Hello and welcome to another ancient warfare answers. There's Murray. I'm Yosper.

Together we edit Ancient Warfare magazine and today we answer questions from our listeners. That's why

it's called Ancient Warfare Answers. And I think we're getting a little bit silly because we record

one and once in one go.

And one of the questions we got asked was, if the Roman Legion was so superior to the phalanx, how did Hannibal manage to use such inferior methods and defeat the Roman armies

for years?

Well, there you go.

That's a big one to answer in only a few minutes.

There was a little bit more. Obviously, we can only fit a hundred characters. So he also sort of asked about the,

that's disco shootout, asked about the Gauls and other sort of tribal warfare that Hannibal

takes advantage of and is able to defeat the Romans with those. And I think the first thing,

which you could say is, did Hannibal use a phalanx? We don't know enough really about

Carthaginian warfare, although the reality of the warfare of the time is probably that it was

similar to a phalanx. And so the idea is, yes, how could he use inferior technology in terms of the phalanx

and tribal warfare against this legion which becomes the conqueror of the Mediterranean?

And I think the answer is that Hannibal's use of tactics, strategies, ambushes, and just generally outthinking

the Romans is what wins him to battle. If you look at the Battle of Can I, he takes massive

advantage of the fact that in a traditional, both the phalanx war battle and a legion battle if you're advancing

you're winning but by having a crescent formation that deliberately falls back he's able to surround

the romans at can i and absolutely decimate them aided by the fact that his cavalry is able

to defeat the Roman cavalry,

which we talked about a few weeks ago in another ancient warfare answers. So I think that in that

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