Scipio Africanus Invades Africa
In 204 BCE, the thirty-year-old Publius Cornelius Scipio landed in North Africa with a Roman army, taking the war that Hannibal had brought to Italy and carrying it to Carthage's doorstep. Scipio had proved himself in Spain, where he had captured New Carthage and won the battles of Baecula and Ilipa using the envelopment tactics he had studied from Hannibal's campaigns. In Africa he allied with the Numidian prince Masinissa, burned Carthaginian camps in a night raid, and won the battle of the Great Plains, forcing Carthage to recall Hannibal from Italy for the first time in fifteen years. The invasion transferred the strategic initiative decisively to Rome; Hannibal, who had roamed Italy almost at will for a decade and a half, was being drawn home to defend Carthage itself on ground not of his choosing.
- Category: Military
