>>7282835Cool, thanks for the recommendations. I've admittedly only read Livy so far, so I obviously have a limited and biased understanding of Rome; I'll check those out.
>>7282833Again I'm limited by my sources, but my main point of contention is your comment about the population available for conscription. He may be wrong, but Livy lists census records as indicating less than 150,000 Roman citizens in 207, admittedly after another decade of getting thrashed by Hannibal after Cannae.
>Hannibal's army was dead tired. Fighting such a long and protracted battle (more of a slaughter really) left his troops utterly exhausted. This makes sense, but not indefinitely. A rest makes sense, but not a rest that lasts so long that Rome has time to free and arm its slaves, levy new troops, and call on Latium for more auxiliary forces.
>Basically the key misconception of the Punic Wars is that Hannibal was a poor strategist. Something people overlook is supply, and with an army that was forced to forage in hostile territory for years on end meant the army marched on it's stomach, and siege of a target like Rome was pretty much unfeasible. This makes sense, and largely vindicates Hannibal's apparent lack of long-term vision for the war as a campaign, but at that point why bother even invading Italy? Carthage kept sending supplies/troops to Spain, Sicily, and even Sardinia. With that in mind, I think I would be more correct in blaming Carthage, rather than Hannibal, for failing to keep their "eyes on the prize," so to speak.
Again, I'm very limited by my sources, so I'm hardly rock solid in any of my points; I'll get into some more modern sources soon enough, but in the meantime thanks for bearing with me!
