Battle of Zama - Troop Deployment

Troop Deployment

Hannibal led an army composed of mercenaries, local citizens and veterans from his Italian campaigns, and Scipio led the already present Roman army of legionaries, along with a body of Numidian cavalry.

The battle took place at Zama Regia, near Siliana 130 km south-west of the capital Tunis. Hannibal was first to march and reach the plains of Zama Regia, which were suitable for cavalry maneuvering. This also gave an upper edge in turn to Scipio who relied heavily on his Roman heavy cavalry and Numidian light cavalry. Hannibal deployed his troops facing northwest, while Scipio deployed his troops in front of the Carthaginian army facing southeast.

Hannibal's army consisted of 45,000 infantry, 6,000 cavalry, and 80 war elephants, while Scipio had a total of 34,000 infantry and 6,000 cavalry. Putting his experienced cavalry on the flanks, Hannibal aligned his troops in three straight lines behind his eighty war elephants. The first line consisted of mixed infantry of mercenaries from Gaul, Liguria, and the Balearic Islands. In his second line he placed the Carthaginian and Libyan citizen levies, while his veterans from Italy were placed in the third line. Hannibal intentionally held back his third infantry line, in order to thwart Scipio's tendency to pin the Carthaginian center and envelop his opponent's lines, as he had previously done at the Battle of Ilipa. Livy states that Hannibal deployed 4000 Macedonians in the second line, which is normally rejected as Roman propaganda, though T Dorey suggested that there might have been a seed of truth in the story if the Carthaginians had recruited a trivial number of mercenaries from Macedonia who had gone without official blessing.

Scipio deployed his army in three lines: the first line was composed of the hastati, the second line of principes and the third line of the triarii. The stronger right wing was composed of the Numidian cavalry and commanded by Masinissa while the left wing was composed of the Italian cavalry under the command of Laelius. The greatest concern for Scipio was the elephants. He came up with an ingenious plan to take care of them.

Scipio knew that elephants could be ordered to charge forward, but they could only continue their charge in a straight line. Scipio predicted that intentionally opening gaps in his troops would result in the elephants simply continuing between them, without harming any of his soldiers. Scipio created the lanes between the army regiments across the depth of his troops and hid them with maniples of skirmishers. The plan was that when the elephants charged these lanes would open allowing them to pass through the legionaries' ranks and be dealt with at the rear of the army.

Hannibal and the Carthaginians had relied on cavalry superiority in previous battles (e.g. Battle of Cannae), but Scipio, recognizing the importance, held the cavalry advantage at Zama. This was due in part to his raising of a new cavalry regiment in Sicily and careful courting of Masinissa as an ally.

Hannibal probably hoped that the combination of the war elephants and the depth of the first two lines would weaken and disorganize the Roman advance. This would have allowed him to complete a victory with his reserves in the third line and overlap Scipio's lines. Though this formation was indeed well-conceived, it failed to produce a Carthaginian victory. The two men are said to have met face-to-face before the battle.