7 – His Greatest Victory Ultimately Led to his Defeat
Perhaps ironically, Hannibal’s victory at Cannae, his greatest ever win, led to his downfall as it began a sequence of events that resulted in his recall to Carthage. After the catastrophe of Cannae, the Romans finally realized that fighting Hannibal in open battle would lead to certain defeat. If we are critical of Hannibal, we could say that he didn’t take the opportunity to attack Rome when he had the chance. He pondered the feasibility and gave the enemy time to regroup.
While a few southern Italian cities attached themselves to Hannibal’s banner, he never again had the chance to take Rome. By then, however, Rome had wisely reverted to the Fabian strategy, and over the course of the next few years, it had enough men to outnumber Hannibal at various junctures. By 213 BC, Fabius had taken Arpi, a Carthaginian ally.
The main issue was that the manner of the defeat at Cannae forced the Romans into a complete rethink of their battle strategies. The hit and run tactics of the Fabian strategy did a fine job disrupting Carthaginian supply lines and weakening their army. Matters were made worse for Hannibal when he had to provide men for the cities that had defected in southern Italy.
Although he had been successful against the Romans to date, the battles were taking their toll on his forces and having to send men to the defectors weakened him further. Another big problem was that his army consisted of a large portion of mercenaries who were unsuited to siege warfare and elected to desert rather than get ground down in a war of attrition.
The arrival of Scipio Africanus was a disaster for Hannibal as the Roman commander was as clever as he was plus Scipio could call on a much stronger force. By 203 BC, after suffering several defeats, Hannibal wasn’t even able to get reinforcements as his brothers had been defeated. Eventually, he was forced to answer the call of the Barcids and set sail for Carthage; that was the end of his adventure in Europe.