There were several reasons.
Rome relied on citizen and allied soldiery while Carthage relied largely on mercenaries. Mercenaries have to be paid and are not as reliable as citizen soldiers and can be bought off.
Carthage during the Second Punic War did not support its military to the same degree that Rome supported theirs. Carthage’s support of the war was lukewarm as compared to Rome, which went all out to win.
After the Battle of Cannae in which Hannibal killed 55,000 Roman and allied soldiers, Hannibal expected the Romans to sue for peace. Instead, the Roman Senate made it a crime even to mention the word “peace.”
The year after the Battle of Cannae, Hannibal sent his younger brother Mago to Carthage to plead for reinforcements and supplies. Hannibal had collected over two hundred gold signet rings from upper class Roman dead on the battlefield at Cannae. He put them in an urn. Mago dramatically poured them out onto the floor of the Carthaginian Senate. At that time the Carthaginian Senate largely supported the war and appropriated substantial assistance to Hannibal. But then they got word that Hannibal’s brother Hasdrubal had been badly defeated at the Battle of Dertosa in Spain, and rather than send these reinforcements and supplies to Hannibal, they sent them to Spain to shore up their defenses there-they did not want to lose the very productive gold and silver mines they had in Spain. Hannibal received only a token force of 4000 Numidian mercenaries and twenty elephants. This was the last assistance Hannibal would receive for the duration of the war, either because Carthage didn’t send any or because the Roman blockade was very effective.
After the Battle of Cannae, under the leadership of Quintus Fabius Maximus Verrucossus Cunctator, the war became largely one of attrition. The Romans largely refused to confront Hannibal on his own terms, and they concentrated on dealing with the allies Hannibal had won over after Cannae. They gradually clawed back nearly all of the territory Hannibal had gained through alliances after Cannae. By 206 B.C., Hannibal and his army were confined to a small territory in Bruttium. Without reinforcements and supplies from Carthage, Hannibal could not go back on the offensive. In 207 B.C., Hannibal’s brother Hasdrubal crossed the Alps with a goodly army, but the Romans annihilated his forces at the Battle of the Metaurus River, and Hasdrubal perished along with his army. In 205 B.C. Hannibal’s other brother Mago invaded northern Italy and took the city of Genoa. But the presence of Roman legions prevented him from joining up with Hannibal.
In the meantime, Rome developed a military genius of its own. Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus went to Spain to take his deceased father and uncle’s place commanding the troops there, and, in four years he cleared the entire peninsula of all Carthaginian forces. Then he went back to Rome and was elected Consul. He then organized an invasion of Africa. He defeated the Carthaginian general Hasdrubal Son of Gisco and his ally Syphax and began laying waste to the Carthaginian countryside. The Carthaginians summoned both Hannibal and Mago back to Africa to defend the city. Mago had been wounded in a battle and died in transit. Hannibal landed at Hadrumetum and began to organize his veterans and recruiting local forces for the coming battle, but Hannibal’s veterans were depleted, the local forces he could recruit were inexperienced, and he was considerably inferior in cavalry. It was probably the Roman superiority in cavalry that carried the day for them at the Battle of Zama. They won the battle and forced Carthage into a treaty on Roman terms.
So, the basic factors in Rome’s defeat of Carthage during the Second Punic War were:
- Carthage’s failure to support Hannibal.
- Reliance upon mercenary forces.
- Carthage’s lack of good generalship-it takes more than one military genius to win a war.
- Rome’s stubbornness and unwillingness to concede defeat.
- The effectiveness of a war of attrition in the long run.
Speak Your Mind