Talk:Battle of Zama

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[edit] I'm absolutely disagree with you

I've personally done the animation using Flash and it is absolutely not the Rome Total war game ( the only thing I got from the game is the picture at the beginning, that coul be easily changed with another surely more appropriated ).

The schemating animation and the description that follows it are absolutely not inaccurate because they follolw what was written by Tito Livio in "Ab Urbe Condita" book XXX

... it could not be liked ... but what Intranetusa wrote is unacceptable

bye, by an italian from Rome.

(Piermin (talk) 14:01, 21 January 2008 (UTC))


[edit] Deleted Zama animation in external inks

Who posted that absurd link? It's a link to the notoriously un-historical Rome Total War game. The animation shows the Carthaginians as barbarians, and the Romans having Praetorian Guards (or even worse, fictional urban cohorts represented as praetroians) The Punic Wars were in the 3rd century BCE, the Praetorians weren't even created until the early 1st century CE. Even more so, they were even wearing fictional armors. To the person who posted it, please do NOT link games with any inaccurate historical article on wikipedia. Intranetusa (talk) 18:33, 19 January 2008 (UTC)


[edit] Roman Infantry

The Roman infantry was about to succumb to the Carthaginians???

Where did you read that?

both armies were deployed in 3 lines - the Carthaginians with elephants, Ligurians, Celts, Baleric islanders, and Moorish mercenaries in front, then native Libyans, Carthaginians. Livy also says there weer Macedonians in this line, but this is rubbish and nothing more than post hoc jsutification for the forthcoming Macedonian war. The Carthaginian 3rd line was veterans of Hannibal's army from Italy.

The Romans formed up in their usual 4 lines of Velites, Hastati, Princepes and Triarii.

the first 2 Carthaginian lines weer routed by the roman Hastati, the velites having fought off the elephants. Scipio then bought up his Princepes and Triarii to reinforce his battered but victorious Hastati.

In hte mean time the roman cavalry had ben successful on both flanks - the 3-4000 Roman and Italian horse on hte left, and the 6000 Numidian horse under Massinisa on the right, and both wings had pursued their beaten foe from the field.

Back to the infantry - Hannibal reformed the survivors of his frist 2 lines on his veterans in the 3rd line, and, inspired by hte great man himself, a hard fight lasted most of the day. the Romans may have been getting the worse of it, but they were not anywhere near "succumbing", when BOTH the Numidian and Roman/Italian horse arrived in the rear of the Carthaginian infantry, who quickly broke and ran.

Carthaginian casualties weer 20,000 dead and 15-20,000 captured from an army total of about 45,000, while the Romans suffered 1500 dead and 4000 wounded.

[edit] The Map

Zama was inland. The map puts it on the coast.Dejvid 22:21, 1 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Cavalry numbers

text says: ... the Carthaginians ... were outnumbered 6,000 to 3,000 in cavalry

box at the top says: Strength: Carthage 6,000 cavalry ./. Roman Republic Allies 2,700 Roman cavalry Strcmp 02:51, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Final certainly, decisive? I don´t think so

I (and most of the scolars) believe that the decisive battle in the Second Punic War was the Battle of the Metaurus where Hasdrubal was defeated. The Battle of Zama is certainly the final battle, but the war at this point was allready decided. Flamarande 20:49, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

I'm going to have to refute this claim that "most scholars believe"...that's a terrible logical falalcy there. While the Battle of the Metaurus may have been decisive, Zama absolutely indicated the end of the Carthaginian ability to defend their homeland. It was still a toss up, and had Hannibal defeated Scipio, Carthage could have continued their war against Rome. Ezedriel

[edit] Hannibal's Tactics

I believe that Hannibal's tactics in the engagement at Zama were the testament to his genius and valor. Far from being outgeneraled it can be said that he almost won the battle. In Polybius' account of the battle it is said that the carthaginian cavalry routed at the first sign that the roman cavalry was on the attack. While this can be seen as outright fear it can also be said that he intentionally ordered the carthaginian cavalry to retreat and draw away the superior Roman cavalry from the engagement. The retreat of the cavalry was clearly used to draw away the Roman superior force while Hannibal used his superior infantry force to destroy the Roman legion. It can be said however that Scipio masterfully handled the charge of the War Elephants, not losing any significant amount of men. Hannibal's tactics appear to be the best and most efficient way of neutralizing the roman advantage, by simply drawing it away from the field of battle.

However his plan backfired when the mercenary first line turned on the second line of the carthaginians. This happened because in Hannibal's attempt to keep the first and second lines seperate and distinct the mercenary line thought that they were being leant no support. This causwed them to fall upon their own allies in anger. The romans took this oppurtunity to exploit the confusion in the Carthaginain lines and charged forward, sending the first two lines to retreat after some protracted fighting. Hannibal had his veterans draw up their spears to prevent the first two lines from mixing with his third and forced them to move to the flanks. This formed an extended Carthaginian line. For awhile there was a lull in the fighting at Zama as the Romans themselves regrouped setting their Hastati on the center lines and then sending the triarii and principes to ht e flanks in an attempt to prevent a flanking manuever by Hannibal's longer line.  
 Then the battle commenced as the two armies collided in a fury of battle. As the battle raged on, the Carthaginian veterans ( who were no ragtag group of soldiers, but rather possibly one of the best soldiers in the world) then began to actually gain control of the battle in favour of Carthage. But then, out of far plain returned the roman cavalry, victorious against the Carthaginian cavalry, and fell upon the Carthaginian rear. The protracted struggle then turned into a massacre as the Carthaginian lines fought valiantly but vainly as they were incircled and trapped. Only a small group of survivors left. Hannibal then told his men with great honesty " The war is over, and we can only hope for a shameless peace".
  I would like to add that Polybius' account is most probably the most accurate. This is evidenced because Livy and Appian state that the Carthaginain army had a huge advantage of infantry, with Livy stating 23,000 roman infantry to 50,000 carthaginian infantry. This is certiantly not true for such a numerical advantage would have led Hannibal to overwhelm the legion quickly no matter how well led or trained. Thus, we should rather hold Polybius' account of around 34,000 roman infanrty to 40,000 Carthaginian infantry more accurate. I wanted to say this about the credibilty of Polybius' account because some may question this. We must also remember the amount of bias that LIvy, for example shows in his books on the history of Rome. Although an excellent historian, Livy managed to always insert his personal thoughts about what he wished happened in certain events, always portraying the Romans as righteous and patriotic. This is directed at those who believe that  the Carthaginain general was outgeneraled by a superior commander and the ones that say that the Carthaginians were not at the brink of victory. I would like to know where you got that from, and in what way can you discredit the accounts that they were in fact winning against the romans until the cavalry arrived. This was the only real reason why the romans won, it was because of superior cavalry.
I'm sorry, but if he had come up with the "best way to counter the Romans", he would have won the battle. This was a battle of two titans of warfare - and Hannibal proved to be the lesser of two generals.

[edit] Importance

Now that the descriptions have been reworded... I've bumped this down to "High", as I don't believe it's well-known to anyone not familiar with the military history of the period. Feel free to change it back if you known something I don't, though ;-) Kirill Lokshin 02:38, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Inconsistentcy

"So rather than arranging the maniples in the traditional checker pattern manipular formation, Scipio instead put the velites, principes, and triarii in succeeding lines of 500 man groups. Scipio realized that intentionally opening gaps in his troops meant that the elephants would continue between them, without harming any of his soldiers. He did this, and the elephants passed through his troops harmlessly and were picked off on the other side"

The Wiki article on Scipio gives an entirely different account, stating that the Roman arrangement was indeed "chequer" and that the Romans used elephant "traps" and blaring trumpets to drive back the elephants, which (the other article says) nevertheless greatly disturbed the Roman infantry.

One cannot have it both ways. Are we documenting history or telling tales? If there is doubt, each article ought say so. Citations would help.

In addition, this article describes Zama as the "reversal of typical" Punic battles, in which Romans had "fewer infantry". However, the data in this article shows that the Romans at Zama did indeed have fewer infantry than the Carthaginians.


[edit] RE: Importance

I think that importance doesn't have anything to do with fame. Imagine if the Carthaginians would have won. It could eventually lead to an overall victory of the Pheoni peoples, who were Semetic in origin (not Jewish, necessarily). Couldn't this mean the difference between modern day Jewish or Christian prevalence? If anyone wishes to counter me, I just want to know more so any info on the contrary would be nice. —Preceding unsigned comment added by DIVI FILI (talk • contribs) 02:46, August 28, 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Notes

I would like to make some points on the deficiencies of this article at this stage of its development (Oct 2007). It is only my opinion, but I call on every enthusiast: if you agree at least with some of these points, whether completely or just partially, let's make an effort to improve the text!

1. The style should be enhanced

2. The introduction should be expanded

3. The first section ("Prelude") intends to give a background about preceding events, but does not do it comprehensively. For instance, it fails to mention when did Scipio land in Carthaginian Africa. It mentions Scipio's successes in Spain (more appropriate - in Iberia), but does not elaborate and leaves one to wonder.

4. "Prelude" also lacks any information about the campaign before the battle of Zama. There is a brilliant passage on this topic in Hans Delbrueck's "Geschichte der Kriegskunst" that underlines the importance of the preceding manoeuvres of the two armies for the outcome of the battle

5. There are also some statements that are not entirely or not at all correct. For example: it is stated that Masinissa has replaced Syphax as the chieftain of the Numidians. This is not quite true, because even after Syphax's downfall there were some independent Numidians who resented Masinissa and supported Carthage (Vermina, Tychaeus, the latter even fought at Zama). The figures, that must represent the opposing forces, are very disputable. Hannibal's army was much smaller than 54,000, according to historians such as Pedro Barceló, Brian Caven, and again Hans Delbrueck.

6. Some titles are listed, but they do not compensate for the total lack of references linked to the text.

Regards, Dobrin 20:13, 21 October 2007 (UTC)