The Carthaginian ship found off the coast of Sicily in the area of Lilybaeum.
(The Regional Archaeological Museum Baglio Anselmi, Marsala, Sicily)
Carthaginian ruins at Kerkouane on the Cap Bon peninsula, Tunisia. One of the few sites not razed and built over by the Romans.
Roman ruins at Carthage. Although the complete destruction of Carthage after the Third Punic War is a myth (archaeologists have found several walls dating back to Carthaginian occupation), the largest walls and fortifications were torn down and those cities that sided with Carthage were destroyed. Rome annexed 5,000 square miles of Carthaginian territory to form the new province of ‘Africa’ and then reinhabited the site where Carthage had stood. Today, most of the ruins found in this area date back to the Roman period.
‘The Capture of Carthage’ by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo (1696–1770).
(The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York).
Publius Cornelius Scipio Aemilianus oversees the sack of Carthage. The natural son of Aemilius Paullus and grandson by adoption of Scipio Africanus, he was destined for political pre-eminence in Rome. In 151 BCE, he volunteered to fight in Spain when Roman reverses had severely impacted on recruiting. He distinguished himself there and also in North Africa, where his political skills won him respect with Numidian and Carthaginian commanders. When the Third Punic War was bogged down, he was elected as consul and returned to North Africa to end the siege and oversee the destruction of Carthage in 146 BCE, ending nearly seven hundred years of Punic civilization in Africa.
Parley on the Plain and Locating the Battlefield
Scipio’s brutal campaign against the African towns pressed the Punic government to act in their defence. Hannibal was ordered to stop the depredations, but he refused to leave his camp near Hadrumentum before he had raised an army capable of defeating Scipio. Weak in cavalry, Hannibal sought to buttress this arm through an alliance with a relative of Syphax named Tychaeus, a man who reportedly commanded the best cavalry in Africa.315 Hannibal was successful and 2,000 Numidian light horse joined his army. Satisfied with his forces, Hannibal decided to break the stalemate and marched his army five days west of Carthage to an area Polybius identifies as Zama.316 Pausing there, he sent scouts and spies out to locate the Romans and evaluate their strength.
After the breakdown of peace negotiations, Scipio left his stronghold at Castra Cornelia and advanced up the Bagradas River past the site of his victory at the Great Plains, partly to provoke Hannibal and partly to secure his lines of communication with King Masinissa and his Numidian troops.317 Hannibal knew Scipio was in the area, but was not sure whether his Roman enemy had already been joined by Masinissa. It is possible that Hannibal marched west of Carthage to Zama in order to put himself between Scipio and his Numidian ally. Perhaps Hannibal believed Scipio would not engage him without Masinissa’s reinforcements, or perhaps he felt he could intercept the Numidian king before he rendezvoused with the Roman general and deal with him separately.318 Divided, the Roman and Numidian armies might be manageable. Combined, they presented the Carthaginian general with a substantial threat. No doubt Scipio was aware of this as well, and this might explain why he treated three captured Carthaginian spies the way he did.
These three spies were taken prisoner by the Romans about the same time that Masinissa arrived at the camp with Numidian reinforcements. This force consisted of 4,000 light cavalry and 6,000 infantry.319 Polybius and Livy differ on the timing of these events. Livy maintains that the spies arrived after Masinissa, and reported back their numbers, while Polybius states that the Numidian king arrived the next day unobserved by the spies.320 Both authors agree that Scipio ordered the spies to be treated well and given guided tours of the camp and to report back to Hannibal what they observed. Polybius’ account would make sense if it were Scipio’s intention to mislead Hannibal into believing the Roman’s were weak in cavalry. This may be why Hannibal continued to march west towards Scipio. Livy’s account would ring true if the spies returned to Hannibal’s camp with intelligence on Roman troop strengths that worried the Punic general.
Hannibal Barca sent word to Scipio that he wanted a conference with the Roman general. Livy maintains that Hannibal was ‘alarmed’ by the confidence of his Roman foe and thought ‘that he would get better terms from Scipio if he approached him while his army was still intact than after a defeat’.321 Whether this was Hannibal’s idea or that of the Carthaginian government, Livy does not say. Polybius has a slightly different take on the reason for the meeting, proposing that Hannibal was so ‘impressed by the courage and lofty spirit which Scipio had shown [the captured spies] … that he conceived the surprising idea that the two should meet and talk with one another’. Either way, the Roman camp was located and Hannibal ordered his army to take up position on a hill just under four miles away from the Roman camp, virtually ensuring a set-piece battle would take place. The Roman position was defensible and ‘within javelin range’ of a reliable water supply, while the Punic camp was also defensible, but without easy access to water.322
The next day Hannibal and Scipio, accompanied by small detachments of horsemen, rode out to meet one another in full view of both armies. Dismounting, the two men walked towards each other. Livy records:
Exactly halfway between the opposing ranks of armed men, each attended by an interpreter, the generals met. They were not only the two greatest soldiers of their time, but the equals of any king or commander in the whole history of the world. For a minute mutual admiration struck them dumb, and they looked at each other in silence. …323
The two men then conversed, though what we know about this conversation comes from Polybius’ later reconstruction based on testimony of the interpreters. Hannibal spoke first, declaring that ‘he only wished that the Romans had never coveted any possessions outside of Italy, and Carthage outside of Africa’.324 He then asked Scipio if there was any way they could resolve their differences without fighting. Scipio retorted that it was Carthage, not Rome, which had started the war, invading Italy and slaughtering thousands of Romans. Scipio then recounted Rome’s grievances, which both Livy and Polybius discuss in some detail. Scipio reportedly ended the conversation with an ultimatum: ‘The fact is that you must either put yourself and your country unconditionally into our hands, or else fight and conquer us’.325 After this exchange, Hannibal and Scipio parted, returning to their camp for the evening, and prepared for the coming battle.
Precisely where the Battle of Zama occurred is still a matter of some debate.326 History records no less than three different places in ancient Tunisia called Zama, and Polybius’ account has Hannibal moving away from there to take up position near Scipio’s camp. So although history will forever record the name of this engagement as the Battle of Zama, it is the location of Scipio’s camp where the actual battle took place. Polybius identifies Scipio’s camp at a place called Margaron, which has never been accurately identified, while Livy calls the site Naraggara, which is known and is usually located at the modern Sidi Youssef. Unfortunately, this area is too hilly and does not fit the physical description of the battlefield. One modern historian posits that the Battle of Zama was fought in the plain of Draa el Metnan, a little south of the road from Sidi Youssef to El Kef.327 Here, the topography fits the description of the battle site. Unfortunately, we will probably never know for certain the precise location of this epic confrontation.
The Battle of Zama (202 BCE)
At daybreak the following morning the opposing generals drew up their armies in large formations facing each other on the plain. The ancient authorities do not agree on the precise size of the armies involved. Hannibal’s troop strengths are taken from a calculation from Polybius who states that the first line of infantry consisted of 12,000 men. Historians assume that each of the three lines held similar numbers for a total of 36,000 infantry.328 Polybius also states that the Numidian prince Tychaeus brought with him 2,000 horse when he joined Hannibal’s army.329 Appian increases the total
Punic forces to 50,000 men.330 There is even less information from the sources on Roman troop strengths. Both Polybius and Livy give no figures other than remarking on the 6,000 infantry and 4,000 cavalry Masinissa brought with him. Appian gives Scipio an army of 23,000 Roman infantry and 1,500 cavalry, to which we add the above numbers, plus a further 600 Numidian horsemen brought by another chieftain named Dacamas.331 It is likely that Scipio’s army had swelled to 29,000 infantry and over 6,100 cavalry with the addition of the Numidian reinforcements, though it was still smaller than Hannibal’s 36,000 infantry, 4,000 horse and eighty war elephants.332
We do possess more information on how the two armies were arrayed for battle. Scipio drew up his veteran Roman and allied heavy infantry troops in the typical three-line formation. But instead of staggering the hastati, principes and triarii maniples in the customary checkerboard formation or quincunx, Scipio aligned his three lines directly behind one another to create corridors through his ranks. He then filled the corridors between the hastati in the first line with light infantry velites. According to Polybius, these corridors were designed as an anti-elephant defence, allowing the attacking pachyderms to be ushered through the ranks of Roman infantry by the velites, who, if pressed, could either retire backwards along the corridor or withdraw sideways between the lines of their more-heavily armoured comrades.333 Scipio then placed his cavalry on the wings of this novel infantry formation, with Masinissa and all of his 4,000 Numidian horse on the right and Laelius and the 1,500 Italian cavalry on the left. We do not know where Dacamas and his contingent were placed, but it is likely they formed up with the Roman horse on the left to balance the wings.334
Hannibal also arrayed his army in three lines, and the composition of his forces reflected the multinational character of the Carthaginian army. The first line consisted of a mix of heavy and light infantry 12,000 strong, comprised of Ligurian and Celtic infantry of the line and Balearic slingers and Moorish archers.335 Many of these men were remnants of Mago Barca’s ill-fated expedition that had been called home from northern Italy in 203.336 Behind this mixed first line stood 12,000 heavy infantry from the Carthaginian levies, taken from the city and the region around the capital. Livy also places a large contingent of 4,000 Macedonian infantry among these troops, sent by Philip V to help his ally Hannibal.337 Polybius, our most detailed chronicler, makes no mention of these Greek troops, and most modern historians fancy this addition as later Roman propaganda. Hannibal’s third line was made up of his veteran troops from his Italian campaigns, drawn up less than two hundred yards behind the second line.338 Perhaps 12,000 in number, these veteran troops consisted mainly of allied Bruttians from southern Italy, though there were no doubt African, Numidian and Spanish soldiers present who had marched with him from Spain seventeen years earlier in this formation, as well as Celts recruited in northern Italy in the first years of his campaigning on the peninsula. Hannibal’s placement of his veterans in the back suggests he regarded his front two lines as expendable, fodder for Roman swordplay before his best infantry were committed. Hannibal positioned his best Numidian cavalry on his left to face Masinissa, and his Carthaginian cavalry on the right to face Laelius. Finally, in the tradition of Hellenistic warfare, Hannibal placed eighty war elephants in front of the entire formation to screen his forming troops and act as a ward against enemy cavalry attacks.
Interestingly, both deployments were very similar and illustrated just how much the Roman and Carthaginian art of war had learned from one another during the long war.339 In his numerous battles against the Romans, Hannibal had been well served by a strong cavalry arm. Punic cavalry, with a strong Numidian contingent, had enveloped the enemy at both Trebia in 217 and Cannae in 216. But Hannibal did not enjoy an advantage in cavalry at Zama, so his strategy reflected the realities of his force structure, raising the role of infantry in the coming battle plan. Hannibal would attempt a direct assault into the Roman infantry, sending first his elephants, and then his less reliable allied infantry, holding his veteran troops in reserve until precisely the right moment. Perhaps Hannibal was taking a page from the history books, for this battle plan served the Greek mercenary Xanthippus well against Regulus at the battle of Tunis in 255, a battle fought not too far from where these two great hosts were deployed.340 Scipio’s battle plan, on the other hand, relied on his superiority in cavalry, an arm not usually associated with the Roman art of war. But Scipio’s army was forged in Spain and honed on the battlefields of North Africa ‘and represented one of the best trained forces ever produced by the Roman military system’.341
With their armies arrayed for battle, both generals addressed their troops. According to Polybius, Scipio rode up and down their front ranks and reminded his men to:
Remember the battles you have fought in the past and bear yourselves like brave men who are worthy of your reputation and of your country. Keep this fact before your eyes: that if you overcome the enemy not only will you be the complete masters of Africa, but you will win for yourselves and for Rome the unchallenged leadership and sovereignty of the rest of the world. If the battle should turn out otherwise, those of you who fall will meet a death that is made forever glorious by this sacrifice for your country, but those who save yourself by flight will be left with a life that brings them nothing but misery and disgrace. … So when you go to meet the enemy, there are only two objects to keep before you, to conquer or to die342
For his part, Hannibal also reminded his troops of the glories of the past. Again according to Polybius, he ordered his mercenary officers to address their men in their own languages, telling them to convey to the men what would happen to their wives and children should the Romans be victorious. He then addressed his Punic officers directly, calling on them to remember their seventeen years campaigning together, stating:
In all those actions you proved yourself invincible and you never gave the Romans the smallest hope they could defeat you. Let us forget for a moment the scores of minor engagements; I ask you to remember above all the Battle of the Trebia which you fought against the father of this Scipio who commands the Romans today, the Battle of Lake Trasimene, when your opponent was Flaminius, and of Cannae when we defeated Paullus. The struggle which awaits us today bears no comparison with any of those battles, whether you consider the numbers of our adversaries or their courage.343
Hannibal went on to emphasize the inferiority of the Roman troops, both in numbers and experience, ending his speech with a reminder that many of the men facing them in Scipio’s army were the sons of legionaries they had murdered in past battles or remnants of legions which they had time and again defeated on Italian soil.344
The Battle of Zama opened in standard fashion with skirmishing between the opposing Numidian covering forces. It was Hannibal who made the first decisive move, sending his eighty war elephants forward in a massive charge, probably followed closely by his first and second lines.345 The Punic commander had never had so many pachyderms at his disposal, and the charge of so many of these beasts was something Scipio’s men had never faced before.346 No doubt he hoped the elephants would disrupt the Roman first line, providing an advantage to his own infantry advancing on the pachyderms’ heels. But the use of elephants in war was often a double-edged tactic, for as the elephants closed with the enemy, the blast of Roman trumpets and horns terrified some of the animals, who wheeled back and stampeded through the Numidian cavalry on the Carthaginian left. Masinissa, seeing this opening, counter-charged, driving these Numidian horsemen from the field and exposing the Carthaginian left flank. Still, some of the war elephants in the centre did reach the Roman ranks, causing great losses to the Roman velites before they were either murdered on the spot or ushered down the corridors Scipio had put in place. Still other pachyderms broke to the right and were driven from the field by showers of javelins. Like Masinissa, Laelius took advantage of the confusion caused by the wounded elephants and charged his opposing Punic cavalry, sweeping them from the field and exposing the Punic right
flank. In Livy’s words, ‘the Carthaginian army had now been stripped of cavalry support on both sides when the infantry closed, and was no longer equal to the Roman forces either in hope or in strength’.347 With the Roman cavalry in pursuit of the Punic horse and the war elephants no longer a threat, the Battle of Zama quickly became an infantry engagement.
We know that Hannibal sent his first two lines forward but held his veteran third line in reserve. Again according to Livy, the Romans shouted their war cries in unison and clashed their spears against their shields, while the Punic forces shouted a babble of different languages.348 As the two infantries closed, the inherent advantages of the Roman maniple over the hodgepodge of Punic fighting styles became gradually apparent. Whereas the Roman hastati and principes were all armed with pila and short swords and fought in an identical fashion, the Punic forces they faced in these first two lines fought according to their national preference. Some of these troops used missile weapons, others used swords or short thrusting spears, while still others fought in Hellenistic-style phalanxes. These Punic troops, with their thrusting swords, slashing falcatas and forward-facing pikes and thrusting spears, at first worked murderously well in forward engagements against the Roman legionaries. Polybius remarks, ‘In this contest the courage and skill of the mercenaries at first gave them the advantage and they succeeded in wounding a great number of the Romans’.349 But as the Roman and Carthaginian soldiers pressed closer, a type of hand-to-hand combat that favoured the Roman legionary and his short sword in close-quarter battle ensued. Again, Polybius praised ‘the steadiness of their ranks and the superiority of their weapons’ which ‘enabled Scipio’s men to make their adversaries give ground’.350 Polybius also makes note of the support the Roman rear lines gave their comrades-in-arms already engaged with the enemy.
Hannibal’s Last Battle Page 15
