I've just finished Ernle Bradford's "Hannibal," part of the Wordsworth Military Library. Finally I think I have a grasp of why Hannibal is important to world history and, as it turns out, it has little to do with elephants and the Alps.

On page 95 Bradford writes:

The one thing that Fabius [Roman Consul turned dictator] had to do, he realised, was avoid defeat. The victory that he must aim for was not the traditional one upon the battlefield - something that the genius of his opponent rendered unlikely - but success achieved over a very long period of time, if need be. The presence of his troops must be used to reassure the allies and their cities that Rome was watching over them. Time and the extent of the land itself must be made to work for him. The Carthaginian's [Hannibal's] army must be reduced slowly, its morale snapped, and its opportunities for engaging him in a straightforward battle reduced to a minimum.

The delaying tactics led to a 17 year war that was fought on two continents - Europe and Africa - from Spain to Macedonia. While Hannibal pretty much had his way with the Romans whenever they engaged in battle, Hannibal ultimately lost. The question is, which side of the current-day conflict is Hannibal and which side is Fabius?

Early in the war with Hannibal, Rome had it's political strife. After Hannibal crosses the Alps, rests, and then takes it to the Romans, for example at Lake Trasimene in 217 BC, Fabius's strategy of delay is attacked as intentionally prolonging the war, leading to the election of Gaius Terentius Varro to co-consul. As Bradford writes:

Varro was a plebeian of ultra-democratic opinions who had managed to get voted into office by the people for his defamatory attacks on Fabius the dictator. His arguments, and those of his supporters, will be familiar to those who have observed the pattern of similar politicians in later centuries: the nobles had been seeking war for many years, and it was they who had brought Hannibal to Italy. It was their machinations, too, that were spinning out the war, when it might be brought to a victorious conclusion; the consuls had employed the arts of Fabius to prolong the war, when they could have ended it. The nobles had all made a compact to this effect; nor would the people see an end to the war until they had elected a true plebeian, a new man, to the consulship."

The newly elected co-consuls don't see eye-to-eye about things and this division of leadership and intention leads to the disaster at Cannae.

Whether current-day Varroses would do the same is something to think about. The uncanny "repeat of history" suggests that human nature has not changed over the course of 2200 plus years. It is therefore unlikely that it will change in the next three or four.