Tom Holland

But according to Polybius, 20,000 of Hannibal's men are left dead on the battlefield and the same number die.

are taken prisoner and the Romans, by contrast, lost only 1,500 men.

And again, to quote Polybius, this was the result of the final battle between these two commanders and it decided the war.

I mean, anything can happen in a battle, right?

Against a less competent commander and against less well-trained troops, you can imagine Hannibal winning.

But it's clear that the effects of the fighting

over these decades and more, has been to hone the Roman army into a much more lethal killing machine than it had been at the start of the war.

They're much better drilled.

They have the gladius now, this stabbing sword that they've borrowed from the Spaniards.

It makes their infantry superb.

But the other factor, I think, which dooms Hannibal in this battle is, as we said, he doesn't have cavalry.

And Hannibal's great genius has always been for coordinating infantry and cavalry.

Yeah.

And it just doesn't work.

And the one card he really had, his elephants, the Romans know how to deal with them.

They're frightening, but they know how to cope with them.

I mean, absolutely.

Because Rome's great strength throughout has been her manpower.

And Carthage has always opted to rely on mercenaries.

Yeah.