Person247 BC – 183 BC

Hannibal

Also called: Hannibal Barca

Carthaginian general who crossed the Alps into Italy in the Second Punic War and crushed the Romans at Cannae, but was defeated at Zama

The son of the Carthaginian general Hamilcar Barca, he is said to have sworn as a boy to be Rome’s enemy for ever. In 218 BC he led an army with elephants from Spain over the Pyrenees and the Alps into Italy. At Cannae in 216 BC he encircled and destroyed a larger Roman army, a battle still studied as a model of tactics. After his defeat at Zama he led Carthage’s government, but Roman pressure drove him into exile, and when he was about to be handed over to Rome he took his own life.

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2 related events

264 BC – 146 BCPunic Warscommander
Rome and Carthage fought three wars for mastery of the western Mediterranean. Having survived Hannibal’s invasion of Italy, Rome destroyed Carthage and took control of the Mediterranean.
1
202 BCBattle of Zamacommander
In 202 BC a Roman army under Scipio defeated Hannibal’s Carthaginians at Zama in North Africa, ending the Second Punic War.

People who appear alongside

Scipio Africanus236 BC – 183 BC
Roman general of the Second Punic War who carried the fight to Spain and Africa and defeated Hannibal at Zama in 202 BC

Themes this person appears in

Greece and Rome2000 BC – AD 476
From the Aegean civilisation to the fall of the Western Roman Empire — the classical civilisation built by the democracy of the polis and the Roman republic and empire