gnei Cornelius Scipio Calw . The Romans were able to gain a foothold north of Iber, defeating the local Carthaginian corps. Hasdrubal, having learned about it, made two raids on Iber, inflicted significant losses on enemy sailors and ship soldiers who had scattered around the country, and provoked an insurgent insurrection. But the Romans did not retreat and, wining in the Emporias , cut off the land communications between Carthaginian Spain and the army of Hannibal. Thus, the war in the region has become protracted ^{[11] [12]} .

In 217 BC. er Hasdrubal launched a massive offensive against the Romans on land and at sea. But Scipio defeated the Carthaginian fleet at the mouth of the Iberus, taking twenty-five ships out of forty. This dramatically changed the balance of power: the Roman ships reached New Carthage and looted its environs, and Scipio with the army reached the Kastulon mountains, so Hasdrubalu had to retreat to Lusitania ^{[13] [14]} . When the ilergety rebelled against the Romans, Hasdrubal returned to Iber, but then he had to fight the Celtiberians , who in two battles inflicted enormous losses on him: according to Libya , there were 15,000 dead and 4,000 more prisoners ^[15] . In addition, Rome strengthened its military presence in Spain, sending Gnei Scipio’s brother, Publius , here, with another 8,000 soldiers. The combined forces of Scipio took hostages from a number of Spanish tribes held in Sagunt ^[16] .

In the light of these events, the position of Hasdrubal became shaky. Already at the beginning of the campaign in 216, he was left without a fleet (the captains of all ships deserted) and faced a rebellion of the Tartesian tribe in the Betis valley. He mostly interrupted the rebels in the city of Askui, but immediately after that he received an order from Carthage to leave for Italy to join up with Hannibal. Hasdrubal in letters to the Council informed about the dangers connected with this: “He will not have time to go through Iber, as all of Spain will become Roman. He has neither troops nor leader whom he would leave in his place ” ^[17] . Then Himilco was sent to replace Hasdrubalu, and Barkid moved north ^[18] .

The news of this campaign alarmed the Roman commanders, who were confident that "Hannibal alone tortured Italy, and if Hasdrubal joined him with the Spanish army, then the Roman state would end" ^[19] . Scipio blocked the path of the Carthaginian army. In a battle in which neither side apparently had a noticeable advantage in numbers, the reluctance of the Iberian infantry Hasdrubal, who was at the center of his battle formation, to leave Spain played a decisive role ^[20] . At the very beginning of the battle, the Iberians began to retreat, and soon they simply fled. Hasdrubal fought to the end and fled from the battlefield with a handful of warriors. Eutropius reports about 25 thousand killed by Carthage ^[21] , but judging by the description of the battle, the losses should have been not too large ^[22] .

This battle showed that the Carthaginians still could not control the situation in Spain, and deprived Hannibal of help. As a result, Rome received additional chances to recover from a massive defeat at Cannes ^[23] .

War in Spain: Collective Command

In 215, the younger brother, Magon, came to the aid of Hasdrubalu. Now in Spain there were three Carthaginian armies (Hannibal, son of Bomilkar) became the third commander. Together they besieged the city of Iliturgis in the upper reaches of the Betis, but the Romans came to his aid and won a complete victory in the battle, although the numerical advantage was not behind them (Livy reports even about 60 thousand Carthaginians and 16 thousand Romans ^[24] ). Then the Carthaginians suffered another defeat at Indiblis, where, according to Livia, they lost 13 thousand people killed ^[25] . Losses seem to be too high for historians, but there is no other data ^[26] .

In 214, while the Romans did not have time to return from their wintering north of Iber, Hasdrubal and Magon defeated a "huge army of Spaniards" ^[27] . They would be able to establish control over the entire territory of the future Far Spain , if not for the appearance of Publius Cornelius Scipio, who reached Ara de Leucca. In two clashes, the Carthaginians inflicted serious losses on the army of Publius and drove them up the hill when Gneia Cornelius came to the aid of his brother. Gasdrubal son of Giskon soon joined Barkid , but the three commanders did not succeed in fully combining their forces. Three Carthaginian armies were in different camps and did not have a common command, which was one of the main reasons for the subsequent failures. The Carthaginians could not prevent Gnaeus Scipio from breaking through to the Iliturgis besieged by them, and the next day they lost a big battle. They did not lose the battle of Munda only due to the injury of Gnei Scipio, but suffered great losses and retreated. The Romans imposed on them a new battle near Avringa, and here they had already won a complete victory; this was followed by another defeat of Magon ^[28] .

Nevertheless, in subsequent years, Hasdrubal and his colleagues were able to stabilize the situation in Spain ^[29] . In 213 BC. er Hasdrubal even managed with a part of the forces to temporarily leave the region to defeat the pro-Roman party in Numidia ^[30] .

In 212 BC. er the Scipio brothers planned to destroy all three Carthaginian armies in Spain, but they were weakened by the departure from them of 20 thousand Celtiberians. Hasdrubal took advantage of this to start cramping Gney Scipio; meanwhile, Magon and Hasdrubal, the son of Hiskon, destroyed most of the army of Publius Scipio under Kastulon together with the commander and joined Hasdrubal. The combined forces of the Carthaginians surrounded the Romans on a low hill. The defense was broken, and the second Scipio was killed in the battle, but some of his warriors still managed to break through and retreat to Iber, and then gain a foothold north of the river ^{[31] [32]} . Orosius writes in connection with these events: “In Spain, both Scipio were killed by Hasdrubal’s brother” ^[33] .

But a radical change in the war did not happen. The following year, Rome sent a new 13,000-strong army to Spain under the command of pro- Guy Claudius Nero . The latter succeeded in locking Hasdrubal into the gorge, but he put the enemy to vigilance through negotiations and quietly turned round the paths. And in 210 BC. er The Roman Senate, which already considered the Spanish theater of warfare a priority, sent here Proconsul Publius Cornelius Scipio , whose father died at Kastulon. This young commander was able to quickly achieve complete victory in Spain, using the disunity of the three Carthaginian armies (Polybius reports that the three commanders quarreled between themselves ^[34] ), the help of the Iberians from the north of the peninsula and the tactics of short but effective raids to the south, carried out from Greek cities on the left bank of Iber ^[35] .

In 209, Scipio unexpectedly, even for his own subordinates, attacked New Carthage - the capital of Carthage Spain. Hasdrubal with his army was at that moment in the lands of the Carpet and did not have time to come to the aid of the city (Scipio’s entire plan was built on the fact that any of the enemy’s armies would have taken at least ten days to go on such a campaign). The Romans took New Carthage and seized here a huge amount of precious metals, supplies and military equipment, as well as Iberian hostages. This significantly worsened the position of the Carthaginians in the region ^{[36] [37] [38]} .

Seeing the mass transfer of the Iberians to the side of Rome, Hasdrubal decided in 208 to give Scipio a decisive battle. According to Polybius, Barkid assumed that if he was defeated, he would immediately go to Italy to meet his older brother, adding to the strength on the way due to the Gauls ^[39] ; probably, in case of victory, he also planned to go to Hannibal, but after spending some time stabilizing the situation in the region ^{[40] [41]} .

The meeting of the two armies occurred at Bekule. Hasdrubal took a strong position on a high hill, so the Romans did not dare to start a battle for two days. Finally, fearing the appearance of other Carthaginian commanders, Scipio launched a simultaneous attack from three sides; Hasdrubal, according to Polybius, did not expect an attack and, seeing that the battle would be lost, fled with the treasury, the elephants and part of the army to the north ^{[42] [43]} .

Campaign to Italy and doom

Before leaving Spain, Gasdrubal met with his colleagues Magon and Hasdrubal, the son of Giscon. At this meeting, it was decided that Hasdrubal Barkid would take part of the Iberian warriors with him, since it was no longer possible to guarantee their loyalty in Spain. Magon and the second Gasdrubal were to remain on the Iberian Peninsula and continue to fight Scipio ^{[44] [45]} .

The second campaign of the Carthaginians to Italy passed along a new route. As the Romans occupied the eastern aisles in the Pyrenees , Hasdrubal overcame this mountain range in the west, making a large detour; as a result, only by the end of 208 BC. er he went to the Alps and gave rest to the troops here without risking to go through the mountains in winter ^[46] . On the way, he actively recruited Gauls into his army, who knew that the Carthaginians were carrying a lot of gold with them ^[47] . In the spring of 207, the Carthaginians crossed the Alps; Livy and Appian argue that they followed the Hannibal way ^{[48] [49]} , but in historiography there is an opinion that Hasdrubal preferred the easier way through the Druentia valley ^[50] . At the same time, the Highlanders did not render any resistance to the Carthaginians, understanding their true goals ^[51] .

The Romans closely followed the campaign of Hasdrubal, in the initial stages receiving information about him from the Masilii . The unification of the forces of the two Barkids threatened Rome with final defeat, so one of the Consuls of 207, Mark Liby Salinator , was sent against Hasdrubal, with four legions. His task was not to let the fresh Carthaginian army out of Cisalpius Gaul into Italy, while the second consul, Guy Claudius Nero, deceived by Hasdrubal in Spain four years earlier, had to keep Hannibal in the south. Before the invasion of Italy, Gasdrubal decided to take Placencia , which was the main outpost of the Romans in the region (probably in this way he wanted to secure unconditional support for the fighting and insubr ), but failed and only spent the siege all summer ^{[52] [53]} .

In the autumn of 207, Gasdrubal was finally going to go south, but not through the Apennines to Etruria , like his brother ten years ago, but along the Adriatic coast. He sent messengers to Hannibal with a letter in which he proposed to meet in Umbria , but these messengers, having passed through the whole country, were already captured by the Romans near Tarente . Guy Claudius Nero, learning about the proposed route of Hasdrubal, took his best military units (6 thousand infantrymen and a thousand cavalrymen) and secretly marched with them through the whole of Italy, on the eve of the decisive battle, connecting with Marc Livy Salinator at the Seine Gallian on the Methaura River ^{[54 ] [55]} .

The consuls took measures so that the Carthaginians did not fully know about the approach of reinforcements. Only when both armies were lined up for battle, Hasdrubal noticed that many legionnaires were holding old shields, which had not been there before, and that some Roman horsemen were clearly exhausted, as after a long march. Therefore, he returned his army to the camp and began to collect additional information through intelligence officers. The latter found out that the Romans had sent out war horns signals twice, and not one, as before; this meant that there were both consuls in the camp. Probably, the Carthaginians did not succeed in taking captives, so they did not know how Nero arrived in northern Italy ^{[56] [57]} . According to Libya, Hasdrubal decided that his brother had already been crushed, and was horrified ^[58] .

The very next night the Carthaginian army began a retreat. But in the rising turmoil, all the guides fled; as a result, the Carthaginians wandered for a long time through the fields, and then moved along the coast of the Metaurus, hoping to go to the north side. There was no ford, but the channel was tortuous, so the Romans quickly caught up with the enemy. When their cavalry began to disturb the Carthaginian rearguard, Hasdrubal ordered to stop the movement and build a camp, and at the approach of the main forces of the Romans interrupted the construction and built his weary army for a decisive battle ^{[59] [60] [61]} .

The least reliable part of his army was the Gauls (many of them, even after they got drunk, did not leave the camp for the battle), put Gasdrubal on the left flank, where a high hill interfered with any actions on either side. On the right flank were the Iberians, whom Barkid most trusted, and in the center, behind ten elephants, were the Ligurs. According to Polybius, the Carthaginian commander "decided in advance either to win the upcoming battle, or to fall dead" ^[62] . He directed the main attack on the left flank of the Romans, commanded by Mark Livius Salinator; The elephants were able to press the enemy a little, but then they got out of control and began to inflict equal damage on both sides. A fierce clash ensued, the course of which broke the maneuver of Guy Claudius Nero: the consul, seeing that he would not be able to attack the Gauls, took several cohorts , went through the rear of the Roman army and hit the Iberians in the right flank and in the rear. Iberians were killed almost completely, and then it was the turn of the Ligurs ^{[63] [64] [65]} .

Hasdrubal fought to the end:

He supported and encouraged his warriors, walking with them to meet the danger; tired and exhausted, he acted with requests and reproaches, returned the fugitives, resumed the battle, which had already subsided. Finally, when fate no doubt leaned toward the Romans, he, not wanting to outlive his soldiers who followed him, the celebrated commander, spurred his horse and rushed to the Roman cohort, and here, fighting, met an end worthy of his father Hamilcar and brother Hannibal.

- Tit Livy. The history of Rome from the founding of the city, XXVII, 49, 3-4. ^[66] .

Hasdrubal's army was almost completely destroyed in battle. The body of the commander was found; his head Guy Claudius Nero took with him to the south of Italy and ordered to throw in front of enemy posts. According to ancient tradition, Hannibal, recognizing the head of his brother, exclaimed: “I recognize the evil rock of Carthage” ^{[67] [68]} .

Ancient authors had a high opinion of Hasdrubal, calling him a glorified commander ^[69] and a man worthy of his great father and brother ^{[70] [69]} . “This leader will be remembered by people for many deeds,” wrote Titus Livius ^[71] about him. Polybius believed that in the periodic failures of Hasdrubal in Spain, it was primarily the “military leaders sent from Carthage” who were to blame; In the opinion of the Greek historian, Barkida was characterized by courage, spiritual nobility, and prudence necessary for a commander ^[70] .

In the Roman literature, the battle of Metaurus attached great importance, considering it in a certain sense to be a revenge for Cannes ^[72] . In this regard, Livy and Orozii call the obviously unbelievable casualty figures of the Carthaginian side (56 ^[73] or 58 ^[74] thousand dead and 5,400 prisoners), and Livy claims that the news of the death of Hasdrubal and his army made Roman citizens thank the gods as if the war was already over; life in the city after the battle of Metaurus clearly entered the peaceful course ^[75] .

Horace also writes about the key meaning of the defeat of Hasdrubal for the fate of Rome:

I owe you the kind of Neron Rome
That witness the shore of the Metaurus, there
Hasdrubal was broken in that wonderful
The day that dispelled the darkness for the first time

Victory sweet Lacia joy gave,
Since, like a flame in a dry forest,
Il Heb above the Sicilian Sea,
Hannibal raced through the city.

- Horace. Odes, IV, 4, 37-44. ^[76]

Hannibal himself in the same ode to Horace says:

Messengers to send me proud in Carthage
From now on, all hope fell
Since Hasdrubal was smitten, -
The name of our happiness has fallen.

- Horace. Odes, IV, 4, 69-72. ^[77]

In historiography one can find statements that Hasdrubal was a mediocre commander ^[78] . Fighting for ten years in Spain, he was not able to establish lasting control over this territory, which was of key importance in the war, since only Spain could supply in due amount the human and material resources for Hannibal. The collapse, which ended Hasdrubal’s attempt to break through to his brother, meant for Carthage the loss of his last hope for victory in the war ^{[79] [80]} .

Sources have attributed to Gasdrubala a definite contribution to the practice of using war elephants. It was Barkid who invented a way to quickly kill these animals in case of loss of control during the battle: the drivers drove the chisel into the place where the neck was connected to the head ^{[81] [82]} .

• Hasdrubal Barcid acts in the story by Alexander Nemirovsky, The Elephants of Hannibal, and in the novel by George Gulia , Hannibal, son of Hamilcar. F.L. Lucas dedicated the story “The Fate of Carthage” to the Battle of Metaurus.
• Hasdrubal is also one of the characters in the film " Kabiriya ", filmed in 1914 by Giovanni Pastrone . The role of Hasdrubal is played here by Eduardo Davesnes.

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