Hannibal

A Boy Sworn Against Rome

Hannibal Barca was born in 247 BC in Carthage, a wealthy trading city on the coast of North Africa, in modern Tunisia. Carthage had been founded centuries earlier by Phoenician settlers, sailors from what is now Lebanon, and it ruled a sea empire stretching across the western Mediterranean.

His father, Hamilcar Barca, was Carthage's leading general and a bitter enemy of Rome. According to the ancient historians, when Hannibal was about nine, his father made him place his hand on an altar and swear that he would never be a friend to Rome. Whether or not the story is true, Hannibal spent his whole life keeping that promise.

Two Powers, One Sea

In the third century BC, Carthage and Rome were the two great powers of the western Mediterranean, and they were bound to clash. In the First Punic War (264–241 BC), named after the Latin word for Phoenician, Rome built its first real navy and defeated Carthage, taking the island of Sicily.

Hamilcar responded by building a new power base in Spain, rich in silver mines and fighting men. Hannibal grew up in army camps there. In 221 BC, at just 26, he was chosen by the soldiers as their commander.

The March to Italy

In 219 BC, Hannibal besieged and captured Saguntum, a Spanish town allied to Rome. Rome declared war. The Romans expected to fight in Spain and Africa, but Hannibal had a far bolder plan: he would march overland and attack Italy itself.

In the spring of 218 BC, he set out from New Carthage (modern Cartagena) with a huge army of infantry, cavalry and 37 war elephants. He fought his way across the Pyrenees and through southern Gaul. At the wide, fast-flowing River Rhône, his engineers built enormous rafts and covered them with earth so the elephants would think they were on solid ground. Some panicked and fell in, but they are said to have survived by wading along the riverbed with their trunks raised to breathe.

Over the Roof of Europe

The hardest part came in the autumn. Hannibal led his army up into the Alps, the highest mountains in western Europe, along narrow paths above sheer drops. Local mountain tribes ambushed the column and rolled boulders down on it. Near the top, early snow fell on the old ice, and men and animals slipped to their deaths. The Roman historian Livy tells how a rockfall blocked the way, and Hannibal's men cracked the rock by heating it with fire and pouring sour wine on it. That may be a legend, but the crossing itself was very real.

After about fifteen days, the survivors stumbled down into the plains of northern Italy. Hannibal had lost perhaps half his army on the march, and he arrived with around 20,000 infantry and 6,000 cavalry. Historians still argue about exactly which pass he used.

Rome Is Stunned

Hannibal recruited Gallic warriors in northern Italy, who hated Rome, and won battle after battle. At the River Trebia in December 218 BC, he lured the Romans across an icy river and attacked them from an ambush. The following year, at Lake Trasimene, he hid his army in the hills above a misty lakeshore and trapped a marching Roman army. Around 15,000 Romans died, including their commander.

Cannae: The Perfect Trap

In 216 BC, Rome sent the largest army it had ever raised, around 80,000 men, to crush Hannibal near the village of Cannae in southern Italy. Hannibal deliberately placed his weakest troops in the centre of his line. As the Romans pushed forward, the centre slowly bent back, drawing them in. Then his best troops closed in from both sides, and his cavalry swept round behind. The Roman army was completely surrounded.

In a single afternoon, perhaps 50,000 Romans were killed, one of the bloodiest days of battle in history. Watch how it happened:

Winning Battles, Losing the War

Yet Hannibal never attacked Rome itself. He lacked the siege equipment to break its great walls, and he hoped Rome's allies would desert it. Most did not. One of his officers, Maharbal, supposedly told him exactly what he thought of that decision.

Rome changed tactics. Instead of risking more battles, it followed the strategy of Quintus Fabius Maximus, nicknamed “the Delayer”: shadow Hannibal, cut off his supplies and wear him down. Hannibal stayed in Italy for fifteen years, undefeated in any major battle but unable to win the war. In 207 BC his brother Hasdrubal marched another army over the Alps to help him, but was defeated and killed before they could meet.

Zama and Exile

Meanwhile, a brilliant young Roman general, Publius Cornelius Scipio, had learned from Hannibal's methods. He conquered Carthage's lands in Spain and then invaded Africa. Hannibal was called home to defend Carthage. In 202 BC, at Zama, Scipio's troops opened lanes in their lines so that Hannibal's charging elephants ran harmlessly through, and Roman and allied cavalry won the day. Carthage surrendered, and Scipio earned the name “Africanus.”

Hannibal went on to lead Carthage's government and reform its finances, but Roman pressure forced him into exile. He spent his last years advising Rome's enemies in the eastern Mediterranean. Around 183 BC, with Roman agents closing in, he took poison rather than be captured.

Hannibal at the Gates

Carthage never recovered its power, and in 146 BC Rome destroyed the city completely. But Hannibal's name survived. For generations, Roman parents frightened their children with the words “Hannibal ad portas!”, meaning “Hannibal is at the gates!” Commanders from Napoleon to modern generals have studied his campaigns, and military academies still teach Cannae as the perfect example of encircling an enemy. Above all, his march over the Alps remains one of the boldest journeys in history, proof of what determination and daring can achieve, even against the odds.