Importance of the Divine (and Stories) in Battle

A few quotes regarding the beginning of the second Punic War.


An ancient Greek military strategist…writing three hundred years after Hannibal, made the following observation, “Soldiers are far more courageous when they believe that they are facing dangers with the good will of the gods; for they themselves are watchful, each man, and they look out keenly for omens of sight or sound, and an auspicious sacrifice for the whole army encourages even those who have private doubts
—Richard Miles in Carthage Must Be Destroyed. Chapter 10. 2011.

...Hellenistic armies apparently developed their esprit de corps based on the mystic of their leaders who could be seen as having almost supernatural powers as they were granted triumphs by the gods.
—Richard Miles in Carthage Must Be Destroyed. Chapter 10. 2011.

...the claim to divine endorsement was the key development of Hannibal’s campaign against the Romans, and certainly played to the expectations of Hannibal’s Celtic allies whose chieftans were often accompanied by bards, who eulogized their deeds in song.
—Richard Miles in Carthage Must Be Destroyed. Chapter 10. 2011.

...in the writings of the later historian Cassius Dio, “The equation between successful leadership and divine sanction is made explicit.” Dio attributes Hannibal's ability to predict future events to the fact that he understood divination by the inspection of entrails. At those critical moments when confidence in their mission had begun to ebb away from his troops, Hannibal seems to have ensured that some evidence of divine favor was presented by which the stock of Carthaginian self-belief was replenished and the troops were reminded that they were literally following in the footsteps of Heracles [or, Hercules] and his army.
—Richard Miles in Carthage Must Be Destroyed. Chapter 10. 2011.


What made Hannibal such a potent threat was not merely his military might, but the challenge that he presented to the previously successful Roman model of territorial conquest and incorporation. The relentless divine associations attributed to the Carthaginian general by his literary entourage represented something far more potent than mere self-indulgence. Hannibal was intent on setting now a clear alternative, not only to Roman political hegemony, but also to the Roman mythology by which that hegemony was justified.
—Richard Miles in Carthage Must Be Destroyed. Chapter 10. 2011.