Hannibal

Terror of the Alps

Hannibal Barca of Carthage was among antiquity's greatest military commanders, who in the Second Punic War led his army, including war elephants, across the Pyrenees and the snow-bound Alps to invade Roman Italy. There he won a string of stunning victories, culminating in 216 BC at Cannae, where he encircled and annihilated a far larger Roman force in a masterpiece of double envelopment still studied today. He waged war on Italian soil for fifteen years before Rome finally prevailed.