Hannibal’s Last Battle by Brian Todd Carey; Joshua B. Allfree; John Cairns

Author:Brian Todd Carey; Joshua B. Allfree; John Cairns
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pen & Swords Military
Published: 2007-02-14T16:00:00+00:00

The Roman expedition received a boost shortly afterwards with the arrival of Prince Masinissa and 2,000 Numidian cavalry.272 Masinissa had successfully evaded the armies of Syphax and his presence in the Roman camp meant the invaders now had an ally well versed in the local terrain and the combat capabilities and martial predilections of their North African adversaries. Scipio put these new resources to work when a second Punic cavalry force, again commanded by an officer named Hanno, seized a town called Salaeca only twelve miles away from the Roman camp. Scipio ordered Masinissa and his men to ride up to Salaeca and try to lure the Punic horse out of the city. The provocation worked perfectly. Hanno and his men pursued the Numidians past the high ground where Scipio was waiting in ambush just as he had at Ilipa two years earlier. The Romans fell on the flanks of the Punic horse, while Masinissa wheeled and struck the front of the formation. Livy says that Hanno fell with a thousand of his men, while another thousand were killed or captured in the pursuit.273 Scipio now secured the area and struck out towards Utica.

Capturing the port city of Utica was high on Scipio’s list of priorities, and he brought with him a siege train specifically for this purpose. But after a forty-day siege, Scipio was forced to abandon the action. Hasdrubal Gisgo and Syphax were now massing a substantial army in the area, and the proconsul needed to secure winter quarters. He picked a peninsula just east of the city and prepared camp for the coming winter. The preparations were impressive enough for Julius Caesar to remark on them a century and a half later, calling the site Castra Cornelia, or the ‘camp of Cornelius’.274 Scipio also blockaded Utica by sea to keep its garrison from sallying out and attacking the Roman position.

This was a precarious time for the Roman expedition. Unable to secure Utica, Scipio and his men now faced a long winter cut off from their maritime supply lines and facing a numerically superior enemy on his own soil. Both Livy and Polybius claim that Hasdrubal and Syphax had armies watching the Roman position from separate camps just eight miles away over the winter, with Gisgo commanding 30,000 infantry and 3,000 cavalry and the Numidian king mustering 50,000 foot and 10,000 horse.275 Spring brought Scipio good news from Rome. On the Ides of March 203, the two newly elected consuls took office and renewed Scipio’s Imperium for the duration of the African campaign.276 Spring also brought a renewed effort to take Utica. To this end, Scipio used both negotiations and preparation to meet his objective.

Throughout the winter Scipio attempted to win Syphax over to the Roman cause, but the Numidian king was a hard sell. Hasdrubal Gisgo had married his daughter Sophonisba off to the barbarian king, and her influence went a long way in securing the Numidian alliance for Carthage. For his part, Syphax enjoyed his role

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