Could he have done it /his/? Was he stupid for not marching on Rome?

>>1661898
no and no

>>1661898

No to both.

You need to keep in mind that

A) He had no siege equipment, and would have had to build all of his engines from scratch, even if his army had the skills to do something like that, which I'm not too clear on.

B) He was living off the land. He can't afford to have his army stand still all that long before they exhaust the local food supplies.


Hannibal's entire plan hinged on the Roman client states throwing off their yoke once he beat them in the field once or twice. When that didn't happen, he was pretty much doomed.

>>1661912
>>1661909
But surely with wiping out lots of the nobility a march on Rome would have forced surrender

>>1661935
We will never know because he never marched on Rome. So it's pointless to discuss it further.

>>1661935

>But surely with wiping out lots of the nobility a march on Rome would have forced surrender

What makes you think that, when he almost certainly couldn't get in the city?

>>1661972
75,000 people fied at cannae, they probably worried of the sane fate

>>1661898
Taking Rome itself wasn't in the cards at the start. He knew he couldn't haul siege engines with him, and standing still for months trying to build them from scratch would be suicidal that deep in enemy territory.

Hannibal's plan was to make the other Italian states lose confidence in Rome's ability to defend them and have them turn against Rome.

Hannibal did manage to secure alliances with quite a few defecting cities, the most notable being Capua after the battle of Cannae.

but success in Italy was met with disaster in Spain and Roman landings that threatened Carthage itself, forcing Hannibal to be recalled back to defend Carthage.

>>1662035


Which happened and the worries were just as real whether he marched on the city or not. The Senate was forbidding the ransom of prisoners, or public mourning, and was arming for bear, one of the few times they armed the slaves. They showed little signs of being ready to fold.

>>1661898
if he marched on rome he would have hurt himself just as much as anyone else

would have completely opened the doors to the barbarians

guys a saviour think of him like hitler tier

>>1661898
No, not after Cannea that is.
His brother tried to bring him siege equipment and reinforcements but he was betrayed by his Italians guides so the Romans were able to single out and destroy his army.

Had Hannibals brother been able to reinforce Hannibal it may have been a different story, but Rome would still have been a extremely though nut to crack. Just look at the siege of Carthage in the third Punic war, that city held out for three fucking years and the Romans had no lack of reinforcements and siege engines there. Rome perhaps wasn't as defensible as Carthage but still, Hannibal would've had to maintain a lengthy siege.

>>1661898
>Was he stupid for not marching on Rome?
No. People always forget that while Rome did keep churning out new armies everytime Hannibal rekt one, Rome was never at any point without an army roaming Italy, and Hannibal would have been sandwiched between a city chockful of veterans and a consular army as big as his own, in the worst possible terrain for his cavalry (fucking hills). He had no chances, and he knew it. That's why his whole plan hinged on the italics rebelling rather than any actual action by himself alone.

>>1662074
>but success in Italy was met with disaster in Spain and Roman landings that threatened Carthage itself, forcing Hannibal to be recalled back to defend Carthage.
More like, his success in Italy was short lived, and in the end the fabian strategy had Rome maneuver him in a corner of the peninsula from which he was unable to emerge, pinned by consular armies. By the time he was recalled, he was already powerless.

>>1662221
>he was betrayed by his Italians guides
Source? He was betrayed by his guides, but why would they be italian? He was traversing gallic territory and the northern italics had declared for Rome, not Carthage.

>>1661898
What he should have done is taken a page from modern geopolitics (via time machine I guess). He should have had covert agents go all over Italy well before his conflict with Saguntum and noted the cities and men with unfavorable views towards roman dominance.

Using Carthaginian coin he then should have funded such men through a third party. As their political influence grew he could have kickstarted the Social War early. This would have let him fight an exhausted and divided Rome and what's more, been a hero to the Italian Socii after the war.

Though I suppose hindsight is 20/20.

>>1662303
Nevermind hindsight, you act like such a thing would be viable and even easy. The italics didn't really have any interest in breaking off with Rome (aside from the samnites because of traditional enmity), they had the gauls and the greeks badgering them on both sides. And not so easy to speed up the social war, considering the main cause was citizenship doling being stopped and the peninsula being resettled and covered in colonies as a consequence of some italian cities rebelling and declaring for Hannibal, and the secondary causes were mismanagement of battles decades in the future that would cause untold death and financial burden to the allies.

>>1662320
Just find the guys wanting citizenship and give them money. They'll convince other guys and boom, civil war.

Then you just roll in at the eleventh hour and help the rebels take Rome.

>>1662361
But the guys wanting citizenship will just use the money to bribe a curule official into granting it to them, Rome was fairly liberal in granting citizenship BEFORE FUCKING HANNIBAL.
Besides, the very fact that they want citizenship rather than a dissolution of the confederation is already an extremely strong indication that they don't want to sever their link with Rome, do realize that the italics tried legal ways for two decades before actually declaring war. It literally took the absolute unswerving declaration from the senate that never they would get to become roman and the assassination of their "inside man" Livius Drusus for them to declare war. And even after they declared war they waited for Rome to make the first move so as to be the defenders, and even then only scarcely half the italics joined the anti roman cause.
You're looking at an extremely harduous task, in hostile territory, amidst people who are about ten times as xenophobic as the average roman and that are fully friendly with your enemy, who is far better placed to act against your influence as soon as it learns about it, which would be immediately, you can't really expect them not to find out.

>>1662427
>you can't really expect them not to find out.
Why not? They're backwards iron age retards.