If Hannibal Had Taken Maharbal's Advice and Attacked Rome, Would he Have Succeeded?

If Hannibal had taken Maharbal's post-Cannae advice (this is the exchange that produced the famous line, "You know how to win a victory, Hannibal, but not how to use it"), and immediately marched on Rome, would he have succeeded?
 
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Probably not to a high degree of probably. The Romans had kept two legions for the Capital's security and moved fast to reinforce those. In addition a legion from one of the fleets, I forget which one but will look it up later had been moved to cover at least one of the key river crossing to Rome denying Hannibal the most direct route. Further to that but the forces defeated at Cannae had concentrated some eight thousand men who would have been a threat to his rear.

Also it needs to be considered that Hannibal did not have a great record of success against fortified positions unless he could take them by subterfuge and that he would have struggled to cover his supply lines if he settled down to a siege.
 
Hannibal's army was a fighting force, and damn good at it, but I don't believe he was equipped to conduct a seige. Especially of a place as large as Rome, where he was unlikely to find an inside party sympathetic to his cause. All the while he is tied up at Rome, the Romans are creating mischief elsewhere.
 
I think it would depend on the Romans having the balls to face him in battle outside the city out of percieved desperation at their current straits, but given that they didn't do so when Hannibal came to Rome later and their blood was up to the point of publicly auctioning off the lands his army was resting on then I think that's unlikely.
 
Okay checked some details. Marcellus was in command of the fleet at Ostia and he dispatched a legion equivalent to Teanum Sidicinium thus covering the bridge across the Volturnus and blocking the southern route to Rome.

Rome itself he sent some 1,500 reinforcements to. The city already had two legions stationed there and in addition the Senate started an emergency recruitment program to raise four more plus allies troops, further they armed 8,000 volunteer slaves and 6,000 prisoners though there may have been something of a shortage of arms for all this as they had to raid the temples. In addition in an emergency there was a legion in Sardinia and two in Sicily that could have been brought in by sea.

Oh and Hiero of Syracuse sent gold, plus shiploads of wheat and barley (even more useful in resisting siege than gold) and 1,000 archers to Rome.
 
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With a power of hindsight we now know that in the end Hannibal lost and moving to Rome immediately after Cannae was his last desperate chance and so definitely worth taken.

Winning the war is not about legions only. It is about morale mostly.
And the Roman morale was at the lowest during this time.
The Roman historians depicted utmost panic and fear inside Rome after Cannae - the senators leaving the city leaving everything behind and so forth. There was a feeling of Armageddon or something.
When the Romans got to know Hannibal wasn't coming right now - they got their shit together.

It's a pity we'll never know what would have happened if Hannibal really had moved his fearsome cavalry to Rome immediately.

Last chance, lost chance probably...
 
The rule book on warfare wasn't entirely written yet...Hannibal was still penning some chapters...but the one about 'never got caught attacking a fortified position with an enemy army in the field' was probably already in there. (Julius Caesar with engineering army exception.)

As mentioned above, knowing now that the alternative didn't work, we'd all say go for it, but I don't think there's any reason to question his judgment based on what he knew at the time. I think he had every reason to think Rome's allies would begin to bail and Rome would agree to a very favourable peace, which is I think what he was looking for.
 
If he moved fast enough he could win for certain definitions of wining. He could not take the city by force and wouldn't have the resources to maintain a siege. If he stayed too long Roman armies would return from either Spain or Sicily and he'd have to flee or be killed. His best bet would be to camp a few miles down the road and send a message that he'd happily leave if they'd surrender to Carthage's terms. Now I don't know how likely it is that they would, Rome was famous for not giving up even in the face of total defeat. That said Hannibal was the A1 boogeyman in the Roman minds, especially after Cannae. So the sheer terror of him maybe attacking Rome might be enough to convince them to take the deal. However the deal likely wouldn't be crushing to Rome, Hannibal would lack that much leverage, so Rome would be back in a generation to continue the fight.
 
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