Instant Access To 100,000+ Essays!

Hannibal Barca, being of the Lion’s Brood as they were called1, was sworn to vengeance of Rome at the age of nine2 by his father Hamlicar Barca before embarking for the conquest of Spain. He was always driven by this one desire: to rid Carthage of the Romans. He never had a unified army of one race or language; his army consisted of all the enemies of Rome and followers of Hannibal. He was never defeated in his campaign against Italy, over fifteen years of fighting.3 He was an accomplished politician and judge of character. His very presence reduced the Roman senate to cowardice fear. Yet in this, the Second Punic War, Hannibal’s nation of Carthage was defeated. Hannibal Barca, undefeated in battle until the Battle of Zama, lost a war where he had won his every field of battle because of Roman use of his very own battle tactics against Carthage. Hannibal’s exact birth date and even year is unknown, but estimated to be in the year of 247 BCE.4 He grew up fluent in the Carthaginian tongue, Greek, and Latin. When he was nine, his father took him to the temple in Carthage and made him swear an oath to never be a friend of Rome and to extract vengeance for the First Punic War. He followed his father when Hamlicar dec