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Second Punic War: A Visual History

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Visual history of a war

Hannibal crossed the Alps with elephants, destroyed three Roman armies and roamed Italy for 15 years; Rome refused to lose and won at Zama.

Fought
218 BC to 201 BC
Duration
17 years
Dates
218 to 201 BC
Deaths
Perhaps 300,000 or more soldiers; Roman citizen losses alone over 100,000
Carthage
Hannibal, Hasdrubal, Mago; Gauls, Numidians, Macedon (allied), Syracuse
Rome
Fabius Maximus, Marcellus, Nero, Scipio Africanus; Italian allies, Masinissa's Numidians
Result
Roman victory; Carthage reduced to a client

The Second Punic War (218-201 BC) began when Hannibal took Saguntum, Rome's Spanish ally, and marched from Spain over the Pyrenees and Alps into Italy with 26,000 survivors and a few elephants. He crushed the Romans at the Trebia (218), Lake Trasimene (217) and Cannae (216), where perhaps 50,000 legionaries died in a single afternoon, and won over much of southern Italy, but Rome would not negotiate; Fabius's delaying strategy, the recovery of Capua and Syracuse and Scipio's conquest of Spain wore Carthage down. Hasdrubal's relief army was destroyed at the Metaurus (207); Scipio invaded Africa, Hannibal was recalled and beaten at Zama in 202. Carthage lost its fleet, empire and independence of action; Rome became master of the western Mediterranean.

When it was fought: the era ribbon

The bold bar is Second Punic War. The lighter bars are empires and wars from the same era and the same part of the world. Click any bar to jump to its page.

1,000 BC800 BC600 BC400 BC200 BC0200400600Second Punic War (218 BC to 201 BC)Open: Ancient CarthageAncient Carthage (814 BC to 146 BC)Open: Macedonian EmpireMacedonian Empire (359 BC to 323 BC)Open: Seleucid EmpireSeleucid Empire (312 BC to 63 BC)Open: Ptolemaic KingdomPtolemaic Kingdom (305 BC to 30 BC)Open: First Punic WarFirst Punic War (264 BC to 241 BC)Open: Roman-Greek warsRoman-Greek wars (214 BC to 148 BC)Open: Third Punic WarThird Punic War (149 BC to 146 BC)Open: Roman EmpireRoman Empire (27 BC to 476)

Roman losses in Hannibal's great victories

012500250003750050000Trebia 218: 2000020000Trebia 218Trasimene 217: 1500015000Trasimene 217Cannae 216: 5000050000Cannae 216Herdonia 212: 1600016000Herdonia 212killed (ancient figures, approximate)

Timeline of the Second Punic War

  1. 219 BC
    Saguntum falls
  2. 218 BC
    Crossing of the Alps; Trebia
  3. 217 BC
    Trasimene
  4. 216 BC
    Cannae
  5. 212 BC
    Syracuse falls
  6. 211 BC
    Capua retaken; Hannibal at the gates
  7. 207 BC
    Metaurus
  8. 206 BC
    Ilipa; Spain lost to Carthage
  9. 202 BC
    Zama
  10. 201 BC
    Peace

The march and the three defeats

Hannibal left New Carthage in spring 218 with perhaps 50,000 foot, 9,000 horse and 37 elephants, crossed the Rhone and the Alps in autumn snow, and reached the Po with about half. He beat Scipio's father on the Ticinus, destroyed Sempronius's army at the Trebia in December, and in June 217 ambushed Flaminius in the fog by Lake Trasimene, killing 15,000. Fabius Maximus shadowed him and refused battle; impatient Romans elected consuls who fought at Cannae on 2 August 216, where Hannibal's crescent enveloped 80,000 Romans and killed most of them. Capua, Tarentum and Syracuse defected; Philip V of Macedon allied with him.

Attrition

Rome raised new legions, refused to ransom prisoners and fought on in Spain, Sicily and Italy. Marcellus took Syracuse in 212 after Archimedes' engines delayed him; Capua fell in 211 despite Hannibal's march on Rome; Tarentum in 209. In Spain the Scipio brothers died in 211, but young Publius Scipio took New Carthage in 209 and won at Ilipa in 206. Hasdrubal brought a second army over the Alps in 207 and was killed at the Metaurus by Claudius Nero's forced march; his head was thrown into Hannibal's camp.

Zama

Scipio landed in Africa in 204, burned the Carthaginian and Numidian camps and won over Masinissa's cavalry. Hannibal, recalled after 15 years in Italy, met him near Zama in October 202; the elephants were funnelled through gaps in the Roman lines and Masinissa's horsemen closed the trap. Carthage surrendered its fleet and elephants, paid 10,000 talents over 50 years and could not make war without Rome's leave. Hannibal reformed Carthage's finances, fled Roman demands to the East and poisoned himself around 183 BC.

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8 surprising things about the Second Punic War

  1. Only one of Hannibal's elephants, Surus, survived the first winter in Italy; Hannibal rode it with one eye, having lost the other to infection in the marshes.
  2. Cannae killed more Romans in one day than any battle before or since, roughly one in five adult male citizens.
  3. After Cannae the Romans held human sacrifices, burying two Gauls and two Greeks alive in the Forum Boarium.
  4. Hannibal camped three miles from Rome in 211 but never attacked it; 'Hannibal ad portas' became a Roman phrase for panic.
  5. Archimedes died in the sack of Syracuse, supposedly telling a soldier not to disturb his circles.
  6. The Metaurus victory was won by Nero marching 400 km in a week and back before Hannibal knew he had gone.
  7. Scipio and Hannibal reportedly met years later at Ephesus and discussed the greatest generals; Hannibal ranked Alexander, Pyrrhus and himself.
  8. The route Hannibal took over the Alps is still disputed; a 2016 study found dung from thousands of horses at the Col de la Traversette.

Sources

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