Unit Browser for RTR: Imperium Surrectum

Short description

Strong, disciplined and reliable infantry equipped with Roman equipment in Italy. At Cannae, these were the men who folded the flanks of the Romans and ensured their total encirclement.

Description

Spearmen recruited from the home provinces of the Carthaginian Empire have always been just as key to its success as their excellent cavalry and bountiful mercenaries, and from nowhere more so than Libya. However, the Empire has outlasted its Phoenician forebears, and has been fighting for a long time. When once they fought against African tribal armies or the men of Iberia, now the men of Rome stand in the way as their greatest obstacle.

The Libyans have undergone major transformations during the course of the wars with the Romans, or the Punic Wars as they are often known. Many of their techniques (and much of their equipment) were 'borrowed' from the Romans. Their armour is almost identical - chain mail nearly identical to the Roman lorica hamata, although in cases it actually WAS the same armour, as in Carthage's Italian Campaigns many soldiers wore this armour after stripping dead Romans. Their shields that wouldn't have looked out of place in the hands of a hastatus either (also actually stolen from the Roman infantry during the 2nd Punic War), save for the Carthaginian emblem painted on the front - in this case, Pegasus, discovered on Carthaginian coins struck in the same era.

The Libyans moved more towards the Roman way of fighting, and although nowhere near a manipular army, they definitely separated more from Greek influence than their predecessors. They fight mainly with their spears, and when they do use their swords, they use the falcata, an Iberian weapon feared by the Romans, rather than the Greek xiphos. Late Libyan Spearmen are the backbone of the Carthaginian Army, the only ones (except for the Sacred Band) that could hope to engage Roman troops in front line combat while the strong Carthaginian cavalry outflanked them, the strategy with which Hannibal enjoyed his fame on the plains of Italy, the greatest example of this being at Cannae. Whilst Hannibal's mercenaries in the middle backpedalled away from the Romans, and his cavalry came in from behind, the Libyans formed the arms of the formation, pincers that closed in at the sides to seal the fate of the Romans.