Ager Falernus

[Mark]

I'm looking at the ancmed discussion on Carthaginian slaves and logistics. In Polybius (III, 93.4) Hasdrubal is referred to in translation as captain of foragers, or captain of pioneers, responsible for weaponising 2000 oxen at Ager Falernus, e.g.:

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0234%3Abook%3D3%3Achapter%3D93

How does one arrive at the title, from a literal translation? The Greek is here:

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0233%3Abook%3D3%3Achapter%3D93%3Asection%3D4

[Patrick Waterson]

Hasdrubal is the leitourgion tetagmenon (accusative case as he is being summoned).  Leitourgos is public service, and tetagmenon comes from tasso, to marshal, draw up, set in order or place in array, so presumably a leitourgios tetagmenon is one who performs a public duty of setting in order, conceivably a chief of staff.

Patrick

[Mark]

Thanks. I had a primitive go at it and I still don't see how the translator got as far as captain of foragers, or captain of pioneers. The passage goes on to state that Hasdrubal had so many people available that tying torches to the oxen was performed very quickly.

[Duncan Head]

"Hasdrubal, who was in command of the Army Service" in the Loeb translation (at http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Polybius/3*.html). "Commissary-general", perhaps?

[Mark]

As Patrick says Leitourgos = service (is root for modern Engl. Liturgy, which has a different sense). Looking at a number of dictionaries and other usages ...

e.g. http://www.bible.ca/history/fathers/NPNF1-11/npnf1-11-54.htm ("See a man well-prepared (tetagmenon andra)")

Liddell Hart = "tetagmenoi" = "rank and file" (Thuc): http://perseus.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/cgi-bin///lexindex?db=lsj&lang=greek&display=&lookup=ta/ssw

Hence the translation to Army Service, in the sense of group responsible fir services to the army = pioneers?

[Patrick Waterson]

Plus the translator may have been casting around for a modern equivalent, or what he believed might be one.

I suspect Hasdrubal may have been more like a chief of staff or operations officer, responsible for arranging and allocating duties, making sure people kept to the line and order of march, etc. - we might even (perhaps loosely) call him a marshal, or even a martial marshal.

He may be the same Hasdrubal with whom Plutarch has Hannibal chatting before Cannae: if so, this would make sense, with Hannibal talking through the finer points of deployment, timing and sequencing of manoeuvres with his 'chief-of-staff', the man who would presumably have to send the right orders at the right time if Hannibal was otherwise preoccupied.

This speculation scratches the surface of a possible Carthaginian army staff system - making one wonder if the officers seized by the mutineers along with Gisgo during the mercenaries' revolt after the First Punic War (Polybius I.70) reflected a similar arrangement.  If the Carthaginians had what amounted to a professional staff corps, it would go a long way to explaining the efficiency of their recruitment and (normal) supply arrangements.

Patrick

[Mark]

There are several references to foraging in translations of Polybius, it might be interesting to go back and see the other original terms used.

(edited) And, of course, we are not getting the staff title of the Carthaginians, we are getting Polybius' view.

[Patrick Waterson]

True, and we then get another remove when translated into English.

Polybius uses two principal words for foraging: one, where armies are in close proximity, is 'pronome': the word can also mean a sortie or even an elephant's trunk - all on the same basis of extending out and grabbing in.  Fabius in III.90.2 forbids his soldiers to 'pronomeuein' while he hanging on the tail of Hannibal's army.  Philip in V.19.7-8 sends out 'pronomais' to strip the nearest district of Laconia.  Describing the Roman camp, watering and foraging is 'hydreias kai pronomas'.

Whe Hannibal is collecting corn (unopposed) around Geronium (Polybius III.101.4-5) the word is 'sitologein', which is specifically corn-collecting or, as per Middle Liddell, to 'discharge the office of sitologos', the latter being either a corn-collector or keeper of a granary (or conceivably both).

Hasdrubal, incidentally, comes to Hannibal's rescue in III.102.6 with 4,000 rallied fugitives from foraging parties (pronomeountas) who had collected in the camp (Hannibal was having a small current difficulty with Minucius).  This does seem to suggest that Hasdrubal acted as a sort of master of the camp, perhaps in addition to other duties, and may have prompted the idea that he was a captain of foragers, simply because the men he led out (in numbers, coincidentally, a legion) had previously been foraging.

Patrick

[Duncan Head]

Hasdrubal is the leitourgion tetagmenon...

And, of course, we are not getting the staff title of the Carthaginians, we are getting Polybius' view.

Though that Carthaginian title might have been RB MSTRT, perhaps (as in Slingshot 284).

(Now why didn't I think to make that connection before?)

[Patrick Waterson]

Perhaps because of only just thinking of the Stela of Abd'astart in that connection?  Nicely spotted, though. 

Now where does the H-MYSTR fit into the picture?

Patrick

[Duncan Head]

Last night I ordered an essay that might answer that - Maurice SZNYCER : Les titres puniques des fonctions militaires à Carthage, in http://www.abebooks.fr/9782735502011/CARTHAGE-TERRITOIRE-ANTIQUITE-COLLECTIF-2735502015/plp

[Patrick Waterson]

Sacre bleu!    Bonne chance, mon ami - and I see the possibility of a very insightful future article on the subject of the Carthaginian 'general staff'.

[Duncan Head]

I doubt it, sadly - it turns out to be a slightly disappointing article on first glance, of less substance than I had hoped.

[Patrick Waterson]

C'est la vie.