Is Hannibal as good as he's made out to be or just an overrated

Battle of Cannae, enough said.

People still think he's any good?

>>970337
Battle of Zama, enough said.

>>970337

>able to win against the Romans who walk in formation straight towards their enemy

wow what a genius

>>970948
>not utilizing the fact that they do to achieve victory on a tactical level

also that's an oversimplification of polybian manipular movements

>>970948

If the Romans are so dumb then how did they conquer the world?

>>970948
If it's so easy, why did the Romans win so damn often.

>>970204
Occupying the Italian peninsula for well over a decade sounds like quite the feat.

>>971214

They mostly conquered savages and meme empires (Seleucid for example)

They were BTFO thoroughly quite a few times

>>971226
>Occupying the Italian peninsula
Are you actually trying to be as wrong as possible?

>>971226

bouncing around instead of just marching into Rome where they would have surrendered and he could have taken the Empire?

Why didn't he just do that? Was that too boring or something?

File: Carthaginian Et Delenda What.png (404KB, 961x1305px) Image search: [Google]

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As you can see, he was entirely a meme.

>>971950

yet he let himself lose by refusing to take an undefended Rome

>>971983
Hows that 1800 years of hind sight feel?

>>971230

The only reason you use the word savages is because Rome won. In truth those "barbarians" had almost every advantage against Rome.

>>971989

If Hannibal couldn't put 2 + 2 together and waltz into Rome directly after Cannae he obviously isn't that bright

>>971203
Actually, no, it isn't. At all. That's literally exactly what they did in EVERY battle up until that time.

Roman armies of the time were not recruited or organized in a fashion conductive to unti cohesion or training for large maneuvers. The men were not in continuous service for very long, spent much of the time they were on active service marching, and were NOT permanently assigned to unit, or even together.


When a new force was levied, the consuls didn't trade veteran maniples or forces, they literally lined up and picked individual men like kids playing dodgeball.


You could. and did, have veteran Roman units in the field where NONE of the men had ever served or fought together.

Romans don't start to be more flexible unti Scipio arrives in Spain and finds himself in control of an army where some men ended up not seeing home again for 10 years, which gave him the cohesive force needed to drill and excecute complex battle plans.


At the time of cannae, the roman army was a steamroller and little else.

>>972028
Yeah and Subutai was a fucking moron for leaving the west's tender asshole alone when temujin said come back. He obviously had no ambition.

>>970204

Good general, met his match in Scipio but bringing war elephants over the alps was pretty stupid.

Why don't you cross the alps then try and conquer Rome?

>>971983
>>972028
>>971937
>rome
>undefended
It's a fortified city full of soldiers, people with the arms and training of soldiers not currently levied, veterans who privately own their weapons, and masses of poor and slaves who the Romans WILL arm with captured gear in dire need.

While hannibal is pissing around trying to siege a fucking massive city full of people who are, in fact, quite dangerous once he gets in the walls, and who WILL be allying out to kill his already small army, he has to dela with
>every single loyal ally trying to break the lines
>every SINGLE roman army outside of italy coming home to fucking murder him
>the urban legions drilling and expanding until they can march out and crush him
>a city full of people who are completely confident in victory

Hannibal didn't march on Rome because it was a fucking bad idea. If he stopped maneuvering, he risked getting pinned down and crushed. He'd relied on roman stupidity to win and the past, and knew it.


Hannibal couldn't take rome. He knew this.

He also had no chance of winning the war at any point.
THAT stupidity is what he should be maligned for. His idiocy and aggression doomed Carthage.

>>972044
Subutai would have been fucked once he got past the massive plains of Eastern Europe, without pastureland to graze their horses one the Mongol war machine would have ground to a halt.

>>970204
I only have a basic knowledge of the wars but iirc he fought at a time when Rome's generals were exceptionally bad and inexperienced.

>>972136
>romans
>white

>>972042
if it's so easy then why didnt you defeat the Romans before Hannibal, smarty pants?

>>972157
>>972156
>>972150
>>972141
Hannibal wasn't a king

>>972136

No seriously, was he black ?
I believe he comes from the actual Tunisia, so that's sandniggerish for me

>>972375
He came from Phoenicia, which is around Syria, they were basically foreign conquerors

>>972320
He also wasn't black.

>>972375

He was probably lightly tanned, his racial background was Semitic.

He probably looked vaguely Lebanese. Whether that is 'White' is another story, but he was not black by any conventional standard

>>972375
He was olive skinned like most peoples in and around the Mediterranean during this time, perhaps slightly more tanned/darker but he certainly wasn't straight up African.

>>972379

Okay I just wanted to know about "black" because i've never heard of it. I don't really care about the color skin, that doesn't mean anything for me. I am a sandnigger with tanned skin myself.

>>972068
Hannibal knew he couldn't take Rome with the troops he brought over the Alps, but his plan was to score enough major victories to win the support of the Gauls and Italian allies. His plan wasn't stupid, just a bold gamble that didn't work out because the Italians were too fickle/scared of Rome/whatever. Hannibal held up his end at cannae and lake trasimene

>>972383

Which is exactly why it's such a shit discussion. The modern concept of race was invented less than 300 years ago, to ask whether the Egyptians or Carthaginians were "black" or "white" is such a useless question

of course /pol/ doesn't like that though

>>972375

I'd personally be inclined to say that he was, but considering that Carthage had a mixed ethnic population who knows?

>>972136
He was probably of mixed ethnicity. If you want an example of based Negro kings (inb4 we wuz kings meme), look at Ramses.

>>972417

/pol/ can't cope with the fact that there are black people who have accomplished more shit than them and there are blacks who are smarter than them.

>>972397
His plan was stupid because he relied on the italic tribes to raise against Rome without any good reason to do so. Most of those tribes had already reaped centuries of benefits out of the roman connection, why would they rise to support a sandnigger from the other side of the Med who would in no way help them after Rome got rekt?
Hannibal thought he was dealing with slaves waiting just for someone to break the chains to raise up. He forgot that a lot of tribes allied with Rome willingly, not out of military coercion.

>>970204
OVER THE ALPS PERHAPS

>>972673

>Sandnigger
>Carthaginian

go back to pol you illiterate fuck

>>972864
>focusing on a word instead of the argument
It's tumblr for you then.

>>971224
Romans won wars, not battles

>>972771
HE HAS FORMED AN ALLIANCE WITH THE TRIBES OF THE PO VALLEY

>>970204

He was a strategic genius but Carthage was too weak to effectively protect itself from Rome and Hannibal was not a political leader. It also helped that the Romans did not take him seriously as a threat.

>>971937
no siege weapons
no supply lines
he had to try and turn some cities against Rome, he failed because Carthage Senate didn't help him out of fear that he would become a dictator

>>972673
Didn't a few Italians go over to Carthage? I recall reading it as one of the reasons Rome stopped handing out citizenship and the Latin rights so readily - and one of the flow on consequences was the Socii wars.

>>973151
Yes, but unlike Hannibal the Romans were actually good at sieges and fucked them up pretty quickly.

he makes romeaboo butthurt so yeah

also fuck off cato

>>973151
>Didn't a few Italians go over to Carthage?
Mostly the greeks actually. Some oscans also defected, samnites mostly (centuries of enmity will do that), but not a single latin colony defected, and none of the central and northern italians (etruscans, umbrians, venetians, etc.).

>>973127
Naah. Rome was basically the Russia and China of the Mediterranean. They had up to 5 times the population of Carthage and always draw up more people no matter how badly they were crushed.

>>973120
HE WOULD LOSE HALF HIS ARMY FROM ATTRITION ALONE
THE OTHER HALF WOULD DESERT

>>972771
>>973120
>>973303
What are you quoting?

>>973380
A documentary about Roman politics in the years leading up to the Second Punic War

>>973303
Perhaps he will bring with him...
AN ARMY OF ELEPHANTS

>>973416
Ha! That would be quite a feat!

>>973739
Even for the great
HANNIBAL
BARCA
*insert trumpeting*

>>973744
>>973739
>>973416
>>973303
>>973120
>>972771
If only that game wasn't dogshit

>>970446
>didn't suffer an actual loss against the Romans in Italy for over 18 years while constantly having his army slowly be chipped apart via attrition
Fuck offf, Fabius.

>>973169
>Hannibal wasn't good at sieges
No, it was because the majority of his siege engines and weapons were never delivered to him by the Carthagian elders or destroyed in the process of being delivered to him from the Carthage fleet.

Only capable of beating dog-shit consuls. Once he had an actual opponent, he fails. Zama says it all.

>>973865
>takes dozens of battles for Rome to be dazed
>Carthage gets slapped a few times along with Hannibal
>gets ko'd by Rome

Maybe your elephants will be worth it in other kingdoms

>>973987
>literally being this retarded and incomprehensibly stupid

>>973884
Honestly tho, when you consider that the whole point of entering Italy through the Alps was to avoid having to face the roman navy, isn't it just fucking stupid to rely on naval transports to deliver the siege engines? Might as well have taken those through the mountains rather than some stupid fucking elephants.

>>972864
I hate /pol/ as much as the next self-respecting /his/torian, but he actually made a really good point.

>>970204
>Is Hannibal as good as he's made out to be or just an overrated prime-time memer?

He was really good at an old style of war. If he was fighting any other Hellenistic state he'd had dominated. But Rome wasn't playing by those rules.

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Both.

>>972243
under appreciated post

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>>972658

>>977308
probably a ginger too.

>>972397
His plan was fuckign retarded, because the latins had no REASON to rise against the Romans. nor did the Northern italians, who would be first in line to get a good dose of Gallic blood in their family lines if Italy fractured again.
The samnites, being samnites, were divided and couldn't be expected to all rise up-and had lost before-and the greek cities had NEVER been a military threat to the romans.


His idea hinged on people who benefited immensely by being roman allies deciding to defect for no reason, people with no ties aside form rome and more than one blood feud with each other forming a coherent army, and people who had LOST to the Romans to the point of being subjugated suddenly being able to match them, and being fool enough to fight them again.


It was a fucking pipe dream. It was never, ever going to work, and anybody not utterly obsessed with Romes destruction to the point of willful ignorance would have understood this.


Hanniball fully expected rome to surrender after cannae, because surrendering after losing major field battles was the way of the world.

When they didn't, he was fucked.


>>973151
Not enough of them, and the ones that did were often worse than useless.

And I mean that in a literal sense, as some cities refused to supply any soldiers to him, AND required a garrison.

Mostly it was the samnites, who were not able to unite and form a coherent enough force to make a difference, and the Greek cities, who were less than useful in a fight.


>>975328
They were delivered by land, along with an army of reinforcements by his brother.

The Romans crushed that army, crushed his siege train, and sent him his brothers head.


They did this while cock blocking Hannibals every move and deny him actual battle.

>>976674
This.

People didn't like to play for keeps. Beat the army, demand some shit, move on, come back and do it again in a few years.

>>975328
those were some smart fucken elephants, probably acclimatized to atlas or pyrenees altitude and temperatures, since they KNEW they were going to cross the bloody alps. anyway that type of elephant is extinct. I don't think they would have held out on that detail. which, calls a lot into question actually, how only one survived; his.

a lot is suspect, like how he had telepathic visions telling him to find the star of melqart/hercules or some shit, I have a lot of doubts, suspicions rather, regarding the narrative of the second punic war.