Rome declared war on Carthage in 218 B.C. after Hannibal, Carthage’s commander in chief in Spain laid siege to Rome’s ally Saguntum. Hannibal subsequently marched an army over the Alps into Italy. He was victorious over the Romans at Ticinus, Trebia, Trasimene and Cannae. During these four battles well over 100,000 Romans and their allies perished. It is estimated that during the first two years of the war, about twenty percent of Italian men of military age were killed.
After Cannae Hannibal made alliances with many of the tribes of Italy as well as most of the cities of Magna Graecia. He made an alliance with Capua, which had long been an ally of Rome. King Phillip of Macedonia was so impressed with Hannibal that he made an alliance with him against Rome. It truly looked as if he had Rome on the ropes and that victory was a sure thing.
A great military commander has four attributes: mastery of battlefield tactics, mastery of strategy, mastery of logistics and mastery of leadership ability. Hannibal had three of these qualities in spades, where he fell down was mastery of strategy. The Romans did not give up even after the devastating defeat at Cannae where they lost some 55,000 dead and 10,000 captured and enslaved. Under the leadership of Quintus Fabius Maximus Cunctator, the Romans stopped fighting Hannibal on his terms, and the war became one of attrition, which in the long run, Hannibal could not win. Rome concentrated on dealing with his allies and they clawed back nearly all of the territorial gains Hannibal had made during his first two years in Italy. By 206 B.C. Hannibal was confined to a small territory in Bruttium.
By that time, Rome had developed a military genius of its own, Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus. Scipio had all of the four attributes mentioned above, especially mastery of strategy. He had conquered Spain from the Carthaginians and had now been elected Consul of Rome despite being only twenty-nine years old. He organized an invasion of Africa and soon destroyed the native resistance, forcing Carthage to summon Hannibal and his brother Mago, who had been occupying part of northern Italy, home. (Mago had been wounded in battle and died in transit.) Scipio then defeated Hannibal at the Battle of Zama, forcing Carthage into a treaty on Roman terms.
Hannibal had won every battle he had fought in except the last one, but it was the last one that was decisive.
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