Battle+of+Zama

**The Battle of Zama**

 * In 202 BC the Battle of Zama started. Hannibal and Scipio met and Hannibal tried to make him stop attacking. He asked for peace and said that Carthage would never expand beyond Africa. Scipio disagreed and said that if Hannibal had come back to Africa before Scipio got there he would have agreed to the peace offer.**
 * The next day, Hannibal and Scipio lined up their armies. Both armies had about 40000 men. The Romans had more cavalry because they had marched through Africa to get to Carthage and had the Numidian cavalry join them.**
 * Hannibal had 80 elephants about to charge at the Romans. He put them at the front of his infantry. He had his troops in 3 horizontal lines with his best infantry at the back.**
 * Hannibal signalled for the elephants to charge and they thundered towards the Romans. The Romans bug****led and hammered their shields. This scared the elephants and made some turn back on Hannibal. The elephants scared some of the horses and scattered Hannibal's cavalry. Some of the elephants trampled the Romans and some just ran through the open spaces between the Romans.**
 * The battle went on for hours and lots of men died. After a while Scipio's men carried their wounded to the rear and charged again. In the end Hannibal's men were surrounded. 20000 men were dead and 20000 men were prisoners of the Romans.**
 * Hannibal escaped to Carthage with a some of the cavalry.**