...
Why did he stop his conquest instead of taking Rome?
Carter Foster
Carter Williams
he fears pasta warriors
Justin Campbell
Because he coudln't take Rome. Hell, he couldn't even take Nola right after Cannae, and Rome was way better defended.
Colton Stewart
Lack of seige equipment and likely the numbers to try to close off and starve out a city that size. The plan was to break Rome's hegemony over Italy and force Rome to sue for peace. The entire campaign was based on these assumptions. The peninsula did not all rise up against Rome like he thought they would nor would Rome negotiate despite its losses though, so he was destined to be out manned and under supplied in hostile country.
Grayson Watson
>Lack of seige equipment and likely the numbers to try to close off and starve out a city that size
It's not even an issue of numbers; Hannibal had no supply train and his army was eating whatever they could barter, scavenge, buy, or steal from the locals. He had to keep moving, and if he tried to starve Rome out, it's almost certain his army would be the one going hungry first.
Oliver Reyes
This, people lack a fundamental understanding of logistics when they question Hannibal’s strategy, at this point he didn’t want to have to fight a single siege and was doing everything he could to avoid that
Ryan Peterson
He lost because carthage lost the naval war
With no boats no supply chain
No supply chain means no seige
No siege means lost war
His strat was getting the italian people to rebel against rome, but he failed and this eventually ran out of supplys and had to go packing
Carter Allen
Like all the others have pointed out, he had no supplies or the men to besiege Rome. And even if he did, Rome's defenses were formidable at the time with the Servian Wall enclosing the city.
Easton Miller
The Jews
Justin Smith
Can you explain a little more?
Robert Green
Because there were hundreds of thousands of people in rome and he had less than a tenth of that.
Rome wasn't a fucking village you retard, it was the largest urban centre in the world
Landon Jones
No he cannot
Christopher Moore
Yeah, everything depended on the Italian city states abandoning Rome. They didn't, and when they didn't the outcome became inevitable.
Adam Rodriguez
The entire campaign was a farce from the beginning and is only remembered as Hannibal's feat for two reason.
one, elephants over the alps (even though most were dead before that)
two, trebia-lake trasimene-cannae was a string of some of the most dashing and most successful maneuvers in the history of warfare
Andrew Green
He didn't have the resources to besiege Rome, he may have had though if his brother had been able to reinforce him.
en.wikipedia.org
Eli Jones
>Thinks Metarus was relevant
>Has only either read Creasy or people eating Creasy's shit.
>Ignores all the defeats in between things like Cannae and Metaurus 8 years later, including ROman invasions of what's now Spain, or recapturing Capua, or how at Canuscum he was down to 16,000 men, so even if all 30,000ish troops in the Metaurus made it to him, he'd still be no stronger than he was post-Cannae, and Rome a hell of a lot stronger.
Robert Wood
it was still the last chance he had to get an army big and fresh enough to break out, or take on the Romans on a pitched battle like he used to, had the men at Metaurus been under his command he'd likely had seriously hurt the armies harassing him and allow him to try and catch up to Scipio.
Daniel Morales
So wait, you're suggesting that after a no-Metaruus, Hannibal takes his not 40-45,000ish men and march BACK across the Alps to catch up to Scipio in Spain? How many of them do you think will survive this crossing, considering the first cost half of his army, and that was before Rome extended control over both ends of the passes and can harass him the whole way?
And even if he does, he can only be in one place at one time; and his ability to actually beat Rome was hardly unbroken by that point, he had lost battles to Roman troops quite badly at things like Second Beneventum.
Yeah, maybe it would have taken a bit longer to wear him down. But to posit that it would actually affect the war is simply not supported by available evidence.
Henry Ross
>So wait, you're suggesting that after a no-Metaruus, Hannibal takes his not 40-45,000ish men and march BACK across the Alps to catch up to Scipio in Spain?
you do know the Alps was not the only way right? it was just the back door alternative to actually going through the pass in the Cisalpine Gaul
>And even if he does, he can only be in one place at one time; and his ability to actually beat Rome was hardly unbroken by that point, he had lost battles to Roman troops quite badly at things like Second Beneventum.
the point is that he would have much better options at that point, he wouldn't be forced to the defense, and if he chose to he could have given up on Italy and try to reclaim Spain over again.
Zachary Flores
This is a good sum up.
Noah Wood
>you do know the Alps was not the only way right?
It is if you don't have a fleet. Of course, you could go the route of the other times the Carthaginians tried to get to Italy by sea, only in reverse, and probably lose 80% of your force again. livius.org
>the point is that he would have much better options at that point, he wouldn't be forced to the defense,
Except he still would be forced on the defensive, because Rome has advanced enormously since Cannae and even having 40,000ish men with Hannibal wouldn't be nearly enough to stop the Romans.
>and if he chose to he could have given up on Italy and try to reclaim Spain over again.
How is he going to get there?