y hostile country far from most of its soldiers' homes. It may also be confidently inferred that Hannibal knew a great deal about the armies of his Roman enemy. He could scarcely have won so many victories over Roman armies without a sound understanding of how to negate their strengths and exploit their weaknesses; how he did so will be developed in detail when particular battles are analysed in subsequent chapters.
The modern student of Hannibal's campaigns, however, is faced at once with a nearly total absence of specific information regarding his army's organization, equipment, and tactics. We are told that the Spanish troops that made up a large part of his infantry were distinguished by the purple borders of their tunics, but are told almost nothing about their original arms and tactics, nor about those of most other components of his army.
Indeed, there is great uncertainty even about something so fundamental as the basic tactical order of Hannibal's heavy infantry. Did they fight in the phalanx order that had been the norm in much of the Mediterranean world for several centuries past, or in something comparable to the Roman manipular order, or in some array not fully comparable to either? The primary sources do not provide enough information to be clear on this crucial point--not even Polybius, who was within living memory of the events and who had both some personal knowledge of warfare and a particular interest in Roman tactics and methods.
Most modern students lean in favor of phalanx organization and tactics; to Archer Jones, Hannibal's organization and tactics at Cannae "exhibits the final development of the Macedonian art of war in the hands of a master." By the time of Zama, though, Tony Bath suggests that Hannibal's troops were armed and equipped much like Romans, which would almost necessarily mean that their tactics and organization were along something like Roman lines as well.
Zama was ...