Person
Hannibal
Carthaginian commander of the Second Punic War. As a boy he was put under an oath against Rome. Livy calls that a story. Polybius has Hannibal tell it himself, years later.
Life
Hannibal Barca was born in 247 BCE, during the First Punic War, which Carthage lost. His father Hamilcar commanded in that war and afterward took an army to Spain. Ancient writers say Hannibal was about nine when he was bound by an oath to be Rome’s enemy. Livy introduces the scene as a story. Polybius has the adult Hannibal repeat it at the court of Antiochus, to prove he could not be reconciled with Rome.
He commanded Carthage in the Second Punic War, crossed the Alps, and fought in Italy for fifteen years, through Cannae and long after. He did not take Rome. After the defeat he left Carthage, advised foreign kings, and died in Bithynia. The usual dates given for that death are 183 or 182 BCE. The picture on this page is Giovanni Antonio Pellegrini’s canvas of 1731, the boy at the altar. It is not a likeness from his lifetime.
Giovanni Antonio Pellegrini, The Young Hannibal Swears Enmity to Rome, 1731. An eighteenth-century history painting, not a Carthaginian portrait. Public-domain reproduction via Wikimedia Commons. Image file. Public domain. See the Commons file for the reproduction status outside the United States.
