Todd Sager age 13, of Rock Island, Ill., for his question:
WHO WAS HANNIBAL?
Hannibal was the greatest general and statesman of Carthage, an ancient North African city. His excellent military strategy and leadership helped him overcome the great handicaps and defeat armies much larger than his own.
Hannibal united men of varied backgrounds under his command. Even under poor conditions, his men followed him with confidence. He was a commander at the age of 25.
Early in the Second Punic War in 218 B.C., Hannibal astonished the Romans with a daring maneuver. Starting from Spain with about 60,000 troops, he crossed the Pyrenees, France and the Alps, and entered Roman Italy.
Snow, cold and fierce mountain tribesmen killed many Carthaginians in the alps. Hannibal reached the Po Valley in northern Italy with only about 26,000 men and 6,000 horses. He also brought a few elephants because they could sometimes shatter enemy lines, like tanks in modern battles.
Hannibal then recruited between 10,000 and 15,000 Gauls into his army. The Gauls, tribesmen from the Po Valley, were enemies of Rome.
A Roman army brought up from Sicily tried to stop Hannibal's advance. But Hannibal maneuvered the Romans into an ambush and defeated them in the Battle of the Trebia River. He moved on to central Italy in 217 B.C. and tricked a Roman army into following his army. Then he destroyed the Romans in an ambush on the shores of Lake Trasimeno.
In 216 B.C. Hannibal found himself far outnumbered by the Romans at Cannae. When the Romans attacked, the center of the formation retreated, and the two sides, with the help of Hannibal's superior cavalry, encircled and crushed the Romans.
The Carthaginians were given a chance to govern themselves, and Hannibal headed the government.
Hannibal was born in Carthage. His father, Hamilcar Barca, was also a military leader. Hamiicar Barca hated the Romans, his city's chief enemy. According to tradition, Hamilcar made young Hannibal take an oath always to be an enemy of Rome.
As a boy, Hannibal went with his father to Spain, a land partly ruled by Carthage. As a young man, Hannibal led troops against Spanish tribesmen and helped increase Carthaginian power in Spain.
Carthage was one of the greatest cities of ancient times. A wealthy trading center, it stood on a peninsula in North Africa, near the present city of Tunis, Tunisia.
Carthage was one of the colonies founded by Phoenician seamen as a trade and shipping outpost in the western Mediterranean area. The Phoenician name for Carthage is Kart hadasht. It means New Capital or New City.
Long after Hannibal's time, Carthage became an important city in the Roman Empire. The city was overrun by the Vandals around A.D. 430. The final destruction of Carthage came in A.D. 698 at the hands of the Arabs. ,