Second Punic War – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Second Punic War, also referred to as The Hannibalic War, (by the Romans) The War Against Hannibal, or "The Carthaginian War", lasted from 218 to 201 BC[1] and involved combatants in the western and eastern Mediterranean. This was the second major war between Carthage and the Roman Republic, with the crucial participation of Numidian-Berber armies and tribes on both sides. The two states had three major conflicts against each other over the course of their existence. They are called the "Punic Wars" because Rome's name for Carthaginians was Poeni, derived from Poenici (earlier form of Punici), a reference to the founding of Carthage by Phoenician settlers.[2][3]

The war was to a considerable extent initiated by Rome[citation needed] , but is marked by Hannibal's surprising overland journey and his costly crossing of the Alps, followed by his reinforcement by Gallic allies and crushing victories over Roman armies in the battle of the Trebia and the giant ambush at Trasimene. In the following year (216), Hannibal's army defeated the Romans again, this time in southern Italy at Cannae. In consequence of these defeats, many Roman allies went over to Carthage, prolonging the war in Italy for over a decade. Against Hannibal's skill on the battlefield, the Romans deployed the Fabian strategy. Roman forces were more capable in siegecraft than the Carthaginians and recaptured all of the major cities that had joined the enemy, as well as defeating a Carthaginian attempt to reinforce Hannibal at the battle of the Metaurus. In the meantime, in Iberia, which served as the main source of manpower for the Carthaginian army, a second Roman expedition under Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus Major took Carthago Nova by assault and ended Carthaginian rule over Iberia in the battle of Ilipa. The final showdown was the Battle of Zama in Africa between Scipio Africanus and Hannibal, resulting in the latter's defeat and the imposition of harsh peace conditions on Carthage, which ceased to be a major power and became a Roman client-state.

A sideshow of this war was the indecisive First Macedonian War in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Ionian Sea.

All battles mentioned in the introduction are ranked among the most costly traditional battles of human history; in addition, there were a few successful ambushes of armies that also ended in their annihilation.

The Second Punic War was fought between Carthage and Rome and was ignited by the dispute over the hegemony of Saguntum, a Hellenized Iberian coastal city with diplomatic contacts with Rome.[4] After great tension within the city government, culminating in the assassination of the supporters of Carthage, Hannibal laid siege to the city of Saguntum in 219 BC. The city called for Roman aid, but the pleas fell on deaf ears. Following a prolonged siege and a bloody struggle, in which Hannibal himself was wounded and the army practically destroyed, the Carthaginians finally took control of the city. Many of the Saguntians chose to commit suicide rather than face subjugation by the Carthaginians.

Before the war, Rome and Hasdrubal the Fair had made a treaty. Livy reports that it was agreed that the Iber should be the boundary between the two empires and that the liberty of the Saguntines should be preserved.[5]:21.13

The Carthaginian army in Iberia, excluding the forces in Africa, totaled, according to Polybius, 90,000 infantry, 12,000 cavalry and 37 war elephants:[6] it was thus one of the largest in the Hellenistic world and equal in numbers to any that the Romans had yet fielded. Hannibal departed with this army from New Carthage (Cartagena, Spain) northwards along the coast in late spring of 218 BC. At the Ebro, he split the army into three columns and subdued the tribes from there to the Pyrenees within weeks, but with severe losses. At the Pyrenees, he left a detachment of 11,000 Iberian troops, who showed reluctance to leave their homeland, as a garrison for the newly conquered region.[7] Hannibal reportedly entered Gaul with 50,000 infantry and 9,000 cavalry. He took his army by an inland route,[4] avoiding the Roman allies along the coast. In Gaul, negotiations helped him to move unmolested except for the Battle of Rhone Crossing, where a force of the Allobroges unsuccessfully tried to oppose his 38,000 infantry (that number may exclude light infantry), 8,000 cavalry, and 37 war elephants from the other shore.[8]

In the meantime, a Roman fleet with an invasion force was underway to northern Iberia. Its commanders, the brothers Gnaeus Cornelius Scipio Calvus and Publius Cornelius Scipio, knew that Hannibal had crossed the Ebro, but were surprised by the Carthaginian army's presence at the Rhone upstream of their ally Massalia, where they had landed. A scouting party of 300 cavalry was sent to discover the whereabouts of the enemy.[4] These eventually defeated a Carthaginian scouting troop of 500 mounted Numidians and chased them back to their main camp. Thus, with knowledge of the location of the enemy, the Romans marched upstream, ready for battle. Hannibal evaded this force and by an unknown route reached (the Isre or the Durance) the foot of the Alps in autumn.[4] He also received messengers from his Gallic allies in Italy that urged him to come to their aid and offered to guide him over the Alps. Before setting out to cross the Alps, he was re-supplied by a native tribe, some of whose hereditary disputes he had helped solve.

The first Roman expedition to Iberia was unable to bring the Carthaginian troops in the hinterland of Massalia to a pitched battle, so it continued on its way to northern Iberia under Gnaeus Cornelius Scipio Calvus, a move which proved decisive for the outcome of the war. Their other commander, Publius Cornelius Scipio, returned to Rome, realizing the danger of an invasion of Italy where the tribes of the Boii and Insubres were already in revolt. After 217 BC, he also traveled to Iberia.

In Iberia, Carthaginian rule was not popular, but Roman inaction during the siege of Saguntum had made the natives cautious about an alliance against their masters. Gnaeus Cornelius Scipio Calvus established his headquarters at Cissa, in the midst of Hannibal's latest acquisition, the area between Ebro and Pyrenees. Despite initial setbacks, he won increasing support among the natives. This convinced the Carthaginian commander Hanno, the nephew of Hannibal, to accept pitched battle before his troops had been united with the army under Hasdrubal, the brother of Hannibal, despite being outnumbered 2 to 1. The result was a Roman victory in the battle of Cissa in 218 BC. When Hasdrubal finally made it to the scene, he was in no position to fight the Roman army and merely caught their navy personnel off-guard, killing some of them in the process.

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