Hasdrubal, son of Hanno

Hasdrubal was one of three Carthaginian generals, possibly the senior, who took command of the army raised when the Romans invaded North Africa in 255 BC.

Early in 254 BC the triumvirate of Carthaginian generals gave control of the army to the Spartan mercenary commander, Xanthippus, and accompanied him when the Romans were decisively beaten at the Battle of Tunis.

[1] Hasdrubal's date of birth and age at death are both unknown, as are his activities prior to his coming to prominence in 255 BC during the First Punic War.

[2] The city of Carthage was in what is now Tunisia (close to what is now Tunis) and by the mid-3rd century BC it had come to dominate southern Iberia, much of the coastal regions of North Africa, the Balearic Islands, Corsica, Sardinia, and the western half of Sicily in a military and commercial empire.

[3] Carthage was the leading maritime power in the Western Mediterranean with its navy dominating both militarily and commercially, while Rome had recently unified mainland Italy south of the Arno.

[5] The Carthaginians were engaging in their traditional policy of waiting for their opponents to wear themselves out, in the expectation of then regaining some or all of their possessions and negotiating a mutually satisfactory peace treaty.

The war there had reached a stalemate, as the Carthaginians focused on defending their well-fortified towns and cities; these were mostly on the coast and so could be supplied and reinforced by sea without the Romans being able to use their superior army to interfere.

[12] Both sides were determined to establish naval supremacy and invested large amounts of money and manpower in increasing and maintaining the size of their navies.

[13][14] The Roman fleet of 330 warships plus an unknown number of transport ships[15] sailed from Ostia, the port of Rome, in early 256 BC, commanded by the consuls for the year, Marcus Atilius Regulus and Lucius Manlius Vulso Longus.

[17][18][19] The Carthaginians were aware of the Romans' intentions and mustered all available warships, 350, under Hanno[note 1] and Hamilcar, off the south coast of Sicily to intercept them.

[25] As a result of the battle, the Roman army, commanded by Regulus, landed in Africa near Aspis (modern Kelibia) on the Cape Bon Peninsula in the summer of 256 BC and began ravaging the Carthaginian countryside.

[37] Determined to prevent the Romans further despoiling the countryside, the Carthaginian generals advanced their army to Adys, where it set up a fortified camp on a rocky hill near the town.

Modern historians point out that the Carthaginian generals would have been well aware of the strength of the legions when formed up in open battle and that to pause in a strong position while scouting the enemy and formulating a plan was not obviously a mistake.

[35] This was especially the case as their army was newly formed and not yet fully trained or used to operating together;[39] although the modern historian George Tipps describes this deployment as a "total misuse" of their cavalry and elephants.

[41] According to the military historian Nigel Bagnall, the cavalry and elephants were promptly evacuated, as it was recognised they would not be able to play any useful role, either in defending the fortifications or on the broken terrain of the hill more generally.

The historian John Lazenby speculates he may have previously faced elephants when Pyrrhus of Epirus attacked Sparta in the 270s BC.

[47] Xanthippus was put in charge of training both the new recruits and the existing army over the winter, although the committee of three Carthaginian generals retained operational control.

[48][49] Xanthippus, accompanied by the triumvirate of Carthaginian generals, led the army of 100 elephants, 4,000 cavalry and 12,000 infantry—the latter included the 5,000 veterans from Sicily and many citizen-militia[34]—out of Carthage and set up camp close to the Romans in an area of open plain.

Polybius considered this to be an effective anti-elephant formation, but points out that it shortened the frontage of the Roman infantry and made them susceptible to being out-flanked.

[37][54] Regulus apparently hoped to punch through the elephants with his massed infantry, overcome the Carthaginian phalanx in their centre and so win the battle before he needed to worry about being attacked on the flanks.

The rest of the Roman infantry had difficulties with the elephants, who were not deterred by their noise but charged home, inflicting casualties and considerable confusion.

[56][57] The Romans held firm, possibly partly because of the way their dense formation jammed them close together, but the elephants continued to rampage through their ranks, and the Carthaginian cavalry pinned them in place by hurling missiles into their rear and flanks.

In the resulting Battle of Cape Hermaeum off Africa the Carthaginians were heavily defeated, losing 114 ships captured and 16 sunk.

[63][64] The Roman fleet, in turn, was devastated by a storm while returning to Italy: 384 ships were sunk from their total of 464[note 4] and 100,000 men lost,[64][65] the majority non-Roman Latin allies.

[77] In late summer 250 BC[78] Hasdrubal, hearing that one consul (Gaius Furius Pacilus) had left Sicily for Rome with half of the Roman army, marched out from the major Carthaginian stronghold of Lilybaeum towards Panormus with 30,000 men and between 60 and 142 elephants.

[74][79] Halting some distance away, he devastated the harvest in the territories of Rome's newly allied cities, in an attempt to provoke the Roman commander, Lucius Caecilius Metellus, into battle.

The Oreto reached the sea immediately south of Panormus, and once there Hasdrubal ordered part of his army to cross the river and advance up to the city wall.

Panormus was a major supply depot, and townspeople were employed in carrying bundles of javelins from stocks within the city to the foot of the walls so the Roman skirmishers were constantly resupplied.

When the elephants broke, disorganising a large part of the Carthaginian army and demoralising all of it, Metellus ordered an attack on its left flank.

Metellus did not permit a pursuit, but did capture ten elephants in the immediate aftermath and, according to some accounts, the rest of the surviving animals over the succeeding days.