Zama was one of history’s most significant battles. It pitted two of the ancient world’s greatest commanders against each other. It was the climax of a century-long struggle between two empires for control of the Western Mediterranean. It launched Rome on its path to global hegemony.
Like all battles, it was a clash of armies that embodied the essential characteristics of the two social orders they represented. And, as is often the case, the outcome was determined in large part by the superiority of one social order over the other. For the two commanders were evenly matched. Hannibal and Scipio were both masters of war. Both were brilliant, imaginative, cunning, highly experienced, and almost always victorious.
Each, too, in their respective way of making war, was an expression of the spirit of their respective states. Hannibal was the roving warlord of a city-state of merchant princes and great landowners, a ruling class that preferred money-making and estate-management to military campaigning, and who, in consequence, hired mercenaries to do their fighting.
Excavating the CA archive