At this time, the latter was stationed in Italy, where he had established an almost impenetrable defence, so Scipio attacked Hannibal’s base in Spain, despite a previous failed attempt that had seen both of the Roman Commanders in charge killed. Scipio’s command of the Roman armies in Spain at an early age – he was just 25 years old when he was commissioned by Rome to defeat the Carthaginians and their leader, Hannibal. Here, History of War picks ten of the most influential Generals in Roman military history… ‘Scipio Africanus Freeing Massiva’ by Gianbattista, Giambattista Tiepolo, 17 10. But there’s no denying the vast successes the Romans had in subsuming massive tracts of mainland Europe, Britain, the Middle East and North Africa. This prompted remorse on the part of Augustus when he heard of the defeat (the Romans never again attempted to push east of the Rhine, save for some retaliatory skirmishes).

Not everything went smoothly: the Romans fell foul of Germanic tribesmen at the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest (9 CE), where they lost three full legions (an estimated 15-20,000 soldiers gave up their lives during this battle alone). The Romans undertook land-grab on a huge scale, their successes down not only to the political capabilities of their elite, but to their military might and the strategic ability of their Generals. They were responsible for the Republic’s and Empire’s expansion through war, gradually completing the “Romanisation” of the provinces. From the formation of the Roman Republic in 509 BCE, through the Roman Empire’s zenith around 117 CE, and even up until the Fall of Rome and the Empire’s adoption of Constantinople as its capital in 330 CE, war played a key role in Roman expansion across the northern hemisphere.

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