Hasdrubal Gisco

Hasdrubal Gisco commanded Carthaginian armies in Spain and then in Africa against Scipio, and lost the war in both places. He was not a Barcid, which matters: Carthage's war effort was divided between the family of Hannibal and its rivals, and Hasdrubal son of Gisco belonged to the second group. He shared command in Spain with Hannibal's brothers and helped destroy the two Scipio brothers in 211 BC, the disaster that nearly ended the Roman position on the peninsula. Then the younger Scipio arrived, took New Carthage by storm in 209, and beat him decisively at Ilipa in 206, after which Spain was lost and Hasdrubal went to Africa to build a coalition there. His instrument was his daughter Sophonisba, whom he married to Syphax, king of the western Numidians, and the marriage did what it was intended to do: Syphax abandoned his agreement with Rome and brought a large army to the Carthaginian side. Scipio destroyed both armies in one night in 203 BC by setting fire to their reed-hutted winter camps and cutting down men as they ran out unarmed, and then beat what they rebuilt at the Great Plains. Hasdrubal was condemned to death in absentia by the Carthaginian assembly, which had a habit of crucifying failed generals. He is reported to have poisoned himself. His daughter, taken by the Numidian prince Masinissa and then claimed by Rome as a prisoner, was sent poison by her new husband and drank it. The episode became one of the most painted scenes in European art, which has tended to obscure the politics underneath it. Hasdrubal had spent his career building Numidian alliances by marriage because Carthage would not raise citizen armies, and the strategy collapsed the moment Rome could outbid him.

• Lived: 260 BCE – 202 BCE
• Nationality: Carthaginian
• Roles: military_leader