Hannibal – Universal History

Hannibal was a Carthaginian general and statesman of the 3rd century BC.. He was one of the most outstanding strategists of Antiquity. He furthered the conquests of Hamilcar, his father, in the Iberian peninsula and led his armies across the Alps to invade Italian territories. During the Second Punic War, due to the defeats he inflicted on the Roman Republic, he was about to change the fate of the world. He died defeated without being able to carry out the purpose that he had encouraged all his life: to defeat Rome and recover control of the Mediterranean for Carthage.

Facts about Hannibal’s life

• 221 BC Hannibal is appointed head of the Carthaginian army in Spain.
• 219-218 BC After taking Sagunto, he crossed the Alps and invaded Italy.
• 216 BC After beating the Romans at Trebia and Trasimeno, he won the great victory at Cannae.
• 202 BC He is defeated in Zama by Scipio the African.
• 183 BC Commits suicide in Bithynia.

Han-Baal or HannibalPunic name meaning Gift of Baal, was born in 247 BC in the great African metropolis where all the Mediterranean races and lineages merged: Carthage. He was the eldest son of Hamilcar Barca, the great Carthaginian captain who undertook the conquest of Spain after being defeated by the Romans in the First Punic War. The Barca family, despite belonging to the nobility —descended from Queen Dido, founder of Carthage—, was supported in the Senate by the popular party and was a staunch defender of the war against Rome. That is why Hamilcar educated his children, the “lion cubs” —Hannibal was followed by Hasdrubal and Magón—, in the dangers of war and hatred of the Romans.
Hannibal was only nine years old when his father wanted him to accompany him to Spain to learn the trade of strategist, and he made him swear eternal hatred for Rome. His early youth was spent in Hispanic lands, he made his first weapons and received a broad education.
After the death of Amílcar’s successor, Asdrúbal Janto, the founder of Cartagena, Aníbal was elected general of the army and governor of Spain. He was then twenty-six years old, when he married Imilce, a Spanish princess who would give him his only son, Aspar. Despite the reluctance of the Carthaginian Senate, not very favorable to his designs and not at all generous in men and money, the young general set out to finish the truncated work of his father and annihilate Rome. First he had to consolidate Punic rule south of the Ebro, conquering several tribes: he dominated the Olcades, crossed the Tagus, subjugated the Vacceos and in 219 besieged Sagunto, a city allied with Rome, whose capture, after a heroic resistance meant the beginning of the second punic war.
Animated by the hope of allying with the peoples he found in his path, Hannibal decided to lead his army through a land route. At the head of his Iberian and North African mercenaries—they belonged to twelve nations and spoke nine different languages—he crossed the Pyrenees, where he was joined by the Gallic emissaries who would guide him through the Alpine mountains. With his 90,000 men, 12,000 horsemen and 40 elephants, it took him 36 days to cross the Alps.one of the most famous military marches of all time, which historians described in legendary tones: the ambushes of the mountaineers, the lack of grass on the peaks and above all the snow that hid the path and caused men and cavalries to fall off the cliff.

Hannibal crossing the Alps

Already in the Italian peninsula, in his march through the swampy plains of the center, with a decimated and demoralized army, Hannibal lost an eye and the only elephant that had survived. Even so he managed to rebuild his hosts and, after defeating the Romans at Trebia and Trasimeno, in 216 he amply defeated them at Cannae, despite the numerical inferiority of his men. But Hannibal did not know how to take advantage of the victory: as the Senate continued to deny him reinforcements, he decided not to attack Rome and retreat to Capua. His cause had begun to be shipwrecked, the alliances that he expected did not arrive and his brother Asdrúbal, who was going to help him with 50,000 men, died defeated. He then gave up the company and returned to Cartago after thirty-six years of absence. There he tried to negotiate an honorable peace with the Romans, but He was defeated at Zama by Scipio the African in 202and the treaty that ended the war was very onerous for the Carthaginians.
During the last years of his life, Hannibal demonstrated that he was as remarkable a statesman as he was a military genius. In his position of suffete (“magistrate”), reorganized the estate and the recovery of his city. But Rome demanded his head and he was forced to flee, first to Syria, to the court of King Antiochus, and lastly to Bithynia, where he aided King Prussia. Faced with strong pressure from the Romans, and fearing that he would be handed over by the weak Prusias, the great Carthaginian committed suicide with the poison that, according to Tito Livio, he had hidden in the barrel of his pen. He was sixty-four years old, and before ingesting it, historians say, he said these words: “Let us free Rome from fears of him, since he does not know how to wait for the death of an old man.” He was running in the year 183. Four decades later, his homeland was attacked and razed to the ground by the Roman legions. The bonfires burned for weeks and salt was sprinkled over the ashes so that Carthage would not rise again.

Hannibal’s campaign map