Siege of Saguntum (219 BC): Hannibal Provokes War With Rome

The Siege of Saguntum was Hannibal’s eight-month siege and capture of the Iberian city of Saguntum, in eastern Spain, in 219 BC. The city was an ally of Rome, and its fall led Rome to declare war on Carthage the following spring. The siege thus began the Second Punic War, one of the most important conflicts of the ancient world.

Background

After losing Sicily in the First Punic War, Carthage rebuilt its strength in the Iberian peninsula. From 237 BC Hamilcar Barca, followed by his son-in-law Hasdrubal, conquered or won over much of southern and eastern Spain, with its rich silver mines. Hasdrubal founded New Carthage (modern Cartagena) as the Carthaginian capital in Spain.

In 226 BC Rome, worried by this expansion, made an agreement with Hasdrubal, known as the Ebro Treaty, by which the Carthaginians would not cross the river Ebro under arms. Saguntum, a wealthy Iberian town on a rocky hill near the coast, lay well south of the Ebro. At some point, probably in the 220s BC, it had placed itself under Roman protection.

When Hasdrubal was assassinated in 221 BC, the army chose the 25- or 26-year-old Hannibal as commander. Saguntum was then quarrelling with a neighbouring tribe allied to Carthage, and Roman envoys had intervened in its internal politics.

The siege

In the spring of 219 BC Hannibal marched on Saguntum. The town was strongly fortified on its long, narrow hill, and its defenders resisted fiercely. Livy describes Hannibal using siege towers and battering rams, and relates that Hannibal himself was badly wounded in the thigh by a javelin while approaching the walls, which slowed the attack for a time.

The Saguntines expected Roman help, but none came. A Roman embassy, led by Publius Valerius Flaccus and Quintus Baebius Tamphilus, visited Hannibal and was turned away, then went on to Carthage to complain. The Carthaginian senate supported Hannibal.

After about eight months the Carthaginians broke into the city. Livy describes a desperate end in which leading citizens burned their property and many inhabitants died fighting or by their own hand. The figures and details of these scenes are uncertain, as Livy wrote nearly two centuries later and drew on dramatic traditions. Hannibal took rich plunder, which he used to reward his soldiers and to send gifts to Carthage. Polybius stresses that the booty, in money, captives and goods, strengthened Hannibal’s position both with his army and with his supporters at home, and helped to finance the coming campaign.

Rome declares war

News of the fall reached Rome late in 219 or early in 218 BC. The Senate sent a delegation to Carthage, led according to Livy by Quintus Fabius, to demand that Hannibal be handed over. When the Carthaginians refused, Fabius is said to have gathered his toga into a fold and told them that he carried peace and war: they could choose. The Carthaginians replied that he should give whichever he wished, and when he let war fall from the fold, they accepted it.

By then Hannibal was already preparing his invasion of Italy. He left New Carthage in late spring 218 BC and began the march that would bring him across the Alps that autumn.

The war-guilt debate

Ancient writers argued about who started the war. Polybius distinguished the pretext, the attack on Saguntum, from the deeper causes: Hamilcar’s anger at the defeat of 241 BC, Rome’s seizure of Sardinia in 238 BC and Carthaginian success in Spain. He judged that if Saguntum was the cause, Carthage was in the wrong, but that Rome’s earlier seizure of Sardinia had been unjust.

Modern historians still debate whether Rome’s alliance with Saguntum broke the spirit of the Ebro Treaty, and why Rome waited so long to help a city it claimed to protect. The usual view is that neither side was simply innocent, and that both were prepared to fight.

Legacy

Romans later remembered Saguntum as a byword for loyalty, and poets such as Silius Italicus described its fall in heroic terms. The Romans recaptured the town during the war, probably around 212 BC (Livy dates it to 214 BC), and it became a prosperous Roman municipium. Visitors to modern Sagunto can see its castle, with remains from Iberian, Roman and Moorish times, and the Roman theatre on the hillside.

Timeline

• 237 BC: Hamilcar Barca begins the Carthaginian conquest of southern Spain.
• 226 BC: Ebro Treaty between Rome and Hasdrubal.
• 221 BC: Hasdrubal is assassinated; Hannibal takes command in Spain.
• 219 BC, spring: Hannibal begins the siege of Saguntum.
• 219 BC, late: Saguntum falls after about eight months.
• 218 BC: Roman embassy declares war at Carthage; Hannibal marches for Italy.
• c. 212 BC: Romans recapture Saguntum.

Why it matters

The siege of Saguntum was the spark for the Second Punic War, the conflict that brought Hannibal to Italy and ended with Rome dominant in the western Mediterranean. It remains a classic case study in how a quarrel over a small ally can draw great powers into a major war.