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=== African Campaign ===
In the following year he was unanimously elected to the [[consul]]ship and assigned the province of [[Sicily]]. By this time Hannibal's movements were restricted to the southwestern toe of Italy, and the war was now to be transferred to Africa. Scipio was intent on this, and his great name drew to him a number of volunteers from all parts of Italy. Interestingly, among these volunteers were the shamed survivors of the fiasco at the Battle of Cannae. Due to their public shame and berratement, they were anxious to once again prove their worth as soldiers, an asset that Scipio was quick to exploit. Scipio quickly began creating Sicily as a training camp and a staging point for his concieved invasion. However, he realized that the Carthaginian, and especially Numidian superiority in cavalry would prove decisive against the largely infantry forces of the legion. Coupled to this was that a large proportion of Rome's cavalry were dubiously loyal allies, or noble [[equites]] exempting themselves from being lowly foot soldiers. Scipio solved this pressing matter in a variety of ways, many of them quite harshly. One anecdote told how Scipio pressed into service several hundred Sicilian nobles to create a force of cavalry. The Sicilians were quite opposed to this servitude to a foreign occupier (Sicily being in Roman control only since the [[First Punic War]]), protested vigorously. Scipio ascented to their exemption from service providing they pay for a horse, equipment, and a replacement rider for the Roman Army. In this way, Scipio (through less than reputable means) created a trained nucleus of cavalry for his African campaign. With a trained army, Scipio now pressed visiting Roman Senators for permission to cross into Africa. The
The introduction ([[205 BC|205]]) of the [[Phrygia]]n worship of [[Cybele]] and the transference of the image of the goddess herself from [[Pessinus]] to [[Rome]] to bless the expedition may have affected public opinion. A commission of inquiry was sent over to Sicily, and it found that Scipio was at the head of a well-equipped fleet and army. At the commissioners' bidding he sailed in 204 and landed near [[Utica]]. Carthage, meanwhile, had secured the friendship of the Numidian Syphax, whose advance compelled Scipio to raise the siege of Utica and dig in on the shore between that place and Carthage. The following year he destroyed two combined armies of the Carthaginians and Numidians. He did so by approaching by stealth and setting fire to the Carthaginian-Numidian camp, where the combined army became panic stricken and fled only to be put down by Scipio's army. Though not a "battle," both Polybius and Livy estimate that the death toll in this single attack exceeded 40,000 Carthaginian and Numidian dead, and more captured. The praise and condemnation for this act is roughly proportional. Polybius said that it "of all the brilliant exploits performed by Scipio this seems to me the most brilliant and more adventurous." One of Hannibal's principle biographers, [[Theodore Ayrault Dodge]], goes so far to suggest that this attack was out of cowardice, and spares no more than a page upon the event in total, despite the fact that it secured the siege of Utica, and effectively put Syphax out of the war. The irony of Dodge's accusations of Scipio's cowardice is the attack showed traces of Hannibal's accumen for the ambuscade.
Scipio quickly
With Carthage now deserted by her allies, and being surrounded by a veteran and undefeated Roman army which Dodge states was the best ever fielded, Carthage began opening the diplomatic channels of negotiation. It was here that the unthinkable occured: Hannibal Barca returned to Carthage. Despite Scipio's moderate terms offered to Carthage, Carthage suddenly suspended negotiations and again prepared for war. In these events, an eerie parallel can be cited with Napoleon Bonaparte's Hundred Days campaign. It is a testament to Hannibal's leadership that suddenly the mood in Carthage became one of despair to of jubiliation. The army that Hannibal returned with is a subject of much debate. Apologists for Hannibal often claim that his army was mostly composed of, ironically, Italians pressed into service which in Southern Italy, and that most of his elite veterans (and certainly cavalry) were spent. Scipio's advocates tend to be far more suspicious, and believe the number of veteran forces to remain significant. Regardless, Hannibal had a trained pool of soldiers who had fought personally in Italy to call upon, as well as a devastating weapon: eighty massive war elephants. Hannibal could boast a strength of 58,000 infantry and 6,000 cavalry, to which Scipio could answer with 34,000 infantry and 8,700 cavalry. The two generals met on a plain between Carthage and Utica forever immortalized as [[Battle of Zama|Zama]] to do battle on [[October 19]], [[202 BC]]. Despite mutual admiration, negotiations floundered due to Roman allegations of "Punic Faith," referring to the breach of protocols which ended the First Punic War by the Carthaginian attack on [[Saguntum]], as well as percieved breach in contemporary military etiquette (Hannibal's numerous ambuscades).
The Battle of Zama itself is recounted elsewhere, but it is noteworthy to cite Scipio's contribution to its outcome. Hannibal had arranged his infantry in three phalangial lines designed to overlap the Roman lines. His strategy, so oft reliant upon subtle strategems, was simple: a massive forward attack by the war elephants would create vulnerable gaps in the Roman lines, and these would be attacked from lines of infantry, and supported by cavalry. Rather then lining his Roman forces in the traditional manipular lines, which put the velites, princeps, and triari in succeeding lines of 500 men groups, he instead put the maniples in a chequer pattern, with his elite heavy infantry in diagonals. This was done to match the length of the Carthaginian line, but also as a strategem against the war elephants. When the Carthaginian elephants charged, they found well layed trops afore the Roman position, and were greeted by Roman trumpeters which drove many amok out of confusion and fear. Roman javelins were used to good effect, and the sharp trops caused great distress among the pachyderms. Many of them were so distraught, in fact, they charged back into their own Carthaginian lines. However, the Roman infantry was greatly rattled, and it was in this time that Massinissa's Numidian and Laelius' Roman cavalry began to charge the opposing cavalry off the field. This was done to great success, but perhaps too much vigor as both commanders pursued their routing Carthaginian counterparts. The resulting infantry clash was fierce and bloody, with neither side achieving local superiority. The battle was won when the pursuing allied cavalry rallied, and charged the rear of Hannibal's army, causing what many historians have called the "Roman Cannae."
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