Battle of Zama

Background

The Second of the Punic Wars began in 218 BC, when Hannibal marched from Spain over the Alps into Italy. He destroyed Roman armies at the Trebia, Lake Trasimene and the Battle of Cannae, but he could not take Rome, and the war in Italy became a long stalemate. Meanwhile the young Publius Cornelius Scipio drove the Carthaginians out of Spain. In 204 BC Scipio landed in Africa, and with his new ally Masinissa, a Numidian prince, he defeated the Carthaginian and Numidian armies sent against him. Carthage recalled Hannibal from Italy in 203 BC. After failed peace talks, and a personal meeting between the two generals described by Polybius and Livy, the armies met in 202 BC near Zama, south-west of Carthage. The exact site is unknown, and the traditional date of 19 October rests on a disputed link to a solar eclipse.

The Battle

Hannibal had about 36,000 to 40,000 infantry, some 4,000 cavalry and 80 war elephants. His infantry stood in three lines: first Gallic, Ligurian, Balearic and Moorish mercenaries, then new levies of Carthaginians and Libyans, and at the back his veterans from Italy. Scipio had perhaps 29,000 infantry and 6,000 cavalry, including Masinissa's Numidians. Instead of the usual checkerboard, he lined up his maniples one behind the other, leaving open lanes through his army, which he filled with light troops. The battle opened with a charge by the elephants. Roman trumpets and horns frightened many of them. Some turned back into the Carthaginian cavalry, and others ran down the lanes, where the velites stabbed them with javelins as they passed. Laelius, on the Roman left, and Masinissa, on the right, then charged and chased the Carthaginian horsemen off the field. The Roman hastati beat the mercenaries and then the second line, but they were stopped by Hannibal's veterans. Scipio reorganized his army across a field covered with bodies, moving his principes and triarii to the wings to match the length of Hannibal's line. The two lines fought hard and evenly until Laelius and Masinissa returned and struck the rear of Hannibal's army, which then broke.

Weapons

Scipio's Roman Legions fought with the Roman Pilum, the Roman Gladius and the Roman Scutum, and wore the Montefortino Helmet, while the triarii carried the Roman Hasta. Hannibal's army was a mixture of peoples and weapons. The Gauls carried the Celtic La Tène Sword, the Balearic islanders the Prehistoric Sling, and many of his veterans had long used captured Roman arms. His war elephants were probably small North African forest elephants, and at Zama they did as much harm to his own side as to Scipio's.

Aftermath

Polybius says 20,000 Carthaginians were killed and nearly as many captured, against about 1,500 Romans killed. Livy gives a slightly higher Roman figure, and modern historians treat all these numbers with caution. Hannibal escaped and advised Carthage to make peace. Under the treaty of 201 BC Carthage gave up Spain and its elephants, kept only ten warships, agreed to pay 10,000 talents over fifty years, and could not make war without Rome's permission. Masinissa became king of Numidia, and Scipio took the name Africanus. Rome, the future Roman Empire, now dominated the western Mediterranean, and Carthage was finally destroyed in 146 BC.