Based

WUZ

He either did, or was going to if the romans did not.

He literally owned land in spain and built his fucking army there, you insufferable retard.

No, they hadn't. Fucking kill yourself.

Not the guy you are responding to but Are you the same guy that is in every Carthage themed thread that tries to start a conversation by calling others retards when they don't conform to your "mastery" of the subject?

If so, Why bother responding at all? It must feel pretty awesome to get your kicks out of being a
Pseudo-genius on Veeky Forums.

No, i'm an entirely different user who has the power of literacy. This superpower has left me fed up with retards who comment on something they've clearly never read about.

Cannae is SUCH a victory, and a crushing RAPE of Romans that he deserves his place as one of the greatest Generals of all time

Along with Napoleon, von Salm, von Mannstein, Ataturk, Subutai, Saladin, Belisarius and Baybars

The "irrelevant victories" he scored were only irrelevant due to Rome's massive pool of manpower. They were still massively impressive examples of tactical genius. Cannae is the wet dream of just about every military commander.
Hannibal really has no chance to win the war; Carthage couldn't project enough military power to beat down Rome. The world's best basketball player would still lose a match if the rest of his team was incapable of playing well.
In summary, he was an impeccable tactician marred by a lack of support from his country and a lack of backup. Had he had more men and been less indecisive, he could have easily taken Rome's capital.
Keep in mind that Zama, the one "key" battle in his career, saw him relying on the core of his army to back up his untrained elephants and raw recruits.

>marred by a lack of support from his country and a lack of backup.
What, exactly, was carthage to do?

They sent him reinforcing armies. Hannibal got outmaneuvered and his reinforcements slaughtered. Even then, WHAT WAS CARTHAGE SUPPOSED TO DO?

Rome controlled the sea. Rome put armies in Spain blocking land routes. Rome had Hannibal running around Italy accomplishing nothing in short order, unable to keep the roman from crushing any reinforcements. Rome was winning in every other theater, all of them both easier to get troops to and of greater importance to Carthage.

Hannibal is immensely overrated. He had some good victories, but he couldn't defeat Fabius and he couldn't defeat Scipio.

Carthage absolutely could've won the 2nd Punic War. They were no pushovers and Rome wasn't yet what it would become. Rome held an advantage but not much of it.

He couldn't even fight Fabius, let alone defeat him.

Explain exactly how they could win.

>Rome held an advantage but not much of it.
This is how I know you're a fucking moron.

OVER THE ALPS PERHAPS?

Why he didn't rape the city of Rome which had its legs spread after Cannae? Will we ever know?

>Hannibal was a christian 200 years before the birth of jesus christ

The man was truly a visionary.

I SUPPOSE HE WILL BRING WITH HIM, AN ARMY OF ELEPHANTS!

>HAHAHAHAHAHA

No siege weapons

Not only no siege weapons, but he had no regular supply train. His army was literally eating whatever it could buy or steal from the local countryside. Staying too long in one place exhausts the local food supply and his army disintegrates.

WE WUZ PHOENICIANS N SHIIIEEETT

Carthago wewuz est

>Along with Napoleon, von Salm, von Mannstein, Ataturk, Subutai, Saladin, Belisarius and Baybars
>von Salm
>von Mannstein
>Ataturk
>Baybars

GENERALZ

>WE WUZ

But besides that he could have won that if more luck was on his side.

>In summary, he was an impeccable tactician marred by a lack of support from his country and a lack of backup
That's bullshit. After Cannae he had 100% support of the Carthaginian Senate. Reminder there was a second expedition through the Alps, by Hasdrubal, to reinforce Hannibal in Italy.

I must be missing something, because to me, that doesn't look like a cross on his headdress.

>Explain exactly how they could win.
both the Carthaginian Empire and the Roman Republic had a comparable population at the time

What are some good books on Carthage? I would like to read more on it, I've been always fascinated by it's mysteriousness.

>your ingenious strategy for the war is literally "they will give up if we kill some thousands of their soldiers"

You dumbass, his strategy was if he won enough victories against Rome then their Latin allies would revolt and help his army against them.

What he didn't take into account was how strong the bond had formed between Rome and their neighboring Latin allies.

He was quite shit at strategy, but no one can say he wasn't a brilliant tactician.

>What he didn't take into account was how strong the bond had formed between Rome and their neighboring Latin allies.
>Doubting the power of friendship

In retrospect he was bound to lose.

Cast a live action Hannibal.

>inb4 we wuz

chi rho symbol

SENATORS! I DARE SAY THAT WOULD BE QUITE A FEAT. EVEN FOR THE GREAT

HANNIBAL

BARCA

>Inception noises

Yeah he is overhyped just because he is black

That would actually be a really good choise

Vin Diesel.

fucking this
>B BUT HE DID A REALLY IMPRESSIVE MARCH
what the fuck does that matter? whoopty fucking do he marched over the alps and in the process cemented his own legacy while condemning Carthage to total destruction and its culture completely wiped from the face of the earth.

>crushing
not really
impressive tactical victory but strategically it had literally no impact. Hannibal could have won 10 more Cannae type victories in Italy and it would have brought him no closer to his goal.
The fucking moron should have stayed in Spain.
Military historyfags fucking always do this.
They wank about great generals talking about how its all about the men and the men do the fighting and deserve all the glory and shit, and that generals should take blame for defeat. EXCEPT for talking about Hannibal. Apparently its not Hannibals pretty stupid battle plan at Zama (dude lmao lets just RUN AWAY with our cavalry and hopefully the roman cavalry wont turn around ever!!!) but instead its the soldiers.
What was Carthage supposed to do?
Keep Hannibal the fuck out of Italy.
Retards like this guy dont understand that Rome acted the way they did in the 3rd punic war as a fucking direct result of Hannibals invasion.
And dont give me any of that shit about "well hindsight is 20/20" because only an absolute retard would think Rome wouldnt come back for revenge.

victory in war isnt all about fighting. Thats what Hannibal never understood.
A battle is a contest of armies, and Hannibal was quite good at that.
But war is a contest of nations, and Hannibal was borderline inept at that.

By the rules of ancient warfare when you lost most of your army three battles in a row you lost. The fact Hannibal couldn't finish the war has less to do with his incompetence and more to do with the resilience of Rome.

Hannibal couldnt finish the war because it was unwinnable in Italy.
He could have easily fought the Romans to a truce if he kept his forces outside of Italy, where he had no hope of bolstering his power.

No they fucking didn't. The republic lost more men in a single fucking storm than cartahjge could ever hope to field. Carthage literally couldn't field a citizen army unless under extreme duress because they had such a small population. This is basic subject knowledge, you faggot.

Prove it.

Why the fuck do you think that one major defeat was enough that they permanently shifted to using mercenary armies?

Why do you think they didn't rebuild the fleet? Why were their colonies tiny fucking trade posts?

Why do you think the total-not citizen, not male, total-population during the third war was only 500k?

Rome literally lost 90,000 men in ONE STORM in the first war, and had more men in the field at any given moment in the second than Carthage had in total.

>Anything could offend the Romans, and they would have come to attack the carthaginians sooner or later
>just because they. were. there

I have no idea.

But you are throwing out assertions with little to no evidence that isnt "BECAUSE I SAID SO" tier.

Id say you are basically talking out of your ass.

Based Gaius and Aulus

I am just going to leave this old personal essay about the history and meaning of existence. You can save it if you want because I am deleting my copy.

What is the universe we live in? We are forever expanding only to contract into nothingness as time goes by. Some can live day to day simply enjoying the pleasures of life, others can be in an endless struggle to understand the purpose and origin of living. In the beginning there was infinite heat, mass, density, in an infinitely small volume, and one day a reaction happened that caused it all to explode outwards into the stars, galaxies, nebulae, planets, and life. For a living thing to exist requires ideal physical conditions that earth’s atmosphere and composition provided, liquid water for proteins to assemble in, warmth so life does not freeze or denature, and energy from the sun we happened to wind up floating around.

The first signs of life were extremely small, organic molecules formed from carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen, which eventually combined to make cells. Multicellular organisms formed as cells grew and became more complex, needing to serve certain purposes for themselves and to respond to the environment. Leading to the first questionable signs of life we have discovered as evidenced by fossils, the stromatolite: small layers of rock with alternating amounts of organic material formed from precipitations of microbes and cyanobacterial archaeans or bacteria. These existed around three and a half billion years ago, around thirty-five million human lifetimes. That is how long it took life to evolve from its most simple forms, to the human being, an incredibly intricate and complex network of specialized cells which allow us to run, jump, climb, and attempt to comprehend our existence.

THIS IS PART 1/2

THIS IS PART 2/2 OF THE ESSAY

After the stromatolites, it took billions of years for complex organisms to form, leading to the first animals to ever exist six-hundred million years in the past. Starting in the water, with things like arthropods and eventually fish, flowers then spawned on the land and animals evolved land limbs. This began from motility, the ability to move freely and spontaneously, something humans take for granted, a privilege that only certain life forms may experience. As the earth changed and continents formed, animals took different forms, all incredibly different shapes sizes and functions, from the same genetic code we humans carry in the nucleus of our cells, the cells that allow me to think of this right now.

Now there are around two billion forms of life on earth, some which don't possess the capacity to know they exist, simply carrying out processes for the ecosystem. Even though we are self aware and pursue our own pleasures, are we part of the same process, acting in our own interest but really just facilitating the advancement of something larger, perhaps an ecosystem, perhaps the universe? For without life, the universe would not be observed or responded to, analyzed or questioned, it would not exist from the perspective of anything, because perspective would no longer be. It is debatable whether anything would exist at all without life, perhaps giving us purpose, to have the existence of the universe manifested within us, our intelligence giving proportional purpose to anything that is.

>Chi Rho on his helmet

In the 3rd Punic War Carthage's population might have been so small because their territory was restricted almost just to the city itself. Meanwhile prior to the 2nd Punic War they still were controlling a huge part of Iberia and North Africa. Their combined population could be similar to Rome's, but more spread out.

Because it did not have its legs spread. It was still fucking kicking with a stainless steel chastity belt and spiked shoes.

>boo hoo Veeky Forums meanies are so mean why aren't they like reddit giving me upvotes???

If you post retarded shit, you gonna get hit

...

Flowers didn't evolve until the Cretaceous period.

why are you even on a history board if you're this ignorant?

You're the only one mentioning a cross. Are you honestly telling me you've never seen a chrismon before? Do you come from a country where christianity isn't practiced?

...

Considering it will be most likely diesel (even Denzel Washington is trying) this would be a great choice.

This will be a scene in Vin Diesel's

>soldier: My Lord, we are ready to approach Italy from the coast
>Hannibal Diesel: we aren't taking the coast, *pans to Alps* we're taking the high road.

His fucking movie will be shit.

This is common knowledge on this topic, research the topic.

You could change Hannibal to Lee, Carthage to the Confederacy, Rome to the Union, and Cannae to Chancellorsville.

Draw that line on a map dude, that's fucking mental

I have literally never seen any Christian organization in America use this symbol.

Carthage and Rome had similar population size.

The difference is Rome's system of teared citizenship which allowed noncitizens to begin the process of romanization. Because these allied populations had already invested so much into Rome, they held steady even in the face of a palling military defeats.

This was something that no Carthaginian or Greek City state could fathom, as their models only had a single way of making new citizens: for two previously existing citizens to have a baby.

Maybe read a fucking book about the Punic Wars

Their main cities (Carthage and Rome) had a similar population, but throughout their domains, Rome definitely had more manpower. Carthages expansions were mainly trade posts except places like Carthago Nova, Utica, and some Sicilian cities. Another big issue was their citizens were more expected to be part of the Navy than the army. Which would have been find if their council of nobles weren't idiots in the First Punic War.

>Because these allied populations had already invested so much into Rome, they held steady even in the face of a palling military defeats
not really, half of the south of italy defected to based Hannibal

Have a you, fellow history redditor :D

Orthodox and Catholics use it.

N SHIETZ

Protestants do as well

To be fair at that point in time most countries could be brought to surrender or ask for peace in battle. Most countries can't lose a Canae and still even exist. Obviously hindsight Rome is different.

I suppose proddies, heretics that they are, might not use it, but there's no way you never seen a fucking chi-rho anywhere in a catholic or orthodox church.

The samnites and greeks defected, but the bulk of the italics stayed loyal. Oscans, Venetics, Etruscans all kept fighting for Rome.

>hindsight
Right, because Hannibal totally didn't have the example of Phyrrus trying the exact same thing with the exact same result. He totally went in blind, he didn't know shit about Phyrrus' defeat in spite of having studied his career extensively and considering him the second best general ever.

Was catechism not a thing where you grew up?

>Actually believing they used the same strategy

They were pretty much equal. If Scipio lost in Spain, the war would have turned out the other way around, even if we ignore the fact that Hannibal didn't get enough support from the Carthaginian senate.

But the Fabian strategy was technically working

>what he didnt take into account was the one thing his whole plan rested on

>his strategy was if he won enough victories against Rome then their Latin allies would revolt and help his army against them
Phyrrus tried the same fucking thing like 50 years before, and it failed badly. Why did Hannibal think it would go down differently for him?

Napoleon is unequivocally one of the greatest generals of all time, probably the greatest, and yet he ended up a loser. Go argue somewhere else. Hannibal has been considered one of the greatest generals ever for over 2000 years and some guy on a melanesian choir music sharing website isn't going to change that.

Phyrus failed due to his costly military victories and his campaign only lasted a couple years. Hannibal defeated the Romans and mostly left his army in well enough shape to fight more battles and did so for like 2 decades, quite a bit different

I never had that religious of an upbrining. We went to the local Episcopal Church a couple of times and that's kind of it.

Argue the point, dickhead
Explain away his failure to do anything about Fabius or Scipio

>Explain away his failure to do anything about Fabius
no siege engines
>or Scipio
he wasn't capable of micromanaging any carthaginian army excepts his own, both Hannibal brothers and Hasdrubal Gisco weren't even on roughly on the same level

>no siege engines
His own fault. But even if he'd had siege engines, if he'd attempted a siege he would have had to camp in one spot outside the city and then Fabius would swoop down and Hannibal would be fighting the city's defenders and Fabius.

And he couldn't deal with Scipio because he'd gotten himself stuck in Italy and couldn't go back to Iberia to help out his brothers.
Both are a result of a poor strategy.
Scipio on the other hand, knew that the war had to be fought in Iberia, so he destroyed the Carthaginian presence there, won himself allies and then moved on to Africa.
Unlike Hannibal, he didn't lose half his men in a strategically unimportant logistical miracle, he didn't get bogged down in the heart of enemy territory, and he actually was able to make the allies he needed in order to succeed.
Hannibal has 3 tactically impressive victories followed by a lifetime of getting fucked by the long hard dick or Rome
>inb4 couldn't get reinforced
they tried reinforcing his army but they got dicked by Rome on the way because Hannibal had chosen such a silly place to wait for a decade
>muh cannae
Muh ilipa

this picture is wrong since hannibal was aryan, not a nignog

Since when are Semites Aryan?

>They were pretty much equal. If Scipio lost in Spain, the war would have turned out the other way around,
No it wouldn't have. Holding Spain would do nothing for the the problem of Hannibal being unable to do anything in italy, wouldn't save Sicily, and would get Carthage control of the sea back.

At best, they could try and leverage a truce where more contents itself with keeping Sicily and leaves Spain alone until they rebuild and bullshit up an excuse for war.

>technically
It was literally working exactly as intended, nothing "technical" about it.

>no siege engines
Literally has nothing to do with fabius, but fuck it, i'll bite.

Rome has control of the sea. Rome has armies afield in multiple theaters. The Latins remain loyal. Rome has two legions in the city, plus its MASSIVE population of trained males who have yet to be levied for the year. There are literally 10,000 survivors of cannae within marching distance, reorganizing themselves.

Hannibal has a force that absolutely, 100% MUST remain moving and only fight on carefully chosen ground if it wishes to avoid being ground to dust. This force is largely reliant on its very, very light numidians cavalrymen to win-the infantry can hold their own against Romans, but cannot reliably break them.

What EXACTLY do you think will happen to this small, under supplied force if it walks into a street fight with a bunch of people who will rarely surrender at the best of times, and who you are now threatening with annihilation?

You drown in blood. And that's if the forces in the field don't return and catch you in front of the walls-one of the worst scenarios for any army.

A case could in fact be made that losing Spain could have done more to help the cause in Italy and the overall war than winning the front.
Had the forces from Spain actually made their way to Hannibal things could have gone very different.