Hannibal Barca (247 BC-182 BC) was a Carthaginian statesman and general who became known as one of the greatest military commanders in history due to his leadership of Carthaginian forces during the Second Punic War. He defeated the Romans in three major battles (Trebia, Lake Trasimene, and Cannae), but he was unable to make use of these triumphs and was forced to abandon his Italian campaign in 203 BC after sixteen years of fighting. Hannibal was finally defeated by the Roman general Scipio Africanus at the Battle of Zama, and he later entered the service of Bithynia. Betrayed to the Romans, he poisoned himself in 182 BC rather than enter Roman captivity.
Biography[]
Hannibal listening to a Roman envoy's insults
Hannibal Barca was introduced to warfare at an early age, learning military wisdom from his father, Hamilcar. As a youth, he fought in the Carthaginian campaigns in Spain, which were effectively a Barca family enterprise. He inherited supreme command of the army in Spain in 221 BC. Roman sources also tell that he inherited his father's burning desire to avenge Carthage's defeat by Rome in the First Punic War of 264-61 BC.
Invading Italy[]
Hannibal overseeing the crossing of the Alps
Whether or not Hannibal deliberately provoked war with Rome by attacking the city of Saguntum in 219 BC, the daring invasion of Italy that followed was well-prepared, with the route across Gaul and over the Alps scouted in advance. Hannibal took the Romans by surprise - they had assumed that he would stay in Spain and await their counterattack. The journey was hazardous in the extreme. Along the war Hannibal's army was harried by local tribes. The crossing of the Alps was tough for men and animals, especially for Hannibal's war elephants. Only a fraction of the forces that had left Spain finally reached northern Italy. A first clash at the Ticino River revealed the quality of Hannibal's Numidian horsemen, who drove the Roman cavalry into flight. An aura of success began to gather around him, and local Celtic tribesmen flocked to join his forces. The Roman intended to stamp on this invasion before it went any further. They shifted an army north to confront Hannibal at the Trebia River, but the Roman leaders were tactically naive and over-optimistic. Hannibal drew them into an attack across the river, then crushed their wings with his cavalry, while concealed troops emerged to strike the advancing Romans from the rear. The Roman legionary infantry had to smash through Hannibal's center and abandon the battlefield to escape from being massacred.
Hannibal wearing an eyepatch while suffering from a fever
The Romans failed to learn from this reverse. The following year, Hannibal moved rapidly south into Etruria. For a second time, a Roman army hastened north to give battle. Hannibal selected the prefect site for an ambush, where the road passed between steep hills and the shore of Lake Trasimene. The Romans marched into the trap and were massacred as Hannibal's army moved down from the heights, catching them with their backs to the lake.
After this crushing defeat, Fabius Cunctator took charge, signaling a change of tactics. By refusing to be drawn into battle, Fabius left Hannibal with the task of keeping his army and its animals supplied with food and fodder for an extended period in hositle territory. At the end of the campaigning season, Hannibal faced being trapped for the winter on a plain that his troops had alreadyy stripped bare of supplies. He escaped only by slipping past Fabius and his army at night, reportedly creating a diversion using cattle with torches tied to their horns.
Fruitless victory[]
Hannibal in his tent
In the summer of 216 BC Hannibal and the Roman leadership, eager for battle, engaged at Cannae. This proved the greatest triumph of Hannibal's career, but its aftermath has puzzled historians, for Hannibal made no effort to occupy and destroy the city of Rome, although it lay open to attack. Indeed, from that point onward, Hannibal's campaign lost its clarity of purpose. He had achieved his original objective: the humiliating defeat of Rome. But since the Romans would not make peace, Hannibal was left to campaign around southern Italy for years, making alliances and capturing or losing cities, winning indecisive battles, and somehow keeping his army united. The last chance of a truly decisive victory was lost when his brother, Hasdrubal Barca, commanding a fresh invading army, was killed in northern Italy at the Battle of Metaurus. Afterward, his head was thrown into Hannibal's camp.
In 203 BC, after 16 years in Italy, Hannibal was recalled to defend Carthage against a Roman invasion. He faced Scipio Africanus at Zama with an army of raw recruits, while the invaluable Numidian cavalry was now fighting for the Romans. Hannibal was defeated, and Carthage was forced to make peace on humilitating terms. Hannibal spent the remainder of his life fleeing Roman vengeance around the Medinterranean. In his last battle in 190 BC, he commanded the Syrian fleet of Antiochus III against Rhodes. Finally, Hannibal chose suicide rather than submit to Roman captivity. He drank poison at Libyssa on the eastern shore of the Sea of Marmara, leaving behind a letter which read, "Let us relieve the Romans from the anxiety they have so long experienced, since they think it tries their patience too much to wait for an old man's death."
Gallery[]
