The Second Punic War was the second of three wars fought between Carthage and Rome, the two main powers of the western Mediterranean in the 3rd century BC. For 17 years the two states struggled for supremacy, primarily in Italy and Iberia, but also on the islands of Sicily and Sardinia and, towards the end of the war, in North Africa. After immense materiel and human losses on both sides, the Carthaginians were once again defeated. Macedonia, Syracuse and several Numidian kingdoms were drawn into the fighting, and Iberian and Gallic forces fought on both sides. There were three main military theatres during the war: Italy, where Hannibal defeated the Roman legions repeatedly, with occasional subsidiary campaigns in Sicily, Sardinia and Greece; Iberia, where Hasdrubal, a younger brother of Hannibal, defended the Carthaginian colonial cities with mixed success before moving into Italy; and Africa, where Rome finally won the war.
Year 218 BC was a year of the pre-Julian Roman calendar. At the time it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Scipio and Longus. The denomination 218 BC for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe for naming years.
This article concerns the period 219 BC – 210 BC.
Publius Cornelius Scipio was a general and statesman of the Roman Republic and the father of Scipio Africanus.
Gnaeus Cornelius Scipio Calvus was a Roman general and statesman during the third century BC. He played a major part in the Second Punic War, establishing Roman rule in the east of the Iberian peninsula and tying up several Carthaginian armies to keep them from reinforcing Hannibal.
The battle of the Trebia was the first major battle of the Second Punic War, fought between the Carthaginian forces of Hannibal and a Roman army under Sempronius Longus on 22 or 23 December 218 BC. Each army had a strength of about 40,000 men; the Carthaginians were stronger in cavalry, the Romans in infantry. The battle took place on the flood plain of the west bank of the lower Trebia River, not far from the settlement of Placentia, and resulted in a heavy defeat for the Romans.
The Battle of Lake Trasimene was fought when a Carthaginian force under Hannibal ambushed a Roman army commanded by Gaius Flaminius on 21 June 217 BC, during the Second Punic War. The battle took place on the north shore of Lake Trasimene, to the south of Cortona, and resulted in a heavy defeat for the Romans.
The battle of Ticinus was fought between the Carthaginian forces of Hannibal and a Roman army under Publius Cornelius Scipio in late November 218 BC as part of the Second Punic War. It took place in the flat country on the right bank of the river Ticinus, to the west of modern Pavia in northern Italy. Hannibal led 6,000 Libyan and Iberian cavalry, while Scipio led 3,600 Roman, Italian and Gallic cavalry and a large but unknown number of light infantry javelinmen.
The Battles of Kroton in 204 and 203 BC were, as well as the raid in Cisalpine Gaul, the last larger scale engagements between the Romans and the Carthaginians in Italy during the Second Punic War. After Hannibal’s retreat to Bruttium due to the Metaurus debacle, the Romans continuously tried to block his forces from gaining access to the Ionian Sea and cut his eventual escape to Carthage by capturing Kroton, the last port which had remained in his hands after years of fighting.
Tiberius Sempronius Longus was a Roman consul during the Second Punic War and a contemporary of Publius Cornelius Scipio. In 219 BC, Sempronius and the elder Scipio were elected as consuls for 218 BC. At the outbreak of the war in 218 BC, he was ordered to conduct the war effort in Sicily and Africa, while Scipio was sent to the Iberian Peninsula to attack Hannibal himself. Sempronius was allocated two Roman legions, 16,000 allied infantry, 1,800 allied cavalry, 160 quinqueremes and 20 lighter vessels. As soon as his army was assembled he moved his forces to Sicily. Striking from Lilybaeum Sempronius captured Malta from the Carthaginians.
Hanno, distinguished as the son of the suffet Bomilcar, was a Carthaginian officer in the Second Punic War.
The Insubres or Insubri were an ancient Celtic population settled in Insubria, in what is now the Italian region of Lombardy. They were the founders of Mediolanum (Milan). Though completely Gaulish at the time of Roman conquest, they were the result of the fusion of pre-existing Ligurian and Celtic population with Gaulish tribes.
The Battle of Lilybaeum was the first clash between the navies of Carthage and Rome in 218 BC during the Second Punic War. The Carthaginians had sent 35 quinqueremes to raid Sicily, starting with Lilybaeum. The Romans, warned by Hiero of Syracuse of the coming raid, had time to intercept the Carthaginian contingent with a fleet of 20 quinqueremes and managed to capture several Carthaginian ships.
The Battle of Insubria in 203 BC was the culmination of a major war, carried out by the Carthaginian commander Mago, brother of Hannibal Barca, at the end of the Second Punic war between Rome and Carthage in what is now northwestern Italy. Mago had landed at Genoa, Liguria, two years before, in an effort to keep the Romans busy to the North and thus hamper indirectly their plans to invade Carthage's hinterland in Africa. He was quite successful in reigniting the unrest among various peoples against the Roman dominance. Rome was forced to concentrate large forces against him which finally resulted in a battle fought in the land of the Insubres (Lombardy). Mago suffered defeat and had to retreat. The strategy to divert the enemy's forces failed as the Roman general Publius Cornelius Scipio laid waste to Africa and wiped out the Carthaginian armies that were sent to destroy the invader. To counter Scipio, the Carthaginian government recalled Mago from Italy. However, the remnants of the Carthaginian forces in Cisalpine Gaul continued to harass the Romans for several years after the end of the war.
Publius Cornelius Scipio Asina was a Roman politician and general who served as consul in 221 BC, and as such campaigned against the Histri, a people in the northern Adriatic. Asina belonged to the Scipionic-Aemilian faction which dominated Roman politics at the beginning of the Second Punic War, and advocated for an aggressive policy against Hannibal. This stance led him to oppose the more prudent strategy of Fabius Maximus. He was notably appointed Interrex in 216 BC, probably in order to manipulate the elections.
The capture of Malta was the successful invasion of the Carthaginian island of Malta by forces of the Roman Republic led by Tiberius Sempronius Longus in the early stages of the Second Punic War in 218 BC.
The siege of Mutina in 218 BC constitutes one of the first episodes of the Second Punic War. Hannibal's diplomacy in Cisalpine Gaul persuaded the Gallic Boii and Insubres tribes to revolt and drive the Roman colonists out of Piacenza (Placentia) and push them as far as Modena (Mutina), which was then besieged.
The Hannibal's raid to Rome occurred in 211 BC during the Second Punic War; the Carthaginian leader Hannibal marched by surprise with his army towards Rome, initially causing great concern among the leaders and citizens of the republic. The raid, however, ended in failure; soon, faced with firm resistance from the Romans, Hannibal left the city to head with his troops to Campania.
The Battle of Piacenza, which took place in January 217 B.C. during the Second Punic War, represented a double clash of secondary importance between the army of the consul Tiberius Sempronius Longus and the Carthaginian army led by Hannibal. This occurred following Hannibal's victories at the Ticinus.
Carthage