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While Hannibal and his father had gone on to subdue all of Spain and some of the surrounding small provinces, overwhelming them with numbers and near perfect strategy, Rome had suffered from internal problems. They had spent several years cleaning up numerous Gallic revolts which almost had come to the doorstep of the Capitoline Hill. But true to Roman form, excellent generalship and indomitable courage had quieted these northern neighbors, and Rome had been able to "rest" for about a year. It was at this critical moment in history that Hannibal came to show his real "battlefield genius". The Carthaginian commander prepared to launch his epic attack on the Romans in the spring of 228 B.C. Hannibal's plan was one of relative simplicity. It consisted of making a march over the almost impassable [[Alps]], and striking right at the heart of the Italian peninsula: Rome. But Hannibal was one of those people who just love a challenge. He assembled his army along with a collection of war elephants, and prepared to make a march that would go down in history as second only to Alexander's march through Persia, the greatest kingdom up until the Roman Empire.
After several grueling weeks of toil spent struggling through the incessant snow of the always white capped mountains, Hannibal appeared, as if out of thin air, in Italy. Most of Hannibal's famous elephants had left their hulking grey bodies and long curved tusks in the alpine snows, and the army suffered some casualties of the unbearable weather; but the army of Carthage came through still strong and splendidly disciplined. The [[Second Punic War]] had begun. Hannibal's lighting lightning first struck the two Roman consuls of the year 218, almost encircling their armies on a bitter cold December Day. The Romans fought valiantly, but were surpassed in generalship, and routed. Hannibal destroyed almost two-third of the Roman force. Then in 217, Hannibal pushed across the Apennines, and ambushed the new consul, Flaminius, and his legion. The day had been cold and foggy; the Romans had been completely unsuspecting. Hannibal and his force surrounded them and proceeded to cut them to pieces, killing Flaminius. The Romans were now desperate, they turned to their last resort and selected a dictator in light of the catastrophes that had been reeked on the army. The senate appointed Quintus Fabius Maximus, a man known to history as "the Delayer". Fabius avoided all battle during his brief stint in office, giving the depleted Roman army a chance to recover. Even when he did seek to engage his forces, Hannibal created a brilliant diversion driving two thousand oxen through the Roman camp that night with torches tied to their horns. However, the greatest Roman defeat was still to come.
In 216 B.C., Hannibal captured a grain depot at Cannae on the Aufidus River. L. Aemilius Paullus and C. Terentius Varro, the consuls for that year, led 4 reinforced legions to out meet him. They proceeded to walk into Hannibal's death trap. In the following conflict, Hannibal used his cavalry masterfully, counterbalancing the fact that his infantry was vastly outnumbered. The Carthaginians won an overwhelming victory, slaughtering over half of the 50,000 soldiers the Romans led into battle. Consul Paullus was numbered among the dead, and Consul Varro had narrowly escaped with his life. Hannibal's casualties numbered approximately 5,700, one -sixth of the Roman losses. It is said in the military that an army that has suffered losses that exceed 70% are broken, fatally wounded, and completely useless. Hannibal seemed to have taken control of the War. However, Hannibal needed reinforcements, not only of soldiers, but of arms and other necessary supplies. He had to some degree counted on the assistance of the small towns and tribes surrounding Latium, but they clung fast to Rome. All of Hannibal's elephants had died on the original trip over the Alps, or had perished in battle. He was suffering much the same fate of the King Pyrrhus who in an earlier age had attempted to conquer Rome. Meanwhile, the Roman Senate appointed a second dictator in this second time of crisis. They scrambled to pull the remains of the army together, calling upon all of the small villages under their protection to send aid. Consul Varro had done his best to organize the to crippled forces that had survived the battle unscathed. In four years, Rome, after having six legions destroyed in the field, had assembled 25 new, fresh legions were prepared to fight. Rome had also discovered two leaders capable of matching wits with Hannibal in Publius Cornelius Scipio the younger, and Appius Claudius Pulcher, descendant of the great Appius Claudius who had inspired Rome's defiance of Pyrrhus.
During the [[Second Punic War]] against Rome, he crossed the [[Alps]] with 38 [[War Elephants]] in a mere 15 days to surprise the Roman armies. Winning battle after battle, including killing 60,000 Romans in a single day at the [[Battle of Cannae]], he still lost the war when the Romans could replenish their losses with deep manpower reserves that [[Carthage]] didn't have. Feared and successful even in peace, the Romans eventually forced him to commit suicide in 183 BC.
