Then he continues to pillage the countryside and Rome can't do thing one about it. Scipio had to practically conduct the invasion of North Africa all by himself with a weak Hannibal in Italy. If you think they were reluctant to let him go to North Africa OTL, there's not a chance in hell they are going to let him even consider invading North Africa with a 70,000 man army right at their backdoor. They almost have to come out at some point. Plus Fabius Maximus died in 203-you lose the biggest advocate for the Fabian strategy.
And his pillaging the countryside has done so much to bring the war closer to victory for Carthage.
. . . what's that Hannibal? It hasn't? Thanks Hannibal, owe ya one when I get to the afterlife myself.
203 is four years later. Now admittedly Fabius is rather old at this point, but if you're going to invoke his OTL death date as "soon", saying "well, he can die earlier" in regards to it being not so soon seems . . .
Welll. . . not really furthering this discussion.
And Fabius is hardly the only one willing to do it.
I hate how everyone feels Rome has this thing about them where they will never surrender.
This from the person arguing that if you avoid Teutoburg Wald Rome would never give up Germania, right?
That aside: It's not "never surrender". IF you somehow put Rome in a position where it was "surrender or worse", it would surrender.
But Hasrdubal, bless his heart, joining his far more capable brother isn't it.
It's the equivalent of giving Lee substantial reinforcements for Gettysburg, at best. It gives Carthage a chance of turning around a war that is being lost at this point, it doesn't ruin Rome's hope of victory.
They were perfectly capable of seeing the writing on the wall. With another defeat of another 70-80,000 man army in the field, they don't have to just believe Hannibal would come knocking on Rome's doorstep, he will be. Because he actually has an army capable of taking on the city, not to mention siege equipment, he won't do what he did after Cannae and just continue to waltz around Italy. Rome's going to be in serious danger (at least from its citizens perspective) and peace is really the only option-giving up Sardinia, Corsica, and Sicily is worth saving Rome from the same fate it suffered from Brennus.
Except that the odds of Rome facing that aren't very good, and the people who would be making the decision know that. They treated Cannae - as neat an example of an army being crushingly and humiliatingly defeated as we can find in Western military history - as grounds for renewed effort.
And its not as if Rome is ungarrisoned, dependent solely on the field armies and Hannibal supposedly not knowing how to follow up a victory to defend itself.