Hannibal Barca

Hannibal Barca invaded Italy over the Alps and beat Rome for fifteen years without ever taking the city. Born in Carthage in 247 BC, the son of the general Hamilcar Barca, he was taken to Spain as a boy and, by tradition, made to swear at an altar that he would never be a friend to Rome. He took command in Spain at twenty-five, besieged and took Saguntum, and precipitated the Second Punic War. In 218 BC he crossed the Pyrenees and then the Alps in autumn with perhaps forty thousand men and thirty-seven elephants, losing about half of them to weather, ambush and the passes, and descended into Italy with an army too small to besiege anything. He then won three battles that are still taught. At the Trebia he provoked the Romans into crossing a freezing river before breakfast and struck their rear with concealed troops. At Lake Trasimene in 217 BC he ambushed a marching column in fog against the shore and destroyed it. At Cannae in 216 BC he formed a deliberately weak centre that gave way under pressure, drew some 80,000 Romans into a bulge, and closed his veteran infantry and cavalry around them; perhaps 50,000 died in a day, and double envelopment has carried his name ever since. Rome refused to negotiate, adopted Fabius's strategy of avoidance, and raised new armies while he could not. He was recalled when Scipio invaded Africa, lost at Zama in 202 BC, reformed Carthage's constitution, was driven into exile, and took poison in Bithynia around 183 BC.

• Lived: 247 BCE – 183 BCE
• Nationality: Carthaginian
• Roles: general