Hannibal’s Last Battle Read online

  As they advanced the Romans built roads along strategic routes and established colonies of retired Roman and Latin soldiers as permanent garrisons at key points. These newly-conquered regions entered into a Roman confederation, yielding control of their foreign affairs and perhaps a third of their territory in return for local autonomy and exemption from taxes. They also became an important source of military manpower, enabling Rome to not only continue its conquest of new regions, but also to recover from seemingly disastrous battlefield debacles.

  As Carthaginian warships plied the western seas and skirmished with Syracuse in the fourth century, Rome, which had no navy of its own, was using its powerful army to expand southward into what was known as Magna Graecia or ‘Greater Greece’, the area south of modern Naples encompassing the toe and heel of Italy that had been colonized by the Greeks. Once the Romans had secured this area at the beginning of the third century BCE, their focus turned to Sicily. Here, Rome competed with two other regional powers – Carthage and Syracuse – for control of this economically-important island. Friction between these three players would eventually lead to the First Punic War (264–241 BCE), with Syracuse siding with Rome in the conflict.

  For twenty-three years Rome and Carthage battled each other for control of Sicily, an endeavour that required Rome to build a navy from scratch to challenge Punic control of the sea. Despite losing fleets to both Carthaginian naval acumen and Mediterranean storms, the Romans persevered and eventually won the First Punic War in 241, forcing Carthage to except a punitive peace stripping away Sicily and a high financial indemnity. Demanding blood, Rome continued the pressure on Carthage over the next two decades, until friction over territory in Spain precipitated a Second Punic War in 218 BCE.

  Nearly seventeen years later, the war was not going as Hannibal Barca had planned. His early string of seemingly-decisive victories over Rome in Roman territory had not produced what he had hoped for – the unravelling of the Roman confederation and destruction of Rome as a regional competitor. Instead, Rome had persevered and, under the inspired generalship of Publius Cornelius Scipio, brought the war directly to Carthaginian territory to threaten the capital itself.

  Rome During the Middle Republic

  The story of Hannibal’s last battle is more than the story of how men and animals manoeuvred on a battlefield on that dusty plain in ancient Tunisia some twenty-two centuries ago. The Battle of Zama was the climax of two generations of warfare involving two generations of warriors. Both Hannibal and Scipio were members of military dynasties and sons of prominent generals who had fought the enemy and failed. Hamilcar Barca failed to defend Sicily in the final stages of the First Punic War, while the first Publius Cornelius Scipio (known to history as Scipio the Elder) was unsuccessful in intercepting Hannibal in southern Gaul before he crossed the Alps in 218 and was defeated at Ticinus a year later. Both sons wanted to avenge the spoiled reputations of their fathers, and a victory on the field of Zama would provide this opportunity. Interestingly, the Battle of Zama would be the third time Hannibal and Scipio the Younger would face each other, but the first time that Scipio would hold overall command of Roman forces in the engagement. Hannibal had won the day at Ticinus (218) and Cannae (216) early in the Second Punic War, but after honing his skills campaigning in Spain, the pupil Scipio was now in North Africa to test the master.

  This work is intended to be a history of the Second Punic War (218–202 BCE) with an emphasis on the climactic battle between Rome and Carthage at Zama in 202 BCE. Zama witnessed the generalship of two extraordinary commanders, Hannibal Barca and Scipio Africanus, in a battle which at once sealed the doom of one civilization (Carthage) and launched the other (Rome) into preeminence in the Mediterranean. Background will be provided on the Carthaginian and Roman civilizations and military institutions, followed by a discussion of the origins, course and outcome of the First Punic War. Next, the lives, generalship and campaigns of Hannibal Barca and Scipio Africanus will be explored during the first years of the Second Punic War. All of this will lead up to an exhaustive discussion of the Battle of Zama itself, one which will include a detailed account of Carthaginian and Roman military organizations and tactics utilized, and ending with an appraisal of both Hannibal and Scipio as generals. The aftermath of the battle will be explored, specifically the life of Hannibal as political exile and Scipio as political genius. Finally, the rise of Rome as a Mediterranean power in the first half of the second century will be discussed, culminating in the destruction of Carthage in the Third Punic War. This monograph is intended to be a short history aimed at both the undergraduate university student and armchair historian. Our story begins with a discussion of the military organization and tactics of the Carthaginians and the Romans and the origins of the First Punic War.

  N.B. All dates in this book are BCE, unless otherwise stated.

  Chapter 1

  The First Punic War (264–241 BCE)

  The Organization and Tactics of the Carthaginian Army

  The military traditions inherited by Hannibal Barca and Scipio Africanus during the Second Punic War (218–202 BCE) reflect the character of Carthaginian and Roman civilization as a whole. The Roman military machine began exclusively as a land army and grew out of the experience of wars of expansion in Italy, while the Carthaginians, as a thalassocracy, built a powerful navy to protect their sea-lanes and colonial possessions in the western Mediterranean, and supplemented their navy with a land force relying heavily on subject peoples and mercenaries. Although both traditions originally drew heavily from the Greek way of war, each modified their armies to meet their specific needs. For the most part, the military organization and tactics used by both generals were already in place by the First Punic War (264–241 BCE).

  Unfortunately for modern historians, Rome’s destruction of Carthaginian civilization after the Third Punic War (149–146 BCE) was so complete that we are left with no contemporary Punic chronicler to explain the organizational and tactical elements of their military in the way the Romans did. What we can piece together about the Carthaginian way of war comes from Roman sources, primarily Polybius and Livy.

  By birth and education Greek, Polybius (c.200–118 BCE) was a distinguished official from the city of Megalopolis in Arcadia. This city became the seat of power for the Achaean League, a Hellenic group noted for its pro-Macedonian and anti-Roman sentiments. After the Romans defeated King Perseus of Macedon (reigned 179–168) in 168 BCE, Polybius became one of the thousands of leading Greeks brought to Rome as war captives. He was fortunate enough to befriend and tutor Publius Cornelius Scipio Aemilianus, the adopted grandson of Scipio Africanus. This connection, and a deep-seated interest in the testimony of eyewitnesses, letters, lost treaties, and Punic inscriptions, provided Polybius with a wealth of information about the Second Punic War.8

  Livy (Titus Livius) was the outstanding Roman historian of the Augustan age. He lived from 59 BCE to 17 CE and wrote a history of Rome in Latin filling 142 books. Livy covers the periods 753–243 and 219–167 BCE with great detail. He is particularly strong in his comparisons of Hannibal Barca and Scipio Africanus after the Battle of Zama.9 But Polybius and Livy, along with Plutarch, Appian, and Cassio Dio, were also pro-Roman in their accounts, and this bias combined with the thorough razing of Carthage after the Third Punic War severely hampered these historians in their reconstruction of the three wars between Rome and Carthage.

  By the time of the First Punic War, Carthage’s citizens had for the most part ceased to fight as foot soldiers, though they did command the army and serve in a professional officer class.10 Polybius does make certain references to ‘the phalanx of the Carthaginians’ at the end of the First Punic War when referring to the defence of Carthage itself, so historians do believe that an indigenous Punic army of perhaps 1,500 men did exist to defend the homeland.11 As a wealthy maritime empire, Carthage had the luxury of using its subject peoples and mercenaries to fight its wars. North Africans of mixed Libyan and Phoenician descent m
ade up a quarter of the army, though Celts, Spaniards, Numidians and Greeks also served, as did soldiers from the various islands in the western Mediterranean.12

  Each of these subject peoples or mercenaries brought their own tactical specialization to the battlefield, and when coordinated by a general of the calibre of Hamilcar Barca or his son Hannibal, the multinational Carthaginian army was a force to be reckoned with. The backbone of the Punic heavy infantry was made up of Liby-Phoenicians who fought in a Greek-style phalanx. There is some debate concerning how these troops were armed, either with long pikes in the Macedonian fashion, or with the shorter thrusting spears favoured by hoplites.13 However they were armed, their armour consisted of helmets, greaves, and linen or leather corslets and a round shield. These soldiers made up the main shock component of the army.

  Barbarian heavy infantry included Spanish and Celtic contingents. Spanish warriors fought with either a cut-and-slash sword known as a falcata, a curved, single-edged weapon derived from the Greek kopis, or a short double-edged thrusting sword from which the Roman gladius hispaniensis was patterned.14 Like the Romans, they discharged two short javelins, a light one made entirely of iron, and a heavier, weighted one made of wood and iron right before entering hand-to-hand combat. In fact some historians believe that the Romans adopted the use of weighted javelins (pila) from the Iberians.15 Spanish warriors were protected by a flat oval shield or scutum, similar to that carried by the Romans.16 These scutarii, so named because of these shields, were some of Hannibal’s best troops in the Second Punic War and a match for Roman infantry.17 Polybius described the Spanish soldiers’ national dress as short purple-bordered tunics.18

  Carthaginian Order of Battle. Carthaginian armies lacked the relatively standardized approach of Roman organizations. A typical Carthaginian pre-battle deployment often consisted of infantry formations flanked by cavalry and screened by skirmishers. Notable amongst these light troops were the deadly slingers from the Balearic Islands. Elephants were also deployed in front of the army, spaced 15 to 45 metres apart. The beasts could prove highly effective against infantry, and also helped protect the army against enemy cavalry, as horeses shied from contact with the pachyderms unless they had been trained together. However, elephants posed almost as great a danger to their own infantry as they did to the enemy, as they could often be stampeded by missile fire, trumpet blasts, or spikes sown on the ground. Carthaginian armies were composed of a number of different tribes, complicating communications, though this was offset by allowing troops to fight using their native methods under their own leadership. The Carthaginian heavy infantry, mainly Liby-Phoenician in composition, were often described as deployed in phalanx formations. The phalanx had the advantage of mass and was difficult to stop, but was far more unwieldy than the Roman legion and could often be outflanked if caught without cavalry support. Carthaginian cavalry was Hannibal’s true arm of decision and was normally far superior in number and quality to the Romans. Numidian light cavalry was particularly skilled and presented a significant danger to Roman formations.

  Celtic infantry were recruited from the Gallic tribes north of the Po River. The Celts (or Gauls as they were sometimes referred to) were an Indo-European people who inhabited an area of Western Europe including modern France, southern Holland, Switzerland, and Germany west of the Rhine. Most of the Celts were settled farmers like the Greeks and Romans. They were organized into tribes and capable of fielding very large armies. Like other Indo-European peoples, these tribal warriors were organized into clans and lived for war, glory, plunder and, peculiar to Celtic tribes, headhunting. The Celts usually fought with a long slashing sword and without body armour and were protected only by their oval, leather-covered shields. Polybius tells us that the Celts fought naked, while Livy recounts that they fought wearing only trousers.19 Although individually brave, Celtic warriors could be unreliable in mass warfare. Hannibal often used these undisciplined warriors as shock troops to attack the enemy centre before committing his better trained and more reliable cavalry.

  The Carthaginians benefited from light infantry of a superior quality than those that served the Romans. We know that Greek peltasts (javelin throwers), so named because of the light wicker shield or pelta carried by the skirmishers, were employed by Punic commanders. The most famous of these light troops were the slingers from the Balearic Islands, who served as mercenaries for various armies for almost six hundred years.20 Armed with different kinds of slings made from black-tufted rush, hair or sinew depending on range and target, the Balearic slingers had a fast rate of fire and were extremely accurate even at long range.21 The heavy sling could fire a stone the size of a tennis ball over three hundred yards.22 Balearic warriors also served as javelin throwers and spearmen.

  Unlike the Romans who emphasized infantry as their decisive arm, the Carthaginian art of war held a special place for cavalry, which evolved into the dominant tactical system in Punic warfare. The core contingents were comprised of a small number of elite Carthaginian and Liby-Phoenician heavy cavalry made up of upper-class professional soldiers. Carthaginian commanders also utilized Celtic and Spanish cavalry. Celtic cavalry were recruited from the nobility and were protected by expensive mail armour, metal helmets, and a round or oval shield. They were normally armed with a long sword and heavy thrusting spear or lance.23 Celts were natural fighters, and their hatred of the Romans made them natural allies for the Carthaginians. Spanish light cavalry, like their infantry, were not armoured, but wore the same purple-bordered tunics. Each horseman was armed with a cut-and-thrust falcata and two javelins or light spears with butt-spikes. There is some evidence that some Spanish horse were heavy cavalry, armed with heavier spears or lances, and may well have been armoured.24

  The finest light cavalry was supplied by the Numidians, a fierce nomadic people from the remoter parts of what is now Tunisia and Algeria. These accomplished equestrians of Berber stock began as enemies of Carthage, but were eventually turned into allies or mercenaries. Contemporary chroniclers have them fighting under either Punic commanders or their own captains, of whom Masinissa and Syphax are the most famous. Numidian soldiers developed a special relationship with the Barca family, serving Hannibal and his younger brothers Hasdrubal and Mago in Spain during the Second Punic War.25 Numidian horsemen rode without armour, protected only by a small buckler shield or leopard skin draped over their arm. They also rode without reins, controlling their mounts by a rope around the neck, the pressure of their knees and a small riding stick. Like other barbarian light cavalry throughout the ancient world, these mounted warriors utilized hit-and-run tactics, riding close to the enemy, discharging their javelins, and then riding away.26 Hannibal used these specialists in manoeuvre warfare with great effect against the Romans at Trebia in 218 BCE, taunting the legionaries into action at a time of the Carthaginian commander’s choosing.

  Organizationally and tactically, Carthaginian warfare owed much to the Hellenistic combined-arms system exemplified by the campaigns of the Macedonian Alexander the Great (356–323) and modified over the next century by the Hellenistic Successor kingdoms. Alexander’s unprecedented successes at Granicus River (334), Issus (333) and Gaugamela (331) cast a long shadow on the conduct of warfare throughout the classical world, and Carthaginian commanders in the third century were well schooled in how to orchestrate infantry and cavalry on the battlefield. And like the Macedonians, cavalry, not infantry, was the decisive arm in Carthaginian warfare. Punic warfare even utilized elephants in war which they had first encountered in their war with King Pyrrhus (319–272 BCE), a brilliant general from the Hellenized region of Epirus northwest of Greece, in what is now roughly modern Albania.

  War elephants provided Hellenistic generals with a new weapon system, one that fused shock and missile elements. Each beast usually carried a driver or mahout seated on its neck and a turret containing a spearman, for shock combat, and an archer or javelin thrower for missile fire. Although slow and vulnerable to enemy missile attack, the w
ar elephant’s main advantages in combat were its size and the terror it inspired in troops and enemy horses unused to fighting the pachyderm. Moreover, war elephants were sometimes used as living siege engines, forcing the entrance to cities.27 Normally, larger Indian elephants were used in Hellenistic warfare, though Carthage preferred the smaller African forest elephants because they were easier to acquire and train.28

  On the battlefield, war elephants were placed in the forward ranks of the formation and spaced fifty to 150 feet apart to discourage enemy cavalry charges because horses that were not trained around elephants were frightened of their size, smell, and sound. But using elephants in a combat setting was also fraught with danger. If struck by too many arrows or javelins, an elephant might become uncontrollable and stampede through its own ranks (the mahout carried a hammer and large iron spike to dispatch the animal if it turned on its own troops).29 In order to protect the pachyderm cavalry, later Successor generals added a permanent detachment of light troops (usually archers) and dressed the elephant in leather or metal barding to protect the animal from missiles and hamstringing.30

  As war elephants became more common in Hellenistic warfare, special anti-elephant devices were adopted by their foes. The most common defence was planting the ground with sharpened spikes, thereby targeting the animal’s soft foot tissue. Wounded in this manner, a war elephant was nearly impossible to control and often trampled its own troops. By the time of the Second Punic War the novelty of elephant warfare had mostly worn off, and the civilizations around the Mediterranean basin knew how to manage the threat of these large beasts. The sight of an elephant in full panoply did inspire awe and fear in the barbarian peoples of Europe (the Roman emperor Claudius used them in his conquest of Britain in 43 CE), and it is for this reason that Hannibal might have included thirty-seven of these creatures in his train.31