In 204 bc Scipio’s force sailed for North Africa and laid siege to the Carthaginian stronghold of Utica. The defenders held strong, their resistance buoyed by the promise of a large Carthaginian relief army. In time, Carthage did manage to assemble a large force, under the joint command of Hasdrubal and a local king, Syphax, who had previously pledged his support to Scipio. Despite overwhelming military superiority, however, Hasdrubal was reluctant to attack, perhaps recalling the drubbing he’d received at Ilipa.

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Scipio took full advantage of the Carthaginian general’s indecision to suggest peace talks, an offer that was eagerly accepted. Over the next several days, Roman emissaries, accompanied by their slaves, made their way to the two enemy camps. As the emissaries negotiated, the slaves—actually Roman centurions—roved around the camp, noting its layout and defensive works. To maintain the illusion these spies were actually slaves, several of them submitted to public whippings for having wandered off without permission.

Their familiarity with the enemy camp emboldened Scipio to conduct the most dangerous of operations—a nighttime assault on a fortified enemy position. The consul was about to find out whether his faith in the disgraced legions was misplaced. They didn’t disappoint.

In a single night of brutality, Scipio’s army massacred upwards of 40,000 of the enemy (twice their own number) and sent the rest into flight. Incredibly, Hasdrubal managed to raise another army in only a month and marched once again to engage Scipio. But no army so hastily raised and organized was a match for battle-disciplined legions, which made short work of this new army. Faced with these twin disasters and no army left in North Africa that could oppose Scipio, Carthage was forced to recall Hannibal from Italy. For all practical purposes, Rome had won the Second Punic War. But there was still one great battle left to be fought.

At Zama, in 202 bc, Scipio and Hannibal finally met on the field of battle. Each had about 40,000 men at his disposal, but—unlike at Cannae—this time the Romans had the better mounted force, thanks to King Masinissa, who swung his superb Numidian cavalry out of the Carthaginian orbit over to the Roman side. Scipio, like Hannibal, placed this cavalry on the flanks, and each organized his infantry in three lines. But Scipio also made a major tactical change to the standard Roman formation by separating his maniples, opening wide lanes through his lines.

After some initial skirmishing, Hannibal sent his 80 war elephants forward. But this was a different Roman army than the one he had faced at Cannae—tougher and more disciplined, led by men accustomed to Hannibal’s tactics. Faced with the choice of smashing into the heavily armed legionnaires or running unimpeded through the gaps in their formations, most of the elephants took the path of least resistance and passed harmlessly through the Roman army. Others, frightened by the blasts of massed Roman trumpeters, ran down their own cavalry.

Noting the chaos, Laelius and Masinissa took the cavalry on each flank and charged the Carthaginian horsemen. These horsemen quickly retreated, with Roman and Numidian cavalry in close pursuit. As the cavalry departed, the legions crashed into the lead Carthaginian line, pressing the mercenaries hard until they turned to escape. But the second line refused to break formation, and as the Romans continued their advance, the Carthaginians began fighting each other. Ultimately, men in the second line also broke and ran for the rear, where they met a similar reception from the third line.

As the defeated first two lines skirted around the ends of Hannibal’s final line, Scipio recalled his troops to within bow shot of the Carthaginians. Before them stood Hannibal’s seasoned veterans, rested, unbowed and in numbers almost equal to his own. Scipio, rather than replace the exhausted legionnaires in his leading ranks, re-formed them into a tightly packed formation and moved the Triarii to each flank, intending to overlap the enemy line. In a testament to Roman discipline, the legions quickly negotiated these complex maneuvers in the face of an unbeaten enemy.

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