Why did Hannibal ultimately lose against the Romans?

Why did Hannibal ultimately lose against the Romans? I just saw "Hannibal-Romes worst nightmare" and according to this series, one of his generals thought they should attack Rome after the victory at Cannae, but Hannibal refused and demanded that Rome should surrender. When Rome refused to surrender, he asked the Senate in Chartage for more money in order to conquer Italy city by city, so Rome in the end would be surrounded by enemy. The Senate refused. Was it the Senates refusal or Hannibals decision not to attack Rome that led to the Roman victory? Both his decision not to attack Rome and the Senates decision not to give him the money seem difficult to understand. If he had attacked Rome, would he not have been sure to win? And why did the Senate refuse? Was it because they wanted him to attack Rome, which would after all have been the most sensible thing to do? If they had given him more money so as to get more soldiers and equipment, would he have won in the end? To me it seems that attacking Rome at once would be more wise from a military standpoint, as the Roman military forces were at a low point. No reason to wait, so that they might become stronger.
 
The Roman political system was superior to the Carthaginian one.

Roman's felt their system was worth dying for then at a level that a normal regime at the time with a king would have said screw this and tossed in the towel.
 
Hannibal didn't immediately march on Rome after Cannae because his army was exhausted and he didn't have the necessary siege equipment. The Senate in Carthage was filled with enemies of his family, the Barcids, and Hannibal had conducted most of the war by himself. It was mainly Rome fighting Hannibal than Carthage, until Rome struck back.
 
Rome was able to grind Hannibal down through attrition and strategic pressure (attacks on the Carthaginian empire where ongoing even during his campaign), so really I think it comes down to Rome having a crushing manpower advantage over Hannibals army, which could not reinforce itself much or at all. Also the Roman Social system was pretty strong at the time, the Roman allies cities didn't quite feel like rebelling yet.
 
A doc I watch put part of the reason that he tried to win the war with to many 'super weapons' or 'one KO hits' and didn't really have the tactical thinking that later Roman propaganda said he did.
 

Artaxerxes

Banned
A doc I watch put part of the reason that he tried to win the war with to many 'super weapons' or 'one KO hits' and didn't really have the tactical thinking that later Roman propaganda said he did.

Erm... not really.

Carthage and the Greeks were used to fighting and making treaties, Rome was in the habit of fighting until its enemies were exhausted, after Cannae it was a more than reasonable expectation that Rome would negotiate, instead it just carried on plundering its manpower reserves for troops and wore out Hannibal, he was one general, Rome was a united city.

Carthage had no real clear objectives or people giving orders, Rome had the Senate which defined areas of authority and threw its entire weight into strategic objectives and where to send its armies.
 
Erm... not really.

Carthage and the Greeks were used to fighting and making treaties, Rome was in the habit of fighting until its enemies were exhausted, after Cannae it was a more than reasonable expectation that Rome would negotiate, instead it just carried on plundering its manpower reserves for troops and wore out Hannibal, he was one general, Rome was a united city.

Carthage had no real clear objectives or people giving orders, Rome had the Senate which defined areas of authority and threw its entire weight into strategic objectives and where to send its armies.

All true and the doc acknowloged that. They were simply saying that at the individual level, Han was more often the cause of his own defeats.
 
Not directly related, but I always thought that the wrong side won that war. I think it was John Keegan who said that the only comparable ancient Empire to that of the Romans, in terms of sheer ruthless brutality, was that of the Assyrians. He said that while the Classical world was far from peaceful, the Romans in particular seemed to have a pathological need to destroy at least one city and enslave its inhabitants, every single year. A record that only the Assyrians before them, and the Mongols after them, came close to matching.

Of course the Romans gave a negative account of the Carthaginian state and society, but I cannot help but think that this is almost entirely Roman propaganda and self-justification for their own atrocities.
 

scholar

Banned
The Roman political system was superior to the Carthaginian one.

Roman's felt their system was worth dying for then at a level that a normal regime at the time with a king would have said screw this and tossed in the towel.
Carthage didn't have a King at the time, and was something similar to an aristocratic republic - very similar to Rome.
 
Hannibal didn't immediately march on Rome after Cannae because his army was exhausted and he didn't have the necessary siege equipment. The Senate in Carthage was filled with enemies of his family, the Barcids, and Hannibal had conducted most of the war by himself. It was mainly Rome fighting Hannibal than Carthage, until Rome struck back.

This. Hannibal was largely operating with his own Army and with nominal support from Carthage. When he brought the war home then it became Carthage' problem

Not directly related, but I always thought that the wrong side won that war. I think it was John Keegan who said that the only comparable ancient Empire to that of the Romans, in terms of sheer ruthless brutality, was that of the Assyrians. He said that while the Classical world was far from peaceful, the Romans in particular seemed to have a pathological need to destroy at least one city and enslave its inhabitants, every single year. A record that only the Assyrians before them, and the Mongols after them, came close to matching.

Of course the Romans gave a negative account of the Carthaginian state and society, but I cannot help but think that this is almost entirely Roman propaganda and self-justification for their own atrocities.

Of course it was! Almost everything that has survived is propaganda, from statues to most of famous Roman writers, who based all their stuff on propaganda a lot of the time. :D
 
Last edited:

Artaxerxes

Banned
All true and the doc acknowloged that. They were simply saying that at the individual level, Han was more often the cause of his own defeats.

Not really, he was only one man with one army, he won a lot of Italy over to his side but with only 1 army the Romans were able to cut and slice the allies away, the more Hannibal tried to hold, the more his army would have to spread out and become ineffective. Eventually it became clear he couldn't protect his allies and the prospect of turning sides an unpalatable one for the vast majority of Italian cities. But not before Hannibal and the war had drained most of Romes manpower away, there were some cities who had to send emissaries to Rome at the end saying they simply did not have the manpower to contribute to the army, even though they were still loyal
 
He was never able to get enough of the key cities in Italy to side with him. And, just as important, the Romans were not willing to surrender when Hannibal beat them.
 

Maur

Banned
Err, Hannibal ultimately won against Rome. He dealt them death blow, even though it took Rome some centuries to finally fall :D

(more seriously, the losses among Roman citizens made for professional army that caused generals to be able to rely on it to destroy republic and the same system made it possible for civil wars to tore empire apart. All thanks to Hannibal slaughtering the freeholding Roman citizenry ;))
 
Carthage lost every battle where Hannibal wasn't avaliable to personally command, which resulted in things like Syracuse and Iberia being conquered when he wasn't looking, all his reinforcements (who were carrying the siege weapons he needed) being intercepted and defeated, the Roman navy ruled the seas and defeated both the Carthage and Macedonian fleets, Macedon not actually doing anything, and Hannibal was commanding an increasingly dwindling army in southern Italy running around to check on his allies without any reinforcements forthcoming.

Over nearly 20 years of warfare, the Carthaginians (and allies) were literally unable to win a battle without Hannibal personally being present. And it had to specifically be Hannibal. Apparently Hamilcar Barca died too early to train any of his other sons or members of his family because Hannibal was the only one that actually managed to inherit his command ability. And then even Hannibal was not unfailable when he lost at Zama.
 
Not directly related, but I always thought that the wrong side won that war. I think it was John Keegan who said that the only comparable ancient Empire to that of the Romans, in terms of sheer ruthless brutality, was that of the Assyrians. He said that while the Classical world was far from peaceful, the Romans in particular seemed to have a pathological need to destroy at least one city and enslave its inhabitants, every single year. A record that only the Assyrians before them, and the Mongols after them, came close to matching.

Of course the Romans gave a negative account of the Carthaginian state and society, but I cannot help but think that this is almost entirely Roman propaganda and self-justification for their own atrocities.

Didn't the Carthaginians sacrifice their own children?
 
Didn't the Carthaginians sacrifice their own children?

This is debatable. Most people think there was some form of human sacrifice practiced by the Carthaginians but to what extent we don't know. IIRC there were some infant bones found within the ruins of one of the major Carthaginian temples.

Carthage though did engage in the sacking of various cities within Iberia and was criticized by Aristotle for how heavily the democratic parts of its government being too far weighted in favor of the wealthy (And thats really saying something considering how weighted many of the Greek democracies were.)

That said we don't know much about the actual culture and government of Carthage.
 
This is debatable. Most people think there was some form of human sacrifice practiced by the Carthaginians but to what extent we don't know. IIRC there were some infant bones found within the ruins of one of the major Carthaginian temples.
Which is still kind of debatable evidence, because in reality infants die and still need to be buried, even without child sacrifice.

So as you say, no one really knows about Carthage or how their society worked. Though there seems to be enough evidence to point to it as "possible".
 
Carthage lost every battle where Hannibal wasn't avaliable to personally command, which resulted in things like Syracuse and Iberia being conquered when he wasn't looking, all his reinforcements (who were carrying the siege weapons he needed) being intercepted and defeated, the Roman navy ruled the seas and defeated both the Carthage and Macedonian fleets, Macedon not actually doing anything, and Hannibal was commanding an increasingly dwindling army in southern Italy running around to check on his allies without any reinforcements forthcoming.

Over nearly 20 years of warfare, the Carthaginians (and allies) were literally unable to win a battle without Hannibal personally being present. And it had to specifically be Hannibal. Apparently Hamilcar Barca died too early to train any of his other sons or members of his family because Hannibal was the only one that actually managed to inherit his command ability. And then even Hannibal was not unfailable when he lost at Zama.

Incorrect:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Upper_Baetis
 
This is debatable. Most people think there was some form of human sacrifice practiced by the Carthaginians but to what extent we don't know. IIRC there were some infant bones found within the ruins of one of the major Carthaginian temples.

And of course the Romans themselves also practiced human sacrifice under certain conditions. Not to mention the whole gladiatorial death-game system, which had definite sacrificial connotations:

In the early stages of the First Punic War (264 BC) the first known Roman gladiatorial munus was held, described as a funeral blood-rite to the manes of a Roman military aristocrat. The gladiator munus was never explicitly acknowledged as a human sacrifice, probably because death was not its inevitable outcome or purpose. Even so, the gladiators swore their lives to the infernal gods, and the combat was dedicated as an offering to the di manes or other gods. The event was therefore a sacrificium in the strict sense of the term, and Christian writers later condemned it as human sacrifice.

So comparing possible Carthaginian child sacrifice, to definite Roman sacrifice plus the huge scale of the gladiatorial death factory, I would say that the Roman system was worse. (I wonder how the Empire-wide Roman Games compares to the Aztec sacrificial rites in numbers of deaths?)
 
I had actually forgotten that there were actual Roman soldiers in that battle and figured that it was only mercenaries.

However I think its still the exception that proves the rule as the battle relied heavily on having the 3 to 1 advantage, and on bribing the Celtic mercenaries with a large amount of treasure and fortune. That's especially questionable when at the same time Hannibal was stuck in Italy and desperately trying to raise war funds.

And again, that is a single example, in almost 20 years of warfare. That's not exactly a record of success.
 
Top