Couple of thoughts: 1) Iberia even under Barkid control still would retain much more of it's native culture and language then under Rome. Carthage wasn't as thorough in "Punification" of its regions as Romans with their "Romanisation". 2) Parthians might not had had power and authority to command Eastern Mediterranean but Sassanian Persia, in the other hand, certainly would. Also cudos for pointing out invaliability that "If OnLy CaRtHaGe SeNt ReInFoRcEMeNtS tO hAnNiBaL" argument.
Exactly, only so many mercenaries to go around. What're they gonna do? Pay off Egypt, macedon, and the Seleucids? They'd still need 100k men altogether I bet to take rome at this point. With siege equipment.
Plus Hannibal although a genius, is completely different from the other great conquers of history. He would have eventually stopped any additional conquests. Iberia would be full conquered along with at least southern Italy, and possibly the coast of south france
If only Hannibal had found a way to build his asteroid attractor to squash Rome. Nah but really Jokes aside Carthage's only real chance to stop Rome was in a time when they had not yet or fully understand the true threat of Rome.
If Rome didn't diplomatically outmanoeuvre Macedonia and bogged it down in proxy war, there's a big chance that Phillip V's army would join Hannibal in Italy.
@@Historyfan476AD not really, Samnium is the most likely one to rebel, as well as some etruscan cities and the southern tribes. Umbria is a tossup but the naharti and camerti probably could have rebelled. The highland tribes like the marsi and peligni probably would have stayed, as well as the frentani. Nuceria would probably stay as well, just like the northern etruscan cities, and picenum definitely could and would have betrayed rome
i always say, especially during the republican times, that rome's strength didn't necessarily stem from its ability to gain victories, but it's ability to bounce back from defeats. it's fascinating how roman armies could be almost destroyed and then just have another one ready to march in a few months time. almost any other state would've succumbed to the number of crushing defeats the romans endured, but thanks to their huge population for the time and the indoctrination of their people to live and die for the glory of rome against any odds, they prevailed in the end.
I think in the second scenario Carthage could have been able to keep some loose overlordship over the predominantly Greek Southern Italy, as those states would still likely require a foreign power to ensure their autonomy (be it from Capua or whatever other city achieves hegemony over central Italy).
Completely agree that the Seleucid empire falls apart regardless, just looking at it in the map you can imagine how hard it was to keep it together at all.
The Carthaginians didn't even want to conquer Italy, although if Hannibal achieved a total victory they might be like "oh, well that's nice" just like how his father wasn't supposed to go to Hispania, but he sent them money from his conquests and made them go "oh that's fine." Roman naval power didn't shut off Carthaginian attempts. Small ships designed for speed rather than cargo capacity could have resupplied Hannibal to minimize the attrition he takes from foraging. I know this since in Caesar's Civil War, Pompeian forces had a much stronger naval superiority over the Caesarians than the Romans had over the Carthaginians. And even massive troop movement isn't off the table, as long as the risk is worth it. Before the Battle of Decimomannu, the Carthaginians sent an army to take Sardinia because they thought the risk of the Roman navy intercepting their fleet was worth it. Would they have risked reinforcing Italy? Probably not since the risk of interception was much higher. Carthage just wanted Sardinia and Corsica back and didn't want to break up Roman control over Italy or replacing Rome with Capua, although breaking off a few cities from the Roman sphere of influence into their own might be attractive. So if Rome was sacked by Hannibal, the Romans would almost certainly accept Carthaginian peace terms, unless Hannibal went rogue and pretended the Romans didn't accept. If Rome fell and didn't accept, I guess Hannibal would do all of what you said. Hannibal taking Rome was very unlikely since he sucked at sieges. However if the Carthaginians can take Sardinia after Decimomannu, more of Rome's naval power has to be put on guarding grain ships since Hannibal isn't letting the Italian farmers grow their crops. One estimate is that this could triple the prices of grain imports. The Roman treasury would still not run out by the time Scipio had his successful campaign in Spain, but if the Sardinian campaign delayed his campaign by 3 years, this combined with the increased price of grain imports would drain Rome dry. It's possible the Romans might agree to moderate peace terms before then since they'd still have 90% of Italy under Carthaginian terms. Or maybe they'll just be like "Oh treasury is going to run out. Uhhh... anyone want to raise taxes to fund the war?" since they already did that stunt after Cannae. It's a long shot, but winning the battle of Decimomannu and using fast ships optimized for speed than cargo gives them a better shot than trying to send soldiers to Italy.
Rome played a big role in weakening the Seleucids, so I wonder if they would truly fall ultimately. Interestingly Hannibal left Carthage and led fleets for the Seleucids later in the Roman-Seleucid war, and their defeat marked the decline of the Seleucid Empire. Rome had also stopped the Seleucids from fully defeating the Ptolemies a few years earlier by intervening in their war. Maybe they wouldn't have been mostly conquered by the Parthians without Rome opposing them? And perhaps the Maccabean revolt wouldn't have been successful. If Christianity ever did happen somehow, I imagine Manichaeism would actually become a much more relevant faith in Europe.
I would say that without roman pressure the seleucids still wouldve fallen, just a bit later than they did. the successor states of alexander were easily capable of weakening themselves in their endless wars with eachother, rome just sped up the process. I think the seleucids were already in decline to begin with, they had so many enemies. rome was the final straw on the camels back.
I doubt the Germans would've conquer Gaul. The Gauls were at the early stages of civilization like Rome and were more advanced and had far better social structure than the Germans and unified briefly to fight off the Roman threat to their South, and this is not counting Gaulias monstrous population at the time meaning they can replace their loses and keep fighting. If you doubt that the Celts were not civilized, they had a trading system, cities with walls and when Julius Ceasar marched in Germania for 1 week he couldn't even find one person let alone a city.
Why don't you rank all states that claimed to be the roman empire in your next video? They aren't more than a dozen I myself am currently looking on a similar idea.
My take: the Carthaginian state was much more likely destined to disintegrate than stay together, anyway. I think what would've happened is that they conquered Iberia besides the northern mountain regions, and eventually added Morocco, Marseille, all relevant islands, and perhaps Magna Graecia. But this would be the high watermark. Those regions would soon drift away under the control of local Carthaginian oligarchs, mostly informally rather than officially. This is of course also what happened originally with Carthage itself being an offshot of the Phoenicians. Of these states (I imagine there are 2-3 in Iberia, 1 in Marseille, 1 in Syracuse 1 in Morocco, and Numidia ofc would not be held for long), the more successful ones would hire the local tribes as mercs serving as the army to repel mainland attempts to reintegrate them, and some of these would fall to these same tribes, with them integrating some of the Carthaginian bureaucracy and other civilized shit and becoming bigger headaches for the Romans than they were in our timeline. So Carthage would remain as the most powerful among these Punic states, mainly controlling Tunisia and Libya, some of Algeria, all the Western Med islands, and ports all over the Med, but going less inland than in OTL. Rome or some equivalent Latin faction would still become the dominant power. I think any Italians that broke their alliance with Rome would eventually gather around Rome again once some Celts or Germans invade from the North. Some kind of re-unification was just the most likely outcome. This does nothing in the long run but delay everything by a couple decades to centuries. They'd either conquer Iberia 200-300 years later, or they'd never conquer them, staying disappointingly medium-sized. I imagine this smaller Rome would still conquer Gaul, some of the Balkans and Greece, perhaps still the Levant and Egypt, because let's be frank, their leaderships were fucking inept and Egypt somehow decided 1000 years before that they'd from now on be free real estate for foreign conquerors. But I think the later Iberia scenario is more likely.
It's true Carthage wad more concerned about trade profits which is why they hired mercenaries rather train an army and navy from their own population. Rome was about military conquest and Carthage was about trade and wealth. Great video.
Great video. The biggest fault in many "Carthage wins" scenarios is that some people believes that had Hannibal won then Carthage would simply replace Rome and become the empire that Rome historically was which was NEVER happening even IF the Barca family takes over completely. Other things might happen instead without being anihilated by Rome Carthage might explore more of the African west coasts maybe even eventually (With serious colonization efforts) they might reach all the way to southern Africa. And that would be the extent of Carthaginian territorial expansion as you said the Carthaginians were not a military power. The idea of them for example conquering Gaul is unthinkable, and other than whatever Greek colonies in the Western mediterranean is just not happening at all even in a planing stage. Basically like you said the Carthaginians like their Phoenician origins they preferred trade = They were bussinessmen not warlords. After all especially after the Marian reformation the Roman Legions were the world's first professional army while Carthage relied ridiculously too much on mercenary armies - perhaps led by a core of Carthaginian troops but nothing that could rival Roman or or Greek military traditions. I allways was of the understanding that it was largely thanks to Roman interference that weakened the Gauls from being able to at least slow the Germanics down if not stopping it alltogether which was made impossible due to later Roman interference/conquests. Though I can actually imagine Vercingetorix riding atop a mighty war elephant trampling his enemies and uniting much of Gaul LOL. But that is just my imagination brought on by me playing Rome Total war as Gaul (Without the elephants of course)
YESSSS NEW VIDEO!!!!! Request: could you please do a video ranking all romen and byzantine generals please but mabe in 2 separate videos then do the roman republic or something like that doesn't have to be in that order overly.
I'm not very keen on making a ranking on Roman generals, though I may do a video regarding the most famous (or infamous) Roman Generals. PS: Your RU-vid account has the name of the best Roman general of the Republican period.
@@spectrum1140 ok i understand how that woud take forever now. Ps yes i used google for number 1 general it said this and i added it with out thinking it through when i tried to figure out who was the best i got multiple minegranes so i tried asking history's. But thats fine ill try again myself please keep making top noch videos
When discussing the "Hasdubal successfully reinforces Hannibal" scenario, you omit one very crucial detail -- that in seeking to destroy these reinforcements and prevent said reinforcement Rome was making a massive gamble. I'm you (Spectrim) know the story well but for those who don't -- there's an entirely plausible scenario where Hannibal learns that Rome had learned of his reinforcements and was sending nearly every available soldier to stop his armies from hooking up; if that had happened, he could have very easily have trapped the desperate Roman army between his own dwindled forces and those of his brother, effectively giving Rome a second Cannae while also giving his own forces a much needed second wind.
I don’t think the Seleucids would have collapsed as they wouldn’t have fought and lost the battle of Magnesia and pay those crazy war reps, and instead they would have taken Greece, and Antiochus the great would probably also eventually reverse the collapse of the empire and Antiochus IV and be able to replace the ptolemies as there now was no Rome to protect them, and destroyed Alexandria and their as they were so close to do in 6th Syrian war
Could you do what if samnium won the Samnite Wars? It could have a different version for them winning the second or winning the third. They are interesting cause they had something similar to manipular legions while rome was still using old timey phalanxes
I think your guess after the 2 punic war doesn't have that much sense, becouse hannibal apart from being a great commander clearly was intelligent, so I guess he would have thought about the time after his death and prepared something for avoiding total colapse
It's just fun to think about history in a "what if" way. What if rome never fell for example. What if Alexander lived longer. What if the mongols managed to take europe. Etc etc.
What do you mean they dont? If: -hannibal didnt lose his siege weapons by crossing the alps -the roman elected dictator wasnt chaddacity embodied flavius and kept charging in battle causing more disastrous millitary defeats -the numidians didnt ally with the romans -demoralized romans sued for peace after Cannae -the elephant charge at the battle of zama actually worked and didnt wipe out hannibal’s cavalry -the secret roman detachement that was sent to meet hasdrubal in the north was detected These are all scenarios that would favor carthage to win the war. If unknown variables turned out to favor the romans in our timeline it doesnt mean that in every single timeline rome is going to win
Can you do an alternate history about what if Labienus didn’t defect from Caesar during the civil war like how it would of possibly effected Marc Anthony’s rise in power
In 213, Roman Emperor Caracalla declared all free citizens within the borders of the Empire, Citizens of Rome. Carthage conquered territories for their profit, all funds flowed back to Carthage. Look at Roman aqueducts, roads, sewers and bridges which benefited locals. Carthage only asked what is in it for us.
One complaint about this video is ypu saying the samnites were threatened by the greeks. The samnites were not really threatened by anyone but rome which is the main reason why they revolted so commonly, and if Capua became independent it is a possibility they might have joined Samnium as they had a fairly similar culture so yeah they were stronger than you give em credit for
Or Carthaginians could hijack control of Rome without any wars and start their own Phoenician dynasty that in a few decades would lead the state to its demise. I'm not sure how it is possible, but... Oh, wait.
@@libertarianclips6370 he had 30k troops to almost none. All he had to do was camp out around it and starve them into submission. It's not rocket science. Excursions into Campagna would have kept them well enough supplied if Carthage wouldn't step up itself
@@12jswilson except Rome would just levy armies from around the Italian peninsula (as they did in reality) and those armies would relieve the siege. Sieging Rome would mean that Hannibal would have to spread his 30k troops around the city. Hannibal would not have room or possibility to do any briliant tricks of his, so 30-40k army, that Romans could muster quite fast, would be enough (with addition of city's defenders) to at least push Hannibal back, or even smash his divided army against the walls of city
@@12jswilson he hadn't enough troops to cut all of Romes supply lines and the Romans would have sacked the county side so Hannibals troops would have starved long before the Roman population did. And because Rome didn't consist of only one city and the Italian allies stayed loyal to to Rome the Romans could just recruit a new army (like they did in reality) and then Hannibals army would have been in a trap between the city and the Roman army which means that Hannibal would have found himself getting sieged.
Numbers also, are something that many historians forget to count (or, in some ways, prefer to add, to make the story more, epic). We suposse to accept this 30.000 numbers (that I doubt were real, also from before Cannae). When you think about numbers, you need to think about FOOD and ORGANIZATION. So, you need to care about feeding every day, 30k people each, and that food arrive easily were the army is (and without being rooted). Without any way to protect that, not only from the enemies, like in this case Rome, if not also from the bacterias, that army of "put the number here" it's just a bunch of hungry people how it's weakened mainly by maledies and completly destroyed by just one fight. Also the Romans, how were truly genious about logistics had this type of problems. The maximum numbers of an army, it's always a suposition, but, because it have a lot of organisation to think of, I guess that any ancient army, didn't had more than 10k (and that, still is, in my opinion, a high number). More than that, was, from the technology of this age, just a nightmare nearly impossible to acomplish without destroying the sense of an army. But, that's only my supposition, so it's not a very "historic" information.
One point I think you’re missing is that Rome was already in the middle of invading Greece by the time the second Punic war began. Which was one of the reasons Hannibal was so successful, the Roman forces were split
No. No war in history is impossible to win. All it takes in one event, instance, weather change, or even a disloyal general. Every war is winnable. Many wars that were won could've been lost if one singular event didn't happen.
@@liubei3058 No. Usually it's not "all it takes is single event". That's bullshit. Reality is: 2nd punic war was winnable ONLY IF Hannibal did everything right (which he in many regards did) and Rome did ABSOLUTELY NOTHING and just let Hannibal kill them all, which NO ONE would ever do (and we're talking about Rome here, for Christ's sake)
@@pawemarsza9515 Thankfully you're wrong. A few Roman Generals could've thought one day they wanted to betray Rome, feeling like they were seeing the writing on the wall, and join Carthage. Suddenly Hannibal has more generals, more troops, and more supplies. He can kill them later if he wants He could then make a march on Rome. The fighting wouldn't be easy, but if he had qualified Roman Generals helping him out, it could've been very winnable. Or, perhaps every tribe and nation in the territories of Rome decided it wasn't worth it, and they all rise up in rebellion and join Hannibal. Rome loses pretty much all of Italy, with Hannibal joined up by most of Italy from North to South. Or, even, Rome could just decide it wasn't worth it and surrenders. If we change one thing about Rome in this scenario, that being take away their 'Fight to the last man' mentality, then they could've lost the war. One thing, that's all it takes, for a war to be winnable. So it's okay to be wrong.
@@liubei3058 lmao. What you described is no one thing. There a lot of unluckily things that happend BEFORE Cannae. You add even more unlickely things. That's MANY things that need to happen, NOT ONE
@@pawemarsza9515 You're still wrong. You didn't even read what I said, making you wrong again. I listed 3 different options. My third option there is one thing if nothing else. Rome decides to surrender. Unlikely doesn't matter here. America, for example, shouldn't exist. Britian was the great superpower of the world, versus a handful of revolutionaries. If France stayed totally out of the war, it could've ended differently. Change Rome's idea of how to fight a war to what the Carthaginians were familiar with, and the Carthaginians could've won. Another idea. A rebellion population in Rome manages to overthrow the government and surrenders to Hannibal. Rome fails to prevent supplies and reinforcements getting to Hannibal and he could've won. It really ain't that hard, Chief. By one thing, I'm talking events. One event happens and the whole game changes. Butterfly effect, look it up.
I think it was possible in the second Punic war by a shit tone. All Rome would have to do would just be have their citizens get fucking tired of losing hundreds of thousands of ment
If Carthage had won human sacrifice especially child sacrifice would be a normal practice glad that Roman won because they are the light and the civilisation of the world at that time.
it probably would've been better for world history if a trading empire won out, instead of a military dictatorship like Rome. Even though i love the Romans, having a trading republic as a mainstay for legitimacy of Western Culture, would've been better. Same with the Athenian empire losing instead of winning vs Sparta.
To be fair, Carthage kinda won the first and second war if we go by casualties alone. In the first one they lost 130,000 men killed whereas the Romans lost up to 250-300,000 men killed. In the second one they lost 270,000 men killed whereas the Romans lost 500-600,000 men killed. Carthage cost Rome up to 1 million men killed in battle, it's crazy.
When you think about it even if Rome killed every single carthaginian (which they didn't, a lot were sold as slaves) Carthage's kill count would still be higher
@@mohamedelhediissa289 Up to 450,000 killed then, not nearly the 900,000-1,000 000 Romans killed by Carthaginian forces in the 2 wars. I guess surviving that much is a testament to the durability but between the 2nd and 3rd Centuries A.D losing 10,000 men in battle for Rome was considered catastrophic, you also had blunders against the Sassanids like Barbalissos (60,000 Roman soldiers against 35,000 Persians) and Edessa (70,000 Romans against 50,000 Persians).
Carthage would have to create an alliance with greeks and persia and all the tribes of celts and gauls and Germans then attack Rome but this is a fantasy alliance and battle.
Rome was equally likely to break up into nothingness for everyone claiming Carthage would just fall if Rome won well we have the hindsight of knowing what Rome did with its victory but if anybody looks at the world map and army/navy statistics a year before the war started then not only would you think Carthage would have had a better chance at winning but youd also think the war would burn Rome out to the point it would never be capable of running its republic even if Carthage loses Rome was unstable, the city of Rome was overpopulated, and conquering the world the way they conquered the world was unimaginable for the time Carthage was a major power in the Mediterranean that other powers believed was there to stay, while the Greeks and many others believed Rome were the barbarians. infact the Seleucids were very likely to defeat Parthia without Roman aid and they had the best leadership in the Mediterranean outside of Rome at the time and they were restabilizing and close to reabsorbing Alexanders Empire once again look at the map and tell me Rome was meant to win. Carthage could have done what Rome did but Rome was not only great but very lucky
