Battle of Zama
The Battle of Zama was fought in 202 BC in what is now Tunisia between a Roman army commanded by Scipio Africanus and a Carthaginian army commanded by Hannibal. The battle was part of the Second Punic War and resulted in such a severe defeat for the Carthaginians that they capitulated, while Hannibal was forced into exile. The Roman army of approximately 30,000 men was outnumbered by the Carthaginians who fielded either 40,000 or 50,000; the Romans were stronger in cavalry, but the Carthaginians had 80 war elephants.
At the outset of the Second Punic War, in 218 BC, a Carthaginian army led by Hannibal invaded mainland Italy, where it campaigned for the next 16 years. In 210 BC Scipio took command of the faltering Roman war effort in Iberia and cleared the peninsula of Carthaginians in five years. He returned to Rome and was appointed consul in 205 BC. The following year his army landed near the Carthaginian port of Utica. The Carthaginians and their Numidian allies were repeatedly beaten in battle and the Roman ally Masinissa became the leading Numidian ruler. Scipio and Carthage entered into peace negotiations, while Carthage recalled armies from Italy commanded by Hannibal and Mago Barca. The Roman Senate ratified a draft treaty, but when Hannibal arrived from Italy, Carthage repudiated it. Hannibal marched inland to confront the Romans and a battle quickly ensued.
The fighting opened with a charge by the Carthaginian elephants. These were repulsed, some retreating through the Carthaginian cavalry on each wing and disorganising them. The Roman cavalry units on each wing took advantage to charge their counterparts, rout them and pursue them off the battlefield. The two armies' close-order infantry were each deployed in three lines. The first two lines engaged each other and after a hard-fought combat the Carthaginians were routed. The second Carthaginian line then fanatically assaulted the Roman first line, inflicting heavy losses and pushing it back. After the Romans committed their second line the Carthaginians were forced to withdraw. There was a pause, during which the Romans formed a single extended line, to match that of the Carthaginians. These two lines charged each other, according to the near-contemporary historian Polybius "with the greatest fire and fury". The fight continued for some time, neither side gaining the advantage. The Roman cavalry then returned to the battlefield and charged the Carthaginian line in the rear, routing and destroying it. Carthage was left with no army with which to continue the war. The peace treaty dictated by Rome stripped Carthage of its non-African territories and some of its African ones. Thereafter, it was clear that Carthage was politically subordinate to Rome.
Primary sources
The main source for almost every aspect of the Punic Wars is the historian Polybius, a Greek sent to Rome in 167BC as a hostage. His works include a now largely lost manual on military tactics, but he is best known for The Histories, written sometime after 146BC. Polybius's work is considered broadly objective and largely neutral as between Carthaginian and Roman points of view. Polybius was an analytical historian and wherever possible interviewed participants, from both sides, in the events he wrote about.The accuracy of Polybius's account has been much debated over the past 150 years. Modern historians consider Polybius to have treated the relatives of Scipio Aemilianus, his patron and friend, unduly favourably but the consensus is to accept his account largely at face value and the details of the wars in modern sources are largely based on interpretations of Polybius's account. The modern historian Andrew Curry sees Polybius as being "fairly reliable"; Craige Champion describes him as "a remarkably well-informed, industrious, and insightful historian". Much of Polybius's account of the Second Punic War is missing, or only exists in fragmentary form.
The account of the Roman historian Livy, who relied heavily on Polybius, is used by modern historians where Polybius's account is not extant. The classicist Adrian Goldsworthy says Livy's "reliability is often suspect", and the historian Philip Sabin refers to Livy's "military ignorance". Dexter Hoyos describes Livy's account of Zama as "bizarrely at odds with Polybius’ which he seems not to understand fully".
Other, later, ancient histories of the war exist, although often in fragmentary or summary form. Modern historians usually take into account the writings of Appian and Cassius Dio, two Greek authors writing during the Roman era; they are described by John Lazenby as "clearly far inferior" to Livy. Hoyos accuses Appian of bizarre invention in his account of Zama; Michael Taylor states that it is "idiosyncratic". But some fragments of Polybius can be recovered from their texts. The Greek moralist Plutarch wrote several biographies of Roman commanders in his Parallel Lives. Other sources include coins, inscriptions, archaeological evidence and empirical evidence from reconstructions such as the trireme Olympias.
Background
The First Punic War was fought between the two main powers of the western Mediterranean in the 3rd century BC: Carthage and Rome. The war lasted for 23 years, from 264 to 241 BC, before the Carthaginians were defeated. It took place primarily on the Mediterranean island of Sicily, its surrounding waters and in North Africa.Carthage expanded its territory in Iberia from 236 BC, in 226 BC agreeing the Ebro Treaty with Rome which established the Ebro River as the northern boundary of the Carthaginian sphere of influence. A little later Rome made a separate treaty of association with the city of Saguntum, well south of the Ebro. Hannibal, the de facto ruler of Carthaginian Iberia, led an army to Saguntum in 219 BC and besieged, captured and sacked it. Early the following year Rome declared war on Carthage, starting the Second Punic War.
Hannibal led a large Carthaginian army from Iberia, through Gaul, over the Alps and invaded mainland Italy in 218 BC. During the next three years Hannibal inflicted heavy defeats on the Romans at the battles of the Trebia, Lake Trasimene and Cannae. At the last of these alone, at least 67,500 Romans were killed or captured. The historian Toni Ñaco del Hoyo describes these as "great military calamities", and Brian Carey writes that they brought Rome to the brink of collapse. Hannibal's army campaigned in Italy for 14 years.
There was also extensive fighting in Iberia from 218 BC. In 210 BC Publius Cornelius Scipio arrived to take command of Roman forces in Iberia. During the following four years Scipio repeatedly defeated the Carthaginians, driving them out of Iberia in 206 BC. One of Carthage's allies in Iberia was the Numidian prince Masinissa, who led a force of light cavalry in several battles.
Roman preparations
In 206 BC Scipio left Iberia and returned to Italy. There he was elected to the senior position of consul in early 205 BC, despite being aged 31 when the minimum age for the office was 42. Scipio was already anticipating an invasion of North Africa and while still in Iberia had been negotiating with the Numidian leaders Masinissa and Syphax. He failed to win over the latter, but made an ally of the former.Opinion was divided in Roman political circles as to whether an invasion of North Africa was an excessive risk. Hannibal was still on Italian soil; there was the possibility of further Carthaginian invasions, shortly to be realised when Hannibal's youngest brother Mago Barca landed in Liguria with an army from Iberia; the practical difficulties of an amphibious invasion and its logistical follow up were considerable; and when the Romans had invaded North Africa in 256 BC during the First Punic War they had been driven out with heavy losses, which had re-energised the Carthaginians. Eventually a compromise was agreed: Scipio was given Sicily as his consular province, which was the best location for the Romans to launch an invasion of the Carthaginian homeland from and then logistically support it, and permission to cross to Africa on his own judgement. However, Roman commitment was less than wholehearted; Scipio could not conscript troops for his consular army, as was usual, but only call for volunteers.
In 216 BC the survivors of the Roman defeat at Cannae had been formed into two legions and sent to Sicily. They formed the core of the Roman expeditionary force. Modern historians estimate a combat strength of 25,000–30,000, of whom more than 90 per cent were infantry. With up to half of the complement of his legions being fresh volunteers, and with no fighting having taken place on Sicily for the past five years, Scipio instigated a rigorous training regime. This extended from drills by individual centuriesthe basic Roman army manoeuvre unit of 80 mento exercises by the full army. This lasted for approximately a year. At the same time Scipio assembled a vast quantity of food and materiel, merchant ships to transport it and his troops, and warships to escort the transports.
Also during 205 BC, 30 Roman ships under Scipio's second-in-command, the legate Gaius Laelius, raided North Africa around Hippo Regius, gathering large quantities of loot and many captives. The Carthaginians initially believed this was the anticipated invasion by Scipio and his full invasion force; they hastily strengthened fortifications and raised troops. Reinforcements were sent to Mago in an attempt to distract the Romans in Italy. Meanwhile a succession war had broken out in Numidia between the Roman-supporting Masinissa and the Carthaginian-inclined Syphax. Laelius re-established contact with Masinissa during his raid. Masinissa expressed dismay regarding how long it was taking the Romans to complete their preparations and land in Africa.
Opposing forces
Roman
Most male Roman citizens were liable for military service and would serve as infantry; a better-off minority provided a cavalry component. Historically, when at war the Romans would raise two legions, each of 4,200 infantrythis could be increased to 5,000 in some circumstances, or, rarely, even more and 300 cavalry. Approximately 1,200 of the infantrypoorer or younger men unable to afford the armour and equipment of a standard legionaryserved as javelin-armed skirmishers known as velites; they each carried several javelins, which would be thrown from a distance, a short sword and a shield. The balance were equipped as heavy infantry, with body armour, large shields and short thrusting swords. They were divided into three ranks, of which the hastati and principes in the first two ranks also carried two javelins each; the triarii, in the third rank, had thrusting spears instead. A standard-size legion at full strength would have 1,200 velites, 1,200 hastati, 1,200 principes, 600 triarii and 300 equites.Both legionary sub-units and individual legionaries fought in relatively open order. It was the long-standing Roman procedure to elect two men each year as senior magistrates, known as consuls, who in time of war would each lead an army. An army was usually formed by combining a Roman legion with a similarly sized and equipped legion provided by their Latin allies; allied legions usually had a larger attached complement of cavalry than Roman ones. By this stage of the war, Roman armies were generally larger, typically consisting of four legions, two Roman and two provided by its allies, for a total of approximately 20,000 men. The Roman army which invaded Africa consisted of four legions, each of the Roman pair reinforced to an unprecedented 6,200 infantry and with a more usual 300 cavalry each. Modern historians estimate the invading army to have totalled 25,000–30,000 men, including perhaps 2,500 cavalry. Goldsworthy describes the army as being "superbly trained" when it left Sicily.