...spawned from the evil... seed

So in my last post I argued about Carthage's restricted political franchise and its effect on its ability to wage war on the Romans.

Rome's enormous manpower reserves (look at the losses suffered in both First and Second Punic wars) were a critical factor in her success. The fact that she had the political will to put armies in the field at all after Lake Trasimene and Cannae attests to the remarkable commitment of the people and politicians to the Roman cause. The number of defections, by Romans or her Italian allies during Hannibal's successful campaigns in Italy, remained remarkably low.

I believe this was due to the political system in Rome. The patronage system meant that even the lowest pleb had some tie into the political system, and the complex structure of checks and balances meant that public anger against the state, despite the burning of fields, the horrific losses in battle and the immediate threat of Carthaginian attack, the structure remained firm.

In contrast, with two defeats in North Africa the whole Carthaginian state collapsed, as did their estate in Spain after Scipio's victory at New Carthage. This was because the subject peoples in the Carthaginian 'empire' were not afforded the same opportunity to 'buy in' to the Roman system, but were rather tied by personal bonds (note the re-defection of Syphax the Numidian to Carthage after marriage into Hannibal's family). This admittedly may have been a function of the political or social setup in Africa and Spain as opposed to the more 'advanced' structures in Greek-settled southern Italy.

Hannibal and Carthage's failure in the second Punic war was due to this fundamental disparity in the structures of the two polities. This problem of the lack of commitment of the Carthaginian mercantile oligarchy could not be remedied by Hannibal's amazing victories, although I will admit that the utter failure of the Carthaginian navy probably didn't help much.

The determination of Rome and the Romans meant that Hannibal probably needed to take Rome in order to force the Senate to peace on Carthage's terms. Lacking such a drastic outcome the Romans were on to a winner from the start.