Nowadays when younger people hear the name Hannibal they think about the genius hollywood serial killer, Hannibal Lecter. A symbol of evil and intelligence. But the inspiration for this character came from a real person, Hannibal Barca(INTJ), Rome's greatest enemy and often seen as the Hitler of the ancient world. This article will challenge this reputation and will attempt to clear Hannibal's name.
Hannibal was born in 248 BC in the empire of Carthage. Like Rome it was an empire build around one wealthy city, the city of Carthage. Carthage had just lost the first world war of the ancient world (The first Punic war) and Hannibal’s father (Hamilcar Barca) had been the commander in chief of the Carthaginian empire. Exactly like Germany after the First World War, Carthage had to pay war repairs to the enemy that had beaten them and exactly like after the first world war this would be the seed for the start of a second even bigger war.
Carthage was in a bad situation, they had lost their islands in the Mediterranean sea which were a big source of income. That in combination with the war repairs they had to pay to Rome caused an economic recession which makes our modern recession look look like nothing. But the people of Carthage not only had just lost their wealth but also their identity as a Mediterranean super power. This was all that was necessarily to motivate a country of traders to go and conquer new terrain. And so Hamilcar Barca got the command over the invasion of Spain and with him he took his young son Hannibal.
Spain wasn’t part of Rome yet, it was populated by different tribes, who had to be conquered one by one. So all Hannibal’s youth he grew up in army camps, where he got used to death, cold weather, military strategy and as the son of the popular commander in chief he got used to people looking up to him. In his teens he had to fight for his life in battle, he had to lead men way older than him into battle and he had to win the respect of those men. So he faced challenges quite different from what the average boy has to deal with, so it’s not strange that he grew up to be a man quite different from the average man. He also got the best education that was possible at the time and it is said that Hannibal wrote several books in Greek. When he was in his twenties it even went further, his father was killed in battle and a few years later the second in command got assassinated. Carthage wanted to send a new commander but before this could happen Hannibal took command over the whole army in Spain. He had no longer a father, no one to be dependent on; he was responsible for 50 000 men and only in his mid-twenties.
Hannibal did a good job as commander and Rome started to fear him. So in 219 BC, Rome declared war on Hannibal and told Carthage to choose sides. Carthage not happy with the situation still refused to turn against Hannibal. So Rome sent one army to Spain to deal with Hannibal and another to the city Carthage itself. Hannibal didn’t want war in his homeland and he also didn’t want to lose Spain, so there was only one option, attack Italy and force Rome to defend.
He left Spain with 50 000 men and 37 elephants to march through hostile France and over the snowy Alps in order to avoid battle with the army that was sent to destroy him. If he avoided battle outside of Italy he could raise terror in Italy and force both armies to return to defend Italy. His other reason to fight in Italy was so he could ally with the local tribes. And that’s what he did, he crossed the Alps but he lost 25 000 men in the cold, snowy and slippery mountain passes where they were constantly under attack by hostile locals. Yet when he entered Italy, Rome was in shock and the people oppressed by Rome were impressed by this man that had done the impossible thing, crossing the Alps with an army. Tribe after tribe broke their alliance to Rome and joined Hannibal. Hannibal proved that this was a good decision; he stayed in Italy for over 10 years giving Rome beating after beating using his genius, rather than bigger armies or better trained men. Eventually Rome sent the largest army they had ever assembled; Hannibal was greatly outnumbered but had almost every man killed in that great Roman army in only a few hours. After that he didn’t attack Rome against the advice of his officers, but he started negotiating for peace. Yet Rome didn’t gave up, they had more resources and wouldn’t give up until every last Roman was dead, they saw war as you either lose all or you win. And as the years went on they could turn the war around, because of their greater human resources and because Carthage was refusing to support Hannibal’s war. But Rome could never beat Hannibal and his allies in Italy and they forced Hannibal to come back to defend his homeland in North Africa. Here under control of the Carthaginian senate and with an army of just a few veterans and mainly untrained recruits he lost his first and only battle against the great Roman commander Scipio Africanus. Carthage a country of traders who didn’t value glory and power like the Romans did, made peace under Roman terms. They had to give up all their land in Europe, pay war repairs and they weren’t allowed to fight against anybody without Roman permission.
After Hannibal’s defeat, he became a politician. He was successful in fighting against corruption and in getting the Carthaginian economy back on track. Yet Rome was uncomfortable with Hannibal leading Carthage, and the suprising economic comeback he had caused. So they forced Carthage to ban him out of the city. Hannibal left but he never stopped fighting Rome. The rest of his life he was an adviser to different Roman enemies and Rome never stopped trying to hunt him down, and in 183 BC when Hannibal was 64 years of age, they finally found him somewhere deep into modern day Turkey. When he was surrounded he committed suicide, so Rome would never be able to take him back in chains, and so Rome would never be able to kill his name and symbol which is still alive today..
With Hannibal gone and Rome having the only copy of his sophisticated ways to wage war the military foundation was made for the huge Roman Empire of later ages. This Roman Empire would shape our own western culture as we know it today.
So was Hannibal evil?
It’s hard to write about Hannibal’s character because almost all accounts we have of this were made by his enemies. The things we know from writings that seem reasonable are that he was a witty and subtle speaker and that he had a lot of temperance. We also know that he spoke both Greek and Latin. Yet the best way to judge a man, is to judge him by his actions and the likely motivations behind those actions. We’re certain of those actions so all we have to do is to find the motivation behind those actions and we can bring the legendary commander back to life.
There is a story about Hannibal, that when before his father took him to Spain he had to promise him eternal hate towards Rome and that he would work all his life with only one single purpose in mind, the destruction of Rome. People often see this as prove that Hannibal was the aggressor in the war with Rome. Some people even compare him with Hitler as they both lead a defeated nation back into an even bigger war and they both were the one man the war was based around. If Hannibal died in the Alps the war would have been over and Carthage would make peace, the same is true for Hitler, if he was assassinated early in the Second World War there would probably never have been a terrible war like we know it. So I believe that it might be right to compare Hannibal’s place in history with Hitler’s but I don’t think you can compare the motivations behind their actions.
I think Hannibal fought for the love of his country, I believe he was fighting a defensive war and I believe that the image of Hannibal that reached us through the ages was mostly distorted by Roman propaganda. The first reason to support this is his decision to not take Rome after he defeated the largest army Rome had ever assembled. He was quite close to the capital, Rome had no longer an army, there leaders were dead and he had all the siege weapons to fight the city walls. In other words, if his motivation for war was to kill Romans or just glory he would have taken the city because he had the perfect opportunity. So why did he decide to let Rome live? What was his motivation for one of the most crucial decisions in world history? Some historians say it’s because he somehow thought that he wasn’t able to take or plunder Rome. But I think this was the moment this cruel killing machine, who was known for keeping no Roman alive showed his true colors. I think that all the time he was defending in his head, I think he didn’t like to kill but I think he understood that it was the only way to be feared enough to ever make peace. I believe that all he wanted was a fair peace contract between Rome and Carthage. And he probably thought Rome had no other choice than peace after the 3 major defeats.
That Hannibal kept fighting Rome after Carthage had banned him could be seen as that he kept fighting for the country he loved, even though he was banned. The story of him about promising his father eternal hatred towards Rome came from one of the countries he was advising during the time he was banned, so it’s very likely that he made it up for his job interview. Since,"I want to use your army to defend my own country" doesn’t sound like a very fair offer. Time showed that Hannibal was right to keep fighting Rome, because after his death Rome started a third Punic war where they completely destroyed Carthage and its people. Rome’s motivation for the third war was that Carthage was too rich and too close and that the two superpowers could never live together. Yet when Rome attacked Carthage it didn’t even had an army. Which again shows that Rome was the aggressor.
Hannibal wasn’t Hannibal Lector; he was the noble Agent Starling, the police officer in the same book / movie who tried to stop Hannibal even though her superiors tried to stop her. Hannibal Lecter is a fiction character based on the roman image of Hannibal. So Hannibal wasn’t histories villain, he was histories great hero who devoted his life fighting the evil ambition of Rome. I think Hannibal was one of the only great generals who wasn´t mostly driven by personal ambition but by love for his people.
Using modern psychology to turn Hannibal back alive.
To gain more insight into the character of Hannibal I used the Myers Briggs personality type indicator to determine his personality type. In the next paragraphs I have my argument for assigning him to the INTJpersonality group.
To find his personality type we will first determine his temperament. While doing this we can write off the SP and SJ temperaments quite quickly. SJ because this type is usually very realistic, they don’t like to change things, so you wouldn’t expect crazy moves like crossing the Alps or a totally new battle strategy every battle they fight to come from a SJ. SP is also unlikely, even though these people would be crazy enough to lead an army into the Alps, but they usually don´t have a big plan behind their actions. SP people live for fun, in the moment action and pointless adventure, Hannibal had a clear lifelong goal and a creative vision of what he was trying to achieve. So the question is NF or NT, both could be possible. NF people can take many lives trying to achieve their idealistic goals (Hitler was a NF) yet the rational calculation behind Hannibal´s action make NT most likely. It was also said that one of his traits was temperance and this is very often found in NT people. That combined with the fact that there are more NT men than NF men make the NT temperament very likely.
INT vs ENT
Some of Hannibal’s character traits were that he was secretive, deep and self-reliant. These are all very strong signs that he was an INT.
INTP vs INTJ
INTP people usually don´t like to lead and when they lead they do it very lenient. INTJs on the other hand also don´t like to lead but when they lead they can be very good at it and they are strict. Hannibal was a great leader and he was strict, so that´s a clear sign that he was an INTJ. An INTP is more concerned with his idea´s than with bringing those idea´s into reality, they usually come up with totally new idea´s on paper, not with totally new idea that can be used directly. Hannibal made new far reaching ideas but he could use them directly. Than a last sign that he was an INTJ is that INTPs are bad at making quick decisions, they are very likely to change their mind several times. A good commander needs to be very decisive therefore it´s unlikely that the best commander was indecisive. So that leads me to the conclusion that Hannibal probably was an INTJ.
Learn more about INTJ people
Learn about the Myers Brigs personality indicator
Do you have the same personality as Hannibal?
