Remember that Roman army that went to Spain
like 10 blogs ago? Neither do I! But in all seriousness, the Roman army in
Iberia was doing fairly well at the beginning. So remember that first Cornelius
Scipio the one that was a consul. Well he ended up in Spain with his brother
fighting the Iberians. So Scipio divided
his forces into three parts to accomplish three different goals. So Scipio
attempted a night attack on the Carthaginians. At first he was successful but
then he was attacked by the armies of Mago (Hannibal’s brother) and Hasdrubel
Gisco. His army was destroyed and he died. His brother met a similar fate when
three armies of Carthaginians came to fight him including Mago, Hasdrubel Gisco
and Hasdrubel Barca (also Hannibal’s brother) and he died along with most of
his troops. So by 211 BC, the entire Spainish force was basically gone[1].
The
senate wanted to retry taking Spain but no one wanted to go to Spain. Enter the 25 year old Cornelius Scipio
junior. He wanted to be sent to Spain
and he was given the consulship even though he didn’t meet the age requirements[2]. So 10,000 troops with
Scipio were sent to Spain where Scipio
found what was left of the Roman army there and absorbed them into his forces.
Scipio
realized that he was doing no good by hinding in northern Spain. He came up
with an idea to siege the city of New Carthage in Spain. He told none of his
officers this till they sailed there. The Carthaginians were completely
unprepared for this siege. Now New Carthage was located on an isthmus
surrounded by a lagoon so there was only one way to assault the city. He tried to
assault the city from the main gate but he was repelled. Apparently a local fisherman told him that the
lagoon would empty around evening. So Scipio told 500 of his troops to wait on the other edge of the lagoon and he
didn’t tell his troops about the emptying ahead of time because he wanted it to
seem like the gods favored him.[3] The lagoon started to
empty and the 500 men charged the walls of New Carthage with ladders[4]. The strike force
surprised the defenders, opened the main gates and New Carthage fell.
Lagoons to the right
Hasdrubal
Barca, however, was preparing to take the same route as Hannibal and go to
Italy. Scipio managed to slow down Hasdrubal’s progress. Scipio eventually met the armies of Mago
Barca. Over several days the Roman and Carthaginian armies would mobilize, look
at each other because neither wanted to make the first move, and then go back
to camp. Then Scipio sent his cavalry to attack at dawn. The Carthaginian army
didn’t have time to eat and formed its battle lines to counter how Scipio had
prepared them the last couple of days. Except this time Scipio changed his
lines. Previously the Roman legionaries armies and Carthaginian soldiers had
been parallel. [5]But
now the legionaries faced the half trained Iberians on the flank. Scipio scored
a massive victory losing only 7000 troops and killing or capturing 48,000 enemy
troops. This was the end for Barcid Spain. Hannibal’s homeland was taken from
him. This is the turning point of the war.
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