Second Punic War

The Second Punic War (218-202 B.C.) was fought between the empire of Rome and Carthage led by the infamous Hannibal. The Second Punic War will go down as one of the most important wars in world history, to rival the conquests of Alexander the Great in 325 B.C. and the Persian Wars in Greece in the 5th century B.C. Looking back upon history, to imagine a post Persian War which the outcome had been the opposite, is difficult to imagine. We realize that the learning and philosophy that the Greeks had built up over the centuries, that years upon years of toil and effort in storing knowledge, would be lost to history forever. The conquest of Alexander spread the Greek language and learning throughout the world enabling the saving message of Jesus Christ to be communicated to all peoples. If Persia had conquered the Greeks, as they should have in all likelihood, the world would have been ruled by a regime that lacked all the historical background of the Greeks. The conquest of Alexander would have been rendered impossible. The Punic Wars hold in the balance an epic battle between good and evil. Hannibal took his entire army through Spain and then, in a preemptive move, crossed the Italian Alps in merely 15 days to the great surprise of the Romans. Hannibal's crossing of the Alps with 30,000 men and some elephants is considered one of the greatest military feats of the ancient world. He then beat the Romans in a series of battles for 16 years, inflicting horrible losses, but the Romans wouldn't break and their allies remained loyal. In the end Hannibal could not conquer Rome itself since he had no seige train. The Romans couldn't repel Hannibal, but they didn't have to. Hannibal had to retreat to Africa when the Roman general Scipio, who was later called "Africanus" because of his valor in Africa, was set to attack Carthage. Eventually with an army of mostly green recruits, Hannibal was defeated at the Battle of Zama. Carthage sued for peace. Rome acquired Spain as a result of the Second Punic War.