The Punic Wars

hey I read in one of my books that in the second punic war that there were two legions of slaves?

 I believe the slave legions performed rather well, instead of being used in the times when Rome felt confrontation with Hannibal was a good idea, the slave legions were around when Rome was attempting to contain Hannibal so not suicidally giving battle. Lucky them.

 Indeed desperate times I believe the age for service in the legions was reduced to 16 or 17 as so many men had been killed in battle and many territories were at the point of exhaustion.

 It must have been demoralising to the Carthaginians that they had killed so many Romans yet they still had the resources in manpower to replace them whereas the Carthaginians had barely any capacity to replenish their troops or atleast replace the fallen with comparable quality.

What i do not understand (This is partially because i have not read Livy- the wars with Hannibal Book2 yet) is how Hannibal was finally defeated at Zama in Africa by Cornellius Scipio in AFRICA. He was marching down to Rome after Cannae and the Senate had agreed to the countryside being ravaged to stop his advance. How can he have just gone to  North Africa that soon after? I thought that Scipio would have defeated him in Italy.

So far as I know, the actual route of Hannibal over the Alps has not yet been determined with certainty, we are still only specualting. And he met ALOT of resistance from Gauls in the Alps, his losses there were enormous.

Massilia was a Greek city state allied to Rome. It did not possess a large army and the intelligent thing to do was to alert Rome of Hannibal's entry into the area. This they did, but Hannibal moved very quickly towards the Alps and no major battle took place. There was a cavalry skirmish between the Roman and Hannibal's cavalry.

The Romans did not engage Hannibal in a proper battle until he reached northern Italy because the Romans expected him to travel much slower and by one of the more predictable routes.

[EDIT] MOST of his elephants!

Originally posted by Earl Aster Yes- i recall that many of his men fell down the chasms in the alps and all of his elephants died!   Also, what were Mago and Hamilcar's military abilities good? Were they as good as Hannibal? Mago seemed to make some assaults against Hanibals' abilities- "Hannibal got victories but did not know how to use them"

 I think the reasons for Scipio not confronting Hannibal in Italy are quite obvious, by invading Africa, the idea appears to have been that Carthage would recall Hannibal. Therefore Scipio would be indirectly ridding Italy of Hannibal without a single Italian being butchered in his forced expulsion.
 
 The final confrontation would be on Scipios terms, where he wanted it and when, Hannibal could only react. Just as Hannibal had done to the Romans in the epic years after he invaded Italy, Scipio was dictating the course of events. Putting his opponent at a disadvantage and putting him in a position where Scipio was on top.

 The irony of this was probably not lost on Hannibal, Scipio was playing Hannibal pretty much by his own game, by threatening Carthage Scipio forced Hannibal to confront him, ill prepared for the final battle.

 

when Hannibal army came across Alps,number of cavalry was 6000,and ordinary soldiers 20 000. Plus numerous of Gauls... That was big suprise for Romans,cause Publie Cornelius Scipio was already on his marsh for Spain in fort Masilia(greeks collony). But he return his army in north italy,and his brother Gney Scipio continiu marsh for Spain. Hannabl defeat Roamns near the river Trebia and after that came Trazimen lake 217 B.C.
Very important and VERY brave move was when Hanniabal lead his army across swamp Arno(where he lost one of his eyes),becuse Romans are concetrate there troups in Arimin and Arezzo,and lead by Flaminus. Carthagen brave leader make for his final goal few steps more,cause Romans think that they are still waiting for him. So he bet Flaminius near lake and Carthagens killed 15 000 Flaminius soldiers.After this batlle,road to Rome was never been closer,but...

By that point in the war pretty much every general had learned to copy Hannibal. Scipio was certainly not the first. I would say Marcellus was the first to really begin to copy Hannibal's tactics.

Originally posted by Theodore Felix While the leading general's of Rome, Mercellus Nero and Scipio, learned the folly of this approach it should be noted that Scipio's differed from Hannibal's in that Scipio used his heavy infantry as the decisive attacking force. I dont think Rome still had much of a choice since even by the end it had a cavalry force that still paled in comparison to the Hellenistic or the Hellenistic copied Carthage. At best a large number of Numidian auxilla...

 The Numidians are regarded as some of the finest light horse in the ancient world, Hannibal relied on them heavily alongside his heavier Spanish and Punic cavalrymen.

 Roman cavalry in sufficient numbers wasn't so bad, at Cannae despite being defeated, the outnumbered Roman cavalry on the right flank put up some fierce resistance against Hannibals Spanish horse before finally breaking. They were by no means the best, but in sufficient numbers were not useless.

 It is true though that the Romans did throughout their history heavily relied upon foreign cavalry forces, Sarmatians used in Britain, Gauls in Parthia, Germans as household cavalry at different periods of Roman history. It's curious why in the face of such an obvious deficiency, the Romans did not see the need their own cavalry to improve, much as they seemed to regard a navy as unnecessary pre-Punic wars.

 It's utterly bizarre that this hole was filled with so many foreign troops.