The Fall of Carthage Read Free Page A

the assumption that they were fought in obedience to essentially the same rules of strategy and tactics as more recent wars. This view has always been especially favoured by the experienced soldiers who have studied the wars of the past in order to understand how better to fight the wars of the present day. Such studies inevitably focus their attention on the aspects which the warfare of all periods has, or appears to have had, in common. Therefore it is assumed that army commanders in all periods of history do essentially the same job in much the same way, making it entirely valid to judge Roman or Punic generals by the standards of Frederick the Great, Napoleon or Rommel. The very title of Liddell Hart's book, A Greater than Napoleon - Scipio Africanus (1930), assumed the validity of such a comparison. 2
    There is no question that some aspects of warfare have changed little over the centuries. The practical problems of moving large numbers of troops, feeding and supplying them, conveying orders, and the restrictions imposed by natural obstacles and terrain remain the same as they did in the
    Stone Age, and a soldier will often comment more practically on such issues than an academic whose life has been spent in universities. However, whilst the problems do not change, the solutions proposed for them vary enormously from one society to another and are not simply dictated by the restrictions of available technology. Peoples at the same technological level and with similar resources at their disposal do not necessarily wage war in the same way. Warfare is affected as much by culture as any other human pursuit. The Roman system of drawing commanders from men following a political career would make little sense in modern western democracies, who emphasize the professional training of their military leaders. The Romans would have not understood the clear distinction between military and political leadership maintained in these countries. A Roman senator was not either a politician or a soldier, but automatically both. Despite much modern criticism of this aspect of the Roman military system, it does seem to have worked very well for them. Not every society organizes its armed forces or fights in the precisely the same way. Even more importantly each culture tends to have its own concept of what war is, why and how wars are fought, how they are decided and what are the consequences of victory and defeat. 3
    This study will try to place the Punic Wars firmly within the context of the military theory and practice of the third to second centuries BC . It will examine the Roman and Carthaginian attitude to warfare, their military institutions and the political and social organizations which produced them, arguing that these shaped the conflict and that the differences between them ultimately decided its outcome. This is primarily a military history and will only touch briefly on the social and economic impact of the wars. It is not intended to provide a full year by year narrative of each campaign. In many cases the evidence is too poor to attempt this with any confidence, but even where it is, the account tends to become simply a catalogue of unfamiliar place names. Where campaigns occurred simultaneously in several different theatres, each will be dealt with in turn. Different types of fighting are examined separately, so that for instance the naval and land operations of the First Punic War each receive their own chapter. Certain episodes are examined in great detail, for instance Hannibal's campaigns from 218 to 216. These were important in their own right, but are also very well recorded and provide many insights into the formal battles of the period. The aim throughout is to examine how the armies and navies of the period operated, and how the different types of fighting had an impact on the wider war. The analysis is concerned with why a general made a decision and what consequences it had, and not with suggesting alternative