Why Is Hannibal So Successful

Carthage. It consisted mostly of Italian mercenaries and leftover mercenaries from the beginning of the campaign. Hannibal had around eighteen-thousand men yet when he reached Carthage he had an additional twenty five-thousand inexperienced levies from allies and the city’s garrison. Once ready they rallied out of Carthage to fight the Romans one last time on October 19th, 202 BC. Scipio Africanus was down by ten-thousand however, Scipio had the upper advantage. “Most Numidians- former allies of Carthage had joined the Roman side. At the start of the battle Hannibal depended on elephants to break up the Roman infantry, but Scipio had arranged his maniples in columns so that they could move aside and let the charging beasts pass harmlessly through the gaps in the line” (Grant page 41).

As a result of experience of knowing the Carthaginians commanders tactics Africanus made his line moveable to kill the elephants without losing a substantial amount of his warriors. Furthermore, Rome convinced the loyal, fearless Numidians to betray their allies of decades in exchange of becoming rulers of North Africa. With two of Hannibal's valuable factors to his success out of the way as well as Scipio Africanus using Hannibal's tactics on him Scipio Africanus was victorious at Zama. As a result of the defeat Hannibal left in self exile, Carthage agreed to the peace terms which included becoming a client state of Rome, as well as massive amounts of money of reparations, and a limited amount of troops for Carthage. In result of becoming allies with Rome, Numidia became the ruling empire in North Africa however, under the watchful eye of Rome. Consequently because of these terms fifty years after the battle of Zama, Carthage would rise again in response of Numidia’s unfair ruling in North Africa. Rome reaction to this was