1. Hannibal's people originally came from the Middle East.
2. At age 9 Hannibal made a promise to his father (Hamilcar)
to destroy the Romans.
3. Hannibal and his father (Hamilcar) crossed to Spain with no army.
Hannibal and his brothers (Mago and Hasdrubal) grew
up in Spain learning to be soldiers.
4. Carthage often used war elephants and trained them to fight by
trampling
prisoners
5.The Spanish soldiers who helped Hannibal wanted the severed hands
of the enemy as
trophies.
6. Before entering the Pyrenees, Hannibal lost thousands of men in
battles and desertions.
7. The elephants crossed the river in France by walking across on their
hind legs, swimming, and tricked onto rafts with
dirt that looked like solid ground
8. Between starting out in Spain and arriving in Italy Hannibal
lost thousands of men -some ran away,some were killed in
battles with Romans and local tribes, many
died in the mountains.
9. Finally in Italy, Hannibal has only 26,000 men (he started with
100,000 !)
10. Enemies of Rome (Gauls)in Italy gave Hannibal thousands of soldiers
to help defeat Rome
11. After the 1st battle in Italy only one elephant was left
.
12. Swamp fever in northern Italy killed many soldiers and animals
and caused Hannibal to lose one eye.
13. Brother Hasdrubal came with an army to help but was defeated- his
head was cut off by the
Romans and sent back to Hannibal
14. Hannibal did not attack the city of Rome, one of Hannibal's
generals
said: " You know,
Hannibal, how to fight. You do
not know how to win." - He wanted Hannibal to attack and
destroy the capital of the
Romans
15. At the Battle of Zama, Romans stampeded Hannibal's 80 war elephants
using trumpets to scare and confuse them .
Romans then circled Hannibal's army
and defeated him.
16. At the end of the 3rd Punic War, carthage citizens fought from
every house and rooftop -
450,000 died or were made slaves in the
3 year siege . Rome
had won again !