Hannibal's hard ‘homecoming’ after 203 BCE

Abstract

“Hannibal's War” was what Carthage called the Second Punic War from 218–202 BCE because it was clear from the outset Carthaginian leadership was not fully participatory or even much engaged with him and his long Italian campaign. The signs of estrangement were seen at least as early as Hannibal's siege of Saguntum in 219 BCE when Carthage's Gerousia or Council of Elders took no responsibility with the envoy from Rome complaining about his “brutal” taking of Saguntum. But perhaps it is more important to examine exactly where – and when – Hannibal's real home might have been, since he could hardly call Carthage his true home, as this brief paper proposes. Discussion follows what Hannibal learned in Iberia and how important Iberia as his adopted homeland and its abundant silver meant to him instead – not Carthage – and how Iberia under his father Hamilcar prepared his lifelong stratagems for war, with Scipio as his eventual young rival student from Rome leading to Zama, which brought Hannibal back to Carthage under the worst circumstances and a periphery of his prior successes. Whether or not Hannibal's return to Carthage in 203–202 BCE can be called a “homecoming” is certainly moot in many ways, especially given that it was not his home for most of his life. Decades later, given his estrangement from Carthage, Scipio's famous epitaph could just as well be Hannibal's.