army to Carthage. He angrily obeyed, but blamed the home authorities for not having supported him wholeheartedly in the past. If they had, Carthage would not be in its present state.
Still determined to win the public-relations battle for Juno’s goodwill, the Romans put about a story that some Italian soldiers in the Punic army refused to go to Africa. Hannibal invited them to an assembly in the goddess’s peaceful and hitherto inviolate precinct in Bruttium, where he had them surrounded by other troops and slaughtered. Another black mark in the goddess’s book.
With between fifteen thousand and twenty thousand men safely back in North Africa, the Council of Elders was ready to abandon its peace treaty and renew hostilities. In a deliberate provocation, a convoy of Roman supply ships was attacked. A coldly furious Scipio, who had probably suspected all along that the enemy was playing for time, summoned Masinissa, who was now able to supply a substantial cavalry force, and set about compelling Hannibal to offer battle. This he did, by launching a ruthless campaign of massacre and destruction in the fertile Punic countryside. Towns were taken, laid waste, and their populations sold into slavery.
The policy worked. In late October 202, the Carthaginian and Roman armies met near Zama, a town five days’ march from the sea. Eager to meet his young rival, Hannibal asked for a personal conference a deux with Scipio. Halfway between the opposing lines, each attended by an interpreter, the generals met. Nothing came of this remarkable encounter. The Carthaginian proposed peace, but Scipio was confident of victory and refused.
The following morning, battle was joined. In one sense, the outcome did not much matter. If fate insisted, Rome could afford yet another defeat, and would simply come back with yet another army. Carthage, however, was at its last gasp. Hannibal commanded the larger number of men, but for once he had few cavalry and much of his infantry was untested. His battle plan took account of these weaknesses. He knew that Scipio’s cavalry would scatter his own and gallop away in pursuit; his task was to rout the legions in the Roman center and win the day before the horsemen had time to return and take his infantry in the rear. Eighty war elephants were drawn up in front. Behind them, the Carthaginian commander arranged his foot soldiers in three lines, with the less experienced in the first two and his seasoned veterans from the Italian years at the back.
The course of the battle went more or less as Hannibal guessed it would, but not with a happy outcome for him. The Romans quickly drove his cavalry from the field. Unfortunately, the elephants were a disaster, some hurtling down lanes or gaps in the line that Scipio specially created for them (the beasts were then dealt with at leisure in the rear) and others stampeding back into their own forces. Hannibal’s first two lines of foot soldiers were swept away. Then the Roman legionaries paused methodically to regroup from their loose maniples into a dense phalanx, before engaging with his third line. For a while there was an evenly balanced slogging match, until, crucially, Scipio’s cavalry rode back and, as Hannibal had gloomily foreseen, attacked them from behind. He had done his best under the circumstances, but it had not been good enough. The game was up, and sixteen years of blood and victories had gone for nothing.
Further resistance by Carthage was futile, and risked bringing on the annihilation of the city itself. The fates of Capua, Tarentum, and Syracuse were fresh in the mind. The final peace terms were more severe than those previously negotiated. The indemnity rose to ten thousand talents, payable in fifty annual installments. Carthage was to remain independent but within boundaries, as it was before the war (a territory about the size of modern Tunisia); formerly Numidian lands claimed by Masinissa were to be returned. The city was not allowed to make war outside Africa, and only with Rome’s permission within Africa. The entire fleet was to be burned, except for ten triremes, the maximum now permitted. This was the end of Carthage as a Mediterranean power.
When the draft treaty was laid before the Council of Elders, a member stood up and began to oppose acceptance. Hannibal forcibly pulled him down from the speakers’ platform. Censured for breeching the conventions of the house, he apologized. According to Polybius, he said:
You must pardon me, for you know I left Carthage when I was only nine and have now only returned when I am past forty-five.… It seems to me amazing and quite beyond my comprehension that anyone who is a citizen of Carthage … should not thank his lucky stars that now we are at [Rome’s] mercy we have obtained such lenient terms.… So now I beg you not even to debate the question, but declare your acceptance of the proposals unanimously.
The council followed Hannibal’s advice and passed a resolution to conclude the treaty on the conditions set out.
TWO ROMAN LEGIONS are on the march, commanded by one of the consuls. It is late afternoon and twilight will soon set in. The long column comes to a halt, and the men break up into an extraordinary daily routine. In a few hours, they build a complete military camp.
The pattern is always the same. First an officer goes forward to find a suitable site. When that is done, the spot where the consul’s tent, or
The site quickly becomes a busy anthill. Each legionary has a specific task to fulfill. Some dig a ditch and a low rampart, with stakes (every soldier carries one) hammered into it to form a defensive palisade. Others put up tents in orderly rows. Watchwords are set, and sentries posted, and officers prepare to do their rounds. Night falls on what looks like a small city.
The whole process is a fine example of discipline under pressure. When Pyrrhus of Epirus witnessed the Roman legions encamp for the night, he was daunted by the spectacle, realizing for the first time that, when fighting Rome, he might have issued a challenge he could not win. Another Greek, the historian Polybius, has left a detailed and admiring description of the Republic’s military dispositions as it emerged from the struggle with Hannibal, from which this account is taken. He wanted to understand the legions’ remarkable record of success in war after war.
When the need arose for recruiting an army, the consuls announced the day for a levy when all men of military age, between seventeen and forty-six, and with property valued at more than four hundred denarii, were to assemble on the Capitol. The denarius was a small silver coin, the value of which in today’s terms is hard to compute because of widely differing economic conditions, but a legionary in this period received a daily allowance of one-third of a denarius. Each man was allocated the legion with which he would serve and the fighting category— whether he was to join the light-armed
Much of a Roman’s life on and off through his twenties and thirties was spent in the army. The maximum length of service was sixteen years for an infantryman (twenty in a national emergency) and ten for an
Punishments were ferocious. A man on nighttime guard duty who was found to be asleep or absent without leave could expect to suffer a
If a group of soldiers—for example, a maniple—broke and ran under pressure and deserted their posts, no mercy was shown. The legion was paraded and those found guilty were brought to the front and reprimanded. Then one out of every ten of them was selected by lot and beaten to death. The remainder were put on iron rations and expelled from the camp; they were forced to quarter themselves in a place without any defenses.
Carrots accompanied sticks. When soldiers distinguished themselves in battle, the commander would summon a general assembly of the troops and call forward those whom he considered to have shown exceptional courage. When a city was stormed, the first man to scale the wall was awarded a crown of gold. Anyone who had shielded or saved a comrade’s life was honored with gifts from the consul—a spear or a cup or horse trappings. A
