Brilliant! Knowing that Hannibal had a pre-set kill limit, the Romans sent wave after wave of their own soldiers against Hannibal until he returned to Carthage!
Classical Antiquity (~100 BCE)
(media.piefed.social)
iirc dan carlin suggested something along the lines: what made rome a superpower was their ability to take a punch, and then get up again to win the fight.
(so basically what you said, but with boxing-framing instead of futuarama-framing)