Battle of Zama

In 202 BCE, on a plain in North Africa a few days' march from Carthage (modern Tunisia), the Roman general Scipio faced Hannibal, the man who had marched an army across the Alps and beaten Rome repeatedly in Italy. Scipio won. His victory ended the Second Punic War after seventeen years and left Rome the strongest power in the western Mediterranean.¹²

Scipio had built his plan around Africa. After winning in Spain, he landed in North Africa in 204 BCE, allied with the Numidian prince Masinissa, and forced Carthage to call Hannibal home from Italy. At Zama, Hannibal placed war elephants in front of his lines, but Scipio's men opened lanes and drove them aside. The Roman and Numidian cavalry then swept the Carthaginian horsemen off the field and returned to hit Hannibal's veteran infantry from behind.¹²

The peace of 201 BCE stripped Carthage of Spain and nearly all its warships, required an indemnity of 10,000 talents paid over fifty years, and forbade it from making war without Rome's permission. Carthage survived as a trading city but never again as a great power. Masinissa's growing kingdom next door became a standing threat, and fifty years later Rome used a Carthaginian border dispute as grounds for the Third Punic War. Hannibal went on to serve as a Carthaginian magistrate and reformer, but Roman pressure forced him into exile in about 195 BCE, and he died in Asia Minor around 183 BCE.¹