Hannibal was a Carthaginian general and statesman who commanded the forces of Carthage in their battle against the Roman Republic during the Second Punic War.
80 Facts About Hannibal
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Hannibal is widely regarded as one of the greatest military commanders in history.
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Hannibal's father, Hamilcar Barca, was a leading Carthaginian general during the First Punic War.
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Hannibal lived during a period of great tension in the Mediterranean Basin, triggered by the emergence of the Roman Republic as a great power with its defeat of Carthage in the First Punic War.
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Revanchism prevailed in Carthage, symbolized by the pledge that Hannibal made to his father to "never be a friend of Rome".
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In 218 BC, Hannibal attacked Saguntum, an ally of Rome, in Hispania, sparking the Second Punic War.
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Hannibal invaded Italy by crossing the Alps with North African war elephants.
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Hannibal was distinguished for his ability to determine both his and his opponent's respective strengths and weaknesses, and to plan battles accordingly.
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Hannibal's well-planned strategies allowed him to conquer and ally with several Italian cities that were previously allied to Rome.
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Carthaginian defeats in Hispania prevented Hannibal from being reinforced, and he was unable to win a decisive victory.
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Hannibal was eventually defeated at the Battle of Zama, ending the war in a Roman victory.
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Hannibal enacted political and financial reforms to enable the payment of the war indemnity imposed by Rome; however, those reforms were unpopular with members of the Carthaginian aristocracy and in Rome, and he fled into voluntary exile.
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Antiochus met defeat at the Battle of Magnesia and was forced to accept Rome's terms, and Hannibal fled again, making a stop in the Kingdom of Armenia.
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Hannibal was betrayed to the Romans and died by suicide with poison.
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Hannibal is considered one of the greatest military tacticians and generals of antiquity, alongside Philip of Macedon, Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Scipio Africanus and Pyrrhus.
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Hannibal was one of the sons of Hamilcar Barca, a Carthaginian leader, and an unknown mother.
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Hannibal was born in what is present-day northern Tunisia, one of many Mediterranean regions colonised by the Canaanites from their homelands in Phoenicia, a region corresponding with the Mediterranean coasts of modern Lebanon and Syria.
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Hannibal had several sisters whose names are unknown, and two brothers, Hasdrubal and Mago.
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Hannibal's brothers-in-law were Hasdrubal the Fair and the Numidian king Naravas.
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Hannibal was still a child when his sisters married, and his brothers-in-law were close associates during his father's struggles in the Mercenary War and the Punic conquest of the Iberian Peninsula.
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Livy records that Hannibal married a woman of Castulo, a powerful Spanish city closely allied with Carthage.
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Hannibal's following campaign in 220 BC was against the Vaccaei to the west, where he stormed the Vaccaen strongholds of Helmantice and Arbucala.
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On his return home, laden with many spoils, a coalition of Spanish tribes, led by the Carpetani, attacked, and Hannibal won his first major battlefield success and showed off his tactical skills at the battle of the River Tagus.
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Hannibal sent the booty from Saguntum to Carthage, a shrewd move which gained him much support from the government; Livy records that only Hanno II the Great spoke against him.
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In Rome, the Senate reacted to this apparent violation of the treaty by dispatching a delegation to Carthage to demand whether Hannibal had destroyed Saguntum in accordance with orders from Carthage.
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Hannibal fought his way through the northern tribes to the foothills of the Pyrenees, subduing the tribes through clever mountain tactics and stubborn fighting.
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Hannibal left a detachment of 20,000 troops to garrison the newly conquered region.
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Hannibal reportedly entered Gaul with 40,000 foot soldiers and 12,000 horsemen.
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Hannibal recognized that he still needed to cross the Pyrenees, the Alps, and many significant rivers.
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Hannibal's army numbered 38,000 infantry, 8,000 cavalry, and 38 elephants, almost none of which would survive the harsh conditions of the Alps.
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Hannibal had an army of elephants which he fed wine before a battle, so they would become more aggressive.
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Stanford geoarchaeologist Patrick Hunt argues that Hannibal took the Col de Clapier mountain pass, claiming the Clapier most accurately met ancient depictions of the route: wide view of Italy, pockets of year-round snow, and a large campground.
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Polybius wrote that Hannibal had crossed the highest of the Alpine passes: Col de la Traversette, between the upper Guil valley and the upper Po river is the highest pass.
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Hannibal had not expected Hannibal to make an attempt to cross the Alps, since the Romans were prepared to fight the war in the Iberian Peninsula.
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Hannibal succeeded, through prompt decision and speedy movement, in transporting his army to Italy by sea in time to meet Hannibal.
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Hannibal's forces moved through the Po Valley and were engaged in the Battle of Ticinus.
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Hannibal then captured Clastidium, from which he drew large amounts of supplies for his men.
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Hannibal quartered his troops for the winter with the Gauls, whose support for him had abated.
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Hannibal knew that this route was full of difficulties, but it remained the surest and certainly the quickest way to central Italy.
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Hannibal crossed without opposition over both the Apennines and the seemingly impassable Arno, but he lost a large part of his force in the marshy lowlands of the Arno.
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Hannibal had now disposed of the only field force that could check his advance upon Rome, but he realized that, without siege engines, he could not hope to take the capital.
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Hannibal opted to exploit his victory by entering into central and southern Italy and encouraging a general revolt against the sovereign power.
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Hannibal decided that it would be unwise to winter in the already devastated lowlands of Campania, but Fabius had trapped him there by ensuring that all the exit passes were blocked.
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Hannibal had his men tie burning torches to the horns of a herd of cattle and drive them up the heights nearby.
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Hannibal capitalized on the eagerness of the Romans and drew them into a trap by using an envelopment tactic.
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Hannibal drew up his least reliable infantry in the centre in a semicircle curving towards the Romans.
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Hannibal's wings were composed of the Gallic and Numidian cavalry.
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Hannibal secured an alliance with newly appointed tyrant Hieronymus of Syracuse.
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Hannibal was never able to bring about another grand decisive victory that could produce a lasting strategic change.
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Hanno had been instrumental in denying Hannibal's requested reinforcements following the battle at Cannae.
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Hannibal started the war without the full backing of Carthaginian oligarchy.
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The oligarchy, not Hannibal, controlled the strategic resources of Carthage.
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Hannibal constantly sought reinforcements from either Iberia or North Africa.
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Hannibal moved to Lucania and destroyed a 16,000-man Roman army at the Battle of the Silarus, with 15,000 Romans killed.
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Hannibal attempted to lift the siege with an assault on the Roman siege lines but failed.
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Hannibal drew off 15,000 Roman soldiers, but the siege continued and Capua fell.
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At one point, it seemed that Hannibal was on the verge of victory, but Scipio was able to rally his men, and his cavalry, having routed the Carthaginian cavalry, attacked Hannibal's rear.
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Hannibal was still only 46 at the conclusion of the Second Punic War in 201 BC and soon showed that he could be a statesman as well as a soldier.
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Seven years after the victory of Zama, the Romans, alarmed by Carthage's renewed prosperity and suspicious that Hannibal had been in contact with Antiochus III of the Seleucid Empire, sent a delegation to Carthage alleging that Hannibal was helping an enemy of Rome.
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Aware that he had many enemies, not least of which due to his financial reforms eliminating opportunities for oligarchical graft, Hannibal fled into voluntary exile before the Romans could demand that Carthage surrender him into their custody.
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Hannibal journeyed first to Tyre, the mother city of Carthage, and then to Antioch, before he finally reached Ephesus, where he was honourably received by Antiochus.
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When Phormio finished a discourse on the duties of a general, Hannibal was asked his opinion.
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Hannibal was tasked with building a fleet in Cilicia from scratch.
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Hannibal had preserved most of his fleet; however, he was in no position to unite with Polyxenidas' fleet at Ephesus since his ships required lengthy repairs.
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Suspicious that Antiochus was prepared to surrender him to the Romans, Hannibal fled to Crete, but he soon went back to Anatolia and sought refuge with Prusias I of Bithynia, who was engaged in warfare with Rome's ally, King Eumenes II of Pergamon.
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Hannibal went on to defeat Eumenes in two other battles on land.
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The precise year and cause of Hannibal's death are unknown.
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Pausanias wrote that Hannibal's death occurred after his finger was wounded by his drawn sword while mounting his horse, resulting in a fever and then his death three days later.
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Cornelius Nepos and Livy tell a different story, namely that the ex-consul Titus Quinctius Flamininus, on discovering that Hannibal was in Bithynia, went there in an embassy to demand his surrender from King Prusias.
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Hannibal, discovering that the castle where he was living was surrounded by Roman soldiers and he could not escape, took poison.
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Pliny the Elder and Plutarch, in his life of Flamininus, record that Hannibal's tomb was at Libyssa on the coast of the Sea of Marmara.
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Hannibal became such a figure of terror that, whenever disaster threatened, Romans would exclaim "Hannibal ad portas" to emphasize the gravity of the emergency, a phrase still used in modern languages.
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Livy gives us the idea that Hannibal was extremely cruel.
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When Hannibal's successes had brought about the death of two Roman consuls, he vainly searched for the body of Gaius Flaminius on the shores of Lake Trasimene, held ceremonial rituals in recognition of Lucius Aemilius Paullus, and sent Marcellus' ashes back to his family in Rome.
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Hannibal is generally regarded as one of the best military strategists and tacticians of all time, the double envelopment at Cannae an enduring legacy of tactical brilliance.
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Hannibal had indeed bitter enemies, and his life was one continuous struggle against destiny.
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Hannibal's profile appears on the Tunisian five-dinar bill issued on 8 November 1993, as well as on another new bill put into circulation on 20 March 2013.
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Hannibal's name appears in that of a private television channel, Hannibal TV.
79.
Hannibal writes in The Interpretation of Dreams: "Hannibal and Rome symbolized for the adolescent that I was the opposition between the tenacity of Judaism and the organizing spirit of the Catholic Church".
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Since 2011, Hannibal has appeared as one of the main characters, with Scipio Africanus, of the Ad Astra manga in which Mihachi Kagano traces the course of the Second Punic War.