Hannibal at Nuceria
Author(s): Arthur J. Pomeroy
Source: Historia: Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte, Vol. 38, No. 2 (2nd Qtr., 1989), pp. 162-176
Published by: Franz Steiner Verlag
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4436103
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HANNIBAL AT NUCERIA
Included in the Constantinian collection of historical excerpts illustrating
virtues and vices is a description by Cassius Dio of Hannibal's treacherous
treatment of the people of Nuceria.
"Hannibal obtained the surrender of the Nucerians on the terms that
they would leave the city with one garment apiece. But when he had
them in his power, he locked up (xaxaxXeUcac1) the senators (Toil;
3oiXFvTdg) in the baths and suffocated (d^nErv' Ev) them, and while he
allowed the others to go wherever they wanted, he killed many of them
too on the way." (Dio fr. 57.30 = V. 34)
A moral is, however, drawn from this: because Hannibal could no longer be
trusted, other towns resisted his attacks to the bitter end, causing him to
expend more effort than if he had maintained his pact with the Nucerians.
This same story is in Zonaras (9.2), who makes only trivial changes in
vocabulary and word order. This indicates that the excerpt accurately
represents Cassius Dio's original text, even including the final moralizing
comment, which is likely to be the historian's own2. It is not present in the two
other authors who record Hannibal's mistreatment of Nuceria, Appian and
Valerius Maximus. Appian has Publius Cornelius Lentulus, in a speech in the
Roman Senate opposing peace terms after Zama, list Carthaginian atrocities in
the Punic Wars, including the treatment of Nuceria:
"They captured Nuceria, an ally of ours, on terms of truce, having
sworn that the inhabitants could leave with two garments apiece. But
they shut up (cmvExAtoav) their senate in the baths and, heating up
({U'OXaLovTEg) the baths, suffocated (&ntnvi~av) them; while they shot
down (xcaTxovTLoCv) the populace as they left." (App. Pun. 63)
Appian continues with a description of the Carthaginians throwing the senate
of Acerra down wells and filling them in, despite a truce being in force. These
same two incidents are linked by Valerius Maximus who declares that
Hannibal lured the Nucerians out of the town on the promise of safe-conduct
with two garments each, but then suffocated them with heat and smoke in the
baths (vapore etfumo balnearum strangulando), while he threw the senate of
Acerra into deep wells. This shows Hannibal not merely making war on
I V. has duoxnECoag ("he locked up [separate from the common folk]"?) which Boissevain
amends to xaarctxXcoag on the basis of Zonaras - acceptance or rejection of the amendment makes
little difference to the general tale.
2 For Dio's moralizing tendencies, see F. Millar, A Study of Cassius Dio (Oxford, 1964) 76-77.
Historia, Band XXXVIII/2 (1989) ? Franz Steiner Verlag Wiesbaden GmbH, Sitz Stuttgart
Hannibal at Nuceria 163
Romans and Italians, but rejoicing to attack honesty (fides) itself by his lies and
tricks (9.6. ext. 2).
All four sources display marked similarities in their narrative of events
which suggest that they are all drawing off a single source3. The atrocity tale is,
as can be quickly demonstrated on archaeological and historiographical
grounds, almost certainly fictitious. But a study of the reasons for its
invention, which lie in the nature of the Roman treatment of Hannibal, the
methods of the Roman Republican historians, and in the contemporary
interests of their readers, should be revealing in itself. I believe that it should
be possible to indicate not only the purpose of this story, but even, within the
limits of uncertainty caused by the loss of Roman histories prior to Livy,
deduce the identity of the probable author and his motives.
Excluding presuppositions about the nature of Carthaginian character, the
massacre of the senate and also of many of the inhabitants of Nuceria is
historically improbable. Livy records that after the defection of Capua in 216
BC, Hannibal attacked various Campanian towns. The inhabitants of Nuceria
were finally forced to surrender from hunger, on the terms that the citizens
could leave with a single garment each. Although they were offered rewards to
join Hannibal's army, the citizens preferred to scatter throughout Campania.
About thirty of the leading senators tried to find refuge in Capua, but were
excluded for having opposed Hannibal in their own city and instead went to
Cumae. Nuceria itself was sacked and burnt by the Carthaginian army
(23.15.3-6). Acerra was captured soon after when the inhabitants escaped by
night and found refuge in the towns of Campania (23.17.5-6). The defenders
of Casilinum, besieged unsuccessfully in 216, were forced to capitulate the
next spring after suffering near-starvation. The terms of surrender were that
the defenders should be ransomed. When the price was paid, Hannibal duly
released his prisoners and about half the original garrison returned to Praeneste
- although there was another version, discounted by Livy, which had the
Carthaginian cavalry massacre them as they left (23.19.15-17). The Roman
poet, Silius Italicus, adapts this account; after Hannibal is defeated by
Marcellus at Nola, he destroys Acerra in a rage, levels the walls of Nuceria,
and captures Casilinum by a stratagem, granting the besieged their lives in
return for ransom (Pun. 12.420-428). But as Paola Venini has shown, this is
The divergence on the number of garments to be taken by the inhabitants suggests an
intermediate source and needs to be posited to explain to two garments in Valerius Maximus and
Appian, whereas Dio (i.e. the Constantine excerpts and Zonaras) has only one (as does also Livy
23.15.3, who does not mention any massacre). But the existence (or not) of such an intermediary
will make little difference to my arguments concerning an original source for the tale. Why the
figure should change is unclear - perhaps the two garments represent tunic and cloak (travelling
garments) as distinct from the very clothes the inhabitants were wearing. In Thucydides 2.70.3,
the terms of surrender for Potidaea specify one garment for the men, two for the women.
164 ARTHUR J. POMEROY
typical Silian adaption of his source, compressing chronology and even
rearranging the order of events for poetic effect, and has no independent
historical value at all4. Elsewhere, we hear of survivors from Nuceria being
resettled by the Romans at Atella, since their city had been completely
destroyed, and of the rebuilding of the partially-burnt Acerra (210 BC: Livy
27.3.7). Appian himself in his Hannibalic War records the resettlement of the
Nucerians at Atella after the expulsion of the original inhabitants who had
supported Hannibal (Han. 48).
From an examination of the literary tradition, it is clear that the massacre of
the inhabitants of Nuceria is unlikely to be true. Livy offers a perfectly
acceptable alternative tradition, with specific details of the fate of survivors,
which is also in line with Hannibal's known strategy of trying to win over the
Italian cities to his camp. The Roman historian is also clearly aware of an
atrocity tradition with respect to Acerra, which he rejects. It is thus probable
that he is tacitly rejecting the associated tradition about Nuceria when he
records the exile of its citizens. Such a silent treatment of a version of events
which he regards as historically, or better, morally implausible is typically
Livian, as Trankle has well shown5.
Even if we leave arguments based on the veracity of the literary sources
aside, it is difficult to accept the story of the gruesome killing of the Nucerian
senators on technological grounds. While there is no archaeological evidence
for the nature of the baths at Nuceria at the time of the Second Punic War6,
bathing practices for the period can be deduced from the fashion elsewhere in
the Greco-Roman world. The original form of bath in Greek communities was
the Sitzbad type. After exercising (perhaps in an attached gymnasium), the
bathers would sit in individual baths and have hot water poured over them.
The baths themselves might be heated with braziers to increase the comfort of
the bathers and hot water might be channeled to the baths7. Heated pools
4 P. Venini, "Cronologia e composizione nei Punica di Silio Italico", RIL 106 (1974) 518-525;
see also H. G. Nesseirath, "Zu den Quellen des Silius Italicus", Hermes 114 (1986) 203-230; the
old account of Silius' use of his sources by J. Nicol (The Historical and Geographical Sources Used
by Silius Italicus [Oxford 1936]) is quite unreliable and even the work of A. Klotz ("Die Stellung
des Silius Italicus unter den Quellen zur Geschichte des zweiten punischen Krieges", Rh. M. 82
[1933] 1-34) is vitiated by the unfounded desire to rediscover early annalistic traditions in the
Flavian poet's work.
5 H. Trankle, Livius und Polybios (Basel/Stuttgart 1977) 116-8, 144-154 especially considering
Livy's treatment of traditions hostile to Scipio and Flamininus.
6 There has been constant rebuilding through to modern times and "except for occasional
fragments of tile and pottery, the site is bare": Princeton Encyclopedia of Classical Sites (Princeton,
N. J. 1971) 634.
7 The third century model is the baths at Gortys in Arcadia; in the third or second century BC
at Megara Hyblaea and Syracuse there are hypocaust corridors to provide hot water to the
Sitzbader.
Hannibal at Nuceria 165
might also be provided for the pleasure of bathers, particularly in places where
there were natural hot springs. The Campanians, living in an area with natural
volcanic activity, are likely to have taken advantage of the local resources. But
it appears that the hypocaust-baths, internally heated, are a later development
and, indeed, in many parts of the Roman world, Sitzbader remained the norm
well into the imperial period8. It is not until about 90-80 BC, as Inge Nielsen
has shown, that the Stabian Baths at Pompeii are heated by the underfloor
hypocaust system, which permitted the raising of the temperature in rooms
from comfortable to hot, as in "Turkish Baths". Despite claims to the
contrary, no true hypocaust-heated baths can be shown to predate this
period9.
This has clear consequences for the consideration of the Nuceria episode. In
each of our sources, the councillors of the town are killed after being locked in
the baths. In Dio and Appian, the verb used is vtbtVL~yV, which should
indicate a blockage of breathing, as in drowning, strangling, or suffocation.
The first two meanings seem to be ruled out if no further explanation is given;
Appian and Valerius Maximus suggest heat suffocation, the former by
indicatively suggesting the heating of the bath-building (v'oxaLovTFg), the
latter by explicitly referring to choking by heat10 and smoke (vapore et fumo
balnearum strangulando). It is difficult to imagine how the worthy aldermen
of Nuceria could be choked to death in a regular Sitzbad establishment"1. The
heat that could be generated from bath braziers is not likely to offer a threat to
life'2. The tale only makes sense if we imagine, as Appian did, that it was set in
a hypocaust bath-house and that leads us to reject the tale on chronological
grounds.
This refutation of the alternative version of the fate of the citizens of Nuceria
may appear to be philological over-kill. After all, no classical scholar has
8 R. Ginouves, Balaneutike. Recherches sur le bain dans l'antiquitt grecque (Paris, 1962)
183-224 ("Les bains publics"); E. Brodner, Die romischen Thermen und das antike Badewesen
(Darmstadt 1983).
9 I. Nielsen, "Considerazioni sulle prime fasi dell' evoluzione dell' edificio termale romano",
Analecta Romana Instituti Danici 14 (1985) 81-112.
10 Although the meaning "steam" is particularly common for vapor and would fit the context
well, the more general concept of "heat" cannot be ruled out - O.L.D. s.v. "vapor" 1 and 2.
11 In such an establishment, the greatest danger was likely to be the incompetence of the bath
attendant: see P. Ent. 82 for a woman scalded by over-heated bath water poured over her.
12 In the Marian terror, Catulus had committed suicide, apparently by carbon monoxide
poisoning - ,Locking himself in a freshly plastered room, he intensified the fumes from the lime
with fire and smoke, and by suffocating himself with the noxious vapours ended his days" (D. S.
38/39.5.3 - Loeb trans.). The combination of fresh plaster in an extremely confined space is
unlikely at Nuceria - the Romans seem to have appreciated the danger from their braziers and to
have provided adequate ventilation in their baths (A. Jorio, "Sistema di riscaldamento nelle antiche
terme pompeiane", Bull. Com. 86 [1978-9] 184).
166 ARTHUR J. POMEROY
seriously considered accepting the tale at least since critical analysis of Roman
history began in the nineteenth century"3. But I believe that an examination of
the reasons for the invention and the style of the incident will be more
revealing of the nature of late Roman Republican historiography. To a
dispassionate observer, the struggle between Rome and Carthage might be
seen as that of two equal powers seeking world domination'4. But this would
allow equal right on the defeated side and was contrary to Roman beliefs in
their moral superiority. Thus the moral worth of the Romans had to be
stressed in their record of the Second Punic War.
In reality, the Roman treatment of enemies and allies in this war left much to
be desired. When Rome recaptured cities which had defected to the enemy,
her revenge on the leaders of the states was brutal. Perhaps the most notable
example is the treatment of the councillors of Capua, who on surrender were
placed in custody in Cales and Teanum to await further investigation. The
Roman general, Q. Fulvius, deliberately forestalled a senatorial inquiry by
first setting off to Teanum at night without his colleague's knowledge and there
executing the prisoners (Livy 26.15.7-8). He then hastened to Cales, but was
handed a senatorial decree asking that no premature action should be taken
against the prisoners. Fulvius either avoided reading the missive until the
executions were over or else interpreted it as giving him the right to act if he
saw fit. At any rate, the prisoners were executed at Cales too (Livy
26.15.8-16.4). At Locri, in 205 BC, Scipio executed the city's leaders after the
recapture (Livy 29.8.2)'5. The general mistreatment of rich and poor in the city
which followed at the hands of Scipio's lieutenant, Pleminius, was to
scandalize even the Romans themselves (Livy 29.8-9, 16-22). Furthermore,
the massacres which followed the Roman capture of Syracuse (25.31.8-11),
New Carthage (26.46.10), and Tarentum (27.16.6) were no advertisement for
Roman restraint.
13 Although A. J. Toynbee, Hannibal's Legacy (Oxford 1965) 2.19 n.2, seems to accept it as
part of Hannibal's campaign of destruction in Italy.
14 Such is the view of Polybius, 1.3.7: uT noXklTU)v tL T&a iEeUL Tiv 6Xwv &Qtxi; 64LtL-
gpBn'TrOavTa. A less generous view of the Roman state would see the Romans fighting for
domination, the Carthaginians simply to reduce the power of their enemies.
15 G. de Ste. Croix (The Class Struggle in the Ancient Greek World [London, 1981] 519-521)
has made much of Livy's statement that "a single disease had attacked the cities of Italy, causing
the populace to break with the upper classes, with the councillors supporting Rome and the people
backing the Carthaginians" (ut plebes optimatibus dissentirent, senatus Romanis faveret, plebs ad
Poenos rem traberet, 24.2.8). I doubt if much reliance can be put on this piece of Livian prejudice
against the lower classes - elsewhere Livy records Hannibal's attempts to win over both nobles
and commoners. At Nuceria, despite attempts to win over sections of the populace (saepe
sollicitandis nequiquam nunc plebe, nunc principibus: 23.15.3), it is only the effects of starvation
which force surrender.
Hannibal at Nuceria 167
Such deeds might be considered part of the "normal" brutalities of war in
the ancient world; but other actions of Roman troops in the war can scarcely
be defended. At Casilinum in 214 BC, when the garrison tried to capitulate,
Roman troops forced their way in through the gates and massacred those
inside the city. The pledge of safe-conduct was only honoured for the first fifty
who had succeeded in leaving the city (24.19.9-10). At Orongis in Spain, the
surrender of the unarmed natives led to their massacre - Livy has to justify
Roman conduct on the grounds that the troops may not have been able to see
that the enemy was unarmed or else they feared a ruse (28.3.11-13). The
slaughter of the inhabitants of Henna by their Roman garrison caused
widespread anti-Roman feeling and revolts in Sicily (24.39.5-9). Even Livy
cannot but express his doubts at the events: ita Henna aut malo aut necessario
facinore retenta (24.39.7). Finally, the impiety of plundering the temples of
Locri, however much responsibility might be fixed on the Roman commander,
Pleminius, was of considerable embarrassment to his superior officer, Scipio,
and, indirectly, to the whole Roman state (29.16-21).
In truth, Roman conduct in the Second Punic War might suggest that the
two warring rivals were not morally equal. To combat this, the Romans from
an early date sought to portray Hannibal as the cause of the war and then as a
monster of evil. Livy twice offers portraits of the enemy general which stress
his vices'6. I do not intend to trace the development of this portrayal of
Hannibal, which appears to date from the earliest Roman historian, Fabius
Pictor'7. But a selection of examples will show how the Romans could disguise
their own lapses and improve their moral claim to victory by attributing
unacceptable conduct to their enemy.
First, Hannibal's successes tend to be attributed to his un-sporting military
conduct. So, for instance, the battle of Lake Trasimene is decided by Punic
insidiae (22.4.2,4); yet when Livy describes how Scipio sets an ambush for the
enemy cavalry, there is no suggestion of trickery (29.34.7-17). By a ruse
borrowed from Thucydides (2.13. 1, where Pericles fears that Archidamus may
avoid ravaging his property), Hannibal tries to cause the Romans to suspect
Fabius by avoiding the destruction of his farm; but the wily dictator manages
16 21.4.9: has tantas viri virtutes ingentia
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