after the huge defeat of Roman legions at Cannae, all Hannibal had to do was march on Rome. But he was short on supplies and reinforcement and didn’t advance. Which politicians decided where he would go next?
Hannibal underestimated the Romans. After Cannae, he expected the Romans to react sensibly and seek terms, like any rational city state of that era would do. Instead, the Romans closed their gates and raised new legions. The amazing thing is that all the Italian states allied to Rome, many of them fairly recent Roman conquests, remained loyal. The Romans had an astonishing ability to turn defeated opponents into allies, then eventually citizens. In the case of the Punic Wars, that Carthaginian thing about sacrificing children to Moloch probably played a role. The Romans were tough hombres, but some things were beyond the pale.
When the Roman general Scipio landed in North Africa, the leaders of Carthage recalled Hannibal from Italy to defend the home city.
I’m pretty sure he was recalled to Carthage to defend it against the Romans who had decided to attack Carthage instead of continuing his harassment of Rome.
But it’s been nearly 30 years since I had Western Civ.
I think at one point during the trip through the Alps they had to use vinegar to break up a boulder blocking the way. At any rate when Jefferson was in France he wrote a friend who was planning a trip from France to Italy and the letter discusses whether the friend might need to use vinegar like the Carthaginians had done.
Carthage had conquered a good bit of Spain. Hannibal's family had been fighting the Romans in Spain, and he wanted to drive them right out and swoop around to attack Italy. The Carthaginians had gotten pretty rich, and tended to park their plump behinds on cushions and use mercenaries for fighting on land and sea. The Barca family had political enemies and it was easy to get the backing of the home front to send Hannibal out of town. He had a handful of major victories in Italy during the impressive fifteen years he spent in Italy. But, he had no siegecraft, so walled towns simply shut the gates and refused him entry. He managed to live off the land, but he couldn't replace lost troops, failed to build local alliances, and eventually he was considered worn down enough to be evacuated by Carthaginian ships. The Romans waved bye-bye and didn't try to stop the evacuation.
While this was going on Scipio booted the Carthaginians out of Spain. He persisted in Spain until he cleaned the clocks of Carthaginian commanders and their forces, returned to Rome, raised an army without support from the Senate, sailed for Africa, linked up with the former ally of Carthage (won over by Scipio), then destroyed Carthaginian forces, which led to Hannibal's recall from Italy.
The Battle of Zama led to the dismantling of Carthage's fleet (there's a really nice segment about the artificial harbor and the fleet of Carthage in "Engineering an Empire", btw), war indemnity, and the Romans kept Spain, Cisalpine Gaul (includes the Riviera), Italy of course, and everything was going quite well. The king of Macedon had more or less allied himself with Hannibal and was trying to grab the eastern Adriatic coast, but as soon as the little Hannibal matter was cleared up in Italy, the Romans destroyed him and conquered Greece.
After Zama there was a period of quiet settlement, but Hannibal went back to his plotting another attack on Italy. Scipio and his brother prevailed against a major eastern ally of Hannibal, the Carthaginians finally tired of his BS, and he was booted from the city, into exile, and hunted by Rome, until he killed himself somewhere in the east end of the Med.
Naturally, with the corrupticratic regime of the Roman so-called republic, no good deed went unpunished. Scipio and his brother were both investigated and prosecuted (sound familiar?). I'd take Scipio over Hannibal any freakin' day, btw.
Hannibal didn’t have any seige equipment so he couldn’t take the cities.
Rome had a tremendous ability to bounce back from crushing loses.
Rome finally developed some able generals and were thus able to win the war. (which lasted over 20 years).