Battle of Zama
October 202 BCE · in Battle View, played out step by step on the ground where it was fought
Scipio Africanus defeated Hannibal near Zama, ending the Second Punic War on terms that stripped Carthage of its overseas empire.
The sides
- Rome, led by Scipio: about 35,000 men
- Carthage, led by Hannibal: about 40,000 men
States that fought: Roman Republic, Carthage.
How it went
Battle of Zama
Sixteen years after Cannae, Rome has carried the war to Africa. Scipio has beaten Carthage in Spain and on its own ground, and Hannibal, called home from Italy, meets him near Zama with the last army Carthage can raise.
The armies deploy
Scipio leaves lanes between his maniples, file behind file instead of the usual chequerboard. Hannibal puts 80 elephants in front, then three lines: mercenaries, new Carthaginian levies, and his own veterans of Italy held back.
The elephants charge
Roman trumpets panic the elephants. Some turn on their own horse; the rest run down Scipio's lanes, where the velites stab at them, and out the back of the Roman army.
The horse clash
Laelius and Masinissa charge the Carthaginian horse, already shaken by the elephants, rout it and chase it off the field.
Hastati against the mercenaries
The hastati advance and crash into the mercenaries. The fighting is hand to hand, shield against shield, and slowly the mercenaries give ground.
The first line breaks
The mercenaries break. The Carthaginian levies behind will not let them through, and the two lines fight each other before the levies take on the hastati.
Scipio re-forms his line
Scipio pulls back the hastati, clears the ground of the dead and moves his principes and triarii out to the wings: one long line, as long as Hannibal's untouched veterans.
The horse comes back
The armies are evenly matched until Laelius and Masinissa return from the chase and fall on the veterans' rear.
Hannibal defeated
Surrounded, the veterans are cut down where they stand. Some 20,000 Carthaginians die and as many are taken; Rome loses perhaps 2,500. Hannibal escapes and tells Carthage to make peace, ending the Second Punic War.
Numbers after Polybius and Livy. The battlefield is unknown; this puts it on the open plain of Sers, west of Zama Regia; Polybius puts the camps near Naraggara.
People and wars
- Hannibal (c. 247 BCE – 183 BCE): Carthaginian general who crossed the Alps with war elephants in the Second Punic War and inflicted major defeats on Rome, notably at Cannae in 216 BCE.
- Scipio Africanus (236 BCE – 183 BCE): Roman general who defeated Hannibal at the Battle of Zama in 202 BCE, ending the Second Punic War.
- Second Punic War (218–201 BCE): War in which Hannibal invaded Italy across the Alps and won major victories before Rome, under Scipio, defeated Carthage at Zama in 202 BCE.