Hannibal Barca: A Life From Beginning to End | Life Story
Channel: Generals in History
Date: 2022-08-02

He is widely regarded as one of the greatest military commanders in history. Hannibal's father, Hamilcar Barca, was a leading Carthaginian general during the First Punic War.

Hannibal occupied most of southern Italy for 15 years. He was betrayed by the Romans and died by suicide with poison. 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.

Hannibal was a common Semitic Phoenician-Carthaginian personal name.
It is a combination of the common Phoenician masculine given name Hanno with the Northwest Semitic Canaanite deity Baal (lit, "lord") a major god of the Carthaginian's ancestral homeland of Phoenicia in Western Asia.

Although he is by far the most famous Hannibal when further clarification is necessary he is usually referred to as "Hannibal, son of Hamilcar", or "Hannibal the Barcid", the latter term applying to the family of his father, Hamilcar Barca.

Hannibal was one of the sons of Hamilcar Barca, a Carthaginian leader, and an unknown mother.

When his father drowned in battle, Hannibal's brother-in-law Hasdrubal the Fair succeeded in his command of the army with Hannibal (then 18 years old) serving as an officer under him.

After he assumed command, Hannibal spent two years consolidating his holdings and completing the conquest of Hispania, south of the Ebro.

In his first campaign, Hannibal attacked and stormed the Olcades' strongest center, Alithia, which promptly led to their surrender, and brought Punic power close to the River Tagus.

Hannibal not only perceived this as a breach of the treaty signed with Hasdrubal, but as he was already planning an attack on Rome, this was his way to start the war.

So he laid siege to the city, which fell after eight months. Hannibal sent the booty from Saguntum to Carthage, a shrewd move that gained him much support from the government; Livy records that only Hanno II the Great spoke against him. 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.

Carthaginian general Hannibal crossed the Pyrenees and Rhône in 218 BC. His army included 38,000 infantry, 8,000 cavalry, and 38 elephants, almost none of which would survive the harsh conditions of the Alps. He left a detachment of 20,000 troops to garrison the newly conquered region of Cisalpine Gaul. Hannibal outmaneuvered the natives who had tried to prevent his crossing, then evaded a Roman force marching from the Mediterranean coast. His exact route over the Alps has been the source of scholarly dispute ever since.

The most influential modern theories favor either a march up the valley of the Drôme or a crossing of the main range. Polybius wrote that Hannibal had crossed the highest of the Alpine passes between the upper Guil valley and the upper Po river. Radiocarbon dating secured dates of 2168 BP or c. 218 BC, the year of Hannibal's march. Hannibal's vision of military affairs was derived partly from his Greek tutors and partly from experience gained alongside his father.

From the start, he seems to have calculated that he would have to operate without aid from Hispania. The alpine invasion of Italy was a military operation that would shake the Mediterranean World.

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Data sources: https://en.wikipedia.org