The Battle of Zama
Monday, June 29, 2020
It is not uncommon for an era to be defined by its two "superpower" arch-rivals. When I was growing up, it was the "Cold War Era" in which the United States faced off with the USSR. In the early 19th century it was often Napoleon against... everybody, the Napoleonic Era.
The Mediterranean world from 264 to 146 BCE was characterized by the three Punic Wars fought between Rome and Carthage (a colony of Phoenician, whence comes the adjective "Punic"). The First ran from 264 to 241 BCE, and the Third from 149 to 146 BCE.
But it is the final battle of the Second Punic War (218-201 BCE), at Zama, with which we are concerned today.
Actually fought in 202, it pitted the Romans under Publius Cornelius Scipio, also known as Scipio Africanus and considered one of the greatest military leaders of all time, against the Carthaginian general Hannibal, he who had 16 years earlier crossed the Alps into northern Italy with war elephants to attack the Romans. (We have discussed how Hannibal had used his elephants to great effect at the 218 BCE Battle of the Trebia, and at the Battle of Lake Trasimene a year later, both in Italy.)
Scipio had recently defeated the Carthaginians and their Numidian allies (while Hannibal was in Italy) at the Battle of Utica and the Battle of the Great Plains (both in 203), and imposed a peace treaty on Carthage. Hannibal was recalled to what is now modern Tunisia, and Carthage broke the armistice.
Though Carthage fielded 36,000 infantrymen and Rome only 29,000, Scipio's cavalry outnumbered Hannibal's 6,100 to 4,000. Many of Scipio's cavalrymen were Numidians that had defected from Hannibal's army to Rome.
Hannibal also used 80 of his war elephants to charge the main Roman army, which side-stepped them and attacked them with spears, arrows, etc., driving them off. The Romans then chased the Carthaginian cavalry from the field. When it seemed as though Hannibal's infantry might prevail over the Romans, Scipio's horsemen re-entered the fray, and decimated the Carthaginians.
Rome lost 4,000-4,500 men, Hannibal about five times that many. This time Carthage submitted to defeat, and the 17-year war was over.