Ha, Rome is looking to piggyback on your success in the war! Better hope you can wrap it up quick before they can get too many gains.
I should have seen it coming, after all, but they no longer had the Destroy Carthage mission so I figured they would leave it alone. Never understimate how opportunistic the AI can get. Fortunately, there is nothing like a war against the Romans to get Carthage into last stand mode. They might not like the position they ended up piggybacking to since they didn't gain much and now their borders are getting quite interesting.
Chapter 14: The Second Punic War (III)
Roman Intervention
The war between Celtiberia and Carthage was reaching its final stage when a sudden interloper got in the middle of it. Rome's irruption in the war had been a surprise for everyone, even for many Romans. Actually, in recent times the Roman Senate had dialed down their traditional anti-Carthaginian rethoric and had refused to intervene during the Punic conquest of Sicily. The rise of a Celtic power in the west and an alliance of the Hellenistic powers in the east had led many to believe that the most sensible option was to ally the Phoenicians.
But the tide of the war made them realize that Carthage was done for. The once awe-inspiring state was in shambles and even if they managed to stop the enemy advance and force a not-so-disfavorable peace, their future as an dominant power and their usefulness as allies was put in question. Rome standed to gain more by feasting on its corpse than by trying to keep it alive. And the Romans, ever the practical bunch, went to war citing Carthaginian support of pirates as the casus belli.
Before any of the sides already at war could react, two legions disembarked at Malta and two more did the same close to the city of Carthage. The Roman navy destroyed half the Carthaginian one at Cossyra. The damaged ships that survived the clash against the Romans were then caught and sunk by the Celtiberian navy, leaving Carthage without any meaningful way to project whatever strenght they had left outside of Africa.
Gaul
Hannid had already sent one half of his forces led by the young Ambonid back to Gaul to contain Barca and suffocate the Gaulish rebels. There, since the numerical disadvantage was far too great to risk a direct attack, he contented himself with beating the rebels and hostigating the Carthaginians in much the same way as the Numidians had hostigated the Celtiberians in Africa.
That way any momentum that the attack on Europe had been able to gather was lost. Barca was asked to return to Africa but he could not since there was no fleet left to carry him. With and increasingly demoralized and starving army, and with the Gaulish tribes not willing to follow him a second time, the Carthaginian barely managed to keep his men together during the rest of the war and posed a threat no longer.
The Scramble for Africa.
With Carthage postrated, the war seemed to devolve into a race between Celtiberia and Rome to occupy the most land, the former from the west and the latter from the east. Hannid himself, once finished in Sicily, joined the task.
Still, like a wild beast, Carthage proved to be most dangerous when surrounded. From some place near Oea an army led by Magonid himself appeared. It was a big army, not as big as the one who had rampaged throughout Iberia in the War of the Mare, but bigger than any other army the Punics had fielded during the current war. By now, most of the invaders were somewhat scattered in their hurry to block each other from gaining more land so there was no way any of them could stand against this new threat.
Magonid beat both Romans and Celtiberians in several occasions but the size of his army made it impossible for him to pursue the defeated armies and his many victories only served to protect a rather small land from being taken. Finally Hannid decided to join with the remnants of the other Celtiberian armies in the region and confront Magonid in open battle. Some say the Celtiberian High Chief did this out of respect for the Carthaginian Suffet, some say that he sought an epic final victory for propaganda purposes.
The Battle of Sabratha
Magonid was a flexible and somewhat unorthodox commander. His recent victories against the Celtiberians were not only because of his numerical advantage, but also because he had found a way to counter the cavalry based army of his enemies. Instead of using his few elephants in a first attack, he positioned them in the rear of each flank. That way, every time the Celtiberian cavalry tried to flank the Carthaginian lines, the elephants advanced towards them and spook their horses, forcing them to retreat. At the same time, by keeping the elephants behind, they were protected from horse archers by his own cavalry. With this tactic, and with intensive use of archers and slingers to soften up the Celtiberian infantry before clashing with his militia, he had managed to outdo the brave but unimaginative enemy commanders.
Hannid listened carefully to what the defeated commanders could tell him about their respective encounters with Magonid before presenting battle. When the time came, he deployed his troops as if he was going to follow the same script as the other commanders. Infantry in the middle with cavalry in the flanks.
Then he ordered the cavalry to attack. As usual, the Carthaginian cavalry moved aside to let the elephants stop the Celtiberian horses.
But the horsemen changed their direction and charged directly against the Carthaginian militia, breaching its lines and getting to the archers. At the same time the Celtiberian infantry bursted forward. Magonid, surprised, ordered his cavalry to attack the infantry's flanks
But this only served to stop the first line of infantry, who made room for the second to pass through the center. And, with the Carthaginian militia tied up, the horse archers attacked too to neutralize the enemy elephants.
This tactic was so unexpectedly aggresive that it was succesful. While the Celtiberians suffered many casualties themselves, the Punic army was completely destroyed and Magonid captured. it After word spread that he had fought on foot with the fist line of infantry fending off the enemy cavalry, Hannid, the Phoenician who brought down Carthage, gained quite a formidable reputation.
Treaties of Leptis Magna
With all of Carthage's territory under foreign occupation, Celtiberian soldiers weary of war and the Roman consul Junius Pullus wanting a quick prize to go back to Rome with, a better solution than a continuous back and forth of messengers was needed. This better solution took the form of a reunion between Pullus, Hannid and Magonid. The neutral city of Leptis Magna, which was also interested in a quick end of hostilities, offered to host such unprecedented reunion.
Leptis Magna would eventually turn into a very prosperous center of trade.
The negotiations were sour and there were many times in which it seemed like they were about to fall apart. In the end, it was decided that Rome would receive a monetary compensation and Malta, as well as the eastern part of the territory of Nassamones. This way the Latins gained access to the commercial routes of the southern Mediterranean and a foothold from which they could expand their influence in Africa.
The Celtiberian Confederation received the rest of the islands, Mauretania (except for the territory of Massaesyli), Numidia and part of Africa, leaving Carthage with only a strip of land in the east. To integrate such huge territorial gains in the confederation, it was obvious that a new political reform was in order.
The new balance of power.