Hannibal conquers Rome after the Battle of Cannae

I'm amazed this isn't a popular WI thread in this site as growing up this was one of the most popular ATL questions that were discussed, even more so than others like the Persians conquering Greece or the Romans not adopting Christianity. So Hannibal conquers Rome after his victory at Canne, what happens to Rome? Or could he have effectively conquered Rome to begin with?
 
I'm amazed this isn't a popular WI thread in this site as growing up this was one of the most popular ATL questions that were discussed, even more so than others like the Persians conquering Greece or the Romans not adopting Christianity. So Hannibal conquers Rome after his victory at Canne, what happens to Rome? Or could he have effectively conquered Rome to begin with?
The reason it's not discussed much here is probably the answer to your last question: as things were after Cannae, Hannibal has no sensible way to conquer Rome. Hannibal's expedition into Italy was a morale coup, not a real offensive able to destroy Rome.

Of course there is a scheme to eventually get there; Hannibal stays at large in Italy, his reinforcements from Spain aren't repelled by the Romans, and in due course the Iberian front is won by Carthage. If all these things happen, Hannibal can start plotting Rome's downfall (or, these disasters eventually prompt Rome to negotiate, and in these negotiations the fact that Hannibal has an army in Italy does matter a lot).
 
There’s a reason why Hannibal didn’t conquer Rome after Cannae, and that’s because he couldn’t. He never had the resources to carry on a siege in Italy, and he could never hope to win a battle on a field or in a moment not of his choosing, he was indeed one of the greatest commanders of antiquity because his enemies could never force him to battle when he didn’t want to, despite severely outnumbering him in pretty much every occasion. Hannibal’s offensive was meant to draw Rome’s allies to his side and use their combined strenght to wreck Roman power. Unfortunately for him, he underestimated the solidity of Rome’s bond with her Latin allies, and that, coupled with Rome’s infinite amount of manpower, made him unable to win the war.
 
So Hannibal conquers Rome after his victory at Canne, what happens to Rome? Or could he have effectively conquered Rome to begin with?
As @Sertorius126 said, the problem is that Hannibal probably didn't had the means to takeover Rome as such, lacking siege weapons, and he couldn't really count on his Italian allies that joined his side mostly because Carthaginians promised to not garrison them or to levy their armies (and said Italian allies were rather busy fighting their own neighbours or each other). Hannibal couldn't live on the land, which is why a long siege would imply (Sagonte's siege itself took months).
I'd disagree that it meant that Hannibal couldn't score a victory against Rome : while he couldn't take the city, Roman population didn't took Cannae very well and the senatorial elites did their best to calm down the troubles. Would Hannibal have attempted to pressure Romans by moving his army quickly after the battle, he might have reached his political/diplomatical goals.

See, Carthaginian warfare was closer to Hellenistic principles than Rome on this principle : there was no real objective to destroy Rome as a city, but rather to push the republic back to a regional power unable to threaten Carthagian dominance in western Med. It's not exactly the idea of a compromise peace, but political annihilation is rather coming from Roman concept.
Southern Italy would probably end up as a distinct federation...That wouldn't work out : rival cities were fighting each other already IOTL, Romans kept a lot of ties with some colonies and cities in the region, Carthaginians had no garrisons so to speak, and nobody would really care eventually as long Sicily is safe and under Carthaginian hegemony.
At the first opportunity, I think it's likely that Rome (as a Romano-Toscan state, rather than Romano-Campanian at this point) would recover a good part of his dominance on the region, altough on different lines, as well as keeping a strong influence on Adriatic Sea.

Things would likely change, tough : not only Rome would do ITTL without the obsession that every rival should, can and must be destroyed, but such a limitation to its expansion would be marked. The limited loss of southern Italy would probably be mirrored by the loss of Cisalpine Gaul, local tribes being allied with Hannibal, and at least a delay on northern expension of Rome (even if you wouldn't have a Puno-Macedonian alliance ITTL in all likeness).
Barcids would still be pretty much the hegemon of Spain,relatively autonomous from Carthage and cities allies to Carthage in Spain (mostly on the very south of Andalusia, and several of them didn't have formal treaties with Carthage as it seems). Again, the difference (institutionals and cultural) of Carthage wouldn't go in the way of provincialisation, but an hegemonic autocracy (in the sense that existed for Hannibal, as autocrator of Spain, an autonomous ruler)
How much could the situation would go in political tension between Barcids and Hannids (assuming they were the only leading families, which is doubtful) is anyone's guess, due to the poor evidences we have about Carthage's political life even at this period. I tend to think it could go up to a civil war, but that's essentially a personal take.

For my current TL (shamelss advertising in my signature) I took it as a departure point, and tried to map it a bit how it could look like
 
As @Sertorius126 said, the problem is that Hannibal probably didn't had the means to takeover Rome as such, lacking siege weapons, and he couldn't really count on his Italian allies that joined his side mostly because Carthaginians promised to not garrison them or to levy their armies (and said Italian allies were rather busy fighting their own neighbours or each other). Hannibal couldn't live on the land, which is why a long siege would imply (Sagonte's siege itself took months).
I'd disagree that it meant that Hannibal couldn't score a victory against Rome : while he couldn't take the city, Roman population didn't took Cannae very well and the senatorial elites did their best to calm down the troubles. Would Hannibal have attempted to pressure Romans by moving his army quickly after the battle, he might have reached his political/diplomatical goals.

But would have Rome ever accepted to compromise and admit defeat? The citizens of Rome were deeply shocked by Hannibal’s victories, and were scared by his very name, but I believe that something akin to what happened during the Phyrric wars would happen. The Senate would discuss a potential treaty, then someone like Fabius Maximus barges in and proclaims that Rome would resist until her very last breath. Wasn’t, after all, the convinction of every Roman aristocratic that victory for Rome would eventually become inevitable? And weren’t Roman citizens of this time still too much influenced by the ideal of virtus to ever consider giving up?
 
But would have Rome ever accepted to compromise and admit defeat?
I think it's possible : we know the city was in turmoil and while it wasn't a cry of peace, would the situation not have settled in Rome as it did, the wrong man at the right moment, even more losses, and Hannibal pressuring exactly when it was needed...

The citizens of Rome were deeply shocked by Hannibal’s victories, and were scared by his very name, but I believe that something akin to what happened during the Phyrric wars would happen.
There was a big difference : during Phyrric Wars, most of Rome's allies stuck at her side, meaning the prospect of a total defeat wasn't there. During the Second Punic War, on the other hand, the defeats were dramatic, a good part of allies (especially Capua, which was the second center in Roman Italy) and the prospect of being soon reduced.
Of course, we know that Hannibal couldn't take Rome easily : the population probably did not, and the possibility having the immediate countryside being plundered and land estates being burned down was strong enough during the Servile Wars that it certainly could have played a lot then with the good circumstances.

The Senate would discuss a potential treaty, then someone like Fabius Maximus barges in and proclaims that Rome would resist until her very last breath.
Fabius Maximus wasn't a mass producted senator model, tough : that the tradition stresses on his personala achievements could point that if he didn't or wouldn't or...., things could have turned quite differently.
You'd argue that tradition is only reliable up to a point, which is true but works both ways : we could then assume a change of mind.

Again, the wrong person in the right place, or the right person in the wrong place giving more pressing circumstances could make the difference there.

Wasn’t, after all, the convinction of every Roman aristocratic that victory for Rome would eventually become inevitable? And weren’t Roman citizens of this time still too much influenced by the ideal of virtus to ever consider giving up?
I think that there's a lot of retrospective self-indentity playing there, not unlike how Romans stressed their philhellenism and "more-pious-than-thou" attitude during the Punic Wars to counterbalance Hannibal and Carthage perception among Greek and allies.
Truth is, such attitude isn't widely discernable at this point (which I agree doesn't mean it didn't existed, partially or not), and the whole "victory or death" is often more rethoric than reality eventually as the idea, IMO, that more ancient Rome was, more virtuous and venerable Romans were, and more recent it is, less virtuous and decadent it is on civic matters : Romans loved to white-wash and put their own history on a pedestral. Never to the point to outright lie insanely, true (altough less than convenient truths might have been slipped over, and some were pointed out by Hellenistic historians).

Anyway, with the right situation, we could as well see the dominance of a point of view that writting-off losses and settle the situation among senatorial elites, with possibly the idea that these losses might be recoverable in short-to-middle term (making the peace some sort of equivalent of Brétigny for ancient Rome, if you will, a peace that wasn't supposed to last).
 
There’s a reason why Hannibal didn’t conquer Rome after Cannae, and that’s because he couldn’t. He never had the resources to carry on a siege in Italy, and he could never hope to win a battle on a field or in a moment not of his choosing, he was indeed one of the greatest commanders of antiquity because his enemies could never force him to battle when he didn’t want to, despite severely outnumbering him in pretty much every occasion.

This in a nutshell. He had no siege equipment and his armies were mostly mercenaries who wanted plunder and wouldn't sit still for months performing a siege. Not to mention Rome's many allies that would turn such a siege into an earlier Alesia with Hannibal in the middle.

Hannibal’s offensive was meant to draw Rome’s allies to his side and use their combined strength to wreck Roman power. Unfortunately for him, he underestimated the solidity of Rome’s bond with her Latin allies, and that, coupled with Rome’s infinite amount of manpower, made him unable to win the war.

Witness the fate of the one Roman ally that joined Hannibal, the entire city burned to the ground and every surviving citizen sold into slavery. And although Hannibal caused a lot of concern there was never any chance of Rome surrendering, they would fight to the end. So a political victory won't be happening.

Without any chance of a political win Hannibal's best course of action would be if he could continue to get reinforcements to continue raiding the countryside and keep Rome occupied while Carthage made conquests elsewhere. But the long run favored Rome over Carthage...
 
See, Carthaginian warfare was closer to Hellenistic principles than Rome on this principle : there was no real objective to destroy Rome as a city, but rather to push the republic back to a regional power unable to threaten Carthagian dominance in western Med. It's not exactly the idea of a compromise peace, but political annihilation is rather coming from Roman concept.
Is it, though? The vast majority of Rome's wars had ended with a treaty of alliance, not political destruction; indeed, this was the foundation of Roman power. Answering Roman calls for troops was less burdensome than making all the necessary levies to survive outside the alliance system. Moreover, insofar as they even practiced it, this all-or-nothing mentality was not exactly unique to the Romans. Classical history is full of accounts of cities getting totally destroyed and its inhabitants sold into slavery. The Athenians fought on after the city had been destroyed in the Persian invasion, the Phokians died to a man rather than surrender, Corinth and Thebes wanted Athens razed to the ground at the end of the Peloponnesian War, and Alexander did not stop until he had subjugated the entirety of the Achaemenid empire.

Admittedly, that's a bit beside the point; Hannibal's actions -building alliances with Capua et al and Macedon- point towards an intent to contain Rome in the post war world by forming his own Italian league to replace the Roman confederation and counterbalance his city's arch rival in the West. Still, I think it's a bit overstating the case to think that Hannibal, certainly an unconventional general if ever there was one, would have been simply unable to ever countenance a direct march on Rome. Perhaps if the cavalry had raced directly for the city to approach it in the grip of panic, they might have achieved what Masinissa did after Cirta. After Cannae, just about the only regular opposition left in Italy was the fleet in Ostia, the Roman army in the north being engaged with Gauls that would later destroy it that year. Hannibal would have about 40 days to reduce Rome by siege if this failed.
 
Is it, though? The vast majority of Rome's wars had ended with a treaty of alliance, not political destruction; indeed, this was the foundation of Roman power. Answering Roman calls for troops was less burdensome than making all the necessary levies to survive outside the alliance system. Moreover, insofar as they even practiced it, this all-or-nothing mentality was not exactly unique to the Romans. Classical history is full of accounts of cities getting totally destroyed and its inhabitants sold into slavery. The Athenians fought on after the city had been destroyed in the Persian invasion, the Phokians died to a man rather than surrender, Corinth and Thebes wanted Athens razed to the ground at the end of the Peloponnesian War, and Alexander did not stop until he had subjugated the entirety of the Achaemenid empire.

Your examples are all correct, but they refer to the period before Hellenism. Once Alexander’s empire was fractured, and the four major kingdoms of Hellenism, Seleucid, Lagid, Antigonid and Attalid, took shape, wars rarely saw annihilation as their ultimate objective, it became a game of careful balance and counter balance where diplomacy was heavily involved.

Admittedly, that's a bit beside the point; Hannibal's actions -building alliances with Capua et al and Macedon- point towards an intent to contain Rome in the post war world by forming his own Italian league to replace the Roman confederation and counterbalance his city's arch rival in the West. Still, I think it's a bit overstating the case to think that Hannibal, certainly an unconventional general if ever there was one, would have been simply unable to ever countenance a direct march on Rome. Perhaps if the cavalry had raced directly for the city to approach it in the grip of panic, they might have achieved what Masinissa did after Cirta. After Cannae, just about the only regular opposition left in Italy was the fleet in Ostia, the Roman army in the north being engaged with Gauls that would later destroy it that year. Hannibal would have about 40 days to reduce Rome by siege if this failed.

There were still the Latin allies,the survivors of Cannae, who were quickly reassembling, and the remaining citizens at Rome would likely arm themselves against the invader. Hannibal was short on food, his troops were hungry and tired, and he lacked the proper siegecraft to assail a city like Rome. Hannibal didn’t have 40 days, all the Romans needed to do was prevent him from foraging and he would have been forced to retreat soon thereafter.

Massinissa was the son of a Numidian king claiming his Numidian throne, it was an entirely different scenario.
 
Your examples are all correct, but they refer to the period before Hellenism. Once Alexander’s empire was fractured, and the four major kingdoms of Hellenism, Seleucid, Lagid, Antigonid and Attalid, took shape, wars rarely saw annihilation as their ultimate objective, it became a game of careful balance and counter balance where diplomacy was heavily involved.
Yes, but they're also all territorial kingdoms, rather than city states like Rome or Carthage; the resources, whether blood or treasure, from their subject peoples were more limited compared to republican cities. Moreover, Carthage's wars with Rome didn't really involve outside powers getting involved in a big way, certainly not against it. Whereas the monarchies in the east have to contend with multiple rivals, Carthage's only real peer in the west was Rome.

There were still the Latin allies,the survivors of Cannae, who were quickly reassembling, and the remaining citizens at Rome would likely arm themselves against the invader. Hannibal was short on food, his troops were hungry and tired, and he lacked the proper siegecraft to assail a city like Rome. Hannibal didn’t have 40 days, all the Romans needed to do was prevent him from foraging and he would have been forced to retreat soon thereafter.

Massinissa was the son of a Numidian king claiming his Numidian throne, it was an entirely different scenario.
Sure, the Latin allies exist, but it would be difficult to organize them into a fighting force on short notice, and the survivors of Cannae are hardly the men you would count on to defend a city on its last legs, and the march of Hannibal into Roman territories would have greatly impeded mobilization efforts. Lacking a concentrated conventional army, the Romans would scarcely be able to impede the march of one into Latinum. He would have plenty of food marching through Campania and Latinum, and there was no shortage of timber to construct siege equipment on site. Without any Roman armies in the field, he would furthermore be able to use actual supply lines in case the countryside around Rome proved insufficient. Hannibal's mere approach produced considerable alarm years later, and that was without having destroyed the largest army in Roman history immediately prior.
 
@dandan_noodles

One important fact you're forgetting: by this point Hannibal's army is around half Gaulic ally auxiliaries, not Carthagian troops. As such, any war plans he conducts is going to be acceptable to their style of war and desires lest their leaders go off and start getting their loot and vengeance on their own. Getting them to accept sitting outside the walls of Rome building ladders is going to be... difficult to say the least
 
@dandan_noodles

One important fact you're forgetting: by this point Hannibal's army is around half Gaulic ally auxiliaries, not Carthagian troops. As such, any war plans he conducts is going to be acceptable to their style of war and desires lest their leaders go off and start getting their loot and vengeance on their own. Getting them to accept sitting outside the walls of Rome building ladders is going to be... difficult to say the least
I don't consider this a very convincing argument. For one, it would be very interesting to compare this allegedly distinctive style of war with the large numbers of Spanish fighters in Hannibal's army, who mostly seemed content to engage in long sieges. Second, even if loot was the primary motivation, can you think of a better prize than Rome itself? Do you have any solid evidence that Gauls lack the patience for a <40 day siege, or is this pure speculation?
 
Is it, though? The vast majority of Rome's wars had ended with a treaty of alliance, not political destruction
They were low scale conflicts, tough, involving entities with a fairly small regional expense. From the moment Rome had to deal with regional-scale entities, the city essentially elected to destroy it and ally/submit with the remnants, roughly since the defeat of Samnite confederation. It's how the conflict with Syracuse, Carthage, Macedonia was dealt in this period.
You're right that the alliance/tributary system was largely used with cities and tribal entities, but they weren't considered as existential or strategical threats.

Moreover, insofar as they even practiced it, this all-or-nothing mentality was not exactly unique to the Romans.
The difference was that Rome went trough this systematically with most of the state it encountered : the practice of compromised peace which dominated hellenistic diplomacy (without being systematical itself) knew there a significant departure.

The Athenians fought on after the city had been destroyed in the Persian invasion,
It was essentially a come-back for the sack of Sardis, tough, and not really something Persians relied on generally.

Corinth and Thebes wanted Athens razed to the ground at the end of the Peloponnesian War
And the practice of non-annhiliation (partly born out of a necessity of hegemonic balance) still prevailed nevertheless.

and Alexander did not stop until he had subjugated the entirety of the Achaemenid empire.
Which doesn't really was an annihilation of Persian state or empire, and rather its takeover by Alexander.

Admittedly, that's a bit beside the point; Hannibal's actions -building alliances with Capua et al and Macedon- point towards an intent to contain Rome in the post war world by forming his own Italian league to replace the Roman confederation and counterbalance his city's arch rival in the West.
Alliance with Capua was essentially a way to weaken Rome and prevent it to really pose a naval threat (both military and commercial), rather than expect a containement of the city trough Capuan regional dominance : it was clear from the beggining that the Campanian city couldn't fulfill its ambitions to dominate southern Italy (nor most of important cities as Locri) and hannibal simply didn't interfered with local politics while it definitely weakened the strategical importance of the region.

As for Macedonia, the relatively supple alliance only appeared as Rome refused to negotiate, and Carthaginians didn't do much on this regard.
Both were rather opportunistic agreements without real incidence for either Hannibal or Carthage's ambitions in western Med.

The relations with Syracuse are rather more interesting on this regard, notably because it was part of a direct Carthagian sphere of influence, using the sicilian city as a strategical ally into depriving Rome of any presence or influence in Sicily.

For one, it would be very interesting to compare this allegedly distinctive style of war with the large numbers of Spanish fighters in Hannibal's army, who mostly seemed content to engage in long sieges.
While Gauls had a significant advance in defensive siege tactics, the lack of evidence of besieging attacking tactics is to be pointed. As far as it's theorized, it was probably limited to basic poliorcetic with initial tentatives, and then surrounding the fortification to deprive besiegees of reinforcement and supplies.
On the other hand, we know that Celtiberians more often practiced siege warfare (altough it might be partly a source bias, there's still archeological lack of evidence in Gaul), but the tradition of mercenariship in Mediterranean basin and especially under Carthaginians in this period are to be tied with siege tactics borrowed from their employer or hegemon. Note that after the IIIrd century, Celtiberians didn't went trough a huge departure from usual wait and see habits on siege warfare.
https://www4.uwm.edu/celtic/ekeltoi/volumes/vol6/6_2/gorbea_lorrio_6_2.pdf

Second, even if loot was the primary motivation, can you think of a better prize than Rome itself?
Loot wasn't really this obvious of a prime motivation : at least for Cisalpine Gaul, which formed an important part of Gallic armies of Hannibal, there was the matter of pushing back Roman encrochement of their lands.
Note that the clear material gain that was expected wasn't specifically loot itself, but payment and compensation from Carthaginian in exchange of their service (Gaistai mercenaries fighting in Cisalpina and Italy worked along these lines). It doesn't mean that loot wasn't expected as well, but compensation was more usual when it comes to mercenary armies rather than expeditions as happening in Balkans decades before.

Do you have any solid evidence that Gauls lack the patience for a <40 day siege, or is this pure speculation?
You probably know that theories on Gallic warfare are partly speculation from archeological and historical evidence, because we don't have much to grab onto safe partial evidence. Note that absence of solid and certified evidence that Gauls didn't this much went trough sieges doesn't mean that the contrary is proven by default.
There's no much archeological evidence that would point Gauls used a set of active siege tactics, and their general practice seems to have been (like in High Middle-Ages, interestingly) to rather deprive the besieged from reinforcement and supplies, waiting for surrender. The inability to adapt themselves to hellenistic-romans siege warfare in the IInd to Ist century, while we know some of the biggest fortifications found in Gaul didn't have an obvious military role (as the second wall of Bibracte) is interesting.

Of course, it doesn't mean that it was systematical, and Gauls might have made contact with mediterranean active siege warfare in the frames of the Carthaginian army. But I doubt they would have played something else than an auxiliary role at this point, just like Celtiberians doesn't seem to have played a major role in Hannibal's army in Saguntum. The problem being that such active tactics imply and involves sophisticated siege engines, themselves implying genie and specialized logistical support.
Besides the siege of Capitolum by Brennos, which is at least partly legendary and to be taken with particular caution (especially about the length of the siege and the scale of the destruction), we don't have account of the length of sieges in Gallic warfare that wouldn't involve service in hellenistic armies, where their role was fairly minor.

Alain Debyer's Les Gaulois en Guerre is pretty much interesting on thie matter of warfare in Gaul, if you can find it.

Eventually, while I agree with you that @FillyofDelphi might have underestimated the capacity of Gallic mercenaries in siege warfare, I doubt it would be something more than in an auxilary role, with Hannibal possibly lacking specialized troops at this point as much as he lacked siege engines.
In the context of -215, I'm not sure a large army could live on the land waiting from the long months of depriving Romans from supply and reinforcement would be feasible.
Note that Hannibal could always count on Romans believing it would be, tough, and pressure them this way.
 
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Question:Why can’t Hannibal build siege weapons in Italy?Armies generally build them on the spot.
Only the most basic ones, generally.
When it comes to sophisticated enough machines, you might have needed specialists to build (especially when reinforced with iron), move and use them (it's one of the reason why Roman Navy might have been responsible of siege engineering IOTL)
Everyone can build and use a ladder on the spot, but that's not true of a catapult or a reinforced battery ram.

Now Hannibal could have relied on Italians to provide him with such, but Italian cities that allied themselves with him did so under the conditions they wouldn't be enlisted or supplying the war effort...
 
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Could Rome stand a siege, though? In 88, Sulla took Rome on the march. Octavius did hold a siege against Cinna and Marius, but failed... how long did he last?
 
Could Rome stand a siege, though? In 88, Sulla took Rome on the march. Octavius did hold a siege against Cinna and Marius, but failed... how long did he last?

That’s a different context, nobody expected Sulla to do that, nobody in Roman history had ever done that before. Sulla relied on shock effect more than anything.

As for the siege of 87, it must have lasted a month or two, but you have to consider that the only army available to Octavius for support outside Rome was Pompey Strabo’s, whose conduct was rather ambiguous, plus Cinna also threatened to cause havoc in the city by calling the slaves to arms. As in the previous year, Rome was completely unprepared to face a siege.
 
I don't consider this a very convincing argument. For one, it would be very interesting to compare this allegedly distinctive style of war with the large numbers of Spanish fighters in Hannibal's army, who mostly seemed content to engage in long sieges. Second, even if loot was the primary motivation, can you think of a better prize than Rome itself? Do you have any solid evidence that Gauls lack the patience for a <40 day siege, or is this pure speculation?

It's not so much the fact that they're Gauls in particular (Though, Cisalpine Gauls do have a bone to pick with the Romans and want to claim land in the region, so its probably going to be more difficult to convince the local leaders to state put when looting or claim-staking oppritunities present themselves). Its the fact that they're allied auxileries, not parts of the Carthaginian army, meaning you're dealing with all the headaches of coalition warfare with dozens of disperent groups and the added bonus of this whole siege being an ad-hoc affair. Beseiging a large city is a highly complex enterprise, and you don't have time to hammer out the plans beforehand if you want to catch the Romans unprepared. Keeping the whole army together, strongly enforcing the siege, ect. for the length of time (which could be YEARS) it would take to crack their way into the city is a longshot of the highest order... even assuming the Barccids (Who, let's remember, kind of went over Carthage's head in all of this) can manage to convince the Senate to back the plan to the hilt with the support they'd need when it would be political suicide for the leading men of the city to do so (Conquering war heros have a... tendency to take political power)

This isen't a total war game where you just press the "Besiege City" button and wait 5 turns.
 
"Hannibal conquering Rome" is the POD behind John Maddox Roberts' rather good (and sadly unfinished) 'Hannibal's Children' series. In that one, Hannibal forges an alliance with Phillip of Macedon, and the two kings put together a big army that threatens Rome... who chooses national exile over fighting it out. Not sure how likely such an alliance is, but hey, it's an AH novel, so it happens... :)
 
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