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One of the main criticisms of Hannibal's strategy in the Second Punic War is that he didn't choose to march on Rome after winning his greatest victory at Cannae, decimating a Roman army of 80,000 men. According to Livy, Hannibal's lieutenant Maharbal was in strong disagreement to Hannibal's decision to rest after the battle:

Livy said:
Meanwhile the victorious Hannibal was surrounded by his officers offering their congratulations and urging him to take some rest during the remainder of the day and the ensuing night, and to allow his tired troops to do the same; Maharbal, however, the commander of his cavalry, was convinced there was not a moment to be lost. "Sir," he said, "if you want to know the true significance of this battle, let me tell you that within five days you will take your dinner, in triumph, on the Capitol. I will go first with my horsemen. The first knowledge of our coming will be the sight of us at the gates of Rome. You have but to follow."

To Hannibal this seemed too sanguine a hope, a project too great to be, in the circumstances, wholly conceivable. "I commend your zeal," he said to Maharbal, "but I need time to weight the plan you propose." "Assuredly," Maharbal replied, "no one man has been blessed with all God's gifts. You know, Hannibal, how to win a fight; you do not know how to use your victory."

It is generally believed that that day's delay was the salvation of the City and the Empire.

In my opinion, Hannibal made the right decision to not march on Rome. His army immediately following Cannae was too weak to threaten Rome itself, and if Hannibal failed to convince the Romans to surrender after the battle, I doubt that they would surrender days later to a bloodied, tired army at half capacity that was hurried to the gates in order to provoke fear. (Delbruck estimates that Hannibal would only have been able to get 25,000 men, about half the army that fought at Cannae, to Rome so quickly, a number which he believes and I agree would not have scared the Romans into submitting.) Nor do I think it would be a good idea for him to try and actually besiege Rome with such an army; he would need a much larger army and secure supply lines to have much of a chance of that succeeding against what would be the most well-fortified city in Italy, and that's before considering that the Romans would probably try and recall its many legions that it had sent overseas to try and repel Hannibal. I would say that the strategy of trying to win over the Italian allies and trying to gain a port from which reinforcements could be sent from Carthage was the safer plan and the plan far more likely to work.

But, what do you guys think? Was Hannibal right to do what he did IOTL? Should Hannibal have marched on Rome immediately after Cannae, even at half strength to try and scare it into submitting? Or should Hannibal have tried to besiege Rome, by building siege weapons outside the walls or counting on treachery to get the army inside?
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