The Lion's Brood Triumphant
215 – 211 BCE
POD: The Battle of Dertosa, Spring 215 BCE
The sun beat down on Hasdrubal Barca, making him squint as the cotton under his armor clung to his skin in the humid air. For a while he sat quietly on his mount as he surveyed the gathered Roman army that lay south of his own. There had been five days of skirmishes between his army and that of Gnaeus and Publius Scipio each testing for any weaknesses in their tactics and soldiers, both groups hoping in vain for an easy victory. But neither side had yielded and so here they were, preparing for a clash on a field just south of the Ebro River. Hasdrubal knew he needed to gain a decisive victory to prevent the further harassment of his allies in the town of Ibera and the fall of Hispania. If he lost this battle, the Scipio forces would have a nearly unopposed march into the rest of the peninsula and more Punic forces would be needed to retake Hispania, depriving Hannibal of vital reinforcements in the Italian peninsula. Worse, Carthage grew weary of another war with Rome to satisfy what some in the Hundred and Four called “a blood feud started by Hamilcar” and would most likely use this failure as a chance to weaken Hannibal’s command over the Punic army. Scipio the Elder and Publius Cornelius Scipio were formidable presences on the battlefield but here he hoped he’d be able to prevail against them. With a quick word to his commanders, and a general shout from his soldiers, the army from Carthage engaged their foe. As the battle began, he wasted little time in deploying the double envelopment technique. The Romans drove the Iberian infantry back but were unwittingly flanked by the Punic elephants, but unlike Hannibal’s experience, the Roman and Italian horsemen held firm, battered though they were. As the battle raged on, the Carthaginian cavalry fully engaged with the Roman and Italian horsemen, both sides giving into a mad urge to kill the other. Hasdrubal wheeled around on his horse cutting down man after man, while still hoping that the envelopment strategy would work, desperately scanning the Roman line for weakness.
There! A number of Roman cavalry men had gotten too close to a bloodstained elephant and their horses panicked in fright, weakening the line that had thus held firm against the Punic onslaught. Combined with the earlier losses inflicted by Barca’s forces, the line crumbled, leading to a general slaughter of the Roman force trapped by the Carthaginians. Recognizing the battle as lost, Gnaeus and Publius Scipio gathered their remaining forces and fled the battlefield. And for the first time that day as Hasdrubal’s cavalry rode in pursuit of the Romans, he smiled.
Unlike the Carthaginian defeat at Dertosa that occurred IOTL, a better performance of Punic cavalry led to a decisive victory against the Romans for Hasdrubal Barca. Momentarily giving up the idea of engaging the Carthaginians in Iberia, the Scipios took the remainder of their army and headed back to the Italian peninsula to support the Roman armies against the armies of Hannibal and Hanno the Elder. Instead of only two Punic armies in the Italian peninsula, there were now four commanded by Hannibal Barca, Hasdrubal Barca, Mago Barca, and Hanno the Elder. With reinforcements from Mago and Hasdrubal, Hannibal successfully sieged and took the city of Nola in 214 BCE. Several more city-states on the Peninsula decided to ally with Hannibal after the Battle of Nola.
With the might of almost all of southern Italy at his disposal, Hannibal now contended with the legendary Roman legions harassing him whenever he turned to face another region of the Italian Peninsula. However, with four armies at his command instead of the one he had IOTL, he managed to inflict several crushing defeats on them. Having been rebuffed when he came to Rome to talk peace terms, Hannibal had a new goal: to capture Rome itself and make the Romans see that their cause was lost. Hannibal suffered a devastating blow when the Scipios in charge of an extremely large legionary force managed to crush the forces led by Mago Barca and kill Mago at the Battle of Latina in June 212 BCE while sustaining heavy losses of their own. After Latina, a stalemate developed a few miles east of Latina and continued throughout the summer. During this time, Hannibal appealed to Carthage to send more troops so he might break the stalemate and more quickly secure victory. However, the anti-Barca factions of Carthage worked to reduce the number of troops that were sent, saying “Hamilcar’s sons began this war, now let them end it.” Only 3000 Libyan spearmen, 2000 Numidian cavalry and 12 elephants were sent, a fraction of the forces Hannibal needed. In desperate need of greater manpower, Hannibal sent Hasdrubal to Ptolemaic Egypt in July 212 to hire mercenaries that would fight in his war. Hasdrubal hired a total of 10,000 infantry and 1,680 cavalry composed almost entirely of native Egyptians and returned in early August. In September 212 BCE, Hannibal ambushed the Scipios a few miles from Latina and managed to win a decisive victory against their forces, killing most of the men along with both Scipio the Elder and Publius Cornelius Scipio.
With Latina conquered, near the end of September 212 BCE, Hannibal was eager to end the war and began a rapid march to Rome to lay siege to the city but was met with a large force of 25,000, mainly the dregs of Roman soldier commanded by Scipio the Younger and Gnaeus Fulvius. The seasoned Carthaginians and fresh mercenaries made short work of them and continued their famed March to Rome. Rome was in a panic not seen since Hannibal took Cannae as the Senate desperately raised a combined force of free men and slaves to face Hannibal. But farmers, city-dwellers, and slaves posed little challenge to the armies of the Lion’s Brood and the army was crushed in a bloodstained grove with many made prisoner. And so late in 212 BCE, Hannibal started to siege Rome while the Senate debated whether to sue for peace. Hannibal had repeatedly stressed through peace envoys that Sicily, Sardinia, and Corsica would be returned to Carthage and Rome would be mostly confined to the Italian Peninsula. Generous terms one might say, but the Senate greeted the prospect of submission to Carthage as nothing less than choosing bondage. As one senator said, “Should Hannibal should breach our gates, all the people of Rome will be made slaves of Carthage.” While the siege was in place, Carthage sent an additional 4,000 infantry with supplies to aid Hannibal in his siege. The Romans mustered another force of 30,000 infantry and 5,000 cavalry to force the Carthaginians out.
The Battle for Rome in December 212 was a bitter one but ended in the utter defeat and merciless slaughter of the Roman force. After the battle, the Senate once more debated whether to raise yet another force to fight the Carthaginians. As Cato the Elder began an impassioned speech for Rome to fight until “Hannibal is forced to march his men through the streets of Hell”, a grief stricken Scipio the Younger without a word wrenched him down from the platform, ending his speech and any more discussion about fighting Carthage. And so in December, the Roman Senate sued for peace. Hannibal consulted with the Carthaginian government to determine the terms of Roman surrender. The terms were thus: Rome would return Sicily, Sardinia, and Corsica to Carthage and pay a war fine, thus acknowleding the supremacy of Carthage in the western Mediterranean.
An existential threat had been vanquished but Carthage still had its allies to placate. Carthage had never possessed a large standing army and had made extensive use of mercenaries to fill its ranks and promised riches to several Barbary kingdoms to prevent them from throwing their lot in with Rome. Now it was time to produce the gold they had promised or face uprisings in Hispania and Numidia outside of their core territory that would endanger the city Hannibal had struggled to defend. And so Carthage turned to the lands just south of the Great Desert. Trade between North and West Africa through Berber nomads had gone on for some time now and Carthage was well versed in the tale of the fields of gold of Jenne Jeno. With new trading opportunities available already known to Carthage from Berber nomads and the introduction of camels into the Maghreb through Ptolemaic Egypt from Persia, a few diplomats and merchants made the journey to Jenne Jeno in the fall of 210 BCE. And so the ancient trade of salt for gold across the Great Desert reached new volumes with far reaching consequences for those involved.