July 14, 2006
The dogs of war
Carthage's most famous son is best known today for his tactic of marching elephants through the Alps (or possibly for having a name that rhymed with "cannibal"). But his sharp mind for tactical advantage, including the cavalry techniques that enabled him maintain a fifteen-year campaign against the Romans in Italy, weren't the first instance of his military innovation. Hannibal was the first man in recorded history to engage in biowarfare, flinging urns full of snakes at enemy ships in the Mediterranean. Use of cavalry predates the Battle of Cannae, of course; the chariot was invented around the year 2000 B.C., and the invention of the stirrup — a profoundly simple invention with drastic world-historical effects in both Europe and Asia — meant that cavalry could ride horses directly. (Other animals, such as the Carthaginian elephant or the Arizona camel, were also used.) But Hannibal's snakes were another technology entirely: animals not as a tool of soldiers, but as weapons themselves.
