Hamilcar Barca - World History

Hamilcar Barca ( 250) Hamilcar Barca at the head of the Carthaginian army.

In 250, the kingdom of Qin continued the process of expansion begun years earlier that had led it to seize half of China and overthrow the Cheu monarchy. Around this time, the small territory dominated by the Cheu was annexed, with which the dynasty was definitively destroyed. The king appointed a business magnate named Lu Buwei as chancellor. Shortly after the monarch died and Lu assumed the regency of the successor Cheng, minor.

In India, the Third Buddhist Council took place in Pataliputra, at the initiative of King Asoka. It seems that Asoka converted to Buddhism. In any case, during his reign Buddhism spread beyond the borders of India. According to tradition, Asoka sent missionaries to Bactria (in the Seleucid Empire), Burma, and Ceylon. Despite this, the Mauryas also promoted the other two Indian religions: Jainism and Hinduism. The fundamentals of Hinduism are collected in the Vedas, ancient texts transmitted orally, considered as a revelation. To them were added the texts corresponding to the tradition, human interpretation of revealed doctrine. These texts were acquiring their definitive form in a long period that begins with the reign of the Mauryas.

Brahmanism had spawned new variants. Its most popular version recognized a third way for the liberation of the soul: unconditional devotion to one of the ancient Brahmanical divinities. The gods who had the largest number of worshipers were Vishnu and Siva. Buddhism, for its part, began to split into two main sects. One was known as the Great Vehicle, because he believed that Buddhism could lead to salvation for all mankind, and he regarded the Buddha as a divinity incarnate. In front of her was the Little Vehicle,more faithful to the original teachings of the Buddha, who recognized his doctrine as incomplete and according to which salvation required a monastic life.

Ceylon was then a kingdom with its capital at Anuradhapura, and that same year Tissa, the introducer of Buddhism , had become king . Somewhat after the Sinhalese arrived on the island, the Tamils ​​followed, and now the two were vying for hegemony.

The Seleucid Empire was dismembering without its king Antiochus II being able to do anything to prevent it: Diodotus, the governor of Bactria, declared his independence and the same thing happened in Parthia, where a chieftain of a nomadic tribe, named Arsaces, also affirmed his independence. He claimed to be a descendant of Artaxerxes II, which was certainly false, but it made him popular among his subjects. In this way, two extensive regions were separated from the Empire, in addition to those that had already been segregated in previous years. On the contrary, Antiochus II's relations with Egypt had improved, to the point that he repudiated his Laodice wife to marry Berenice, sister of Ptolemy III. That year Nicomedes I of Bithynia died and was succeeded by Ziaelas. The throne of Pontus was occupied by Mithridates II, who had to face the Galatians (the Gauls who had settled in Asia Minor).

At this time, the mathematician Apollonius, from Perga, a coastal city in Asia Minor, was prominent in Alexandria. His studies on conic sections stand out. There was also Ctesibius, who used water and air jets to move machines. He built a water clock in which a jet was raising a float whose height marked the time. But the most notable figure of the time was the director of the library at the time: Eratosthenes of Cyrene, who calculated nothing less than the radius of the Earth. Indeed, the news reached him that in Siena,In a nearby city, further south, on the day of the summer solstice (June 21) the Sun was at noon just at the zenith (the columns did not produce any shadow). This was because the city was right over the Tropic of Cancer. On the other hand, he observed that the same thing did not happen that day in Alexandria, but that the sticks produced a small shadow. He understood that this could only be due to the curvature of the Earth, so he ordered the distance between the two cities to be measured and, together with the measurement of a stick and that of its shadow, he calculated that the Earth is a sphere 40,000 kilometers in diameter. circumference, an almost exact figure.

There was another Greek genius, a friend of Eratosthenes, but he did not live in Alexandria, but in his hometown of Syracuse. He was a relative of King Hiero II. His name was Archimedes, he made important mathematical discoveries, on the calculation of areas and volumes, he obtained an approximation of the number pi with 10 exact decimal places, but his advances in physics were much more famous. He discovered the simple mathematical formula that regulates the lever and understood that there was no theoretical limit to his ability to multiply forces, which led him to exclaim: "Give me a foothold and I will move the world." It is said that Hiero II challenged him to move something big. Archimedes chose a ship located at the dock and filled it with cargo and passengers. He built a complicated system of pulleys and with it he lifted the boat out of the water without anyone's help.

More famous is the story of the crown. It is said that Hiero II commissioned Archimedes to discover whether a gold crown he had ordered from a jeweler was genuine or whether the jeweler had used other metals to make it cheaper. For this Archimedes needed to know the weight and volume. The first was easy, the second was not (the king was not willing to melt down his crown). One day Archimedes observed how the water overflowed from his bathtub when he got into it, and he understood that the displaced water must have the same volume as the submerged part of his body, so he could determine the volume of the crown by putting it in a container with water. to the brim and collecting the overflowing water. It is said that he came out of the bathroom shouting Eureka!(I found it) and, in his euphoria at telling the king his idea, he forgot to get dressed.

Meanwhile, Rome and Carthage were still at war. In 249 Rome had a new fleet and sent it against Lilibeo under the command of Publius Claudius Pulcher (the beautiful), younger son of Claudius the Blind and brother of Appius Claudius Caudex. Instead of maintaining the siege of Lilybaeus, Claudius decided to attack the Carthaginian fleet, which was at Drepanum, a little further north. As was customary at the time, priests were in charge of determining whether the omens were good, for which they were based on the behavior of some chickens. The chickens did not want to eat, which was a very bad sign, but Claudio demonstrated his opinion about such nonsense by throwing the chickens into the sea."If they don't want to eat, let them drink," he said. But if he wasn't superstitious, his men were, so his sacrilege must have caused no small concern. The fact is that the Carthaginians saw the Roman fleet coming, when Claudius was hoping for a surprise attack. His fleet was destroyed and he was fined heavily for treason. Shortly after he committed suicide.

Finally, the Carthaginians found an excellent general. His name was Hamilcar Barca and, at only 22 years old, he was placed in command of the Sicilian armies in 248. He tried to take the war to Italy, and for two years he led attacks against the coasts of the peninsula. In 246 he took Panormo (Palermo) by surprise and continued to raid Sicily. Lilibeo resisted better than ever.

That same year the Parthian king Arsaces I died, and was succeeded by his brother Tiridates, who established his capital at Dara and then at Hecatopylos. Under his reign Parthia extended its borders. Ptolemy II also died, and was succeeded by his son Ptolemy III. Shortly after Antiochus II died. Her first wife, Laodice, managed to poison her ex-husband, then murder Berenice along with her son, and place her own son, who became Seleucus II, on the throne. Immediately Ptolemy III started the Third Syrian Warto avenge his sister, and went on to conquer Mesopotamia. It is said that the wife of Ptolemy III, a Cyrenaic princess also called Berenice, decided to cut her hair and deposit it in a temple of Aphrodite as an offering so that the gods would protect her husband. One day, the hair disappeared, and to console the queen (or perhaps to prevent heads from rolling when Ptolemy III returned), a Greek astronomer explained to her that the hair had not been sacrilegiously stolen, but that the gods had accepted the offering. and they had deposited it in the sky and, in effect, he pointed out a "new" constellation that has since been known as Berenice's Hair(Comma Berenices, in later Latin nomenclature).

In 245 a revolutionary king ascended the throne of Sparta. He was called Agis IV. He tried to impose a new order and suggested that the land be redistributed among 4,500 citizens, which included the periecos (but not the helots). However, a good part of Sparta did not accept these ideas, and he achieved the support of the other king, Leonidas II.

In 242 Arato had managed to unite almost all of the Peloponnese in the Achaean League. Sparta was missing, which he could not count on, and Corinth. With a few soldiers, he carried out a skilful raid with which he managed to take Acrocorinth (the city's fortress), drive out the Macedonian garrison and win the Corinthians' accession to the League. This year Alexander II of Epirus died. He was married to his sister Olympias, who continued as regent of the kingdom. Around this time, an Illyrian named Agrón, who was the head of a group of bandits, proclaimed himself king of Illyria, thus making his territory independent of Macedonia.

Meanwhile Rome had built a new fleet, with which it defeated the Carthaginian fleet and deprived Hamilcar of supplies, who soon realized that he was in no condition to continue fighting. In 241 Hamilcar made peace, ending the First Punic War. Carthage was forced for the first time to completely abandon Sicily, which passed into the hands of Rome, except for Syracuse, which continued to be ruled by Rome's ally Hiero II. In addition, Carthage had to pay a heavy indemnity.

Rome thus found itself in a new situation. Until then, the conquered territories were inhabited mainly by Italian peoples (with a few Greeks) with a similar culture and language. Rome had no great difficulty in selling the idea of ​​an "Italian confederation", although it was the only one with ultimate decision-making power. Instead, in Sicily there was a mixture of Greeks, Carthaginians and native tribes, who had little to do with Italian culture. Therefore a new system of government was inaugurated. The territory was considered as spoils of war, entrusted to a new official in charge of "victory management tasks" (in Latin, province).Over time, the word "province" was applied to the territory itself. The official was called praetor, (something like president, the name that had formerly been given to consuls).

Ptolemy III returned from Babylon. He understood that he was not in a position to affirm his conquests, so he decided to abandon Mesopotamia and kept only the positions in Syria and Canaan that he judged could be useful to him. As he passed through Jerusalem he made an offering in the temple following the Jewish rites. The Ptolemies were always very clear about the importance of satisfying all their subjects in religious matters. The king took back to Egypt some statues and religious objects that Cambyses had taken centuries before, for which the grateful Egyptians gave him the nickname Ptolemy Evergetes .(the benefactor). Ptolemy III used his war potential also in Nubia, where Egyptian rule had not been known for centuries. During his reign, the library of Alexandria came to house 400,000 volumes. The king ordered all travelers who came to the city to lend their books to be copied.

Seleucus II had a brother, Antiochus, who took advantage of the disturbances caused by Ptolemy III to seize Asia Minor. Many Greek cities in the area also achieved independence. The two brothers met in Ancyra. Antiochus had allied himself with Mithridades II, the king of Pontus and between them they defeated Seleucus II. Then Mithridates II married the sister of Antiochus, who gave him Cappadocia as a dowry, so that Mithridates II saw the surface of his kingdom multiplied. Meanwhile Eumenes I of Pergamon died, and was succeeded by Attalus I.At the same time, the Spartan king Leonidas II managed to put Agis IV on trial, who ended up being executed. The Macedonian King Antigonus I Gonatas also died this year. He was succeeded by his son Demetrius II,   who married Olympias, the sister and widow of Alexander II of Epirus, so that Epirus was annexed to Macedonia. The new king had to face the Aetolian League and allied himself with King Agrón of Illyria.

The defeat of Carthage against Rome had caused him serious problems with his mercenary soldiers, whom he could not pay. A part of them was in Africa, and in 240 they occupied the cities of Utica and Hippo, devastated the fields and even besieged Carthage itself. Hamilcar gathered all the loyal men he could find and prepared to face them. North Africa, from present-day Morocco to Libya, was populated by nomadic tribes called Berbers. There was very little cohesion and plenty of bickering between them, but they quickly coalesced in the face of any outside threat. The Berber tribes that inhabited the west of Carthage were theNumidians, who formed two tribes, the Massilians and the Massilians. They were excellent horsemen, and Hamilcar managed to get many of them into his ranks. At the same time, another group of mercenaries revolted in Sardinia. They watched with concern as Hamilcar was gradually reducing the rebels in Africa, and they understood that as soon as the situation there was under control, Hamilcar would go to Sardinia. Therefore in 239They requested the protection of Rome. Once again, Rome accepted the request for help and sent troops to Sardinia. Carthage rightly protested, as this was a violation of the peace treaty, but Rome declared war on Carthage and demanded as a condition of annulment that Carthage cede not only Sardinia, but also Corsica. The outraged Carthaginians had no choice but to accept this abuse, and Rome appropriated the islands, although it had to initiate a long campaign of fights against the local tribes.

In 238 King Cheng of Qin turned 21, who relieved Chancellor Lu of the regency, who remains as adviser, but in 237 he is succeeded by Li Si, who was to design Chinese policy for the coming decades.

That same year, Hamilcar managed to definitively defeat the mercenaries who were threatening Carthage. From then on he was able to plan the reconstruction of his country. Rome had driven Carthage out of Sicily and then taken Corsica and Sardinia from it. With this, Carthage had lost all influence over the Mediterranean and trade, the basis of its prosperity, was threatened with death. This produced a confrontation between the rulers of Cartago and Hamilcar. The oligarchy that ruled Carthage lived off trade, so it was in favor of avoiding any confrontation with Rome in the future and trying to recover as soon as possible from the ravages of war. On the other hand, Hamilcar hated Rome with all his being, because although he had defeated Carthage honorably, then he had blackmailed her, breaking all agreements for her benefit. Both parties reached an agreement. Hamilcar persuaded the Carthaginian senate to put him in charge of an expedition to Spain. There Carthage had a few colonies, but Hamilcar planned to extend Carthaginian influence along the entire coast and inland as well. His idea was to recruit and train an army there with which to attack Rome, although he was very careful not to reveal these plans. The Carthaginian senate gladly accepted the idea that Hamilcar should move away from Carthage. He might have died in Spain before he could come back. Amílcar left accompanied by his son-in-law Hamilcar persuaded the Carthaginian senate to put him in charge of an expedition to Spain. There Carthage had a few colonies, but Hamilcar planned to extend Carthaginian influence along the entire coast and inland as well. His idea was to recruit and train an army there with which to attack Rome, although he was very careful not to reveal these plans. The Carthaginian senate gladly accepted the idea that Hamilcar should move away from Carthage. He might have died in Spain before he could come back. Amílcar left accompanied by his son-in-law Hamilcar persuaded the Carthaginian senate to put him in charge of an expedition to Spain. There Carthage had a few colonies, but Hamilcar planned to extend Carthaginian influence along the entire coast and inland as well. His idea was to recruit and train an army there with which to attack Rome, although he was very careful not to reveal these plans. The Carthaginian senate gladly accepted the idea that Hamilcar should move away from Carthage. He might have died in Spain before he could come back. Amílcar left accompanied by his son-in-law but Hamilcar planned to extend Carthaginian influence over the entire coast and also in the interior. His idea was to recruit and train an army there with which to attack Rome, although he was very careful not to reveal these plans. The Carthaginian senate gladly accepted the idea that Hamilcar should move away from Carthage. He might have died in Spain before he could come back. Amílcar left accompanied by his son-in-law but Hamilcar planned to extend Carthaginian influence over the entire coast and also in the interior. His idea was to recruit and train an army there with which to attack Rome, although he was very careful not to reveal these plans. The Carthaginian senate gladly accepted the idea that Hamilcar should move away from Carthage. He might have died in Spain before he could come back. Amílcar left accompanied by his son-in-lawAsdrúbal and his nine-year-old son Aníbal . Hamilcar's initial plan had been to leave his son in Carthage, but he implored him to take him with him, to which Hamilcar agreed on the condition that the child swear eternal enmity towards Rome. He established his base in Gades (present-day Cádiz), from where he easily occupied several towns in the Guadalquivir valley, but then met with firm opposition from the Turdetanos, descendants of the Tartessians, according to tradition. His leader of him IstolacioHe formed a great army of Celts and Iberians, but Hamilcar defeated and ordered Istolacio executed. This did not end the Turdetan resistance. Another leader, called Indortes, got the support of the Vetones and the Lusitanos and, realizing that they could not stop the Carthaginians on the level ground, they offered resistance from the mountains, probably in the Sierra Morena.

In 235   Attalus I of Pergamum faced the Gauls definitively, who still continued their looting in Asia Minor. From this date the Gauls remained in Galatia, where they soon became civilized. Attalus I had a statue carved in Athens commemorating his victory. It was called The Dying Gaul, although it is sometimes known by the mistitle The Dead Gladiator. It is one of the most famous samples of art of the time that is preserved today.

The Galatians established a system of government very different from the monarchy, more in keeping with Gallic traditions. The territory was divided into three regions, corresponding to three Gallic tribes that had entered Asia Minor. Each of them was ruled by four tetrarchs.

That year King Diodotus I of Bactria died, and was succeeded by his son Diodotus II who, allied with the Parthian king Tiridates, frustrated Seleucus II's attempt to recover what had been the eastern part of the Empire. The king of Sparta Leonidas II also died and was succeeded by his son Cleomenes III. He had married the widow of Agis IV, and decided to continue his project, but realized that he first needed to assert his authority. He gathered as many men as he could and met the Achaean League in a series of battles from which he was always victorious.

In 232 the Romans elected Gaius Flaminius tribune of the common people , who managed to impose a distribution of land in favor of the poorest, despite the opposition of the senators and, in particular, his own father. He encouraged the creation of games for the commoners and tried to dissuade the senators from any interest in commerce (where they could exert many forms of unfair competition on the less powerful). In the meantime, Hamilcar had besieged Indortes, who was captured and killed when he tried to break through. Now Amílcar dominated southern Spain and managed to swell his army with indigenous people.

In 231 Rome had finally subdued the natives of Corsica and Sardinia, and made both islands its second province, after Sicily. For the first time since the reign of Numa Pompilius, the doors of the temple of Janus were closed, as a sign that Rome was not at war. However, he viewed with suspicion the successes of Hamilcar in Spain, which, having entrenched the south, was taking care of the eastern coast. Since he had no reason to act, he limited himself to sending an embassy with the intention of intimidating Hamilcar, which he failed to do. Amílcar founded the city of Akra Leuké, near present-day Alicante, and made it his base of operations.

That same year, King Agron of Illyria, who had already conquered several cities in Epirus, made a raid through the Peloponnese. The following year, in 230, he helped Demetrius II of Macedon to lift the siege that the Aetolians had imposed on the Macedonian city of Medione, but he died immediately after this victory.

Thank You