is invasion of Italy, we are faced with improbabilities, outcomes that defy reasonable expectation.
Having set out to march from Carthagenian Spain to Roman Italy, through mountain passes and lands occupied by fierce tribes, we might have supposed that his army would melt away and disintegrate, or arrive so reduced and bedraggled as to be quickly dispatched by the Romans. It did not; instead he smashed several successive Roman armies sent against him, culminating with the annihilation at Cannae of an army that outnumbered his own two to one. Having achieved that, we might have expected that he would sweep on to a stunned Rome and conquered it at a stroke, but he did not, instead turning south to break up the network of subject-allies that were the basis of Roman power. Having taken that course, we might have assumed he would decisively succeed or decisively fail: either the Roman system would disintegrate or Hannibal's army, stranded in a hostile country, would be brought quickly to destruction. Neither happened.
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