What Factors Led to the Defeat of Hannibal in the Second Punic War?

Factors in Carthage’s defeat in the Second Punic War.

1. Roman refusal to come to terms after their overwhelming defeat at the Battle of Cannae. Hannibal sent a Carthaginian nobleman, Carthalo to Rome with peace terms. The Romans wouldn’t let him into the city. The Roman Senate declared it a crime to even mention the word “Peace.”
2. Roman strategy subsequent to the Battle of Cannae. Led by Quintus Fabius Maximus Cunctator, the Romans largely stopped meeting Hannibal in the battlefield on his terms. The war became one of attrition, which Hannibal could not win. The Romans concentrated upon reconquering the allies that had gone over to Hannibal’s alliance after the Battle of Cannae, or enticing them back into the Roman fold. By 206 B.C. Hannibal was bottled up in a small area of Bruttium.
3. Carthage gave Hannibal little material support. They were more concerned with keeping their rich province in Spain out to Roman hands, so they sent most of their assistance there. Hannibal received a token assistance of 4000 Numidians and 20 elephants in 215 B.C. and after that he received nothing, either because the Carthaginian Senate didn’t authorize it, or because the increasingly vigilant Romans prevented it from reaching him.
4. Both of Hannibal’s brothers, Hasdrubal and Mago brought armies to Italy with the intention of uniting their forces with Hannibal, and both failed to do so. Hasdrubal and his army were destroyed at the Battle of the Metaurus River in 207 B.C. and Mago, who had landed a force in Liguria was prevented from moving south by Roman legions which blocked the passages.
5. Rome came up with a general who was the equal of Hannibal in battlefield tactics, and perhaps his superior in strategy and logistics, Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus. After the disastrous destructions of his father’s and uncle’s armies at the Battles of the Upper Baetis in 211, he went to Spain and within four years he cleared Spain of all Carthaginian forces, conquering the peninsula for Rome.
6. Scipio then returned to Rome and ran for Consul. He organized an invasion of Africa, and rapidly defeated Carthaginian resistance there. Carthage called both Hannibal and Mago home to defend their city. Mago had been wounded and died in transit. Hannibal met Scipio on the Battlefield at Zama, but his veterans were past their prime, many in his ranks were untrained, and he was inferior in cavalry, with 4000 to the Romans’ 6000. The result was a decisive Roman victory, and Carthage was forced into a peace treaty on Roman terms.