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Although the most famous campaigns of the Second Punic War took part in Italy, Iberia remained a key power base for Hannibal and the Carthaginians, and a constant target of Roman attacks.
We start with a useful background history that covers the First Punic War, Carthaginian expansion in Iberia, and the Roman intervention.
The section on the opposing leaders demonstrates the multi-national nature of the war, with Carthaginian, Numidian, Iberian and Roman leaders all included.
Hannibal features in the first part of the campaign section, first with an invasion of northern Iberia that ended with a remarkable victory on the Tagus, and then with the siege of Saguntum that helped trigger the war with Rome. There is a brief look at Hannibal’s march east into Italy, but more significant for this book was the simultaneous movement of a Roman Consular army west by sea to Iberia.
Once Hannibal was gone the war in Spain was generally finely balanced. The Scipio brothers won a series of victories which weakened the Carthaginian position, before both were killed in a pair of battles on the Baetis River in 211 BC. The war in Iberian was finally won after the arrival of the Younger Scipio, son of the one of the brothers killed in 211. One interesting development here is that Scipio’s victory at Ilipa was won using the tactics Hannibal had used at Cannae, moving the Roman legions from their normal position in the centre of the line to the flanks and allowing for a double envelopment of the enemy line.
This is a useful book, focusing on a key part of the Second Punic War that is almost always overshadowed by the more famous Italian campaigns, but that played a major role in the eventual Roman victory.
Chapters
Introduction
Chronology
Opposing Commanders
Opposing Forces
Opposing Plans
The Campaign
Aftermath
Author: Mir Bahmanyar
Edition: Paperback
Pages: 96
Publisher: Osprey
Year: 2024