Hannibal Barca (247 – between 183 and 181 BC) was a Carthaginian general and statesman who is most famous for being the most prominent Carthaginian commander during the Second Punic War. Historical reputation accounts him one of the greatest military commanders in Western history, if not world history.
The son of prominent Carthaginian leader Hamilcar Barca, Hannibal grew up during the aftermath of Rome's victory during the First Punic War. According to the historian Polybius, when he begged to go with his father on his Iberian campaigns at nine years old, Hannibal was made to swear an oath against Rome. When Hannibal's father drowned in the midst of his conquests of Hispania, his brother-in-law Hasdrubal the Fair took over command, with the eighteen-year-old Hannibal serving as one of his officers. Such were Hannibal's capabilities that when Hasdrubal was assassinated in 221 BC, he was proclaimed commander-in-chief at the age of 26. Three years later, he besieged the Roman-allied city-state of Saguntum, triggering the Second Punic War.
Notably, this war was started without the full backing of the Carthaginian oligarchy, a decision that cemented his reputation as a bold maverick, but one that would come back to bite him. Leaving Iberia, Hannibal defeated a Gallic tribe and famously crossed the Alps. While taking this route allowed him to bypass land garrisons and Rome's naval dominance, it proved so costly that he's said to have had around half of the army he started out with. Nevertheless, shortly after arriving in Italy, Hannibal quickly declared that he was still a major threat to Rome. Starting in 218 BC, he won three crushing victories over the Romans in as many years: the Battle of the Trebia, the Battle of Lake Trasimene, and the Battle of Cannae. The most famous of these victories was Cannae, where he virtually annihilated a Roman army while taking relatively minor casualties despite being significantly outnumbered. Hannibal's victory at Cannae has gone down in history as one of the finest performances by any general, and is still studied in significant detail today in military academies all over the world.
This crushing victory earned Hannibal further support. Many parts of Italy joined his cause, the Greek colonies in Sicily began revolting against Roman political control, and Philip V of Macedon pledged his support, starting what would later be known as the First Macedonian War. However, a mix of factors conspired to impede Hannibal from gaining the strength to capitalize on the advantage: Rome's most vital Italian allies remained loyal to them, Carthage failed at reinforcing Hannibal's position,note and ultimately, Hannibal turned out to be more or less the only general worth a cent left in his side, which caused the war elsewhere to gradually go sour for Carthage. To complicate matters further, the Romans learned from Cannae that the key to beat Hannibal was to avoid direct battle and instead weaken him through attrition, which they could do. Unable to bring about another decisive victory that could produce a change in the strategic situation, the war in Italy settled into a stalemate, with Hannibal being largely confinated to defend an unstable Southern Italy.
Slowly, the strategic situation turned against Hannibal. His allies in Southern Italy were either subdued or convinced to change sides again, Rome allied with the Aetolian League to counter Philip V, and much-needed reinforcements led by his younger brother Hasdrubal were decisively defeated at the Battle of the Metaurus, while another Carthaginian expedition by his other brother Mago was similarly defeated in Liguria. Finally, in 203 BC, Hannibal was recalled to Carthage to defend his homeland against a Roman invasion of Africa led by Scipio Africanus. After attempts to negotiate peace with Scipio failed, Hannibal gave battle against him. But Hannibal had finally met his match in Scipio, who decisively defeated him at the Battle of Zama, forcing the Carthaginian government to surrender and ending the Second Punic War.
After the war, Hannibal entered politics, and was elected sufet (chief magistrate) of Carthage. To pay the war indemnity Carthage owed without raising taxes, Hannibal embarked on an ambitious financial reorganization program aimed at eliminating corruption and recovering embezzled state funds. But in 195 BC, five years into Hannibal's new political career, the Roman government sent a delegation to Carthage alleging that he was helping Antiochus III of the Selucid Empire, who at the time was warring against Rome. Knowing that he had many domestic enemies, Hannibal fled into exile before the Romans could demand he be handed over to them. For the next several years, he would ally with Rome's enemies, attempting to frustrate her and her allies. He first hung his colors from Antiochus' mast, commanding a Selucid fleet that was defeated by Rome's ally Rhodes at the Battle of the Eurymedon in 190 BC. Subsequently, he would serve Armenia, Crete and Bithynia in their wars against Rome and its allies.
There are multiple accounts of how Hannibal died, but the most commonly accepted one is that the Romans were attempting to negotiate with King Prusias I of Bithynia, and ex-consul Titus Quinctius Flamininus demanded that Hannibal be surrendered to their custody, also having the fortress where Hannibal was surrounded. Hannibal caught wind of this and, realizing there was no escape for him, took poison, getting the better of his enemy one final time. His final words are often attributed to being said towards the guards sent to take him, being "Now let the Romans bring an end to all their fears, with the death of a feeble old man."
In spite of his failure to bring Carthage to victory, Hannibal and his forces threatened the heart of Rome in a way no other external enemy would do for centuries. To the Romans, he was such a figure of terror that "Hannibal ante portas" ("Hannibal is at the gates") would be used by them as an expression to signify imminent calamity for hundreds of years. Many Roman historians considered him the greatest enemy their nation had ever faced. To this day, he is widely considered one of the greatest commanders to ever live.
Tropes as portrayed in fiction:
- Historical Hero Upgrade: Due to modern sympathies, it's very tempting for adaptations to portray Hannibal as a freedom fighter or some kind of heroic rebel who opposed the (real or perceived) oppressive expansion of Rome, which has little basis in real life. While they were certainly very distinct cultures, Carthage and Rome weren't really different in their levels of expansionism, slaveholding, multiculturality or foreign policy at the time of the Punic Wars, and it could be said it was precisely the victory over Carthage and the acquisition of the rich Hispania which pushed Rome to the spiral of conquest it would be later known for.
- Historical Villain Upgrade: Because most of what was known about him was based on Roman propaganda, his hatred of Rome was exaggerated and created the legend about how he allegedly swore as a child to his father that he would "never be a friend to Rome". Even if it did happen, which historians doubt, the context would've been different from the modern meaning of "friend" ("amicus" in Roman usage also referred to a subject, and Hannibal's vow in that context would have meant he refused to submit to Rome, which has quite a different meaning). Contrary to the stories about his obsessive hatred of Rome, Hannibal was reported to show respect for fallen enemies many times by giving killed Roman officers military funerals, and was distressed when the body of a consul, Gaius Flaminius, went missing after the Battle of Lake Trasimene. note
- Race Lift: The real Hannibal was a Semite with some possible Iberian and Amazigh blood mixed in,note and so he was almost certainly a very Mediterranean-looking man. However, some depictions opt to make him black, likely on the idea that's the only possible phenotype for an African citizen (the same is applied for the Numidians, the Lybians and the Mauritanians in media). Ironically, Romans didn't consider Carthaginians to be a different race, but rather the opposite: the whole joke of Plautus' stage play Poenulus is precisely that you could not tell apart a Carthaginian from the rest of Mediterraneans except by his clothing and jewelry.
- War Elephants: Famously, Hannibal's forces included an array of North African war elephants, some of which he even brought with him across the Alps (or attempted to bring; by some accounts most of them didn't survive the journey). Expect to see this greatly played up in any portrayals.
Appears in the following works:
Anime and Manga- In Drifters, Hannibal is one of the many historical individuals transported from Earth and is on the side of the titular Drifters. Scipio Africanus is also transported with him, and the two are predictably at each others throats.
- Hannibal (1959), portrayed by Victor Mature.
- Hannibal (2006), portrayed by Alexander Siddig.
- The Aeneid: Dido warns of a Carthaginian who will avenge her. Most scholars believe this is a reference to Hannibal.
- He is arguably the deuteragonist of Santiago Posteguillo's Africanus Trilogy.
- Luis de la Luna Valero's The Lion of Carthage trilogy covers his pre-war life.
- Hannibal is the Big Bad of Silius' poem Punica.
- Pride of Carthage by David Anthony Durham (Arcadia) is a Historical Fiction novel detailing Hannibal's life.
- Salammbô: Hannibal appears here as a child. He's nearly sacrificed to Moloch, but his father sends a slave's child to die in his place.
- Barbarians Rising: Features in the first episode, "Resistance", where his alliance with many Iberian tribes is put into focus.
- Deadliest Warrior: He squares off against Genghis Khan.
- Hannibal: Rome's Worst Nightmare: a made-for-TV movie produced by The BBC
Podcast
- Dan Carlin's Hardcore History covered Hannibal and the Punic Wars in his Punic Nightmares series.
- Mike Duncan's The History of Rome podcast, obviously, covered the Roman's wars with Carthage and Hannibal. The Battle of Zama being when Duncan says is the end of his personal favorite era of Roman history.
- Twilight Histories had an episode titled "Hannibal One", set in a timeline where Hannibal won the Second Punic War.
- The Imperivm saga features him in its second and third games.
- Total War: Rome II: The second expansion pack, Hannibal at the Gates, follows the Second Punic War. Naturally, Hannibal features heavily in the campaign.
- OverSimplified: Hannibal first appears as a baby in the Sequel Hook at the end of the First Punic War videos, with his father Hamilcar telling young Hannibal that he will be vengeance against Rome. "The Second Punic War" videos have Hannibal as the main focus, taking the reins from his father and launching his war of vengeance against Rome.
