Battle of Ilipa (206 BC): Scipio Wins Spain From Carthage

The Battle of Ilipa was fought in 206 BC near the town of Ilipa, north of modern Seville in southern Spain. The Roman commander Publius Cornelius Scipio, later known as Africanus, defeated a larger Carthaginian army under Hasdrubal son of Gisco and Mago Barca with a bold reversal of his usual battle line. The victory ended Carthaginian power in the Iberian Peninsula and opened the way for Scipio’s invasion of Africa.

Background

Spain was Carthage’s great base of silver and soldiers in the Second Punic War. In 211 BC the two Roman commanders there, Publius and Gnaeus Scipio, were defeated and killed. The next year Rome sent Publius’s son, the young Publius Cornelius Scipio, then about 25, to take command.

Scipio quickly changed the balance. In 209 BC he captured New Carthage (Cartagena), the Carthaginian capital in Spain, with its treasury and hostages. In 208 BC he defeated Hasdrubal Barca at Baecula, though Hasdrubal escaped and marched to Italy, where he was destroyed at the Battle of the Metaurus in 207 BC. Carthage gathered its remaining forces in Spain for a final effort.

The armies

The Carthaginian army was commanded by Hasdrubal son of Gisco, with Mago, Hannibal’s youngest brother, and included Numidian cavalry under the young prince Masinissa. Polybius gives it about 70,000 infantry, 4,000 cavalry and 32 elephants; Livy gives 50,000 infantry and 4,500 cavalry. It camped near Ilipa, on the river Baetis (Guadalquivir).

Scipio had about 45,000 infantry and 3,000 cavalry according to Polybius. Only part of this force consisted of Roman and Italian troops; the rest were Spanish allies whose loyalty and fighting quality Scipio did not fully trust.

The battle

For several days the two armies drew up facing each other without fighting. Each day Hasdrubal deployed late, with his best troops, the Libyans, in the centre and his Spanish allies on the wings. Scipio did the same, placing his legions in the centre opposite the Libyans. Both sides grew used to this routine.

On the day he chose for battle, Scipio changed everything. He had his men fed before dawn and sent out his cavalry and light troops to attack the Carthaginian outposts. Hasdrubal was forced to deploy in haste, without his men having eaten, and in his usual order. Only then did he see that Scipio had put his Spanish allies in the centre and his Roman legions on both wings.

Scipio held back his centre, so that the Libyans facing it were pinned in place but not engaged. Meanwhile the Roman wings advanced and, through a complex manoeuvre described by Polybius, swung outwards and inwards to attack the Carthaginian wings and the elephants in front of them. The frightened elephants did damage to their own side, and the Carthaginian Spaniards gave way. By the afternoon the hungry Carthaginian army was in retreat to its camp. Only a sudden heavy rainstorm stopped the Romans from storming it.

Aftermath

During the night many of Hasdrubal’s Spanish allies deserted. He tried to retreat towards the coast, but Scipio pursued closely and destroyed much of the remaining army. Hasdrubal escaped to Gades (Cádiz) and sailed for Africa, and Mago soon followed by sea.

Within months Carthage’s rule in Spain was over: Gades went over to Rome, and Mago left for the Balearic Islands and then Liguria. Scipio settled wounded veterans at Italica, near Seville, which later became the birthplace of the emperors Trajan and Hadrian. He also opened contacts with African rulers, including Masinissa, who would later fight for Rome.

Scipio returned to Rome, was elected consul for 205 BC and argued for carrying the war to Africa, a plan that led to his victory over Hannibal at the Battle of Zama in 202 BC. Rome later organised its conquests in Spain into two provinces, Hispania Citerior and Hispania Ulterior, in 197 BC.

Legacy

Military historians regard Ilipa as Scipio’s tactical masterpiece. Like Hannibal at Cannae, he concentrated his strongest troops against the enemy’s weakest points while pinning the enemy’s best troops in place, but he did so by reversing a routine that he had deliberately taught his opponent to expect. The British writer B. H. Liddell Hart wrote an admiring study of Scipio in 1926 and gave Ilipa a central place in his case that Scipio ranked among the greatest commanders of history.

Timeline

• 211 BC: Publius and Gnaeus Scipio are killed in Spain.
• 210 BC: The younger Publius Cornelius Scipio arrives in Spain as commander.
• 209 BC: Scipio captures New Carthage.
• 208 BC: Scipio defeats Hasdrubal Barca at Baecula.
• 206 BC: Battle of Ilipa; the Carthaginian army in Spain collapses.
• 206 BC: Gades goes over to Rome; Scipio returns to Rome.
• 205 BC: Scipio becomes consul and prepares the invasion of Africa.

Why it matters

Ilipa ended more than thirty years of Carthaginian rule in southern and eastern Spain, cutting off Hannibal’s main source of silver and soldiers. It began nearly six centuries of Roman presence in the peninsula and made Scipio the commander Rome would send against Carthage itself.