The hero of the Second Punic War is Hannibal, one of the purest and
noblest characters in history. In 218 B. C. the Carthaginian general
crossed the Alps, after a five months’ march from Spain, and descended
with a storm of war upon the Romans. With a force of twenty thousand
foot and six thousand horse he encountered the consular armies, and
defeated them at the rivers Ticinus and Trebia (218 B. C.), in Cisalpine
Gaul, the Trasimene Lake in Etruria (217 B. C.), and most decisively,
and with immense slaughter, at Cannæ, in Apulia, in 216 B. C. For
fifteen years (218 to 202 B. C.) Hannibal maintained his ground in
Italy, defeating the Romans again and again, opposed by the cautious
Fabius Maximus and the daring Marcellus (the conqueror of Syracuse), but
unable to capture Rome, or to subdue Roman steadfastness and courage.