Ad Astra - Scipio and Hannibal - Vol. 12 Ch. 73 - Older and Younger Brother

[MangaDex]

 

[Rosen_Ritter]

This is why crutches are a thing.

Were Carthagian senators the main reason why Hannibal eventually lose? Is this why Carthaginia never risen in power after his downfall?

 

[strider_01]

While of course attributing things to a singular cause isn't exactly good for historical matters, it is true that the Carthaginian senate did have at least some fault. It's definitely true that Hannibal's invasion of Italy didn't get a lot of support from the senate, that lack of support being one of the primary reasons he couldn't really besiege Rome itself (including, among other reasons, lack of manpower, being unable to completely dismantle the Roman hegemony over the Italian peninsula, etc.).
As for Carthage's fall from grace after Zama, that was deliberate on Rome's part. They pretty much went "fuck no, we ain't gonna do this a 3rd time", and more or less made absolutely sure that Carthage will never be in a position to threaten Rome ever again.

 

[BirchJuice]

@Rosen_Ritter: Afaik, yes, he never got the support he needed to finish Rome, instead he had to raid Italy and bide his time. Not unlikely that if substantial reinforcements had come in a or at crucial moment we'd have a totally different history with Carthage as the dominant power...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punic_Wars
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Punic_War
Also VERY interesting imo: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Carthage
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punics
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hannibal

E: I did not check the quality of the Links but 'ere:
https://www.ancient.eu/article/290/the-price-of-greed-hannibals-betrayal-by-carthage/
https://history.stackexchange.com/questions/17379/why-didnt-the-senate-of-carthage-reinforce-hannibal-in-italy
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1scpwe/why_was_hannibal_never_sent_reinforcements/
https://www.historynet.com/why-hannibal-lost.htm

 

[talas]

It's weird that Mago only got a few panels. If I recall correctly, he was in Genoa for a few years.

 

[BirchJuice]

@Rosen_Ritter: And other factors are: -> The tactic to avoid a decisive confrontation against Hannibal after getting screwed, Romes ability and speed to churn out new legions, Rome attacking Iberia, Hannibals inability for whatever reasons to take Rome aka the capital which might have been solved by some major Punic Carthaginian reinforcements.
E: You know what happend after the third punic war, right? This is the second...

E2: Another factor but I really don't know about that: Manpower in general, afaik Carthage had mostly mercs, allies and soldiers from client states plus a rather small amount of their own soldiers while Rome had probably "latinised" or romanised a lot of lands in Italy so a shitton of Romans were probably easier to motivate to fight for their country, moral and manpower wise, ofc they had client states and allies too. As mentioned above, I mean Romes success is partly due to the insane speed to raise new legions... [insert Russian meme here, kill one legion and 2 more spawn and kick yer arse]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latins_(Italic_tribe)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Rome

E3: Lastly:
>Is this why Carthaginia never risen in power after his downfall?
Read the wiki article about the punic wars, basically the goose got its wings cut after the defeat in the second war and the insane Roman war machine, after the second Punic war they took Iberia, Siciliy, Sardinia and probably some other shite from Carthage and probably some kind of treaty was enforced to weaken Carthage even further...

E4: Maybe I lack reading comprehension : Well, and

Spoiler

he gets defeated near Carthage with the last troops they can muster, I think he goes into exile, I do not remember but maybe the senate blames him for the overall loss of the war, toplul

E5: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XCbag4UIvBc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJ5BCtU9WPI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8SXiwDzXp8

 

[zanonyn]

Hannibal's final insight there was probably one of the most important and lasting, essentially on the ultimate importance of resources and logistics for serious force projection. There are lots of good quotes to that effect, ie:

Sun Tzu: "The line between disorder and order lies in logistics…"
M. Cox: "Behind every great leader there was an even greater logistician."
Ernest J. King: "The war has been variously termed a war of production and a war of machines. Whatever else it is, so far as the United States is concerned, it is a war of logistics."
T. Peters: "Leaders win through logistics. Vision, sure. Strategy, yes. But when you go to war, you need to have both toilet paper and bullets at the right place at the right time. In other words, you must win through superior logistics."

And no doubt many more. But the attraction of tactics and strategy and winning grand victories to change the tide long had enduring attraction vs the less heroic "grind them down with resources". But no general, no matter how skilled, can ultimately counter an overwhelming disadvantage in logistics. Hannibal arguably got that too late, maybe even precisely because he was so good he could make up the difference for a long while.

 

[Thjgthgt]

Scipios hair sucks p; like is it made of aloe leaves lol

 

[agtra]

As a youngest brother of a fairly two competent older brothers I feels Mago in spiritual level.

 

[rrolo1]

Well, for something that happened 2 millenia ago, the extent of the support of the Carthaginian senate to Hannibal is still hotly debated academically. From what I read, there is some ( admitedly shaky ) evidence that, while the Carthaginian senate was not in love with the idea of another war with Rome, they saw it as something Rome had forced unto them ( in other words, Rome actions in Iberia had to be sooner or later be stopped if Carthage wanted to have a empire there ) and they were more that willing to support Hannibal after the war was on. But:

a) Carthage, unlike in the 1st Punic war, was never in control of the seas. This had various causes ( the loss of Corsica and Sardinia after the Mercenary war was a heavy blow to the Carthaginian war navy, that had relied on those islands forests to make their ships ... besides the fact that, until the war started, Carthage was bound by the peace treaty with Rome to a skeleton navy, only good for piracy control ) , but this meant that Carthage was never really in a position to send armies to Italy besides whatever could be marched on from Iberia. There is a reason why Hannibal and the other Barcids later didn't just caught a boat in Iberia and disembarked in Tuscany or Capua

There is actually some evidence that the original plan for the war was to march troops through the Alps, gather support from the Gauls, march to Rome and then send whatever navy they could muster to blockade Rome by sea at the same time Hannibal marched in the direction of Rome ( given the panic that Hannibal marches to Rome created, some enemy sails could had simply tipped the mood in Rome to a negotiation ) . The Roman navy made sure that never happened, though and Hannibal had to ... improvise.

EDIT : Adding to that, the fact that the Romans had the control of the sea meant that they could drop armies where and when they wanted either in Iberia or Africa ( like they did ), so Carthage had to keep garrisons pretty much everywhere ...

b) Numidia. Carthage was well aware that, as it actually came to be, Numidia was not to be relied on as even a neutral player in a war with Rome. Carthage tried to divide the Numidians and keep them divided and hireable if they couldn't put someone firmly on their side rulling it, but they couldn't simply pretend that there was not a Numidian dagger on their backs at all times.

c) Carthage was still recovering from the Mercenary war, a conflict they had with the hired mercs of the 1st Punic war when they were not paid for service ( with a very visible hand of Rome stiring things ). It is not surprising that the Carthaginian senate was not exactly in the mood for a 2nd Mercenary war, and they did not hired as much mercenaries as in the previous war.

My personal opinion is that it is not that Carthage didn't wanted to help Hannibal, they just were not willing or able ( more unable than unwilling TBH ) to provide for the resources needed to defeat Rome. Their navy proved unable to fight Roman sea control, so it is not that they could actually disembark troops in Italy to help Hannibal or even reinforce Iberia easily and they had Numidia that could flip against them at any moment. In the end it is a huge testament to Hannibal skills and fear projection that he could keep operating for almost 2 decades after the war was basically lost due to the fact that , besides Hannibal, Carthage could not put a credible military threat on Rome proper. ( The only real mistake you can point to Hannibal leadersip was underestimating is brother ( not Mago ) and let the Romans beat him before they could join forces ).

OTOH this manga Hannibal has quite the point. Regardless of what he felt about the Carthaginian leadership ( RL Hannibal never showed any sign of being more than a staunch patriot ... not necessarily in line with the government of the day, mind that, but a patriot that would leave everything to defend his motherland ), if Carthage fell he would be forced to acept defeat anyway even if he was not beaten in battle , like his father had to do in the 1st Punic war. So, the least bad course of action was just to do what he did ( will do in the manga ) and get back to Carthage to try to beat Scipio out.

Anyway, to Zama we go. I suspect that we will have some serious bromance soon

 

[BirchJuice]

@rrolo1, @zanonyn, @strider_01: Good posts :3
I didn't think about the navy, excellent point @rrolo1, yeah, so each defeat of the Punic Wars trilogy clipped Carthages wings... And another factor but I don't remember: Did Hannibal get more, less or the expected support from the Gauls, especially manpower? Maybe he expected to take Rome "swiftly" with or without additional support of Carthage, but once that failed... Meh, I don't remember my history classes and Latin lessons from almost 2 decades ago...

E:

Spoiler

I think a few thousand Sarissa pikeman from Macedonia aka main line phalanx with long spears will support Carthage in the coming Zama debacle

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarissa
https://history.stackexchange.com/questions/48540/mass-distribution-of-the-macedonian-sarissa-pike

Very interesting weapon, a fuckass long spear made of 2 parts joined by a metal tube, I don't know how many meters long it is but yeah, interesting.
>The sarisa or sarissa (Greek: σάρισα) was a long spear or pike about 4–6 metres (13–20 ft) in length.

>Livy states that Hannibal deployed 4,000 Macedonians in the second line. Their presence is widely discounted as Roman propaganda, although T. Dorey suggests that there may be a grain of truth here if the Carthaginians recruited a trivial and unofficial number of mercenaries from Macedonia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Zama

E2: Or to beat them swiftly instead of taking Rome, whatev
Not gonna read all that stuff up, I am mostly speculating I guess since I don't remember that much, but I remember the common claims about the lackluster support of the Carthaginian senate. ^^
Could all be wrong or just propaganda or a romanticized interpretation like "noble warriors, shitty politicians".


E3: Sry, huehueHUEHUE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stab-in-the-back_myth
>hurrp durrp we were winning but our politicians failed us

 

[rrolo1]

@BirchJuice

From what I could gather, the Gaul support was pretty much what could be expected: enthusiastic after Hannibal proved he could beat the Romans by himself, not so solid after Hannibal gone south and some legions dropped by ... The greeks in the south also helped as much as it was expected, especially Taranto. There were even some defections to Hannibal that were probably not on the plans, like much of Campania ( sure , Hannibal worked hard for that, but even the Romans were not exactly expecting Capua to defect )

The ones that could realistically support Hannibal ( so, basically excluding the Latins ) and that didn't were the Samnites. TBH ( and this is my opinion ) it is somewhat hard to understand that a people that resented Roman rule so much as them ( and was something that was not buried at the time, given the role Samnites had in the Social war a century after ) just basically decided to keep in the sidelines eating popcorn

But then again, Hannibal ended up just taughting Rome how to defeat Carthage ... just like he tried to take the Roman allies in Italy to his side to take Rome out, Rome eventually took Numidia out of the side of Carthage to bring it down

P.S. On the Carthaginian Senate

Let's be honest, Hannibal was not a darling on the eyes of the Carthaginian senate, being him the son of the very hawkish and pretty much exiled Hamilcar and not exactly a supporter of the faction that ruled at the time, that just wanted to make a empire in Spain and avoid another disastrous war with Rome. But from the moment it was clear that Rome would just not leave Carthage have a empire in Iberia, both Hannibal and the Carthaginian Senate views alligned in that war had to be fought.

That is not to say that Hannibal felt at home in Carthage ... he surely didn't. And for sure that the ones that "convinced" his father to go to Iberia also did not loved him. But saying that Carthage politicians were happy to let Hannibal to rot in Italy while they were getting rich from Spain is definitely a stretch.

 

[BirchJuice]

@rrolo1: @ Gauls: Yeah that makes sense. Not gonna look it up but his combined manpower vs Roman manpower once he got reinforced in northern Italy would be interesting.

E: >It is right to learn even from an enemy.
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Ovid
^^
Yeah, this whole Manga where Scipio goes Hannibal if you catch my drift.

E2: The only thing I remember Hannibals line being high ranked nobles from Carthago Carthage...
Let us take a look at the wiki page:
>Hasdrubal
Is his bro, Hamilcar is his pops.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamilcar_Barca
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barcids
I just skimmed the article about the Barcids, could've sworn they were even more important in Carthage than what the article says.... I may be wrong...

E3: Barcas, screw the article.^^ Since Hannibal Barca and all. :3
>"Barcid" is an adjectival form coined by historians; the actual byname was Barca or Barcas

 

[Doomroar]

@zanonyn i think a better quote for Sun Tzu is: “Strategy without tactics logistics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics Logistics without strategy is the noise before defeat.”

And lets not forget “However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the logistics.” by Sir Winston Churchill