Hannibal

"I have come not to make war on the Italians, but to aid the Italians against Rome."

"Ah there is one thing about them more wonderful than their numbers … in all that vast number there is not one man called Gisgo."

"nullum contemptu m[ortis incitamentum] ad uincendum homini ab dis immortalibus acrius datum est."

"Liberemus diuturna cura populum Romanum, quando mortem senis exspectare longum censent. (Latin, not original language)"

"I am not carrying on a war of extermination against the Romans. I am contending for honour and empire. My ancestors yielded to Roman valour. I am endeavouring that others, in their turn, will be obliged to yield to my good fortune, and my valour."

"When, among other things, he asked Hannibal who he thought had been the greatest general, Hannibal replied Alexander, king of the Macedonians, because with a small number of men he had routed innumerable armies and because he had traveled to the farthest shores, visiting which lay beyond human expectations. When Scipio next asked him whom he placed second he said Pyrrhus: he was the man who had first shown how to lay out a camp, and in addition no one had shown such skill in choosing locations and stationing troops. To the further question of whom he declared third Hannibal replied himself. With a smile, Scipio said: "And what would you say if you had defeated me?" "Well, then, in that case," he replied, "I would have placed myself ahead of Alexander, Pyrrhus, and all the others.""

"Hannibal excelled as a tactician. No battle in history is a finer sample of tactics than Cannae. But he was yet greater in logistics and strategy. No captain ever marched to and fro among so many armies of troops superior to his own numbers and material as fearlessly and skillfully as he. No man ever held his own so long or so ably against such odds. Constantly overmatched by better soldiers, led by generals always respectable, often of great ability, he yet defied all their efforts to drive him from Italy, for half a generation. … As a soldier, in the countenance he presented to the stoutest of foes and in the constancy he exhibited under the bitterest adversity, Hannibal stands alone and unequaled. As a man, no character in history exhibits a purer life or nobler patriotism."

"As to the transcendent military genius of Hannibal there cannot be two opinions. The man who for fifteen years could hold his ground in a hostile country against several powerful armies and a succession of able generals must have been a commander and a tactician of supreme capacity. In the use of strategies and ambuscades he certainly surpassed all other generals of antiquity. Wonderful as his achievements were, we must marvel the more when we take into account the grudging support he received from Carthage. As his veterans melted away, he had to organize fresh levies on the spot. We never hear of a mutiny in his army, composed though it was of North Africans, Iberians and Gauls. Again, all we know of him comes for the most part from hostile sources. The Romans feared and hated him so much that they could not do him justice. Livy speaks of his great qualities, but he adds that his vices were equally great, among which he singles out his more than Punic perfidy and an inhuman cruelty. For the first there would seem to be no further justification than that he was consummately skillful in the use of ambuscades. For the latter there is, we believe, no more ground than that at certain crises he acted in the general spirit of ancient warfare. Sometimes he contrasts most favorably with his enemy. No such brutality stains his name as that perpetrated by Claudius Nero on the vanquished Hasdrubal. Polybius merely says that he was accused of cruelty by the Romans and of avarice by the Carthaginians. He had indeed bitter enemies, and his life was one continuous struggle against destiny. For steadfastness of purpose, for organizing capacity and a mastery of military science he has perhaps never had an equal."

"Of a truth the gods do not give the same man everything: you know how to gain a victory, Hannibal, but you do not know how to make use of it."

"With the examples of the Greek defeats of the Persians or the Battle of Cannae in the Punic Wars in mind, much but not all of Western strategy over the centuries has revolved around the search for the decisive military victory which will oblige the enemy to surrender. Cannae when Hannibal defeated the Romans is a favourite example – but it is easy to misread its significance. Yes, Hannibal won the battle in a dazzling encircling manoeuvre, but Carthage lost the war because in the end Rome outlasted it. And the price Carthage paid was heavy indeed: the Romans levelled its cities and sowed its fields with salt."

"Among the Carthaginians he [Hannibal] was notorious for his love of money and among the Romans for his cruelty."

"Had Hannibal had a government behind him that knew how to exploit victories – had he been born a Roman, for instance – he might have conquered the world."