Re: Why is Hannibal considered so great?
Indeed.Originally Posted by Tiberius Tosi
In fact, according to Richard Miles,
"Carthage may have ruled the waves for over 300 years, but since the disastrous defeat in the First Punic War the Western mediterranean had become a Roman sea. Hannibal himself was a living embodiment of just how much this situation had changed, for it was solely as a land general that he earned his reputation. Indeed, the Punic fleet in Spain at the start of the Second Punic War consisted of only thirty-seven seaworthy quinqueremes and triremes. Between them Scipio and Longus had over three times that number of ships. Moreover, the Romans controlled many of the bases and much of the coastline by which any fleet would have to pass in making its way from Spain to Italy. The brutal truth was that for Hannibal to transport his army to Italy by sea would have been even more hazardous than the land route. There was no other option than take his army overland through Spain and Gaul, over the Pyrenees and the Alps to Italy"
Source, "Carthage Must Be Destroyed, The Rise and Fall of an Ancient Civilization" page 236.
Miles is Prof. of Classics at University of Sydney and Cambridge University, and he has written widely on Punic, Roman, and Vandal North Africa and has directed archeological excavations in Carthage and Rome.
conon394
Exactly. Read "The Second Punic War: A reappraisal",Cornell,T.J., N.B. Rankov and P.A.G. Sabin, quote,You really could not control the sea because out side of a well supplied close blockade of say a single port
"The naval strategy of the Second Punic War was, in essence, determined by the control of a number of key bases and coastlines. Possibly the most spectacular example of this is the fact that Hannibal chose to invade Italy through the Alps, rather than a passage by sea. De Sanctis (and Starr) argued that this choice was dictated by the Carthaginians' inability to transport horses (and presumably elephants) by sea, but this was rightly rejected byThiel on the grounds that they were able to do precisely this on other occasions"
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"Thiel questioned why there was not vigorous naval support for Hannibal’s offensive, and he argued, “the maritime failure of Carthage decisively contributed to Roman victory.”However, Delbrück asserted that it would have been foolhardy for Hannibal or Carthage to waste money building up a fleet since they could never outstrip Roman naval superiority. More recently, Rankov has suggested that “naval superiority” must be understood within the context of ancient naval warfare. Ancient fleets could spend only short periods of time at sea, and were forced to hug the coastline during operations. For Rankov, Roman naval superiority during the Second Punic War resulted from Rome’s control of Italian coastline communities, thus limiting the opportunities for any Carthaginian fleet to land"
The Italiens in the Second Punic War
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Acording to The Cambridge History of Greek and Roman Warfare,page 367,
"During the Second Punic War the Carthaginian naval effort was not as extensive as that of Rome, but it was still far from negligible. In 212 and 211, for example, Bomilcar took fleets of ninety and sixty-five warships across from Africa to Syracuse. Like the Romans, however, the Carthaginians must have found the second lengthy war a tremendous strain on their manpower resources. In 204, Hasdrubal, in anticipation of a Roman invasion of Africa, purchased 5,000 slaves as rowers for the Carthaginian fleet, but this was presumably an exceptional measure. As with most aspects of ancient Carthage, lack of reliable evidence imposes very severe limits on our understanding"
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"It may seem a paradox to assert that it was Roman sea-power that defeated Hannibal. Those who foughtat Zama would scarcely agree. But it was respect for Roman sea power that conditioned his strategy ofinvading Italy from Spain; it was Roman sea-power that prevented adequate reinforcements from reachinghim in southern Italy; it was that same sea-power that made it impossible for him to concert an offensive against Rome with the power of Macedon"
Rome Against Carthage, T.A. Dorey and D.R. Dudley.
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even before it became the pawn show channel. The Attila episode was ok but some huge distortions there as well. Also as far as macabre practices during the war, we do know the Romans engaged in human sacrifice due to desperation during after Cannae while the possible Punic practice gets much more attention.
20k gives it c6k mil age and would be why it could not cope with Ligurian attacks pren and during 2pw, Ligurian numbers we do have for 2pw.
