The Battle of Zama ended the Second Punic War, forcing Carthage to capitulate and establishing Rome as the dominant power in the western Mediterranean.
Key Facts
- Date
- 202 BC
- Roman force size
- approximately 40,000 men
- Carthaginian force size
- 40,000–50,000 men
- Carthaginian war elephants
- 80
- Outcome for Hannibal
- Forced into exile after defeat
- War duration
- Second Punic War began 218 BC
By the Numbers
Location
Cause → Event → Consequence
Hannibal had invaded Italy in 218 BC and campaigned there for sixteen years. After Scipio Africanus cleared Carthaginian forces from Iberia and landed near Utica in North Africa, peace negotiations began. When Hannibal returned from Italy, Carthage repudiated a draft treaty already ratified by the Roman Senate, and Hannibal marched inland to confront the Roman army, making a decisive engagement inevitable.
At Zama in 202 BC, Scipio's Roman army of roughly 40,000 faced a larger Carthaginian force equipped with 80 war elephants. The elephants were repulsed and disrupted Carthage's own cavalry, allowing the Roman horsemen to rout their opponents and pursue them from the field. After hard infantry fighting, the returning Roman cavalry struck the Carthaginian line from the rear, destroying it and deciding the battle.
The defeat left Carthage without an army to continue the war, compelling it to accept a Roman peace treaty that stripped it of all non-African and some African territories. Hannibal was forced into exile. Carthage was thereafter politically subordinate to Rome, marking a permanent shift in Mediterranean power toward the Roman Republic.
Belligerents & Mobilization Analysis
Side A
1 belligerent
Scipio Africanus.
Side B
1 belligerent
Hannibal.