The Thunderers: A Carthage Timeline

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THE THUNDERERS: A CARTHAGE TIMELINE
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“I will either find a way, or make one.” – Roman proverb, often ascribed to Hannibal Barca
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The War with the Romans

The War with the Romans is essentially a plaque erected by Hannibal just before his departure from Italy in 608 AY [1] to tell the story of the Second Roman War and what he had accomplished throughout it. It is a brief summary that happened to survive history purely by chance. The original is maintained in Rhegion, while a copy was made for the Museum of Carthage. [2]


1. In my twenty-sixth year, I succeeded my brother [3] as commander of the army in Iberia with the support of the people [4]. I continued to prosecute the wars against the enemies of my father and my uncle without violating any laws or treaties. In my first year I defeated the Olcades in battle and forced them to surrender. In the next year I defeated the Vaccaei in a number of battles and made them submit. On my return from this campaign I was attacked by a coalition of tribes but I defeated them.

2. The Romans, fearing my progress against the Iberians, illegally allied with Saguntum. This being a violation of our treaties, I besieged Saguntum until it submitted. I then sought the support of the leading families in Carthage for my actions and received it.

3. I marched the army north, gaining the support of many Celtic tribes. I marched over the Alps, and defeated the Romans in consecutive battles. [5] I then descended south upon Italy, and vanquished the armies that opposed me in consecutive battles. [6] I sought new friends to support my victories, and found many allies among the Italians and the king of the Macedonians.

4. For nine years the Romans refused battle, forcing me to survive off the land while they watched me from a distance. As time went on many of their allies unwillingly returned to bondage. Then my brother defeated the Romans in Iberia and took an army to Italy. After defeating my pursuers, we marched on Latium. There we defeated the Romans in a great battle and brought peace to the world again. I took from them Sardinia and Sicily, and made them provinces once again.


[1] – 206 BC.
[2] – Apparently Hannibal did something similar to this before leaving for Africa IOTL. I thought it’d be neat to its equivalent survive here.
[3] – Hasdrubal the Fair. He was actually his brother-in-law.
[4] – There was an institution in Carthage called the Popular Assembly (well, I’ll give it a more fitting Punic name later) that was democratically elected and by this point in Carthage’s history was actually quite powerful. One of the assembly’s functions was to approve the appointment of generals.
[5] – The Ticinus and the Trebia.
[6] – Lake Trasimene and Cannae.
 
THE SECOND ROMAN WAR

The Battle of Baecula (606 AY [1]) and Hasdrubal’s March to Italy

After the fall of New Carthage to Scipio the Younger [2] Carthage stood in a precarious position in Iberia. It had three armies there, one under Hasdrubal Barca, one under Mago Barca, and the other under Hasdrubal Gisgo. Each was fighting its own campaign against those Iberians which had decided to join the Romans due to their recent victories in the theater. Warfare against the Iberians was getting rougher; the Carthaginian generals now saw less reason to keep the Iberian chiefs happy than to make them fearful of Punic retaliation for their treason. Collectively, these three Punic armies far outnumbered the army that Scipio had at his disposal, but individually each was about the size of the Roman army, between thirty and forty thousand men.

In recognition of the Roman general’s boldness in striking straight for New Carthage, Hasdrubal decided that he, too, would be bold and go straight for his enemy’s throat, by taking his army to Italy. It had been seven years since the Battle of Dertosa, which had been a devastating defeat for both him and for Carthage. He had hoped then to march an army to Italy to reinforce his brother’s army and strike at Rome just a year after Cannae. That would have been the optimal time to defeat Rome for good, as the Romans had not yet had time to replenish their many levies and would not have had nine years to move on from the memory of Cannae. But instead, Rome thwarted Hasdrubal’s attempt to use the crescent tactic of Cannae, and destroyed any chance of that happening for some time.

First, however, Hasdrubal wished to inflict damage on the army of Scipio the Younger. Win or lose, he would take his army to Italy, but should he win the Romans would be left paralyzed in the Iberian theater, and the Carthaginians would be able to take back New Carthage from its Roman occupants. Once the winter was over, Scipio would lead his army out of the south and found Hasdrubal near the town of Baecula, which was a wealthy town that controlled many of the area’s silver mines. There, Hasdrubal had taken up a very strong defensive position; his camp was on high ground, protected on the rear by a river and on the flanks by rocky hills. At the top of the slope protecting the camp he placed a strong guard of well-equipped Iberian allies. Hasdrubal did not want to meet Scipio in battle yet; he wished for Scipio to wait for him to move into a position where they could fight on more even terms. Instead of getting that, however, Hasdrubal planned to wait Scipio out until one of the other Carthaginian armies arrived to overwhelm Scipio and thus destroy the Romans, leaving Iberia firmly in Punic hands before he left for Italy.

Scipio, however, was wise enough to understand that this was Hasdrubal’s intent. He would choose to assault his position, sending his light infantry first up the hill with the heavy infantry in support. The Romans at first managed to push the Carthaginians back due to the weight of their formation even against the Punic advantage in height, and then, once the height differential became even, made even greater gains because of their greater skill in hand-to-hand combat. Even the conscripted Roman slaves made their presence felt, harassing the Carthaginian formation by throwing sticks and stones and whatever they could get their hands on. The remainder of the Roman force then began to assault the Punic flanks, climbing the other sides of the hill. Hasdrubal, not wishing to risk a total defeat of his army before he could make it to Italy, began to withdraw, in the process suffering heavy casualties as the Romans pursued. Before the battle Hasdrubal had made a choice to make this a limited engagement since he did not have the support of Hasdrubal Gisgo or Mago, and this choice led to defeat as many of his army’s greater assets, including his elephants, were withdrawn from the battlefield before the Romans even began to engage the Punic line. In the end, Scipio suffered very few casualties, while Hasdrubal’s losses were in the thousands – Gisgo [3] claims that Hasdrubal lost around five thousand men in the battle [4] and a few thousand more captured.

Nevertheless, Hasdrubal would reform his army a few miles north of the battlefield at the River Tagus, and marched on to Italy with an army of around twenty thousand. Scipio did not attempt to block Hasdrubal’s escape, and it is unlikely that it would have worked even if he had tried, since his army was smaller and on the wrong side of the river. Instead he would plunder what the Carthaginians left behind in their haste. The victory would gain Scipio a great deal of respect amongst the Iberian tribesmen, however, with many proclaiming the young general as a king, a title which Scipio would downplay to the government at Rome but would use as much as he could in recruiting new allies to his cause in Iberia.

In marching to Italy, Hasdrubal would take largely the same route as his brother had a decade earlier. Armed with plenty of gold and silver from the mining operations, Hasdrubal would make up for much of his losses at Baecula by persuading some Arverni and other Celtic chieftains to go with him to war in support of the Carthaginian cause. The winter that year was harsh and the mountain passes were snowed over; had it not been for that Hasdrubal would have been able to cross earlier and take the Romans even more by surprise than he did in reality. Instead, the Hellenic [5] colony of Massalia, a Roman ally, warned Rome of Hasdrubal’s coming advance. The Romans responded by dividing their many armies up throughout Italy to defend against the many different routes that Hasdrubal or Hannibal could take to meet up with the other. Three armies were sent north. Livius, who was elected consul that year, and the magistrate [6] Porcius Licinius were sent to defend the Alpine passes from which Hasdrubal would descend. Terentius Varro, who was the commander of the Roman army at Cannae, was given command of the third army to defend Etruria. The Romans, thus, hoped to have a two to one advantage over Hasdrubal in the north.

Politics, however, would prevent this plan from working as well as it might have. It did so in two ways. First, it was the custom of the Romans to appoint their officers at the beginning of their year, which was in early spring. This meant that Livius and the other generals could not take command of their armies until that point. By that point, however, Hasdrubal was already crossing the Alps and the Romans would not be able to prevent his crossing. The other way politics prevented this plan from working as it might have was much less cultural and much more personal: Gisgo tells us that Livius was given command of what he considered a subpar group of recruits compared to his colleague Claudius Nero, and he did not feel that his army would be able to match that of Hasdrubal’s. Slaves and inexperienced conscripts made up too great a percentage of his force, and he refused to take action until his army was reinforced by competent troops. In response to this Scipio the Younger sent Livius several thousand Iberian and Celtic auxiliaries that he had gained fighting in Iberia, and Mamilius, the governor of Sicily [7], sent three thousand archers and slingers. Now satisfied, Livius would begin to attempt to counter the Punic advance, but his delay would hurt his country’s cause. Some Romans began to panic, and argued that they should prepare for the inevitable and merge all their forces in Italy so as to create as great a defense as possible against a merged Barcid force. However, for the time being Rome would remain resolute to the plan of preventing Hamilcar Barca’s sons from combining their forces by harassing their armies and if possible blocking their escape.

Hasdrubal thus crossed the Alps unmolested by Roman forces, reaching Italy in the early spring of 607 AY [8]. He was met by eight thousand Ligurian reinforcements, whom he had allied with while at his winter quarters on the other side of the Alps. Shortly after arriving in Italy Hasdrubal sent messengers to Hannibal, hoping to inform his elder brother of the speed of his advance and where they should intend to meet. The spot he chose was at the eastern coast of Italy along the Adriatic Sea, within the territory of the Umbrians and many Celtic tribes. These two peoples fought each other often; the Umbrians were staunch allies of Rome because Rome could protect them from the Celts. In fact, many of the Celts in this area were descendants of the Senones, who nearly two centuries before had sacked Rome under the warlord Brennus. Hasdrubal then considered besieging the colony of Placentia in the Po River Valley, but decided against it in the name of speed. [9] The now active army of Livius and Licinius chased Hasdrubal across the north, but were unable to make much progress in preventing his escape to Umbria, giving up at the Metaurus River [10]. Instead, they would return to the western side of the peninsula, and seek to block the Carthaginians from passing through the Apennine Mountains. Varro remained in Etruria to block a northern route, while Livius and Licinius went further south to Latium.


[1] – AY stands for Abbid Yawm, which in my made up Carthaginian means “from the time of our ancestors” and dates from 814 BC, the year in which Carthage was founded. It’s based off of AVC for Rome. The Battle of Baecula, thus, took place in 208 BC. I used
this site to construct the phrase: “ab” meaning “ancestor”, “bid” meaning “from”, and “yawm” meaning “time of”, and combined them in a way that sounds good to me. One thing I’ve learned from taking French and a little bit of Greek is that what sounds best is usually right. Not scientific, but I’ve never pretended to be even remotely learned on the Carthaginian language.
[2] – Scipio Africanus.
[3] – My ancient Punic writer that I’ll refer to often; readers of Xamm Anim will be aware of who he is.
[4] – Livy claims 8,000.
[5] – Since the word Greek derives from Latin, I’ll use Hellenic in this timeline. Not that I’ll stick to that rule very well, since I’d probably have to stop writing in English to avoid all Latin-based words.
[6] – Lucius Porcius Licinius was a Praetor.
[7] – Mamilius was the Praetor commanding two legions in Sicily.
[8] – 207 BC.

[9] – This is a secondary PoD; Hasdrubal in real life besieged Placentia in the hopes of gaining an early victory in his campaign and the prestige that goes along with it. Instead he was stalemated too long by the defenders and ended up wasting valuable time.
[10] – Of course chosen for irony.
 
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I actually had a pretty serious inner debate whether to title it what I did, or


XAMM ANIM EPISODE V: THE REBOOT STRIKES BACK

Cue_Star_Wars_music . :p

Anyways,

This is yet another incarnation of the timelines Carthago Invicta, Carthago Invicta 1.25, Xamm Anim, and Xamm Anim 4.0. I said after quitting last time that I would never try this timeline again. I kept that promise for a while, but there’s something about this timeline that makes me want to try it, then get frustrated or otherwise stalled and end up quitting. I don’t blame former readers for ignoring this – I wouldn’t trust me to finish this either, and honestly I can’t say that I trust me to finish this. But I will try. Again. And then probably quit. And then try again!

This is going to look substantially different from Xamm Anim, which is probably the version the most are familiar with. Some features will remain the same, but many will be changed, including one of what I would call “defining features”. I have a lot of ideas mapped out. It’s really a matter of writing it. I think. Hopefully.

Oh, by the way, for those that don’t have any experience with these timelines whatsoever (which, having been a couple years now, is probably quite a few of you now that I think about it – doesn’t feel that long ago), this is a Carthage timeline, and the point of divergence is that Hasdrubal Barca is able to avoid the Battle of the Metaurus and merge his army with Hannibal’s. That army, then, is able to cause some… major distress to the Romans. Hopefully you like it.
 
It's back! Glad to see you decided to do the reboot! Fantastic start. One little omission I noticed: You have a [9] and [10] note, but no footnote that corresponds with it.
 
Well hopefully you won't quit on this one like the rest. Nice start.

I really do try you know! :p I'll try not to let you folks down this time. Thanks.

It's back! Glad to see you decided to do the reboot! Fantastic start. One little omission I noticed: You have a [9] and [10] note, but no footnote that corresponds with it.

Good catch; must have botched the transfer from Word. Fixed. And thanks.

Glad to see this return at long last :D

Glad to see you back!
 
Lets see if we can delve past Hannibal's generation this time! I wanna see a continued Macedonia as well for starters! ;)
 
Lets see if we can delve past Hannibal's generation this time! I wanna see a continued Macedonia as well for starters! ;)

The idea is to hopefully make it at least 100 years, hopefully 200 years. Macedonia I think will be very interesting ITTL; I've always been interested in the effects of the PoD on the Hellenistic East.



THE SECOND ROMAN WAR

The Battles of Grumentum and the Apulian Forest [1]

Meanwhile Hannibal was campaigning in the lands of Tarentum, hoping to regain lost allies. In 602 AY [2] Hannibal had cleverly captured the city, but the efforts of Fabius Maximus had seen the city returned to Roman control within just three short years. However, Hannibal would make little progress in this campaign; a Roman army under the command of Tubulus surprised the Carthaginians and inflicted many casualties. This was coupled with the news that Claudius (a relative of the consul Claudius Nero) was beginning to move from his winter quarters nearby to surround Hannibal. In response Hannibal evacuated the country under the cover of darkness and decided to campaign in Lucania instead, a land where there might be allies and the Romans did not have an army occupying yet. His winter quarters having been in Bruttium, Hannibal sent word to those he left behind to meet him there. Having lost the great Punic general, Claudius continued occupying Tarentum hoping to block Hannibal from escaping to the east, while Tubulus went north. Along the way he met with Nero at Venusia and gave the bulk of his forces to the consul and to Fulvius Flaccus, while he went to take up command of the garrison at Capua. This gave Nero an army of around forty thousand men, much larger than that of Hannibal’s twenty-five thousand. Immediately the Roman began to close in on Hannibal, hoping to corner him and prevent him from joining his brother. At this point Hannibal remained ignorant of Hasdrubal’s progress in the north. He knew that his brother was planning to cross the Alps, but expected that it would be several months before he would be able to meet with him, given his more difficult experience a decade earlier.

Hannibal made Grumentum, a small but easily defensible settlement, his base of operations in Lucania. Hannibal set his camp upon the slope just outside the city’s walls, and created fortifications to protect his position. Nero was not far behind, and he set up his camp about a mile away in the valley below. The land between the two camps was open country, devoid of hiding spots for an ambush; on the Punic left and Roman right there were hills, but lacking trees neither side gave much thought for using them as part of their strategy. For a number of days the two sides skirmished in the valley, neither gaining a great advantage. Nero resolved himself to stop Hannibal from leaving, while Hannibal was determined to shake yet another Roman army, hopefully defeating it in the process.


Gisgo tells us that Nero was a rash man whom was overly willing to take risks as a commander. That might be the case, but at Grumentum his penchant for risk-taking panned out. Hannibal was getting anxious to leave, and had his army formed into battle-lines outside his camp. Realizing the Punic commander’s intentions, Nero decided to spring a trap using the aforementioned hills, knowing that Hannibal would not expect him to use them for an ambush. During the night he sent a lieutenant and a portion of his infantry to hide on the reverse side of the slope, with orders to come out shortly after dawn the next morning. At dawn Nero led his army out, drawing them into formation and inviting battle from Hannibal. Hannibal ordered his men to prepare for the battle, but this order was misinterpreted as an order to attack. [3] In their excitement the Carthaginians broke formation quickly and became more a mob than the professional army that they were supposed to be. The Romans might have employed amateur soldiers, but Nero’s army kept its formation and stayed true to their commander’s battle plan. The infantry easily cut the Carthaginian mob down, and Hannibal’s troubles were compounded when the Roman cavalry charged and Nero’s ambush emerged from the hills. Sensing an impending disaster, Hannibal ordered his army to withdraw back behind their fortifications. Behind the safety of the camp Hamilcar’s eldest son escaped what could have been a disaster of great proportions. Instead, though he lost many men, he continued to possess a large enough army to pose a threat to Nero’s.

The next day Hannibal chose to rest instead of attempting battle again; Nero responded by ordering his troops to strip the Punic dead of their weapons and other valuables and to bury the Romans. Seeing that Hannibal had little interest in fighting again outside his strong position, Nero spent the next few days preparing his army to strike at the Punic stronghold. Before Nero could break into the camp, however, Hannibal would abandon his camp during the night, leaving the fires burning and Numidian sentries behind to trick the Romans into believing they were still there through the night. Once dawn came the Numidians galloped quickly to the rear of the escaping Punic column. Nero was enraged at losing Hannibal yet again, and, after plundering the Punic camp, ordered a pursuit of Hannibal. Making great speed the Romans caught up to Hannibal’s army at Venusia and chipped away at the rear of the escaping army. Hannibal then turned southwards to the Hellenic colony of Metapontum, evading the Romans by marching great distances day and night. Metapontum was favorable to the Punic cause, being one of the first allies of Rome to defect after the great victory at Cannae. Nero continued the chase with the majority of his forces but sent his subordinate Fulvius Flaccus back to Lucania to fortify that region against Punic attack. [4]

It was at this point that Hasdrubal’s messengers managed to reach Hannibal. There had been a close call with the garrison of Claudius at Tarentum, but the riders managed to escape to give Hannibal news of his brother and what his plans were. [5] Hannibal was quite impressed with his brother’s progress, but knew that it would be very difficult for him to shake the pursuing Nero and the army of Claudius in Tarentum so that he could reach Umbria unharmed. Instead of marching to occupy Metapontum Hannibal chose to march his army northeast into Apulia. This seemed to confirm the worst fears for Nero and his countrymen, that Hannibal was now able to collaborate with his brother in creating a single stratagem for the year’s campaign, and Nero responded by forcing his men to march faster and calling upon his relative Claudius to bring his army out from Tarentum to help chase Hannibal, giving Nero an army of over forty thousand once again to fight the mighty Hannibal. Only a few men were left behind to garrison Tarentum.

Both the Carthaginian and the Roman armies were marched nearly to the point of exhaustion, the Carthaginians doing so in order to stay out of reach of the Romans, and the Romans doing so in order to catch their enemies. It was difficult for both armies to maintain morale and to be fed sufficiently, and as a result both suffered from attrition. Hannibal knew that he could not afford to let his army suffer for long, and so he resolved himself to fight another battle, but on his terms. Along the left side of the route that they were traveling through there was a great forest, the largest in Apulia, with many hills to obscure vision. Taking note of this, Hannibal started to slow his army’s progression, simultaneously pretending and admitting to his army’s fatigue, until the Romans were nearly caught up to him, only a couple miles away. Betting on Nero to gamble, Hannibal hid all of his Celtic, Iberian, and Italian infantry, as well as his Celtic and Iberian cavalry, in the forest along the pathway during the night. All that remained visible to the Romans were his Libyan spears and his Numidian cavalry, which the Romans were familiar with as the rear of his column. When dawn came, he ordered the Libyans and Numidians to trudge slowly ahead, waiting for the Romans to catch up.

Nero was ecstatic, and did not seriously consider the possibility of ambush, falsely assuming that Hannibal was trying to avoid conflict at all costs. When he was woken shortly after dawn to be told by his scouts that all they could see was the faint outline of the end of the Carthaginian column, Nero got in a rush and rashly ordered all of his troops to get in formation and give chase to the enemy at an even more rapid pace. On they went, all forty thousand of them, to cover the distance as quickly as possible. And within a short time they did so. Once it was realized that the Carthaginians were missing a great percentage of their forces, the Libyans turned around to stop the Roman advance, the hidden troops came charging out of the forest, and the Numidians swung around to the opposite side of the path, thus boxing the Romans in as best they could.

The Romans, surprised, exhausted, and now panicked, were easily cut down by the emboldened Punic troops, and the slaughter was on. Nearly twelve thousand Romans were killed in the battle, including Claudius Nero, who either was killed fighting or committed suicide depending on the tradition you subscribe to. Nero, like his predecessors that had fallen in battle against Hannibal, was buried after the battle and given the proper respects that a man of his office should enjoy. Hannibal, on the other hand, only lost a few hundred men – men he sorely needed, but was willing to lose in order to escape his Roman pursuers for good. Because the Carthaginians were tired and hungry themselves and could not block all avenues of escape the defeat inflicted upon the Romans was not as bad as some earlier in the war. Still, it did the job just as well. A Roman consul was killed, another Roman army was defeated (with many of its combatants deserting from the army’s service), and Hannibal could now march north to meet his brother at a pace that his troops could manage, without fearing a Roman attack from the rear.

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6a00d83451b62269e2010536c44bf1970c-pi
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An artist’s interpretation of the Battle of the Apulian Forest
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Hannibal would spend a few days near the site of the battle, allowing his men a much needed rest. As news spread around the Italian countryside of Hannibal’s newest great victory, he found himself approached to once again by local chieftains looking for alliances, and Hannibal capitalized when he could to help restock his depleted forces, and promised his friendship after the war. He would then march north, and met his brother at the Roman port town of Truentum. Combined, their army was just over fifty thousand in strength (along with fifteen elephants), with Hasdrubal contributing the majority of the troops due to his more peaceful route.

Claudius, meanwhile, sought to give a dignified face to the defeat. He wrote of the defeat and of what state his men were in to the Roman Ab-Adyriim [6]. Fearing that he did not have enough time to return to Latium, and that his men would refuse to fight Hannibal directly again, Claudius chose to try and reinstate order in the south with his remaining scraps of an army [7], and urged his colleague Fulvius Flaccus who was closer to Latium to return north with all his forces. Despite the obliteration of yet another army, the Romans still had over a hundred thousand troops in Italy at their disposal to defend their capital, and they would resolve to use as much of that strength as possible to prevent defeat at the hands of their most hated enemy.


[1] – The location of this battle is supposed to be somewhere along the modern Italian national park “Parco Nazionale Alta Murgia”. I tried to find a Roman name for the forest but had little luck, so if anyone has a better name than the “Apulian Forest”, please tell, because I don’t like that name for a battle.
[2] – 212 BC.
[3] – From reading Livy’s account this is what it kind of sounds like to me; I’m trying to keep a pro-Punic bias in the writing to reflect Carthage’s victory against Rome.
[4] – The Battle of Grumentum and its aftermath has gone exactly as it did IOTL.
[5] – Remember earlier how I said that Hasdrubal skipping the Siege of Placentia was the secondary PoD? This is the primary PoD. In our timeline the Romans captured Hasdrubal’s messengers and thus knew exactly where Hannibal and Hasdrubal were going, and thus were able to prevent them from getting there. Here, the Romans are kept in the dark, and Hannibal and Hasdrubal have the advantage.
[6] – Using the dictionary I used earlier again, Ab-Adyriim is my term for a Senate or Council of Elders. Adyriim is in fact the Punic word for Senate according to the dictionary.
[7] – Ultimately this is an executive decision on my part to help increase the plausibility that Hannibal defeats the final Roman army he fights. I feel like I’ve given a plausible enough excuse for Quintus Claudius to choose against running straight for Rome, even though in reality that would probably be more likely, even considering the great distance he’d have to make up and his troops’ renewed fear of Hannibal. You folks are free to call bullshit.
 
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THE SECOND ROMAN WAR

The Siege of Reate

Now that the sons of Hamilcar had met, they had to decide how they would get to Rome. There were two main options that they could take: the first was to backtrack north and take the Flaminian Road [1] across the Apennines. Ironically enough, this road was commissioned by the Flaminius that fought and died against Hannibal at Lake Trasimene in 597 AY [2] a few years before he became consul. The alternative path was much more direct, leading straight west to Rome. Truentum was the port at which the path the Romans called the “Salt Road” [3] ended, and though it was not as well maintained as the newer Flaminian Road it had its own advantages. Either way the Romans would be prepared for the Carthaginian advance. Now in a much higher state of mobilization, the Romans were able to have their armies defend all the viable passes, whereas before Hannibal would simply go where the Romans did not expect. You can tell which way the Romans expected, however, by who commanded the army defending each pass – the consul Livius defended the Flaminian Road from his base at Narnia, while his lieutenant Porcius guarded the southern pass from the marshes of Reate. The Romans did not expect that Hannibal would choose to march through the more difficult terrain and narrower passes of the Salt Road, but they would not chance it by leaving that path unoccupied.


Via_Flaminia.jpg
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A map highlighting the Flaminian Road
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via_salaria.jpg
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A map highlighting the Salt Road
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According to Gisgo at this point the Romans had approximately 120,000 men at their disposal. Around ten thousand men, the remnants of the army defeated at the Apulian Forest, were under the command of Claudius in the south; he feared that his distance was too great from Rome to assist the defense he chose to campaign against Italian and Hellenic rebels in the south, and that his troops in their state would refuse to fight again against Hannibal. A further ten thousand men garrisoned Campania under the command of Tubulus. Livius and Porcius each had twenty thousand men defending the two main routes that Hannibal could take from his position in Truentum. Fulvius meanwhile was moving northward with his army of twenty thousand, while Terentius Varro protected Etruria from his base at Arretium. Finally, Cato [4] was the commander of the last twenty thousand men stationed in Rome itself. [5] These numbers might seem large and possibly exaggerated to the modern eye, but it should be remembered that the Romans had a peculiar form of government for the ancient world, being liberal in granting citizenship and then using their greater roles to draw upon massive militias. Divvied in this way, it is conceivable for the Romans to enroll this many men and to feed and control them comfortably.

The Carthaginian commanders then disputed between themselves which way would be the best option. Gisgo tells us that Hasdrubal argued in favor of the Salt Road, while Hanno [6] argued in favor of the safer Flaminian Road. Hannibal eventually decides in favor of his brother and the quicker path, the tipping point being that the southern route was through friendlier territory, where allies might come to their aid. Though Gisgo would have been an eyewitness to the debate, it is not unlikely that this argument was an invention of his created to boost the prestige of Hasdrubal as a strategist. [7] The Carthaginian army trudged along this path for just over two weeks, gaining a few more troops from the tribes they came across, before they met Porcius at Reate.

Reate was one of the more important Roman towns, and had grown very rich for two reasons, the first of those being its strategic position along the Salt Road, and the other being that the Romans decades before had drained a nearby lake to turn the plains surrounding the city into a marshy yet fertile land. The town itself was walled, and perched upon a hill overlooking the plains below, which were especially prominent to the north, opposite of where the Carthaginians would come in. These geographical features made the town defendable against invaders such as Hannibal coming in from the east. Despite Reate being a town of the Sabines, it was loyal to Rome, and Porcius simply garrisoned the town with all his men, forcing the Carthaginians to either assault the settlement or turn around. [8] He then sent warnings to his fellow Roman commanders that the Carthaginians had chosen their route and that they should prepare their defense immediately.

Hannibal knew that speed was of the essence, and despite the strength of the Roman defenders ordered preparations to assault the settlement immediately. Preparations would take just under a week as the Carthaginians collected and gathered together siege weaponry. Reate was not his prettiest battle tactically, but it accomplished the mission that had to be done. The city was surrounded by men with ladders and rams. Hannibal wished to save his veterans and his Libyan spears, as well as his elephants, so he sent his Italians and Hasdrubal’s Iberians and Celts as the main waves of the attack, with the cavalry coming through the gates once they were opened. The Romans would initially put up a staunch defense, but as fate would have it they would lose their commander early in the fight, Porcius being cut down by a Celtic chieftain in individual combat. After this Roman morale crumbled and the entire force was either slaughtered or captured, depending on the individual’s bravery. From there the Carthaginians plundered the town, gaining a great deal of booty from the town’s salt merchants. Hannibal lost three thousand men in the battle, which was a great deal but less than he might have expected to have lost. An additional two thousand were wounded.

The fate of Porcius and his soldiers was often ridiculed by the Carthaginians and lionized by the Romans. Rome saw in him an heir to Leonidas, the Spartan king whose suicidal defense of Thermopylae allowed the Hellenes to put together a much larger stand at Plataea. And indeed this was likely the point of Porcius’ stand – to give the Romans time to put gather all their many armies into one place from which they could fight Hannibal, inflicting as much devastation upon Hannibal as possible in the process. Of course, the Roman “Plataea” would be much less successful than the actual Plataea, so it is an odd comparison to make from that perspective. Carthaginians, on the other hand, saw it as a waste of a considerable army that could have been used more effectively had it withdrawn from its Apennine fortress and added to the army at the River Anio. Even half of Porcius’ army being withdrawn from the battlements and sent to Latium could have made a great difference there. In hindsight given the success of Hannibal’s campaign it is easy to reach this conclusion, but we must remember that Porcius had good reasons to believe that such a stand was not only not suicidal, but actually had a great chance at being successful. He had a large army, outnumbered only by a ratio of 2.5:1 [9], defending a well-fortified pass against an enemy that did not have time for patience. Had Porcius not died early into the battle, the Romans might have carried the day. Fate just didn’t happen to side with the Romans, and it would cost them greatly.

After the siege Hannibal rested for a few days, allowing his men some time to recover from their wounds and to start selling captured Romans into slavery. Some of Rome’s Italian auxiliaries that had fought with Porcius were convinced to go traitor and join Hannibal instead, although Hannibal did not force any of them to do so. In general, these men would have been ambitious, and lacked a family that needed them. A large majority of the Italians instead chose to return freely to their homes. Hannibal would then finally begin to make his way to Rome. The Romans, meanwhile, collected their armies and prepared their defense. Under the command of the surviving consul Livius, this army was seventy thousand in strength, consisting of the armies of Livius, Terentius, Fulvius, and half the garrison at Rome. The two armies met at the River Anio, a small river only a few miles east of Rome. There, the war would be decided.


[1] – The Via Flaminia.
[2] – 217 BC.
[3] – The Via Salaria.
[4] – Gaius Cato, not the same man as Cato the Elder.
[5] – All of these numbers and commanders are taken from Livy, with the assumption that in all cases a legion was matched by a slightly larger contingent of alae.
[6] – This Hanno was probably the highest ranking non-Barcid officer within Hannibal’s army; he’s recorded as the commander of a number of operations for Hannibal during the years of campaigning in Italy. Most of Hannibal’s high command seems to have been related to him in one way or another – Hamilcar Barca built his alliances well within the military elite of Carthage. Or perhaps he didn’t, considering how Carthage, you know, lost IOTL.
[7] – You folks will see why this makes sense later.
[8] – At this point I’ll make a couple of admissions. The first is that I’ve never been to Italy, let alone modern Reate (Rieti, from the looks of it). The other is that I’m not a tactician, not even remotely (of course, that doesn’t stop me from liking the role of armchair general). From the various maps I’ve looked at, it seems to me that the Via Flaminia and the Via Salaria were the best two routes through the Apennines that Hannibal could take. Though it was hard to follow the Via Salaria well, it looks to me like the road led into Reate from the south in a narrow-ish pass that was defended almost immediately by the town itself. It seems to me that it would have made a good place for the Romans to guard the pass (plenty of food, narrow entry-point). I try to go for as detailed and realistic a timeline as I can make while also keeping it (hopefully) entertaining, but I am ignorant of many things (Monopolist, you know nothing), and so if anyone has a case explaining how the strategy of everything I’ve detailed is complete garbage, please just tell me and I’ll correct as best I can. Ultimately the point is that Hannibal wins, everything else is just details.
[9] – Not bad for a defending army in a siege like this.
 
Looking at the site for the National Park, there's a lake called San Giuseppe's there. I imagine you can make up a Roman name for this? Or alternatively, you can give the lake a Phoenician name named after the battle?
 

lol I'm glad you like it

Looking at the site for the National Park, there's a lake called San Giuseppe's there. I imagine you can make up a Roman name for this? Or alternatively, you can give the lake a Phoenician name named after the battle?

Hmmm... the reason I chose the area in the first place was because I was roaming Google Earth looking for a good area in Apulia for Hannibal to spring an ambush, and then I found this park that was somewhat forested now and must have been a lot more forested back then. A lake would be perfect, but I can't find it in Google Earth... plus I really hate making up place names, especially for important events such as this. I'll keep looking for this lake and what the Romans might have called it; if I find it I think I'll change it. If not, well, the important thing is that Hannibal has defeated a consular army, killing one of the consuls in the process.



Oh, one more thing: I saved a picture from Google Earth of what modern Grumentum looks like and where that battle would have taken place, but I can't for the life of me get it over here. I had to delete the caption for it from the post. Can anyone help a computer-dummy like me figure out how to get it on here?
 

Deleted member 67076

Cuāuhtemōc recommended me this. I can see why now. :D
 
Try hitting the print screen button and pasting it into paint. Then crop it and save.

I don't know, maybe I'm doing it wrong, but I still can't get it to work. Ah well, it's not that big of a deal, just mildly annoying.

Nice updates. Roma esse delendam!

Thank you. Cato the Elder must be furious right now. :cool:

Romanus Eunt Domus!

Wrens' livers, jaguars earlobes, wolf's nipple chips - foods this world will sorely miss.

Cuāuhtemōc recommended me this. I can see why now. :D

I'm flattered that I'm being recommended. :eek: Glad you like it.


Updates will probably be a little slower after this point; the good thing is that they're shorter so it doesn't take nearly as much time. I plan to stay two updates ahead for a while. Before I would aim for around 3000 words per; now I'm looking at 1200 or so. I think it's about as detailed just less fucking around and its more broken up. Anyways here it is, the Battle of the Anio. Hope you like it.


An excerpt from Gisgo’s Histories [1]

Book Nineteen [2]

38. Livius set up his position on the eastern banks of the River Anio; the size of the Roman army forced them to spread their camp wide along the river. The camp overlooked a large, level plain, which was only broken up by the river to the Romans’ left. He selected his position with a strategy in mind – he wished to take advantage of a wide enough plain to use all of his infantry to devastating effect, while neutralizing his enemy’s cavalry. And in fact this plain would allow him to do so, for the Anio guarded his left flank, while his foot soldiers could stretch a great distance to the right and overwhelm any line Hannibal could make.

Hannibal arrived a few days after the Romans selected their position. He was not particularly surprised to see Livius’ choice in a battlefield, since the Romans had learned well over the years the invincibility of his horsemen. Hannibal drew up his lines two miles to the east of Livius, and had his men forage and plunder the region while the Romans drew up their courage. They were a frightened lot, for the Romans were not used to fighting within sight of their city’s fires, and it troubled them that Hannibal could bring them to heel like this. A number of small skirmishes would break out from time to time around the river, both sides seeing their share of victories and defeats.

Maharbal was getting anxious for battle, and had trouble keeping his emotions under control while the armies waited. He had been the one to urge Hannibal to march on Rome after Cannae, and his aggressive spirit had not waned over time. “Hannibal,” he said after the fifth day of skirmishing, “I fear that the Romans are making a mockery of us. They know that we wish to make battle sooner rather than later, because we are in their territory and have suffered many hardships recently. They want our men’s morale to fade and for us to withdraw, and if we do not change the circumstances we will be forced to do just that. We must provoke them to hastily attack us by harassing their foragers with even greater ferocity and by blatantly attacking and seizing their estates. This will enrage them and make them fight on our terms.” Hannibal smiled at his lieutenant, knowing his ways, and replied “The Romans and their commanders are nervous, and have sought to delay battle because of this. But Livius and his advisers know that they cannot keep the respect of their troops if they do not take up battle soon. They will do as I predict: they will spend one more day preparing themselves for the difficulties of battle, and then draw their battle lines on the next day. We will not have to undergo any great risks to make them do this.” [3]

39. As it would turn out, this is precisely what happened. Another day was spent skirmishing and feeling out the enemy, and battle was had the day after.

Livius ordered his men into position at dawn. The infantry that had earlier made up the armies of Livius, Terentius, and Fulvius composed a front line, with the Romans making up the center of that line and their allies defending the flanks. This line was very strong and stretched very wide, being made up of nearly forty thousand men. Held in reserve was the army of Cato; his forces were divided between the extreme left and extreme right of the infantry line. It was hoped that this would give the Romans extra bulk on the edges so that they would be able to push through the strength of Hannibal’s flanks by pure might. As is typical, the bulk of their light infantry was spread in front of their main infantry line, although some were kept in reserve to assist in dealing with the elephants once they were deployed. The vast majority of the Roman cavalry were deployed on the right flank, with only a small number protecting the left. Terentius commanded the left of the Roman line; Fulvius the right; Cato the reserves; and Livius the cavalry.

Hannibal, meanwhile, made winning his left flank and the Roman right the main priority of this battle. He deployed his Libyans on his right wing, with Italian allies playing a supporting role. Ironically many of these men were equipped like Romans, due to the long campaign in enemy territory. Bomilcar commanded this group. Hasdrubal commanded the center, which was composed of his own veterans, while Hannibal’s longtime Celtic and Iberian veterans made up the right flank under Hanno’s command. The elephants were kept in reserve behind this flank. In response to the Roman decision to place the vast majority of their cavalry on one flank, Hannibal did the same opposite of them, with only some of his Numidians placed on the other flank. All of the skirmishers were placed at the front of the formation. Hannibal himself, as usual, stayed in reserve to watch the battle progress. Altogether the Carthaginian forces numbered around forty thousand, with around seven thousand cavalry and the rest infantry.

40. Once the battle lines were drawn, the sounds of war blared, and the battle commenced. The skirmishers for both sides sprinted forwards to confront the enemy, and began to inflict damage upon the other side. Concurrently the cavalry for both sides also rushed forwards, and began to fight their own battle. The conditions were cramped for battle, since the infantry took up so great a percentage of the battlefield, and this slowed the fighting and the ability of the commanders to maneuver. Victory would come down to the more skilled horsemen. The Romans fought well at first, since they were well-equipped, and fought with their commander alongside them. In the back of their minds they also knew that Rome itself was a short distance away, and that inspired them to fight all the harder. As a result, the Roman horse lasted longer than they had in any previous battle, inflicting great damage upon their Punic counterparts. However, in the end, their morale would collapse and their formation would break. Defeated, Livius threw off his helmet to avoid recognition and retreated to a safe distance to watch the battle unfold, hoping that his infantry would carry the day despite his cavalry’s incompetence.

Meanwhile, the light infantrymen were beginning to fade behind the main lines, while the main fighting men for both armies marched forwards to confront one another. The Romans tossed their javelins at the Carthaginian lines, causing many casualties. The barbarian tribesmen in Hannibal’s service responded by howling at the enemy in their frightening fashion, causing distress to the Romans and mentally preparing themselves for battle. The two sides then made their way towards one another, quickening the pace as they neared the opposing line. It was a great struggle between opponents of equal strength. The Romans and Hasdrubal’s veterans were well-matched for one another, while Hannibal’s veterans were up to the task of defending against the strengthened Roman flanks. On this battle went, until Hannibal’s left and center began to waver.

It was at this point that the Carthaginian cavalry had emerged victorious and had returned to the battle after chasing their Roman counterparts away. They then charged in wedge formation at the Roman right, shattering the Roman morale. The extra strength that Livius had added collapsed quickly under pressure from Hannibal’s barbarian horsemen. To compound this turn of events for the Romans, Hannibal now sent forwards his fifteen elephants to strike at the weak points within his line. In they charged with their great speed and vigor, trumpeting their advance, and utterly destroyed what remained of the Romans’ confidence. Brave Roman infantrymen managed to panic some of the elephants, causing some chaos on both sides, but the damage was done before this had transpired. The right wing of the Roman formation collapsed, and the Punic left turned upon what remained of the Romans. Hannibal’s victory now assured, the Carthaginians surrounded their enemy and pushed them towards the river. The shallowness of the river aided the Roman cause; many were able to safely disperse. But many more were butchered on its banks. Livius, ashamed of his and his countrymen’s efforts, committed suicide. [4]

41. After the battle Hannibal rested his men, allowing them to enjoy the fruits of their labor. The next day efforts were made to count the dead and to find significant people that had fallen in the battle. The Roman dead were estimated at twenty thousand, including the deaths of Livius and Flaccus. Interestingly enough, Terentius, the surviving consul at Cannae, survived another Roman disaster. The Carthaginians, on the other hand, suffered five thousand casualties, and an innumerous number of men were wounded. Hannibal offered sacrifices to the gods, and ordered the burial of the Carthaginian troops as well as the Roman generals that had fallen. Once that matter was attended to, Hannibal turned to the prisoners. As had been his policy throughout the war, he was lenient to the Italian allies, allowing them to leave as free men. The Romans, meanwhile, were rounded up, their fate to be decided shortly. Once that was done, Hannibal then sought to sue for peace.


[1] – I am going to use some “primary sources” throughout the timeline, but not nearly as often as I have in past timelines. Mostly I think I’ll use it at pivotal moments like this. Most of the action will be summarized by the oblique modern ATL narrator guy that’s been telling the story thus far. Occasionally I’ll also write short essays on relevant topics that are supposed to be from a modern scholarly ATL perspective. I couldn’t decide what to call it so I just gave it the vague name Histories.
[2] – Histories in my head starts with the First Punic War and then details the careers of Hamilcar and then his sons; nineteen was chosen to reflect this.
[3] – I wanted a small argument before the battle, and this is what I came up with.
[4] – Gisgo does not talk about the cavalry engagement on the Roman left and Punic right; this is a purposeful error, neglected in the ATL because of its overall lack of significance in the development of the battle. It did happen though.
 
Fantastic update. Gisgo does a great job at describing military engagements ;) . I don't think Rome can avoid accepting peace at this point.
 
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