Hamilcar Barca

Actually, it was a little more colourful than that, Dio Cassius gave an account of his brutal torture by the Carthaginians:

Indeed, how the hell did he get that title again?

There are far worse exmple of individuals who have been dubbed "The Great". I think Hanno "the Great " of Carthage is least deserving of it, all he did was go and confiscate Libya from a bunch of disorganised tribesman. Kinda like Mussolini in 1937, except Musslini was even more pathetic. Add to that the fact that Hanno did not support the Barca's and you've got yourself a right asshole who was, in my opinion, partly to blame for Carthages overall destruction. Who do I think is the best Roman general? Thats a damn hard question. S. Africanus, G. Marius, L. Sulla, J. Caesar and Belisarus all had vast contributions to Rome's military success. Although you may argue that Belisarus is a Byzantine general, he existed before Heracleas and thus was Roman cultured.

Well actually, Sulla had already captured Athens and the Piraeus. Mithridates General, Archalus then retreated to Macedonia where he took command of an army numbering 100,000 infantry, 10,000 cavalry and 96 chariots. Sulla had only 15,000 infantry and 15,000 cavalry, thus he was badly outnumbered. But he divised a combination of both an ambush and a full frontal attack which created chaos for the Mithridatic army. But this was only a minor advantage as the enemies shear weight of numbers looked to topple the Romans. It was here that Sulla showed his brilliance as a commander as he went up and down the lines, diverting cohorts and commands to all areas of the action to constantly hold the line. Eventually he personally took control of the right wing and routed his adversaries while the left wing followed suit under Murena and Hortensius. What followed was a slaughter, only 10,000 of Archalus' men escaped alive. The Roman losses by comparison were light, in fact Sulla claimed he only lost 12 men, but this is hardly believable given the scope of the action. Later that year, Sulla followed up his victory with another at Orchomenus. This time 60,000 of the enemy were killed and Mithridates was left without an army. The war from that point onwards was a simple affair. As you can guess Chaeronea was my favorite of the above victories, Alesia been a close second. I would have added Ecnomus to that list also as it was Rome's greatest naval victory.

Yeah, I thought it would be difficult but thanks everyone anyway.

I'm afraid I don't know that much about the Spanish cavalry in Gaul. The Romans had all sorts of nationalities fighting for them as auxillaries, most of which didn't get credit unless they played a crucial role in victory. But during the latter stages of his Gallic campiagns Caesar made good use of the heavy Germanic cavalry who played a vital role at Alesia. But I think the reason that his Gallic legions got so much credit was because of their contribution to his victory over Pompey at Pharsalus.

Scythed Chariots also required space to gather speed. At Chaeronea in 86BC, The Mithridatic army had 96 of them but Sulla engaged them so quickly that they came upon the Romans slugishly and were easily disposed of, the legions consequently laughed at this and asked for more of them. The only time that they ever really created havoc for the Romans was at Sentinum (295BC) when the Gauls used them against the Roman left wing, but even then the Romans still won the battle. Sentinum was also the first time that the Romans had seen chariots used in battle and so their initial confusion is forgivable. Despite the success of them under the old reigns of the Hitites and Caanites, by the time of the mid 3rd Century BC, chariots had become outdated and mediocre devices. On the topic of elephants, I belive that among the commanders who made good use of them was Hamilcar Barca who used them effectively and decissively in the Truceless war in the battles of the Bagradas River and at Numantia.

As Skenderbeg pointed out, heavy cavalry (which would latter become the mainstay of early and middle medieval warfare) was something which Rome did not use decissively nor find effective ways to deal with. Adrianople is my personal favourite when it comes to illustrating this point.

OK, OK we all know what year the great Roman battles occurred in e.g. Zama 202BC, Pydna 168BC, Strasbourg 357AD etc But something which always bothers me is that I can rarely find specific dates which include both day and month as well. Sure most of the big ones are covered such as Cannae on Aug 2 and Allia on July 18. But I'm having real difficulty in tracking down dates for the majority of other battles such as Vercellae, Sentinum or Beneventum etc. Does anyone know a good website or book which would be useful??? I would really appreciate it.

Alesia and Aquae Sextiae are my favourite Roman victories. But Drepanum is my favourite defeat, I always loved the story of how Pulcher managed to mess up what should have been an easy victory - which was in turn fully exploited by Adherbal. I also find great interest in Hamilcars victory at The Saw during the Truceless War.

On Trajans coloumn, there is a depiction of the testudo formation been used successfully in a siege situation against the Dacians The teusto has advanced alongside the fortified walls and the legionaries at the front are using a type of crowbar to force open an entrence while recieving protection from enemy missiles by their colleagues. Another account of the Testudo's success is recorded in the Social war by Appian in his civil wars where he refers to a besieged Italian town been taken by similar means, stressing the exasperation of the defenders whose consistent arrow fire upon the testudo does nothing to impede its efforts. These are of course but two accounts of the Testudo's success but they do illustrate its practibility when used at the right time and place.

I find it interesting that Diocletian gets no mention, after all he did bring stability to the empires borders. I also agree that Basil II was the greatest warrior Byzantine Emperor, but it must be noted that after Heraclius' reign, Rome and Byzantium were in no ways alike. In any case I will include him also in my list I rank the top 5 as: 1. Trajan 2. Diocletian 3. Basil II 4. Aurelian 5. Constantine I