1-Acest articol este copiat.
2-Istoria ramane pasiunea mea nr1!
After the Battle of Cannae had wiped out a generation of Roman men, the senate sought to take the war with Carthage away with Hannibal, their first objectives being to retake Capua, and capture Syracuse (in Sicily). In Italy, Fabius saw Roman armies shadow Hannibal while avoiding battle, using their various armies as their strength. When Hannibal would march on Rome, Rome would besiege Capua, lifting the siege if he returned. Rome called his bluff correctly in assuming he would be unable to storm the city, while the legions were able to recapture Capua. So the game played out in Italy, cities defecting and being recaptured by the Romans as Hannibal’s hopes of a grand alliance against the republic faded.
In Sicily, Rome initially sought a naval attack on the city of Syracuse. However, the famed scientist and mathematician Archimedes, who shouted “Eureka!” and ran through the streets naked after discovering the science behind water displacement in the bath, and who invented the Archimedes Screw which could take water uphill, was a resident of the city. His famed Archimedes Claw would lift Roman triremes (battle ships) out of the water by their battering rams, dropping them back in and sinking them, contributing to huge Roman losses in the first attack. A two year siege followed, Rome unable to starve the city due to their naval supremacy. Eventually a legionary spotted a section of wall that was lower than appeared, and on festival night, with Syracusians drunk and celebrating, the Romans stormed the city, ending 600 years of independence, and capturing a city who resistance had been the undoing of Athens in the Peloponnesian Wars some 200 years earlier.
The Romans also sought to take the war to Hispania (Spain), a fertile recruitment ground for Carthaginian allies, and the route they would have to take to reinforce Hannibal. Asking for volunteers in the senate, only one stepped forward – Scipio the younger (son of the one who was injured before Trebia, and survivor of Cannae), too young to be in the senate but fast tracked due to the number of vacant seats after Cannae. Scipio’s bold strategy brought swift success, attacking Carthago Nova (New Carthage – modern day Cartagena, though Hamilcar Barca also founded Barcelona) and taking the city with much of the Carthaginian army out recruiting in Iberia. Still vastly outnumbered, he set to his own recruitment campaign to win Celtiberians to the Roman cause. The Romans were also committed to the First Macedonian War at this time, with Phillip of Macedon having sought an alliance with Hannibal after Cannae, though the Romans intercepted his messenger. Providing few legionaries from their Illyrian (Balkan) garrisons at this time, the war largely saw Rome funding resistance by the Greek city states to Macedon.
In Iberia, Scipio had his work cut off trying to keep the armies of Hannibal’s’ brothers, Mago and Gisgo, apart. His work was further complicated when a third Carthaginian army, under Hannibal’s brother Hasdrubal, appeared in the peninsular. Hasdrubal gave Scipio the slip, crossing the Pyrenees and then making much quicker progress across the Alps than Hannibal a decade before, using the roads and structures now in place. Arriving in northern Italy, his army of 50,000 was confident of seeing the war to its conclusion by reinforcing his brother and providing the siege engines to attack Rome. Thus they relaxed and drank on the banks of the Metaurus River in 207 BC. But Rome had heard, and the following morning they were ambushed by the hastily assembled army under the consul Nero (not that one!) and routed – had they not been, we may today have been talking about the Carthaginian Empire rather than the Roman one. Seeing his defeat, Hasdrubal charged into the legionary ranks. The first news Hannibal received was when his brother’s severed head was tossed into his camp.
Further trouble for Scipio saw the armies of Mago and Gisgo combine, now fielding around 80,000 troops to his 40,000. Undeterred, Scipio allowed the Carthaginians to deploy first and then lined up to face them with his legions in the centre, allies on the flanks, the brothers matching his formation – but he did not attack. Continuing this ruse for several days, Scipio then had his men fed and prepared before daybreak, sent a cavalry force to harry his opponent and rush them into battle, and then reversed his formation when it was too late for his opponents to copy – a “reverse Cannae”. His legions on the wings advanced at a faster pace, carving through the Carthaginian allies and then allowing him to completely envelop their line at the Battle of Ilipa in 206 BC. With his victory, Carthaginian power in Iberia was broken.
Flush with success, Scipio returned to Rome. His supporters there eagerly awaited him to bring to end a decade of the Fabian Strategy and Roman shame, and be their new hero to take on Hannibal. But Scipio had different ideas. And so, after much persuasion, he made for Sicily, there to begin raising the legions he needed to invade Africa and besiege Carthage itself.
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