Hamilcar Barca: father of Hannibal

Hamilcar fought the last years of the First Punic War on the mountains of western Sicily. That war was decided at sea, at the battle of the Aegates Islands in 241 BC, while Hamilcar still held Mount Eryx. The army he later built in Spain was the one his son Hannibal led to Cannae.¹

Hamilcar Barca timeline

1. 247 BCTakes command in Sicily and raids the coast of southern Italy.²
2. 244 BCMoves his army from Hercte, near Palermo, to Eryx.³
3. 241 BCAfter the defeat at the Aegates Islands, makes the peace that gives Sicily to Rome.⁴
4. 240 to 237 BCLeads Carthage's armies against the rebel mercenaries and Libyans.⁵
5. 237 BCCrosses to Spain with his nine-year-old son Hannibal.⁶
6. 229 or 228 BCDies on campaign in Spain.⁷

What was Hamilcar Barca famous for?

Hamilcar Barca is famous as the father of Hannibal and as the general who held out in Sicily until Carthage lost the First Punic War at sea. He then saved Carthage in the Mercenary War and began the conquest of Spain, whose men and money paid for Hannibal's war against Rome.⁸

Polybius, writing in the second century BC, gave Hamilcar the palm for daring and genius among all the commanders of the First Punic War, and named his anger at the peace as the first cause of the Second. Livy calls him the prime author of that war. Both Gaetano De Sanctis and Jaime Gómez de Caso Zuriaga point out that this praise goes back to sources very friendly to the Barcid family.⁹

Nepos calls him the son of a man named Hannibal. His surname, Barca or Barcas, is usually explained as the Semitic word for lightning. His birth year is not known: De Sanctis put it around 290 BC or a little later, while Mommsen describes him as a man of little more than thirty when he left for Spain in 237 BC.¹⁰

Did Hamilcar Barca ever lose a battle?

Polybius and Nepos present Hamilcar as unbeaten in Sicily: Nepos says he never gave way to the enemy there. But he won no decisive victory either, and Carthage lost the war at sea. In Spain the king of the Orissi routed him outside the town of Helike, and Hamilcar died in that defeat.¹¹

Hamilcar took command in 247 BC, the eighteenth year of the war. He raided the coast of Bruttium, then seized Hercte, a steep plateau near Panormus (Palermo), where he fought the Romans in daily skirmishes for almost three years. In 244 BC he moved to Eryx and took the town below the summit, which the Romans still held.¹²

Gómez de Caso argues that the record is thinner than the praise: Hamilcar failed to take Panormus from Hercte, failed to break the Roman lines at Eryx, and by clinging to Eryx led Rome to build the fleet that cut off his supplies. De Sanctis also writes that Hamilcar won no real successes in Sicily but kept the Romans from winning any.¹³

When the Carthaginian fleet was destroyed at the Aegates Islands in 241 BC, Carthage gave Hamilcar full powers to make peace. He agreed to give up Sicily but, Nepos says, refused the Roman demand that his men hand over their arms. He then took his army to Lilybaeum and laid down his command.¹⁴

How did Hamilcar Barca win the Mercenary War?

Carthage failed to pay the army that came home from Sicily, and the mercenaries rose together with Carthage's Libyan subjects. After the general Hanno failed, Hamilcar took command, broke out of Carthage across the Bagradas, won over the Numidian prince Naravas, destroyed a rebel army at the Saw and, reconciled with Hanno, won the final battle.¹⁵

He began with about 10,000 men and 70 elephants. Polybius says he crossed the mouth of the river Macaras, the Bagradas, at a moment when the wind had silted it up, and routed the rebels who came at him from the bridge and from Utica. Naravas then came over to him with about 2,000 Numidian horsemen and was promised one of Hamilcar's daughters.¹⁶

At first Hamilcar let prisoners who would not join him go free. The rebel leaders answered by torturing to death the Carthaginian envoy Gesco and about 700 other prisoners, and from then on the war was fought without quarter on both sides.¹⁷

Hamilcar then cornered the army of the rebel leader Spendius in the hills, seized its leaders when they came to negotiate, and destroyed the rest at a place called the Saw: more than 40,000 men, according to Polybius. Soon after, the rebel leader Mathos surprised and crucified Hamilcar's colleague Hannibal outside Tunis. Reconciled with Hanno, Hamilcar won the last battle, and by 237 BC Carthage had its African territory back.¹⁸

What was the oath of Hamilcar Barca?

Hannibal himself later told King Antiochus III that when he was nine and his father was sacrificing before leaving for Spain, Hamilcar led him to the altar and made him swear never to be a friend of the Romans. Polybius and Nepos report his words; Livy calls it a story that was widely told.¹⁹

Hamilcar had three sons known by name, Hannibal, Hasdrubal and Mago, all three later commanders of Carthaginian armies against Rome, and at least two daughters. One daughter married his officer Hasdrubal, later called the Fair; another was promised to Naravas.²⁰

What did Hamilcar Barca do in Spain?

Hamilcar crossed to Spain in 237 BC and spent about nine years there, bringing Iberian tribes under Carthage by war and by diplomacy. He sailed as far as Gadeira, modern Cádiz, founded a large city called Akra Leuke, and sent money and supplies back to Africa. His son-in-law Hasdrubal crushed a Numidian revolt for him.²¹

Little more is certain. Polybius gives the Spanish years a few lines, and the fuller account of Diodorus survives only in excerpts. De Sanctis reconstructs a campaign that started from Gades, the old Phoenician colony, and moved through the south and center of the peninsula to the coast near Alicante.²²

Diodorus says Hamilcar founded a very large city and named it Akra Leuke from its position. The Loeb translator renders the name "White Citadel" and places it at Alicante. Manuel Olcina, director of the Archaeological Museum of Alicante, argues that akra here means "cape" and that the city stood, with high probability, on the Tossal de Manises site in Alicante.²³

The money of Spain mattered as much as its battles. Nepos says Hamilcar supplied all of Carthaginian Africa with horses, arms, men and money; Mommsen says the revenues of Spain paid the army and left a surplus for Carthage. Both Mommsen and De Sanctis see in the mines and soldiers of Spain the army and treasury that Hannibal later took to Italy.²⁴

How did Hamilcar Barca die?

Hamilcar died in Spain in 229 or 228 BC. In the fullest account, by Diodorus, the king of the Orissi pretended friendship and then routed him at the siege of Helike. Hamilcar sent his sons and friends away by another road, was overtaken, and drowned when he rode into a large river. Hannibal and Hasdrubal escaped to Akra Leuke.²⁵

Other writers tell it differently. Polybius says only that he died bravely in battle against one of the most warlike and powerful tribes. Nepos says he fell fighting the Vettones in his ninth year in Spain, and Livy calls Castrum Album a place made famous by the death of the great Hamilcar.²⁶

Neither Helike nor the Orissi can be placed with certainty. The Loeb editor suggests Ilici, modern Elche, and takes the Orissi to be the Oretani; De Sanctis also gives Elche and the Oretani, while Olcina proposes another site. The year is uncertain too: sources give 229 or 228 BC.²⁷

Who succeeded Hamilcar Barca?

Command passed to his son-in-law Hasdrubal the Fair, who had led his fleet. Diodorus says Hasdrubal marched at once to Akra Leuke, was acclaimed general and punished the Orissi. Hasdrubal founded New Carthage and governed Spain for eight years according to Polybius and Livy, nine according to Diodorus.²⁸

Hasdrubal was then murdered: by a Celt over a private wrong, says Polybius; by a household slave, says Diodorus; by a barbarian whose master he had executed, says Livy. The army chose Hamilcar's eldest son, Hannibal Barca, as its commander.²⁹

Read on with the other great commanders of Carthage, see the long struggle in Rome vs Carthage, or follow his sons into the greatest battles of Carthage. Then find out which general you are most like in Which Commander Are You?