RoughRomanMemes

Explanation: Scipio Africanus, a famous military commander of the Roman Republic, got his first major taste of combat against the brilliant Carthaginian general Hannibal Barca. Scipio was only a junior officer at the time, serving alongside his father, but he was duly impressed by the stratagems of Hannibal, who would spend the next ~15 years fighting the Roman Republic in Italy.

Scipio, for his part, would spend the next 15 years ~~training with monks in a Tibetan mountain monastery to become the baddest motherfucker on earth~~ studying Hannibal's tactics and learning the art of war in a... hands-on manner. Scipio would go on to lead forces in an immensely successful campaign in Spain against Carthage, using many of Hannibal's tactics against Carthaginian forces, and then make a daring invasion of the Carthaginian heartland in North Africa (hence his victory title - 'Africanus').

Only this final threat would force Hannibal to leave Italy to defend Carthage, at which point the two generals met. Scipio, for his part, deeply admired Hannibal as a military genius, but that was also why he was so eager to face Hannibal. Did Scipio learn the right lessons? Did he prepare the right way? Could the student beat the (unintentional) teacher?

At the Battle of Zama, Scipio's stratagem to neutralize the enemy war elephants worked, Hannibal was driven back, and the Second Punic War was ended with a Roman victory.

Years later, the two generals would meet as ambassadors in the court of a foreign monarch, and express mutual respect and admiration despite being on opposite sides of the war.