Hasdrubal (general)

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Hasdrubal ( Punic '; "My help is Baal "), was a Carthaginian general who first fought against the Numid king Massinissa and in the subsequent Third Punic War against the Romans .

Hasdrubal moved in 150 BC. BC with 25,000 men against Massinissa in the field. He broke the peace treaty of the Second Punic War , which forbade Carthage to wage war with Rome without permission, thereby giving the Romans the Casus Belli . In the war against Massinissa he was able to gain some advantages at first. Then, however, he got into unfavorable terrain, where he was defeated in a bloody battle and trapped with the rest of the men. Plague and want forced him to accept the conditions dictated by Massinissa. Therefore sentenced to death in Carthage , Hasdrubal escaped.

By now Rome had declared war on Carthage and Roman troops landed in Africa. Carthage rose in 149 BC. To the last fight against Rome. Hasdrubal's death sentence was overturned, he gathered an army and supported Carthage in battle. He inflicted heavy losses on the Roman armed forces under Consul Manius Manilius .

147 BC BC he seized the supreme command of Carthage and exercised his rule cruelly and arbitrarily. In vain did he defend the city against Scipio the Younger . When Scipio the Younger had taken the city, the army and the population surrendered. Hasdrubal fled to the castle with his family and 900 followers. Here he resisted for some time, but then fled secretly and left his fellow soldiers abandoned. They set fire to the temple and burn themselves with the house of God. Hasdrubal's wife murdered her children before his eyes and then threw herself into the fire, cursing him.

Hasdrubal died as a Roman prisoner in Italy.

swell

literature

  • Hans Volkmann: Hasdrubal (6). In: The Little Pauly (KlP). Volume 2, Stuttgart 1967, column 949.

Remarks

  1. ↑ Werner Huss: Carthage. Munich 1995, p. 103f.
personal data
SURNAME Hasdrubal
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Carthaginian general, opponent of Massinissa
DATE OF BIRTH 2nd century BC Chr.
DATE OF DEATH after 146 BC Chr.