Most Important Battles Challenge (3 Redo)

Battle of ZamaIn 202BC, on October 19th, Rome and Carthage fought a deciding battle to determine who would control the eastern Mediterranean. Carthage had 51,000 soldiers, under the command of the great general Hannibal. Hannibal had defeated the Romans time and time again, often using innovative strategies that are still admired today, such as at Cannae, where he destroyed the largest Roman army that had ever been raised. For centuries, the mere mention of his name was used by Romans to frighten Children, and "Hannibal" became a byword in the senate for a terrible disaster. However, he could never raise a large enough force to assault Rome. Now that he had one, victory here meant Carthaginian control of Italy. The Roman force was composed of local mercenaries, hastily-recruited troops with no experience, and a very few that had been humiliated at Cannae. Still his army numbered only 40,000. Aside from Roman honor, the survival of Carthage was very much at stake - without Hannibal and without most of their army, Carthage could not defend itself. We know this to be historically true because this is what actually happened, the city of Carthage never organizing much of a formal defense in the third Punic war. Hannibal did have a reasonably good battle strategy, but two things happened. First, Scipio came up with the "divide into ranks" strategy to counter Hannibal's elephants, and get them to charge into the Carthaginian lines instead by blowing loud horns (again a new invention). This caused massive damage and confusion in Carthage's line. Still Hannibal managed to get the upper hand and rout the Romans. Scipio rode out to the retreating soldiers and convinced them to turn around and fight once more. This show of bravery unnerved the soldiers of Carthage. Together with this and the Roman cavalry being slightly superior, the Romans won. In the end, Roman losses at the debate were only a meager 2,500. By contrast Hannibal lost 40,000 good soldiers, of which 20,000 were captured alive and taken as slaves to Rome. Why was this battle important? Even if the strategy was meaningless strategically (which it wasn't), the battle is remembered for the tactics of Scipio. Scipio turned Carthage's most powerful weapons against them, and he was remembered in almost every Roman historian's work as a genius. His influence on Roman military strategy, and the political influence he won as a result of this battle, in an of themselves changed the course of history. Moreover, the huge influx of slaves to Rome and the unexpectedly large numbers of returning soldiers created a land-shortage crisis. This directly caused the affair of the Gracchi brothers and the military reforms of Gaius Marius, which ultimately caused the republic to crumble by making the army no longer loyal to the republic. It is difficult to imagine Rome without the emperors or the people who made that possible, such as Caesar whose name would go on to be a byword for "king" around the world (and still is in many languages). This is the battle that made it all possible. Third, the strategic value of shifting the balance of power in the region is undoubtedly the thing that allowed Rome to rise to greatness. The entire region is Latinised for this very reason, and that continues to have impacts on our culture to this very day. Even the language we speak owes itself undoubtedly to this very battle, as does the food we eat.