[201 B.C.]
Hannibal, we are told, landed at Leptis, at what season of the year we
know not; and after refreshing his troops for some time at Adrumetum,
he took the field, and advanced to the neighborhood of Zama, a town
situated, as Polybius describes it, about five days’ journey from
Carthage, toward the west. It seems that Scipio was busied in
overrunning the country, and in subduing the several towns, when he was
interrupted in these operations by the approach of the Carthaginian army.
He is said to have detected some spies sent by Hannibal to observe his
position; and by causing them to be led carefully round his camp, and
then sent back in safety to Hannibal, he so excited the admiration of his
antagonist as to make him solicit a personal interview, with the hope of
effecting a termination of hostilities. The report of this conference,
and of the speeches of the two generals, savors greatly of the style of
Roman family memoirs, the most unscrupulous in falsehood of any pretended
records of facts that the world has yet seen. However, the meeting ended
in nothing, and the next day the two armies were led out into the field
for the last decisive struggle. The numbers on each side we have no
knowledge of, but probably neither was in this respect much superior.
Masinissa, however, with four thousand Numidian cavalry, beside six
thousand infantry, had joined Scipio a few days before the battle; while
Hannibal, who had so often been indebted to the services of Numidians,
had now, on this great occasion, only two thousand horse of that nation
to oppose to the numbers and fortune and activity of Masinissa. The
account of the disposition of both armies, and of the events of the
action, was probably drawn up by Polybius from the information given
to him by Lælius, and perhaps from the family records of the house of
Scipio. And here we may admit its authority to be excellent. It states
that the Roman legions were drawn up in their usual order, except that
the maniples of every alternate line did not cover the intervals in
the line before them, but were placed one behind another, thus leaving
avenues in several places through the whole depth of the army, from front
to rear. These avenues were loosely filled by the light-armed troops,
who had received orders to meet the charge of the elephants, and to
draw them down the passages left between the maniples, till they should
be enticed entirely beyond the rear of the whole army. The cavalry, as
usual, was stationed on the wings; Masinissa, with his Numidians, on the
right, and Lælius, with the Italians, on the left. On the other side,
Hannibal stationed his elephants, to the number of eighty, in the front
of his whole line. Next to these were placed the foreign troops in the
service of Carthage, twelve thousand strong, consisting of Ligurians,
Gauls, inhabitants of the Balearian islands, and Moors. The second
line was composed of those Africans who were the immediate subjects of
Carthage, and of the Carthaginians themselves; while Hannibal himself,
with his veteran soldiers, who had returned with him from Italy, formed
a third line, which was kept in reserve, at a little distance behind the
other two. The Numidian cavalry were on the left, opposed to their own
countrymen under Masinissa; and the Carthaginian horse on the right,
opposed to Lælius and the Italians. After some skirmishing of the
Numidians in the two armies, Hannibal’s elephants advanced to the charge,
but being startled by the sound of the Roman trumpets, and annoyed by the
light-armed troops of the enemy, some broke off to the right and left,
and fell in amongst the cavalry of their own army on both the wings, so
that Lælius and Masinissa, availing themselves of this disorder, drove
the Carthaginian horse speedily from the field. Others advanced against
the enemy’s line, and did much mischief, till at length, being frightened
and becoming ungovernable, they were enticed by the light-armed troops
of the Romans to follow them down the avenues which Scipio had purposely
left open, and were thus drawn out of the action altogether. Meantime,
the infantry on both sides met, and, after a fierce contest, the foreign
troops in Hannibal’s army, not being properly supported by the soldiers
of the second line, were forced to give ground; and in resentment for
this desertion, they fell upon the Africans and Carthaginians, and cut
them down as enemies, so that these troops, at once assaulted by their
fellow-soldiers, and by the pursuing enemy, were also, after a brave
resistance, defeated and dispersed. Hannibal, with his reserve, kept
off the fugitives by presenting spears to them, and obliging them to
escape in a different direction; and he then prepared to meet the enemy,
trusting that they would be ill able to resist the shock of a fresh body
of veterans, after having already been engaged in a long and obstinate
struggle. Scipio, after having extricated his troops from the heaps of
dead which lay between him and Hannibal, commenced a second, and a far
more serious contest. The soldiers on both sides were perfect in courage
and in discipline, and as the battle went on, they fell in the ranks
where they fought, and their places were supplied by their comrades with
unabated zeal. At last Lælius and Masinissa returned from the pursuit
of the enemy’s beaten cavalry, and fell, in a critical moment, upon the
rear of Hannibal’s army. Then his veterans, surrounded and overpowered,
still maintained their high reputation, and most of them were cut down
where they stood, resisting to the last. Flight indeed was not easy, for
the country was a plain, and the Roman and Numidian horse were active
in pursuit; yet Hannibal, when he saw the battle totally lost, with a
nobler fortitude than his brother had shown at the Metaurus, escaped
from the field to Adrumetum. He knew that his country would now need his
assistance more than ever, and as he had been in so great a degree the
promoter of the war, it ill became him to shrink from bearing his full
share of the weight of its disastrous issue.
On the plains of Zama twenty thousand of the Carthaginian army were
slain, and an equal number taken prisoners, but the consequences of the
battle far exceeded the greatness of the immediate victory. It was not
the mere destruction of an army, but the final conquest of the only
power that seemed able to combat Rome on equal terms. In the state of
the ancient world, with so few nations really great and powerful, and
so little of a common feeling pervading them, there was neither the
disposition nor the materials for forming a general confederacy against
the power of Rome; and the single efforts of Macedonia, of Syria, and of
Carthage herself, after the fatal event of the second Punic war, were
of no other use than to provoke their own ruin. The defeat of Hannibal
insured the empire of the ancient civilized world.
The only hope of the Carthaginians now rested on the forbearance of
Scipio, and they again sent deputies to him, with a full confession of
the injustice of their conduct in the first origin of the war, and still
more in their recent violation of the truce, and with a renewal of their
supplications for peace. The conqueror, telling them that he was moved
solely by considerations of the dignity of Rome, and the uncertainty of
all human greatness, and in no degree by any pity for misfortunes which
were so well deserved, presented the terms on which alone they could hope
for mercy. “They were to make amends for the injuries done to the Romans
during the truce; to restore all prisoners and deserters; to give up all
their ships of war, except ten, and all their elephants; to engage in
no war at all out of Africa, nor in Africa without the consent of the
Romans; to restore to Masinissa all that had belonged to him or any of
his ancestors; to feed the Roman army for three months, and pay it till
it should be recalled home; to pay a contribution of ten thousand Euboic
talents, at the rate of two hundred talents a year, for fifty years; and
to give a hundred hostages, between the ages of fourteen and thirty, to
be selected at the pleasure of the Roman general.” At this price the
Carthaginians were allowed to hold their former dominion in Africa, and
to enjoy their independence, till it should seem convenient to the Romans
to complete their destruction. Yet Hannibal strongly urged that the terms
should be accepted, and, it is said, rudely interrupted a member of the
supreme council at Carthage, who was speaking against them. He probably
felt, as his father had done under circumstances nearly similar, that
for the present resistance was vain, but that, by purchasing peace at
any price, and by a wise management of their internal resources, his
countrymen might again find an opportunity to recover their losses. Peace
was accordingly signed, the Roman army returned to Italy, and Hannibal,
at the age of forty-five, having seen the schemes of his whole life
utterly ruined, was now beginning, with equal patience and resolution, to
lay the foundation for them again.
* * * * *
But Zama was Hannibal’s Waterloo, and the virtual overthrow of
Carthage. Rome’s course was now open to universal empire.