The War With Hannibal

-Hannibal amasses a force of 90,000 infantry, 12,000 cavalry, and 67 war elephants at New Carthage in 218 BC.
-Hannibal immediately set out for Rome, plan was to sneak up and attack Rome from the north.
   -Suffered heavy casualties as he marched against enemy barbarian hordes, however, and by attacking cities on the way.
      -Also, he had to go through the Pyrenees, and arrived in Gaul with a force of only about 50,000... still though, Rome had no idea!
-Sempronius Longus was in Rome, preparing troops there for the African invasion.
   -Scipio was in northern Italy, preparing for a Spanish invasion with 2 legions.
-On his way to Spain, however, Scipio landed in Massilia (Marseille) on the south coast of Gaul before going on to Spain.
   -However, while he was there, he found that Hannibal's army was crossing the Rhône River! WTF!
      -Hannibal knew that he had been exposed, so he moved as fast as he could to reach Rome.  On the way, he was met with much resistance from the Gallic hordes.
         -Scipio followed him, but knew that his force was way too small to take on Hannibal, so he eventually told his army to move onto Spain, and Hannibal himself sailed for Rome.
-Famous moment in world history: Hannibal crossing the Alps!
   -Snow was just beginning to fall, and Hannibal's troops were constantly being attacked by hordes who lived in the mountains.
      -Hannibal had to manage his troops, navigate the treacherous mountains, AND manage the supply routes as well!
         -It was an absolute nightmare.  Somehow, Hannibal kept his troops from giving up, even though he had lost over half during this time.
-Scipio finally made the decision to strike at Hannibal at the Ticinus River (a tributary of the Po River).
   -Roman infantry were a good match against the Carthaginian infantry, but Hannibal's Numidian cavalry was way more badass.
   -Scipio was actually wounded in this battle and had to retreat.
      -Sempronius Longus was called upon to come help fight Hannibal.
   -Hannibal was also a tactical genius and was able to manipulate the Romans into traps, taking advantage of the horrible weather at the time, and the Romans were eventually getting slaughtered!
      -Rome was in a panic, and Sempronius Longus' reputation was shattered.
-Luckily for Rome, winter had set in and Hannibal knew it would be suicide to besiege Rome during that time.
   -Thus, Rome had a chance to fortify and plan.
-Spring arrived and the Romans regrouped.
   -The dominant consul at the time was Gaius Flaminius, a pleb maverick.
-Hannibal began to march on Rome, avoiding the roads and going through swamps, as he wanted to lure Flaminius' troops out of Rome to attack him in the bogs...and it worked!
    -30,000-40,000 Romans were slaughtered as a result, including Gaius Flaminius.
-Rome was now terrified.
   -They were not an invincible juggernaut, and it seemed like no matter what, Hannibal was always able to fuck them up in battle.
      -Out of desperation, Rome appointed a dictator, which had only been used extremely rarely since the Samnite Wars.
         -The dictator was Quantus Fabius Maximus, who also actually the last dictator to be appointed in Rome, as he acted like a complete dickhead.
            -Fabius Maximus would be immortalized in military history with the term "Fabian tactics", which was just avoiding combat altogether.  He was sick of being tricked into combat with Hannibal.
               -The Romans were horrified by this plan, as it was not in their military character to avoid fighting like this.  However, Hannibal actually respected Rome for employing this strategy!
                   -Brilliantly, Hannibal decided to manipulate the Romans' negative feelings towards Fabius by sparing the lands owned by Fabius during their countryside raids, further increasing the Romans' suspicion of their dictator that maybe he was secretly in cahoots with Hannibal.
-Unfortunately for Hannibal, he finally made a mistake by raiding Campania.  He wanted to besiege Capua, the second most powerful city in the Roman Empire, in hopes that he could actually flip the city and fight against Rome.
   -Fabius Maximus took this opportunity to take advantage of the Campanian geography and trap Hannibal.  Hannibal was able to escape, however.
-Fabius Maximus then got in trouble with the Romans, who decided to appoint a co-dictator (which defeated the whole purpose of having a dictator with absolute power in the first place).
   -They appointed this co-dictator, but he soon scrapped.
      -The Romans realized that while Fabius Maximus wasn't popular, they hadn't actually lost a battle in over a year.
-Gaius Terentius Varro- one of Fabius' biggest critics- told the people that if he was elected consul, he would be able to raise a massive army and crush Hannibal.
   -People overwhelmingly supported this and elected him.
      -He then raised 16 legions to take on Hannibal (80,000 men).
         -Hannibal had recently conquered the city of Cannae in southwest Italy, and was lurking around there, waiting for Rome to come to him.  During this time, he only had 40,000 infantry and 10,000 cavalry.
-However, when the Romans arrived, they had a disagreement- fight in the hills to neutralize Hannibal's cavalry advantage, or simply overwhelm in the field with their huge numbers?
   -Varro finally got his way and they tried to overwhelm Hannibal by fighting in the field- huge mistake!
      -Varro made some other stupid tactical mistakes, and soon found his army outflanked by the Carthaginians.
         -The Roman legions were absolutely hacked to pieces (50,000-70,000) Romans died that day, including the Roman consul Lucius Aemilius Paullus.
            -Varro fled the battle.
-The Battle of Cannae is one of the most famous battles in all of military history.
-However, many while so many great military minds still praise Hannibal as a genius, many are super-critical of what he did with his massive military victory- jack shit!
   -He never actually attacked the city of Rome itself.  He just continued trying to get Rome's allies to join him.
      -Still, to Hannibal's credit, he only had 35,000 troops left... a Roman siege would have been very difficult to pull off.
-Hannibal's brother, Hasdrubal (not to be confused with his brother-in-law, Hasdrubal the Fair, who had died in 221 BC), was instructed by Hannibal to continue to fight the Romans who had landed in Spain.
-215 BC- Hiero II dies, succeeded by his grandson, Hieronymus of Syracuse.
   -At this time, the nobility was pushing hard to break away from Rome and side with Carthage.
      -Hieronymous agreed, and made a deal with Carthage in which Carthage would leave Syracuse alone if Syracuse allied itself with Carthage and helped push Rome out of Sicily.  However, Hieronymous was kind of a Joffrey Lannister-type, and everyone hated him, so he was assassinated, along with the rest of his family, in 214 BC.
         -A pair of Carthaginian generals then staged a military coup, putting Sicily directly under Carthage's control.
-Meanwhile, the Romans and the Carthaginians (along with their Celtiberian allies) were duking it out in Spain for 5 long years.
   -They were pretty evenly matched.  However, although Rome would take Saguntum, they would eventually be pretty much wiped out in Spain.
-Back in Sicily, the Romans doubled down to fight the Carthaginians.  They were hellbent on conquering Syracuse first.
   -This was really difficult though, especially because Syracuse had a secret weapon- super-genius Archimedes!
      -He designed a grappling hook that could fuck up Roman ships from the city walls, along with catapults that hurl massive boulders.
   -Still, the city fell after 2-3 years, due to a combination of bad luck, Roman infiltration, and other stuff.
      -The Romans were uncharacteristically brutal as they sacked, raped, and plundered the fuck out of the city.
         -Even Romans back home were shocked at the brutality, as it had been a glorious city of art, science, and treasure.
-What was going on in Macedonia during this time?
   -This was actually the third theater of the war, which is rarely talked about!
   -Around the time of the Battle of Cannae, Philip V of Macedonia signed an allied treaty with Carthage.
      -Philip V's plan was to reunite Greece again like the previous Macedonian kings had done ("Make Macedonia Great Again").
         -Rome found about this, so they tried to ally with the Greeks.  They were able to secure an alliance with the Aetolian League, a buffer confederacy between Macedonia and Greece's southern city-states.
   -Philip V's wanted to conquer the Roman protectorate lands in Illyria so they could have a coastline to attack Rome from.
      -However, whenever he tried to do this, the Aetolian League would attack from the south, thus causing a major distraction.
         -This was the beginning of the First Macedonian War, but did not actually involve legit Roman troops.
-Meanwhile, Hannibal's plan seemed to work at first.
   -Capua defected to the Carthaginian side, but no one else followed suit.
-Hannibal marched south and conquered Tarentum, but couldn't quite drive out the Roman garrison that was the holed up in the citadel, which could be supplied from the coast.
-Rome then began to attack Capua.
   -Hannibal responded by marching on Rome itself!  He got within 2 miles of the city!
      -However, the Romans knew Hannibal was not strong enough to take Rome, so they didn't fall into his trap, as Hannibal wanted Rome's army to come back so he could crush it.  So Hannibal was forced to back off.
-Rome then liberated by Capua.
-Meanwhile in the Iberian peninsula, Rome was just about to give up.
   -Nobody wanted to continue leading, except at the last second Publius Scipio came forward.
      -Publius Scipio, of course, would eventually be the legendary general Scipio Africanus!
         -Scipio was not liked at first by the traditional military commanders, as he was kind of a rebel- he had long hair and many believed that he spoke as if he was divinely inspired, which made him very charismatic and well-liked by the general public.  He was young too, kind of like a cross between Jim Morrison, Alexander the Great, and Jesus (or something).
   -Fabius' strategy was to avoid direct confrontation with Hannibal, but Scipio believed that the Hannibal could be beaten by altering the usual Roman tactics.
      -Scipio took a small force (2,000 men) to the Iberian peninsula and attacked New Carthage directly; something that was completely unexpected by Hannibal.  At first he was unsuccessful, but soon gained some intelligence on a way to sneak into the city, and New Carthage was captured by the Romans!
         -Scipio then had all of the Celtiberian barbarian POWs set free, which caused them to get tons of support from the Celtiberian hordes of the surrounding areas.
-208 BC- Scipio clashes with Hasdrubal in the Iberian peninsula, and Hasdrubal is beaten back and escapes.
   -Hasdrubal had planned on attacking the Italian peninsula rather than fighting in the Iberian peninsula.
-206 BC - Battle of Ilipio- Scipio's finest hour!  The Romans were completely outnumbered.
   -Scipio changed up his formations from the usual lineup and were able to outflank the Carthaginians.  The Carthaginians finally fled and were chased by the Romans, who eventually slaughtered them all.  Rome thus was able to dominate Carthage in the Iberian peninsula.
-Hannibal was still a difficult opponent in Italy- too strong and cunning to defeat in battle, but too weak to take Rome.
-Meanwhile, Hasdrubal was trying to get to Italy to reinforce Hannibal's army, but luckily for Rome they had a strong, fortified army in the north.  Rome was able to send troops up to the Po Valley, and eventually they crushed Hasdrubal's army there!
-Rome, under Scipio, then hatched a plan to attack Carthage itself!
-First though, Carthage was too powerful with their Numidian cavalry.
   -Rome knew that if they could flip Numidia, Carthage would be fucked.
      -The Numidians weren't happy under Carthage domination.
         -Rome was thus able to form a close friendship with Masinissa, an exiled Numidian prince who hated Carthage.
-203 BC- Scipio sailed for North Africa with a force of 35,000.
   -He arrived west of Carthage and began raiding immediately.
      -Besieged the city of Utica, so Carthage sent a massive force of 70,000 troops to drive off the Romans.
         -As a result, Scipio withdrew and immediately sued for peace.  Carthage agreed to hold off until morning to crush the Roman army, but that night the Romans quickly attacked the Carthaginian camp and slaughtered their army!!
-Suddenly, Carthage was very scared.  They sent for Hannibal to return in 202 BC.
   -He returned to fight Scipio in North Africa, but it just seemed like his spirit wasn't in the fight anymore.
      -Finally, Scipio moved towards the city of Zama, away from Carthage, hoping to threaten Carthage's supply lines and draw out Hannibal into sketchy territory.
         -Hannibal tried to sue for peace, but Scipio declined.  By the end, Hannibal's army was wrecked, and he withdrew his forces.
            -The Second Punic War was over, and Rome had won!
-Carthage was allowed to keep its North African empire, but all overseas territories were given to Rome.
   -Carthage also wasn't allowed to build an army or navy, and couldn't fuck with any of their neighbors without Roman permission.  They were forced to pay reparations to Rome.  Masanissa was then crowned as king of Numidia (which, of course, was forced to be subordinate to Rome).
-The aftermath: Rome had transformed during wartime into an oligarchy, with a powerful aristocratic Senate running the show.
   -Old Roman virtue was dead, and corrupt politicians were now running the show.
      -The world was theirs for the taking!