The Battle of Ilipa, 206 BCE, Phase VI. This stand proves short-lived as the Roman army presses its advantage (1). An intense downpour and the onset of darkness allow the remaining Carthaginians to retreat to their camp (2). The unreliable Spanish troops disappear by morning (3) and all is lost. Gisgo and Mago flee the field (4), abandoning the remnants of the Punic force to the Romans.
Before Scipio left Spain he began to anticipate a campaign to strike Carthage directly, and to further this aim, reopened negotiations with the Numidian king Syphax, even sailing across the Straits of Gibraltar to visit him in his kingdom. This event resulted in a strange incident where Scipio and Hasdrubal Gisgo and their retinues sat down together as guests of Syphax only a few months after Ilipa. And though negotiations with King Syphax ultimately failed, the talented Prince Masinissa did agree to fight for Rome. His defection would be a key reason for Scipio’s success in his North African campaign and later victory over Hannibal at the Battle of Zama.254
Scipio Returns Home and Builds an Army (205–204 BCE)
Scipio returned to Rome to give his report to the Senate. Although his achievements in Spain were spectacular, he was denied a triumph because he had never held the appropriate rank of magistrate. He did, however, stand for the consulship of 205, even though at around thirty-one years old he was well below the minimum age of forty. Scipio made it clear to the Senate that he wanted to bring the war directly to the heart of Punic territory and invade North Africa, and his enthusiasm and perceived arrogance evoked powerful opposition among some Senators, chief among them the aged Fabius Maximus.
Too old to fight in the field anymore, Fabius argued that Hannibal Barca was still undefeated on Italian soil in Bruttium, despite numerous Roman campaigns to dislodge or defeat him. And even if an invasion of Africa were attempted, fighting a war on the other side of the Mediterranean was a difficult task, something Fabius would have remembered from Regulus’ defeat at Tunis fifty years earlier in 255, during the First Punic War.255 Perhaps Fabius understood that such a defeat on foreign soil could give the Carthaginians hope and change the direction of the war.
To make matters worse for Scipio, rumours began to circulate that the young general would use drastic means to secure his plan to attack Africa, going so far as persuading a tribune to pass a law in the Plebeian Assembly giving him Africa as his province if the Senate denied him. Even though this action was technically legal, Scipio’s perceived willingness to use the plebeians against the Senatorial class put off many of Scipio’s supporters.256 When asked point blank by the respected four-time consul Quintus Fulvius Flaccus if he would challenge the Senate, Scipio stated that he would abide by whatever decision the Senate made.257
Despite reservations, the Senate granted Scipio a consulship in mid-March of 205, giving him Sicily as his province and endorsing his plan to invade North Africa if he believed it to be in Rome’s best interest.258 The other consul for the year, Publius Licinius Crassus, also held the religious office of pontifex maximus or Rome’s high priest, an elected position that required him to stay in Italy, freeing Scipio to fulfill his African ambitions without consular meddling.
At the head of thirty newly-commissioned warships, Scipio probably arrived in Sicily in late May or early June and began selecting and training his forces.259 He had no shortage of troops to choose from. The young consul could draw from a substantial garrison already on Sicily, and other communities throughout Italy sent their young men to join the African expedition. In all 7,000 men came forward, swelling Roman forces.260 Unfortunately, we do not know how many men Scipio took with him to North Africa. Livy mentions three different totals, ranging from 10,000 infantry and 2,200 cavalry, through 16,000 infantry and 1,600 cavalry, to the maximum troop strength of 70,000 men split evenly between horse and foot.261 A modern estimate of 25,000–30,000 men (including allies) is most realistic, with perhaps one-in-ten being cavalry.262
Whatever the final troop figure, Scipio decided to winter in Sicily and invade North Africa in the late spring of 204, though he did order a squadron of thirty Roman quinquiremes to raid Carthaginian territory. Led by his trusted senior legate Gaius Laelius, the Romans raided the city of Hippo Regius on the coast, an area not yet affected by the war.263 Laelius spread destruction far and wide, precipitating an invasion scare in Carthage. The Carthaginians immediately levied troops and attempted to secure their alliances with their subject peoples, most importantly the Numidians, who were now embroiled in a civil war.
Masinissa’s father, Gala, had died, forcing a succession struggle among the Maesulian branch of the Numidian nation. The young prince defeated his rivals, but his strategic position was further complicated when the Carthaginians managed to convince King Syphax that Masinissa posed a threat to both him and Carthage. Syphax invaded Maesulian territory and routed Masinissa’s army, putting the prince on the run and nearly killing him on a few occasions. Masinissa managed to escape to the coast, where he made contact with the Romans. Laelius reassured him that the Roman invasion was imminent, then returned to Sicily and assisted with the invasion preparations.
The core of Scipio’s African army consisted of the two Cannae legions which had served as the garrison for the island since the debacle in 216. But even these legionaries were more accustomed to raids and sieges than set-piece battle, with as many as fifty percent of them recent replacements from Scipio’s volunteers.264 From his experiences in Spain, Scipio understood the necessity of having a well-disciplined and well-trained army to meet and defeat the enemy in the open field, and he would spend a year drilling his new recruits and veterans alike to these same standards. Scipio also needed to stockpile supplies in Sicily to maintain his logistical lines while operating in North Africa. In fact, the majority of the food consumed by Roman forces during the two-year African expedition was brought across the sea from Sicily or Italy, illustrating the importance of logistics to the success of the campaign.265
Scipio’s invasion preparations in Sicily were complicated by a scandal that threatened his command of the expedition. Late in the campaigning season of 205 a group of prisoners from the Punic held city of Locri on the toe of Italy offered to betray the city to Rome. Scipio jumped at the chance to deny Hannibal one of his strongholds in southern Italy, and ordered one of his legate Quintus Pleminius, and 3,000 of his men to march from Rhegium to Locri to retake the city. When the Romans arrived, the Punic garrison withdrew back to Hannibal’s position. The scandal erupted when the Romans sacked Locri, plundering the houses and temples and assaulting and raping the citizens. The situation further disintegrated when the Roman garrison split into two rival bands, one under the legate Pleminius and the other commanded by the tribunes Marcus Sergius and Publius Matienus. Squabbling over booty, Pleminius ordered the tribunes arrested and flogged, precipitating a retaliatory attack by the tribunes’ men, who wounded Pleminius, leaving him for dead. Scipio, hearing of this disturbance, crossed the Straits of Messina to Italy and arrested the tribunes, leaving the senior officer Pleminius in charge. Incensed at Scipio’s lenient treatment of the tribunes, Pleminius executed the two men.266 When news of this event made its way to Rome, Scipio’s enemies attempted to remove him from his command. A fact-finding commission was eventually sent to Sicily to ascertain what Scipio’s role was in the Locrian fiasco and to checkup on the invasion preparations. After a few days of witnessing the fruits of months of Roman drill and training, the commission confirmed Scipio’s command and returned home.267 His consulship now expired, Scipio was granted the rank of proconsul and prepared for the launch of his invasion fleet.
Chapter 4
The African Landings and the Battle of Zama
The African Landings (204 BCE)
After performing the traditional sacrifice of flinging animal entrails into the sea, Scipio ordered the Roman invasion fleet to set sail from Sicily for North Africa early in the campaigning season of 204, probably in the month of June or July. The Roman flotilla consisted of four hundred transports,
escorted by only forty warships.268 There is some controversy concerning why Scipio’s fleet was escorted by only forty warships. Perhaps he was only able to man these few ships with qualified crews, or perhaps Gaius Laelius’ raid the year before had exposed a weakness in the Carthaginian defence, convincing the proconsul that a small escort would suffice.269 Scipio and his brother Lucius commanded the twenty warships on the right, while Laelius and Scipio’s quaestor, Marcus Porcius Cato (later Cato ‘the Elder’), commanded the twenty warships on the left. The fleet sailed close together through fog and sighted the African coast on the second day, a promontory west of Cape Bon known today as Cape Farina. Scipio ordered his pilots to steer for this landform, disembarking unopposed about twelve miles north of Utica. Fourteen years into the Second Punic War, the long-anticipated Roman invasion of North Africa had now begun.
Livy tells us that Scipio ordered forty-five days worth of rations and fresh water prepared for the troops, with fifteen days pre-cooked and ready for issue (this probably was grain baked into bread or hard tack).270 Scipio understood the necessity of keeping his soldiers well fed and well watered in the crucial first stages of the operation, when the beachhead needed to be secured and communication lines set up between North Africa and Sicily. Scipio sent his warships to reconnoitre the coast near Utica and moved inland to secure some coastal hills. It was here that the first engagement of the African campaign took place when a Carthaginian officer named Hanno and 500 Punic cavalry crossed the Roman outposts. Sent by Carthage to spy on the Roman expedition, Hanno was killed and his men dispersed.271 Scipio followed up this encounter by plundering the countryside and capturing a local town, sending both its treasure and 8,000 captives back to Sicily on transports.
The North African Campaign, 204-202 BCE
The Roman expedition received a boost shortly afterwards with the arrival of Prince Masinissa and 2,000 Numidian cavalry.272 Masinissa had successfully evaded the armies of Syphax and his presence in the Roman camp meant the invaders now had an ally well versed in the local terrain and the combat capabilities and martial predilections of their North African adversaries. Scipio put these new resources to work when a second Punic cavalry force, again commanded by an officer named Hanno, seized a town called Salaeca only twelve miles away from the Roman camp. Scipio ordered Masinissa and his men to ride up to Salaeca and try to lure the Punic horse out of the city. The provocation worked perfectly. Hanno and his men pursued the Numidians past the high ground where Scipio was waiting in ambush just as he had at Ilipa two years earlier. The Romans fell on the flanks of the Punic horse, while Masinissa wheeled and struck the front of the formation. Livy says that Hanno fell with a thousand of his men, while another thousand were killed or captured in the pursuit.273 Scipio now secured the area and struck out towards Utica.
Capturing the port city of Utica was high on Scipio’s list of priorities, and he brought with him a siege train specifically for this purpose. But after a forty-day siege, Scipio was forced to abandon the action. Hasdrubal Gisgo and Syphax were now massing a substantial army in the area, and the proconsul needed to secure winter quarters. He picked a peninsula just east of the city and prepared camp for the coming winter. The preparations were impressive enough for Julius Caesar to remark on them a century and a half later, calling the site Castra Cornelia, or the ‘camp of Cornelius’.274 Scipio also blockaded Utica by sea to keep its garrison from sallying out and attacking the Roman position.
This was a precarious time for the Roman expedition. Unable to secure Utica, Scipio and his men now faced a long winter cut off from their maritime supply lines and facing a numerically superior enemy on his own soil. Both Livy and Polybius claim that Hasdrubal and Syphax had armies watching the Roman position from separate camps just eight miles away over the winter, with Gisgo commanding 30,000 infantry and 3,000 cavalry and the Numidian king mustering 50,000 foot and 10,000 horse.275 Spring brought Scipio good news from Rome. On the Ides of March 203, the two newly elected consuls took office and renewed Scipio’s Imperium for the duration of the African campaign.276 Spring also brought a renewed effort to take Utica. To this end, Scipio used both negotiations and preparation to meet his objective.
Throughout the winter Scipio attempted to win Syphax over to the Roman cause, but the Numidian king was a hard sell. Hasdrubal Gisgo had married his daughter Sophonisba off to the barbarian king, and her influence went a long way in securing the Numidian alliance for Carthage. For his part, Syphax enjoyed his role as wedge between the Carthaginians and Romans, and attempted to use this leverage to secure a Roman evacuation of Africa and the return of Hannibal from Italy.277 Scipio maintained that he favoured the Numidian king’s plan, but that his own consilium, or council of officers, vetoed the idea.278 Scipio’s negotiations seemed to have been a ruse to stall his enemy until he was ready to strike. This dialogue allowed the Roman delegations (and legionary spies dressed as slaves) to map out the defences and interior of the camps, providing Scipio with valuable intelligence.
Believing the time was ripe for an attack, Scipio prepared his war council, summoning the tribunes to him at noon. He informed them that he proposed to use the normal nightly trumpet blasts which signaled the changing of the watch as the signal for the attack. Quietly, the Roman camp prepared for battle. Scipio’s plan was simple: he would split his attacking force into two parts, with half the main force commanded by Laelius, supported by Masinissa’s Numidian troops. Their objective would be Syphax’s camp. Scipio would lead the other half of the force against Gisgo and his Carthaginian troops. When the trumpets sounded, Laelius attacked first, assisted by allied Numidian troops that were strategically stationed at all routes in and out of the enemy Numidian encampment. The Romans set the poorly-constructed Numidian huts on fire, creating a chaotic scene. According to Polybius
Many were trampled by their own comrades in the exits from the camps, many were surrounded by the flames and burned to death, while all those who escaped from the blaze ran straight into the enemy and were slaughtered before they knew what they were doing or what fate had overtaken them.279
Panic spread to the nearby Punic camp, whose soldiers rushed out to help their allies fight the flames. At this moment Scipio sent his own troops to attack the Carthaginian camp, setting the timber barracks alight. Again, Punic soldiers either perished in their burning quarters, or were cut down by the Romans as they fled. The surprise attack worked perfectly, though both Gisgo and Syphax escaped. Scipio kept the initiative by ordering his tribunes to pursue the broken armies and by the end of the next day’s pursuit both armies had been dispersed. Although casualty figures given by Livy and Appian are unreliable, Polybius believed that Gisgo retreated from the scene with less than 500 cavalry and 2,000 infantry.280 Polybius maintains that the surprise attack on the enemy camps ranks as Scipio’s greatest military achievement, and there is no doubt that coordinated night attacks, in any age, are difficult strategies to successfully implement.281 Scipio used diplomacy to soften his enemy, and then boldly struck a numerically-superior enemy, wielding fire and sword.
The local city near the battle surrendered immediately, and though Scipio agreed to spare its citizens from the customary sack, he did allow his soldiers to plunder two nearby towns.282 With his logistical lines again flowing from Sicily, Scipio beefed up the siege of Utica, going so far as to equip blockade ships with siege weapons to attack the seaward walls.283 Meanwhile, Roman scouts had located a Carthaginian and Numidian army reforming on the ‘Great Plains’ (probably the plain of Souk el Kemis, near Bou Salem), some seventy miles southwest of Utica.
During the previous thirty days, Syphax had retreated to the city of Abba where he reformed his army. While licking his wounds at Abba, the Numidian king was met by Punic ambassadors urging him to stay faithful to the Carthaginian cause and rejoin Hasdrubal Gisgo again. Syphax, perhaps encouraged by his wife, stayed the course and joined the Punic commander on the Great Plains. Their combined reconstituted force included Carthaginians,
Numidians, and a contingent of 4,000 Celtiberian mercenaries from Spain. In all, Gisgo and Syphax had some 30,000 troops at their disposal, an impressive force gathered in a short amount of time.284 Seizing the opportunity to destroy this Punic army in a set-piece battle, Scipio left his navy and a covering force on the coast and marched with light kits into the interior of Africa.
The Battle of the Great Plains (203 BCE)
Although none of the ancient sources give a definitive account of the size of Scipio’s army, it was most probably around 20,000 men and contained most of the Roman and Numidian allied cavalry.285 The Roman army reached the Great Plains in five days and seized a nearby hill about three miles away from the enemy host. The following day, they moved off the hill, forming a cavalry screen and marched within 1,200 yards of the enemy before erecting a second camp. Over the next two days, both sides sent their cavalry and light infantry to skirmish, but no major engagement took place. On the fourth day both armies marched out from their camps and deployed for battle.286
Scipio drew up his army in traditional Roman fashion in three lines, with the hastati in front, the principes in the centre, and the veteran triarii in the rear. He then formed his Roman and allied Italian cavalry under the command of Gaius Laelius on the right wing and Masinissa’s Numidian cavalry on the left wing. We are unsure how many of the estimated 20,000 Roman and allied troops were cavalry, though the number was probably less than 4,000.287 Hasdrubal Gisgo and Syphax formed up their 30,000 troops with the Carthaginian foot and horse on the right, Numidian foot and horse on the left and mercenary Celtiberians in the centre.
Hannibal’s Last Battle Page 13