In 202 BC, During the Second Punic War, the Roman general Publius Cornelius Scipio (soon to be awarded the agnomen Africanus) invaded the Carthaginian homeland, forcing Hannibal to halt his invasion of Italy, and withdraw to Carthage. In october of that year, they met at Zama, in modern Tunisia, with roughly equal forces of about 34,000 men.[1]
In OTL, Zama was a total Roman victory, with Hannibal's army effectively annihilated, and the Carthaginian Senate forced to surrender on terms massively favorable to Rome. Rome henceforth possessed an overwhelming preponderance of military force over every other polity in the Mediterranean, and Carthage's final destruction, which occurred 50 years later, was essentially inevitable from then on.
What if Hannibal, one of history's greatest tacticians, decisively defeated the Romans in a manner similar to his famous utter obliteration of the Roman army in 216 at Cannae, which nearly lost Rome the war?
[1] Rome: Power and Glory Narr. Peter Coyote. PBS. 2000
In OTL, Zama was a total Roman victory, with Hannibal's army effectively annihilated, and the Carthaginian Senate forced to surrender on terms massively favorable to Rome. Rome henceforth possessed an overwhelming preponderance of military force over every other polity in the Mediterranean, and Carthage's final destruction, which occurred 50 years later, was essentially inevitable from then on.
What if Hannibal, one of history's greatest tacticians, decisively defeated the Romans in a manner similar to his famous utter obliteration of the Roman army in 216 at Cannae, which nearly lost Rome the war?
[1] Rome: Power and Glory Narr. Peter Coyote. PBS. 2000
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