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The Punic Wars

Outbreak of War

Coin of Hannibal
Hannibal Barca

Hannibal was determined to fight Rome, a war that he viewed as inevitable. He was concerned to fight at a time propitious to himself and to Carthage, and he was determined to fight the war on Carthaginian terms.

Hannibal's plan was both desperate and brilliant. Rome's great strength was her nearly endless reserves of manpower, the result of her system of alliances throughout Italy. But those alliances were exploitative; Rome's allies were unhappy with their treatment and unhappy with Rome's seemingly endless wars.

So, Hannibal would invade Italy itself. His army would by itself be far too small to achieve victory, but he believed the Italian allies were so deeply disaffected that he would only have to win a few early victories and proclaim the liberty of the Italian allies, and they would desert Rome. Without her allied reserves, Rome's armies could not stand against Hannibals superior generalship.

Everything depended on those two elements: early and convincing victories, and the defection of the Italian allies. Hannibal was gambling everything on these.

Photo of ruins of Saguntum
Saguntum, Spain

War came in 218, when a quarrel broke out over the Roman colony of audio gif Saguntum. The Romans believed they could easily contain Hannibal in Spain, but he gave the Roman army the slip and was across the Pyrenees almost before the Romans knew what had happened.