Would he have won if he attacked Rome?

>>3395929
No. They weren't equipped for a siege of Rome.

>>3395929
Assuming you mean right after Cannae, no. He couldn't win attacking the much less defended town of Nola.

>>3395929
Probably not. Carthage wasn't well-equipped to lay sieges.

>>3395929
nah bro, hannibal knew not to push his 'luck', probably from his dad's experience.

there was this young swedish king, Charles or someshit, he was fucking people up left and right but instead of going back home to rest and resupply he got fucked up in russia, i think.

he didn't have the numbers

>>3395945
is it that hard to siege a city? Couldn't he just block food from entering and starve them to death?

>>3397284
Sieges take years even with siege engines, catapults and the necessary manpower to surround and stop traffic into the city, all which Hannibal lacked.

Major cities have food stores that can outlast Hannibal's mercenaries will to stick around without pay. If they are just hanging out with no plunder for 3 years they would start to desert. Hannibal knew this, which is why he didn't even think of going to Rome after Cannae despite his mens request and why Fabian knew he'd never try a siege from the beginning.

>>3397284
Hannibal was good at killing the romans head on, since he knew how they operated. He wouldn't be able to take a heavily fortified city, which would allow Rome to react.

He was honestly probably hoping that just taking out large numbers of armies and smaller places would cause the romans to capitulate in order to make him leave. He was never going to take over the Roman state.

As soon as Rome stopped acting like Rome, he lost.

>>3397284
Yes, sieges are very hard. What makes you think that his forces wouldn't starve before the city did? After all, he's the one who has no fixed supply line and is surviving off of what he can plunder from the countryside. That pretty much forces him to keep moving.