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Rosacrux
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In a Galaxy far, far away...
Oct 2001
time: 05:15
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I hate to sound like a nitpick (once more...) but I have to add some details - flesh it out, so to say - to Locutus's thing about war elephants.
King Pyrros of Hepirus was the first one introducing elephants in the European theatre of war. His famus invasion in the Italian peninsula didn't achieved its aim (to get rid of Rome and unite Italy under Greek rule) but it gave the Romans for the first time the chance to face that huge beasts.
Pyrros himself has got his war elephants from the hellenistic kingdom of Egypt (I think... it might have been Syria though...) which got them from... yes, India. And the Carthagenian had aquired the idea of using war elephants both from Persia (they had been dealing with the Persian empire before Alexander eliminated it) and the Hellenistic kingdoms.
Elephants did not play a major part in Hannibals campaign - he didn't have even one in the famous battle at Cannes, where his army of less than 40.000 Carthagenian, Nubians, Celts, Iberes and Gauls slaughtered 75.000 Roman legionaires...
Did you knew his generals were Carthagenian and Greek - namely Spartans? And allmost the whole of his army were mercenaries - allmighty Roman Legions bowed before a band of mercenaries!!! 
...btw does it seem quite funny to you too that Hannibal, being the great general he was, didn't seize the opportunity to ransack Rome and eliminate the potential danger for Carthago? I mean, it's one of the things I never could understand - Rome was virtually defenseless after Cannes and he was a one week march from Rome - why didn't he conquered Rome???
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Locutus
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ACS CTP1/2 Manager & Civ4 Co-Manager
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Hengelo, The Netherlands
Nov 1999
time: 06:15
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quote:
Originally posted by Rosacrux
I hate to sound like a nitpick (once more...) but I have to add some details - flesh it out, so to say - to Locutus's thing about war elephants. |
Good comments. Yeah, I deliberately kept it short 'cause I know that when I really let meself go I'll end up with a complete essay that's too long to fit in a single post 
quote:
Pyrros himself has got his war elephants from the hellenistic kingdom of Egypt (I think... it might have been Syria though...) |
I think it was Syria.
quote:
...btw does it seem quite funny to you too that Hannibal, being the great general he was, didn't seize the opportunity to ransack Rome and eliminate the potential danger for Carthago? I mean, it's one of the things I never could understand - Rome was virtually defenseless after Cannes and he was a one week march from Rome - why didn't he conquered Rome??? |
Rome was far from defenseless actually. Hannibal defeated a large portion of the Roman army but not all of it, the rest was still located in central Italy. More importantly, Rome still had a lot of allies in central Italy who together could muster an impressive army. Combine that with the mighty walls and other defenses of Rome itself and you'll see that Hannibal still had a tough opponent to face. Also, he had already lost a great number of his own troops in crossing the Alps and in the battles on the Italian countryside so he was in desperate need of reinforcements before he could besiege or storm any major Italian city, let alone Rome. The Romans were smart enough to prevent any reinforcements from reaching Italy by using what remained of their army plus a large mercenary force to attack Spain and Carthage itself.
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TubalCain
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Hmmm... a 15/15 vote. At what point do we declare it a tie?
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Locutus
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ACS CTP1/2 Manager & Civ4 Co-Manager
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Hengelo, The Netherlands
Nov 1999
time: 06:15
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Rosacrux,
Well, I don't have any numbers but I'll assume the ones you mention are accurate. In that case you have 10,000 odd Roman soldiers defending a single, heavily fortified, city (like Orange said, after Cannes the Romans took a very defensive posture). You need an awful lot of men and equipment to defeat such a stronghold and Hannibal simply did not have those things. You give numbers on how little Romans were left but you don't give any numbers on how many Carthaginians were left, my bet is it can't have been all that many more.
At Cannes, Rome and its allies lost their courage to attack Hannibal out in the open but Hannibal, despite his many allies in southern Italy, Sicily, Spain, Greece and Macedonia, could not strike where and when he wanted either. The only place where the Romans were willing to fight him was from inside their fortified cities and, without the reinforcements that never came, Hannibal simply did not have enough power to take these cities on. That is exactly why he roamed the Italian peninsula for years without really accomplishing anything. True, there where complaints from Carthage about Hannibal's lack of confidence but who could better judge this situation? A bunch of arrogant and inexperienced aristocrats who safely observed developments from their cosy, well-fortified palaces on a faraway continent, or a brilliant and experienced general who was actually on the scene doing all the work? True, in the end Hannibal made a few mistakes and lost a war he could just as easily have won but to say that Rome was at his feet, ready for him to take at his leisure, is an underestimation of Rome's power.
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Locutus
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ACS CTP1/2 Manager & Civ4 Co-Manager
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Hengelo, The Netherlands
Nov 1999
time: 06:15
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Well, Rosacrux, like you said: could be. A more determined Hannibal might indeed have attacked Rome. Personally I think that it takes an enormous amount of confidence and courage to take an army (esp. one with elephants) through the Alps so IMHO confidence is the last thing Hannibal lacked but noone will ever know for sure.
Rasbelin, you heathen! How can you not know that saying!  
Hmm, that's odd actually. I have always known the saying to be 'Hannibal ad portas', not Hannibal ante portas'. To me, the latter sounds more like someone took the English translation and translated it back to Latin. I did some quick research and apparently the world is divided on what the real saying is supposed to be. I noticed this with some other famous Roman sayings too: "alea iacta est" and "iacta alea est", "et tu, Brute?" and "et tu, Brutus?", "Carthago delenda est" and "delenda est Carthago", etc. The first version is how I know them, the second is apparently a common variation. Weird...
Oh BTW, Rosacrux means Rose Cross of course. If memory serves me, a red rose on a golden cross was a symbol that was originally associated with the Philosopher's Stone somehow but later Rosacrux became the name for some sort of Christian Brotherhood. I can't be bothered with looking up the details, I'm sure Rosacrux can give those himself. Did I win that cookie?
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18-10-2001 13:58
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