Revisiting Zama

[Michael Collins]

Michael's quoting me verbatim. I secretly knew he was impressed.

Well, they say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

One too many cocktails in the Polybius club, but today I will leave its cheery and welcoming confines to come out into Appian and Cassius Dio alley-ways. 

Even, if you discard Polybius and rely just on Appian and Cassius Dio, it is impossible to reduce the Battle of Zama to either a face-off or just a minor skirmish.

Appian Pun. 39-41 reports a battle in which 23,000 Roman infantry and 3000 cavalry faced down 50,000 Carthaginian troops. Appian Pun. 48 reports Hannibal suffered 25,000 killed (somewhat more than Polybius! and 8500 captured (rather less than Polybius, but still a lot of prisoners). That is a big battle, not a skirmish and not a face-off. 

Also note the tradition in Appian of the banter between Hannibal and Scipio in the Seleucid court (Syr. 10). This event is no doubt fictional, but the point of this exercise is to take Appian seriously on his own right. The interview, in which Scipio asks Hannibal to make a list of great commanders, and Hannibal lists Alexander, Pyrrhus and then himself in third, but then says that if Scipio hadn't defeated him, he would have been greater than Alexander.  The story only makes sense if Scipio had won a significant and universally recognized victory over Hannibal. 

On to Cassius Dio (Zonoras at Dio Book 17): He actually is the only person to give at date for the battle---no eclipse was visible in Africa, but if Dio consulted a historical eclipse table he may have aligned the known date with an eclipse that occurred elsewhere. The cliff notes version still describes a big battle, with elephants and elephant channels, and the report that Hannibal's army was most destroyed.

Indeed, there is no source tradition that denies that a battle took place or suggests that Scipio inflated a minor skirmish (or even a non-event) into a major one. Scipio had a lot of enemies (remember, he died in exile) , and if he had faked the battle of Zama they certainly would have called him out.

Alright, back into the Polybius Club. On Fridays we discuss 18.28-32 and drink sherry. 


I think we`ve gone over the question as to why no one was able or would have wanted to "blow the whistle" on Scipio for this.

Appian obviously had other sources for the great battle that conflict with Polybius in some major areas of deployment - a point covered earlier too.

How would you account then for the sequence of events; the cavalry battle, the skirmishes, etc. prior to Polybius`great battle that appears Appian and then later in Cassius Dio?   Who could the source have been and why would they have fabricated such a story?