Book Review: Hannibal's Last Battle

I recently finished Brian Todd Carey's Hannibal's Last Battle: Zama and the Fall of Carthage, illustrated by Joshua Allfree and John Cairns. Title notwithstanding, this book isn't really about Zama, or even Hannibal. It's a book about the three Punic Wars, with a focus on the second and third. Hannibal inevitably plays a substantial role in this narrative, but the title misleadingly suggests a tight focus on the biography of the general and on the Battle of Zama. In fact, the account of Zama runs about 15 of 160 or so pages. This is hardly insignificant, but some may find the title misleading. Of course, authors often have little control over book titles, so I don't fault Carey et al.

Although Carey sets the political, economic, and strategic stages for the battles of the Punic Wars, the real strength of the book is in the illustrated descriptions of the major engagements. Carey does a marvelous job of explaining the tactical realities of all of the major battles of the Second and Third Punic Wars. The explanations are accompanied by a set of maps for the battles that depict, in detail, how each engagement developed. In most cases the discussion includes four or five maps, with good labeling as to the nature and movement of the engaged units. The descriptions and maps should help almost all readers get a better grip on the nature of ancient officership and the key determinants of victory in ancient war. The book is no substitute for Delbruck, but is useful as a companion and occasional corrective. In particular, it emphasizes the decisive nature of the Numidian cavalry in many of the most important battles between the Romans and the Carthaginians. This hardly represents a novel interpretation of the conflict, but the maps supply sufficient detail to explain precisely how Hannibal and Scipio used cavalry superiority to win conflicts. My main quibble with the maps is that they don't represent the terrain of the battlefield as well as they could; many of the terrain factors are left to the description. Another (relatively minor) quibble is that while the description of the fortifications of Carthage comes in the first few pages, a map of the city isn't supplied until near the end of the book, meaning that pages have to be flipped, etc.

The discussion of the aftermath of the Second Punic War is brief, but very interesting. Deprived of its land empire and restricted in military capability, Carthage nevertheless flourished as a center of commerce and finance. Carthage offered to pay its fifty indemnity to Rome at the end of the first decade, but Rome refused. Cartharge also pursued a policy of accommodation to Roman military and political power, assisting Rome in several minor conflicts and asking for Roman arbitration of its own local disputes. Although we don't know a lot about the internal composition of the Carthaginian aristocracy, it appears that the traditional powerful families retained their wealth and position, even as the empire was stripped away. Unfortunately, the success of Carthage both threatened and enticed Rome, which eventually used its superior military and political resources to preventively eliminate the recurrent rival.

Readers of this blog will probably be a bit unsatisfied by the treatment of seapower in the Punic Wars. Although all of the major naval battles are fully examined, such questions as the nature of Carthaginian maritime power and the growth and organization of the Roman Navy are dealt with in brief. For example, I would have liked a bit more engagement with Mahan's interpretation of the role of strategic seapower in the conflict, and also a deeper account of how the Roman Navy developed into an operationally capable force. The international political scene could also have used some additional fleshing out. The final chapters include some of this, as Carey traces the post-Zama careers of both Hannibal and Scipio.

Quibbles aside, this is a useful short volume on the Punic Wars, and could serve ably either as an introduction to the conflict or a concise summary of their course.