CARTHAGE
About 800 BC the Phoenicians established Carthage on the edge of a region in North Africa that is now Tunisia. The city became the commercial center of the western Mediterranean and retained that position until overthrown by Rome.

According to tradition, Queen Dido founded Carthage after she fled from Tyre. The inhabitants there agreed to give her as much land as she could encompass with a single oxhide. By cutting the hide into thin strips, Dido was able to enclose a large area. It was near Carthage, according to Virgil's 'Aeneid', that Aeneas was shipwrecked

Carthage lay on a bay. Its Phoenician settlers were seafarers and traders. Aided by slave labor they built wharves, markets, and factories. Carthage grew rich and strong, with colonies in North Africa, in Spain, and on the Mediterranean islands.

Powerful Rome, over a period of a hundred years, defeated Carthage in the Punic Wars. The first, fought in Sicily from 264 to 241 BC, cost Carthage Sicily and a large indemnity.

In the second Punic War, from 218 to 201 BC, the general Hannibal crossed Spain and southern France with his war elephants and climbed over the Alps, an almost unbelievable exploit, to defeat the Romans at Cannae. After he was recalled to Africa, he lost at Zama, and Carthage was forced to withdraw from Spain.

Rome won the third Punic War, fought from 149 to 146 BC, in spite of a heroic resistance in which Carthaginian women cut off their hair to provide bowstrings for the catapults. Carthage was burned...

HANNIBAL
At the age of nine Hannibal accompanied his father on the Carthaginian expedition to conquer Spain. Before starting, the boy vowed eternal hatred for Rome, the bitter rival of Carthage. From his 18th to his 25th year, Hannibal was the chief agent in carrying out the plans by which his brother-in-law Hasdrubal extended and consolidated the Carthaginian dominion on the Iberian Peninsula. When Hasdrubal was assassinated in 221 BC, the army chose Hannibal as commander in chief. In two years he subjugated all Spain between the Tajo (Tagus) and Iberus (Ebro) rivers, with the exception of the Roman dependency of Saguntum (Sagunto), which was taken after a siege of eight months. The Romans branded this attack a violation of the existing treaty between Rome and Carthage and demanded that Carthage surrender Hannibal to them. On the refusal of the Carthaginians to do so, the Romans declared war on Carthage in 218 BC, thus precipitating the Second Punic War.

"I swear that so soon as age will permit . . . I will use fire and steel to arrest the destiny of Rome." The boy Hannibal said this as he stood at the altar beside his father, the great Carthaginian general Hamilcar Barca. The father and son were leaving for Spain, where Hamilcar hoped to make up for the losses that Carthage had suffered in the First Punic War.

Hannibal learned quickly. After his father's death he took command of the army in Spain. Then in 218 BC he launched the mission to which he had been sworn. As the Roman Senate made plans to invade Carthage, Hannibal started one of history's most daring marches. He led his forces along eastern Spain, over the Pyrenees Mountains, and across the Rhone River. His 90,000 infantry, 12,000 cavalry, and nearly 40 elephants traveled all autumn. When they reached the Alps, the cold was intense. Some of Hannibal's soldiers died of exposure. Others fell to their death.

Only about half of them reached northern Italy, but Hannibal's skilled cavalry tactics crushed the Roman forces at the Trebia River and at Lake Trasimene. Alarmed, the Romans appointed a dictator, the wise statesman Quintus Fabius Maximus, and gave him extraordinary power. Choosing not to risk an engagement at once, Fabius instead followed the Carthaginians, delaying and harassing them. At last, in 216 BC, the Roman army met Hannibal's band at Cannae in southeastern Italy. Hannibal outwitted and annihilated them, slaying an estimated 60,000.

Hannibal's triumph was brief, however. Neither his own countrymen nor the Italians he had subdued during his 15 years in Italy supported him. His brother Hasdrubal, bringing reinforcements from Spain, was defeated by the Romans and killed. Hannibal finally returned home when a Roman army under Scipio Africanus invaded Carthage. There at Zama he suffered a crushing and final defeat.

Hannibal now showed that he could be a statesman as well as soldier. He reformed the government of Carthage and paid the heavy tribute exacted by Rome. The Romans, alarmed by this prosperity and fearing that Hannibal might renew the war against them, demanded his surrender, but he fled to Asia. Several years later the Romans hunted him down. Hannibal took poison, ending the life of one of the greatest military leaders of ancient times.