History Summarized: The Punic Wars

As it happens, the whole "Salting the Earth" thing was a much later addition to the story, and probably doesn't have all that much of a basis in fact. So take that part of the story with a grain of... Salt.
YEEEEEEAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!

DO IT.

For the sake of not releasing a 25-minute video on the Roman Republic, I split the Punic wars off into its own video. Enjoy, and stay tuned for more Roman goodness.

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[MonkeyWhoWouldBeKing]

"it doesn't take a lot of elephants to have a scary amount of elephant on the battlefield" is a fantastic sentence and one i am deffo gonna try get that into my DM vocab :D

[timeaesnyx]

To try to explain the fear that the Romans had for Hannibal, consider the fact that a AFTER his death, Hannibal was used as a synonym for danger.

[eliseorengelgarcia]

Moral of the story:

Improvise.Adapt.Overcome

[maz.s]

Wow! In school I was taught that Hannibal was an idiot for thinking that desert elephants could cross the snowy alps. They never mentioned that he was actually a good general, or that after crossing those alps he terrorized Italy for 16 FREAKING YEARS!

[KinoKong]

"The Romans almost never made the same mistake twice"

*I mean, they did have some 10 civil wars in the span of 100 years. "Almost" is right.*

[CComrade]

"When you march over the alps like a fucking madman"

-A biography of Hannibal.

[MdiaHead]

I will now only refer to elephants as four-legged giants with two spears and a snake coming out of its face.

[thoughtfulpug]

Probably should have mentioned the Battle of Mentaurus, after Scipio took Spain and chased Hannibal's brother, Hasdrubal, and his army out of Spain and across the Alps; Hasdrubal planned to join Hannibal's army, but was stopped, pressed against a river by a Roman army, and killed. After the Battle, Hasdrubal's head was taken to Hannibal's camp and given to Hannibal. You gotta admit: That is a one hell of a scene.

[boone_magnusson]

Can't believe you left out the bit in the first punic war where the Roman navarch consulted the sacred chickens, and when they didn't eat, which was a bad omen for war, he went "if they're not hungry, maybe they're thirsty" and threw them overboard. He then lost the entire fleet in the ensuing battle

[PsyNZ]

It should be noted that one of the main reasons Rome was able to reverse engineer those ships so quickly, was because they parts were all marked with instructions on where they were suppose to go. Great for making ships fast, bad if they kept captured by your enemy.

[lithonianinja]

Only someone who's never been in front of agitated elephant or seen the aftermath of a rampage would say that an elephant isn't scary. Put a brain inside of a monster truck and give it a pair of 10ft spikes up front. THAT'S an elephant!

[Erish_Kygal]

The way blue just screamed ELEPHANTS!! was adorable

[babybalrog]

Man there is so much more you need to include in a part 2.

Hannibal's real fame is the swamp crossing. Men fighting over who gets to sleep on the dead horse!

Scipio being at one of the only survivors of the battle Ticinus and the one at Canne, and the other survivors being labeled traitors. Scipio becomes a senator, but the rest banished to Sicily. When his Father and Uncle die in Spain he is was the only crazy bat to volunteer, and the senate was happy to get rid of him.

Hannibal not only fought behind enemy lines for over a decade, but Carthage didn't give him any support. as far as they were concerned he was conducting a PRIVATE WAR against the most powerful country on earth. He had to lead a force of mercenaries, never known for their loyalty.

Rome was so pissed off they wouldn't even fight him. Their leader Fabious, just avoided battle, and was labeled a coward by the Romans, but since he was the only one smart enough to not get him self killed, he stayed in power, was elected Dictator (that's right kids dictators come from elections). And kept getting reelected to 6 month terms for some 5 years.

Eventually when Scipio wanted to invade Africa the Senate said no, so he put out the call for volunteers, and got swarmed by his old troops, sitting in exile in Sicily, all joined up. Awesome!

The Battle of Zamma, was a near thing. Hannibal didn't have his Army from Italy, which some historians called the single most experienced army in history (16 years in Italy, plus all the time in Spain). because as Daenerys has taught us. Boats. Instead he arrived in Carthage with only a handful of troops, then had to recruit green boys. Train them, and then fight battle hardened Romans. And nearly won. From my reading Scipio wasn't the only one to learn things, Hannibal uses some very Roman like strategy to tire out his opponents during the battle. Then sent in his reserve and it looked like a near thing before the cavalry returned. And we know it wasn't a route, because Hannibal retreated, returned to Carthage, and negotiated a peace deal.

Scipio accepted the peace dead, and returned to Rome in great honor, but was eventually villainized for not destroying the city. He took to politics. But was forced out under suspicious circumstances, when the blame for some missing money was laid at his feet.

Hannibal, allowed to live. Took to politics. He was apparently really good at it. advocating for the middle class, and conman man. Passed a law making the leaders elected by vote, with term limits. He was Millennium ahead of his time. The Rich, not becoming as rich as they had been, conspired to have Hannibal be exiled.

In 183 BC, both men died. What a pair!

[araposkulo]

Rome be like:
"So we heard you like naval battles while we suck on it. So we change your naval wars to land wars to beat you a at a land war while conducting a naval war."

[calebcraven]

For those who want even more depth on the battles that Hannibal fought while in Italy, Extra Credits has multiple episodes on the Punic wars and most of them are on the second war

[christianbuffum-robbins]

"Screw you, Carthage, these are mine now."
-Blue, 2017

[Bengtssonsan]

Another thing about the Roman "Navy" during the first war:
The Carthaginians had some real skills when it came to Trireme battles, and Rome did not. After learning the hard way that the Cartaginians had mastered the art of ram, withdraw and bombard, the Romans said "Screw this! We are gonna board their ships and fight like we do on land!" And then they made ships with those boarding bridges you can see at 1:13 and turned the war around.

[basiliosz]

The Romans faced elephants on the battle fields about 60 years earlier, during the wars with Pyrrhus - another fascinating character that deserves a video, by the way - and had some experience to cope with them. If memory serves, Plutarch writes that their method was to wound them in the belly, so that they would trumpet in pain and induce panic in other elephants, routing them.

[tedculbertson]

"It doesn't take a lot of elephants to have a scary amount of elephants."

One of my new favorite quotes.

[teaparty]

on a scale from Taylor Swift, to Rome in the second Punic Wars, how bitter are you?