218 BC

Carthage looked out from the coast of Iberia and grinned. It had been 20 years since he had lost to Rome, but if Hannibal's plan worked that arrogant bastard would not know what hit him.

As he stood there the young Iberia tottered up and offered a goblet of wine, which Carthage took without acknowledging the boy's presence. Just as the boy was about to leave Carthage stopped him with a large hand on his shoulder and knelt down to meet his eyes.

Iberia gulped and tried to hide his shaking, for the scars from Carthage's war against him were still fresh.

"Fear not my boy," Carthage said, sensing his trepidation. "I just want to tell you that we have an opportunity, and should you join with me we will gain more than we ever imagined."

"How is that?"

Carthage smiled. "Through that young man Hannibal Barca. He is hatching a plan that will bring Rome to its knees, and should you help me the riches will be divided among us."

Iberia thought about protesting, but realized that he had little choice in the matter and merely bowed. He was nervous at the idea of going against Rome, but he feared the wrath of Carthage more.

In the spring Hannibal set out to the east with thousands of Iberian troops. Rome expected him to follow the coast immediately sent several legions after him, but Hannibal took an alternate route and lost the Roman army in the mountains. While Rome stood scratching his head and wondering how Hannibal had eluded him, the Carthaginian general was about to attempt what had been thought impossible.

Carthage looked up at the great mountains of the Alps and felt a flicker of doubt. These were lands that even Rome could not control, but Hannibal seemed confident.

"These tribes hate Rome as much as we do," he explained as they moved up the snow-covered trail. "Give them reason enough and they will join us."

Most did not, and in fact the army faced many fights and betrayals from their guides during the journey. Carthage looked up once and spotted a blond man watching him from the top of a cliff, but the man neither welcomed him nor made to attack. In all they lost about half of their army on the trip over the Alps, with about 30,000 men left by the time they reached Italian soil.

Carthage was eager to march on Rome as soon as they could, but Hannibal held him back.

"Many of the people here are still resentful of the Romans," he explained as he looked out across the plain. "And it will not take much to break the tenuous ties that bind them. Once we show them the true weakness of the Republic they will flock to us like moths to a flame and victory will be all the easier."

A group of thousands of Gauls who still bore the scars of Roman subjugation soon joined them, and once word of the Carthaginian army reached the capital Rome himself rode out at the side of one of the two consuls.

"He may have taken us by surprise, but they are weak from their mountain crossing," Rome said confidently. "And we know the Gauls well enough to beat them. This man is no threat."

He ate his words the next day. Not only had Hannibal already sacked a city and restocked his supplies, but the man possessed a military genius that Rome was not expecting. The confrontation took place on the banks of the River Trebia, where Hannibal forced the Romans to cross the freezing water in range of his slingmen, who took out many before they even reached the other bank.

While at first the battle seemed largely even, a surprise ambush by a hidden group of Hannibal's Numidian horsemen broke the Roman ranks and forced them back to the river, where the Carthaginians massacred thousands as they tried to escape. The Roman consul was gravely wounded and only saved by the efforts of his son, and Rome himself escaped by the skin of his teeth and was forced to abandon his heavy silver cuirass in the river to avoid drowning.

"How do you like that?!" Carthage shouted across the river to the retreating Rome. "This is just a taste of what you're going to get!"

Rome wrung out his wet cloak and scowled. "One battle does not decide the war!" he shouted back. "I'll get you next time!"

Both armies rested during the winter, and Carthage found that the victory had driven many more to his side and nearly doubled his army. As he looked out across the sea of tents he could not help but smile. The people of this land we eager to throw off the yoke of Rome, and he was happy to help them along.

In the spring Rome once again moved on Carthage to block his path to the capital, but Hannibal once again eluded them by taking a hidden path through a marsh. During the trek the General contracted a disease that blinded him in his right eye, but he refused to be dissuaded by it.

"An eye is nothing compared to what we will take from Rome," he explained. "It was worth it to throw them off for a time. Now we must act while we have the advantage."

His next move was to lead Rome to the shores of a lake called Trasimene, where he lured the hotheaded new consul into splitting his force in the fog, only to bring down the Libyan cavalry from the surrounding hills and obliterate the Roman forces before they had time to react.

Once again Rome barely escaped with his life by wading through the muddy water on the lake, but unlike the aftermath of the Trebia he was now simply scared. Hannibal had removed the only thing that could stop him from reaching the capital, and he was sure that the general's next act would be to burn the city to the ground.

But Hannibal did not march on Rome just then, and the Senate in a blind panic elected a man named Fabius Maximus as dictator, granting him absolute power over the army. While the previous consuls had rushed blindly into battle and been confident of victory on their own land, Fabius largely avoided Hannibal's forces and led him on game of cat-and-mouse all over Italy for the next year while the Republic tried to rebuild its shattered army. Rome watched this all with gritted teeth.

"Why do you let him ravage our lands when we could just fight him?" Rome shouted at Fabius, but the old man barely acknowledged him.

"We cannot afford another devastating loss," he said grimly. "Crops can be regrown and towns rebuilt, but we cannot let him destroy the army we have left. This man is a military genius unlike any we have ever seen, the only way to beat him is to not engage."

The Senate, however, did not heed Fabius' warnings and removed him from the dictatorship as soon as they could, replacing him with a hot-blooded consul named Varro, who marched on Hannibal as soon as he could. Rome rode alongside him with fire in his eyes. He was determined to end this now, but little did he know that this was exactly what had been expected of them.

Carthage saw the approaching army and grinned. Hannibal had once again set a genius trap for the fiery Roman troops at a place called Cannae, this time using his horsemen in conjunction with his weaker Gallic troops to draw the Romans deeper into his line while the horsemen circled to cut off their escape. It was a risky maneuver that many in Hannibal's camp had their doubts about, but the General was confident and began the day's fighting with confidence.

His strategy worked perfectly, and soon the Romans found themselves caught in a circle of death. Varro was killed in the ensuing slaughter, and the carnage was so bad that the Romans could not even recover his body in the aftermath. Hannibal lost only a few thousand, while the Roman army lost upwards of 50,000 men in a single afternoon.

Rome was nearly catatonic with shock. "He had half my number, yet he beat me! How? How?" he said again and again, but no matter how many times he repeated it he still could not believe it. Fabius just shook his head.

In the streets of Rome people were panicking and already planning their escape, but a young soldier named Publius Scipio, who years before had saved his father at the Trebia, kept public order with a firm hand. He conscripted every able man, including the very young and old, and turned thousands of slaves into warriors with antique armor looted from their own temples. It was a ragtag group that had no training and little cohesion, but as the only ones who stood between Hannibal and their home they mustered up all the courage available to them.

But Hannibal did not march on Rome that day or the next. In the wake of Cannae Carthage and the other generals pressed him to end it right then, but they were dismissed with a simple "I'll think about it." In the end they did not march on the city and focused on detaching other cities into their alliance, but in the ensuing months they became bogged down in defending their new allies and trying to corral the smaller Roman forces who nipped at them like stray dogs, but it proved fruitless to the point that Carthage began to think that he would never see the gates of Rome one way or the other.

Distracted by all this, some months later he looked across the waters at Iberia and could only stare in shock. Thousands of his soldiers and citizens lay dead and his colonies burnt, but worst of all Iberia was now standing next to Rome.

"Why?" Carthage cried. "Did I not treat you well?!"

Iberia smiled sadly. "I'm sorry, but your time has run out. When Rome attacked he spared my people, so I am indebted to him."

Carthage rose his fist as if to strike the boy, but withdrew and turned away. He had other things to worry about now.

Several months later Carthage stepped off the ship in the Libyan capital. Libya had long been his ally and given thousands of men to Hannibal's army, but with Rome breathing down his neck Carthage was hoping for a more formal alliance.

As he walked through the harbor he paused at the sight of a ship on the opposite dock. He'd recognize that sail anywhere. He broke into a run and rushed to the palace gate, where he saw that his suspicions had been correct. Rome was standing with Libya and chatting amiably, and both looked up when they saw him.

"My dear Carthage," Libya said warmly, holding his arms out so that the many bracelets on his arms jingled. "It is so good to see you again. I take it you have met Rome?"

"I have," Carthage replied between clenched teeth. He could not tell whether Libya was teasing him or if he really was that dense, but he dared not speak his mind and risk offending his potential ally. Libya was internally unstable due to feuding tribal kings, but he was rich and had provided Hannibal with the cavalry that had ensured his victory at Cannae.

Rome too seemed confounded by the situation and said nothing, and soon the two men found themselves seated side by side at a banquet put on by their host, who still did not acknowledge the reason for their visit.

"Prick," Carthage muttered under his breath when Libya turned away for a moment.

"Bastard," Rome replied.

The meeting ultimately ended with no new alliance for either side, so Carthage returned to Hannibal and Rome to his consul. Eventually Carthage secured Libya's alliance by marrying a Carthaginian noblewoman named Sophonisba to their king, but this would ultimately end in tragedy. For now there was an uneasy respite in hostilities, but it could not last.

Ultimately it was Hannibal who made the first move, but not for the reason expected. His brother Hasdrubal had been rushing to meet them in Italy and provide reinforcements until a Roman legion had taken him by surprise and killed him. Hannibal found this out when Hasdrubal's head was delivered to his camp late at night. In his grief Hannibal decided that there was no use waiting any longer and set off towards Rome with the intent to sack it right then and there.

Rome, meanwhile, was distracted by Scipio's plans. The young consul knew that he was unlikely to beat Hannibal on Italian soil, so his plan lay in a different direction. Carthage itself lay undefended, he explained, and the fastest way to disrupt Hannibal's march on Rome would be to make the Carthaginian senate recall him to defend his home city. Rome listened to all this quietly, but he could not shake the feelings of doubt that plagued him.

"Carthage is unfamiliar to us," he cautioned the consul. "And they have the whole of Africa behind them. Who knows what they could call up to defend them?"

Scipio thought about this and sighed. "You are right, but perhaps there is another way." His eyes suddenly glinted as an idea came to mind. "You are a brilliant man," he said, and clapped Rome on the shoulder.

Soon the sea was filled with Roman ships along the African coast, but rather than move on Carthage itself they moved further west towards Libya, where they landed and met with the exiled son of a slain Massylian king, who had allied himself with and lost his beloved Sophonisba, who was now wed a rival king who held the capital city.

Together they made their camp outside of the city and challenged Carthage and Libya to make peace with them, but in the night Scipio's men set fire to the Carthaginian camp and killed those who were not claimed by the flames. In the morning they took the city, robbing Carthage of its greatest remaining ally. The new Massyli king took Sophonisba as his wife, but when Rome insisted that she be given up as a prisoner of war she killed herself rather than be paraded through the streets in shackles. Despite this tragedy, Libya was now fully on the side of Rome. What Hannibal himself had not been able to accomplish Scipio pulled off in a great coup, and now just as Rome had nothing to stand between it and Hannibal he had a clear shot at the heart of Carthage.

At the same time Hannibal had reached the walls of Rome, but though his men heckled the citizens on the top of the wall he could tell that the city would not fall to him. Perched atop an elephant he rode with Carthage along the wall and gazed up at the people watching them.

"I moved too late," he muttered to Carthage. "After Cannae they were on the brink of collapse, but I gave them too much time to recover. They are not panicking, and we have neither the men nor the means to scale those walls."

Carthage frowned and looked at the General. "But we have come too far to give up! Perhaps reinforcements will come yet and allow us to breach the wall."

Hannibal shook his head. "No, the fact that the people on that wall do not even think to surrender means that they have won. A people that do not think themselves defeated cannot truly lose a war, and it is in that way that they have beaten us."

When word reached them of Scipio's machinations in Libya Hannibal finally withdrew his troops to the coast and began the long haul back to their homeland. It had been 15 years since Hannibal's campaign had began and even longer since he had been home, and when they landed Carthage saw the confusion in the man's eyes at how unfamiliar the place of his birth had become in the years since his departure.

"I left here when I was but a boy," he explained as they moved through the streets. "I promised my father that I would fight Rome until the day I died, but now I have spent more time on their soil than in my own home," he sighed. "This land is strange to me now."

In the Senate, Carthage and Hannibal watched as the entire war was blamed on the General, until Hannibal himself stepped up and pulled a senator off the platform to end his tirade against the Barca family. But as tempted as it was to simply quit, Hannibal had one last mission.

He rode out with Carthage by his side on the plain of Zama, where Scipio camped his army in view of the capital city. He clearly intended to destroy the city, but perhaps he could be talked into a treaty before more blood was shed.

As the two men talked Rome smirked over his leader's shoulder at Carthage.

"How does it feel to have your fortune turned on its head?" he muttered.

Carthage just watched him steadily. "It is just the nature of fortune. Had things been different you would be where I am now, with nothing but the will of one man between you and annihilation. We can end this now and spare ourselves more bloodshed, but if you really wish I will fight until the last man to defend my home, just as you would."

Rome smirked again at that. "Then a fight it is."

Hannibal himself could not agree to the terms Scipio put forth, especially the provision that hundreds of Carthaginian children be surrendered to Rome as political hostages, including Hannibal's own son. Hannibal, who by now was well into his 40s, tried to warn the young Scipio that the battle could go either way, but the Roman consul refused to listen and walked away from the peace talks.

With that the final battle of the Second Punic war began, and Rome once again showed his resourcefulness. By adopting the same strategy Hannibal had used at Cannae he encircled the Carthaginian army and began the slaughter in haste, and rendered the war elephants useless by positioning his men in lanes that could easily move to avoid the beasts. Hannibal himself ran as soon as the outcome of the battle became obvious, and with their last army gone the Carthaginian Senate was forced to sue for peace, this time adopting a treaty that made the previous war's outcome look painless.

Rome once again stood before Carthage, who knelt on the ground in what remained of his armor.

"You are to have no colonies outside of this immediate area," Rome began. "And you cannot make war inside or outside Africa without my permission. Your navy is to be burnt in full view of the city, and you must pay reparations for 50 years to remind you and your people that you have lost. Is that clear?"

Carthage nodded. While at the end of this first war he had been able to claim that he had been cheated from his rightful victory, now with a Roman army stationed outside the city walls he could not deny that he had lost.

But hope was not completely gone from him. He had more avenues for success than just war, and his people and country still existed.

Seeing this, Rome kicked him one last time in the face before he turned away, leaving the other man bleeding on the ground. Carthage watched him go and turned back to his land with a new determination. He had lost again, but as long as he existed he was not truly defeated.

To be Continued…

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Notes: So as not to keep us here forever this is a very brief overview of the major events, and even with so much cut out this was still longer than I had intended. If you want a full account of the entire war I suggest finding a book or article to fill in areas I skipped over.

Iberia (Spain) was not a unified country at the time, but for the sake of the narration he's just one person. As far as any country is concerned it really should have been multiple tribes with a person representing each, but we can just assume that they do exist and just do not appear in the story.

The blond man seen on the mountain was originally intended to be Germania, but in reality Hannibal would have been too far south to come into contact with him. We'll just consider him an unnamed representative of the Gallic tribes and leave it at that.

Libya should technically be called Numidia, but as there was more than one group of people who answered to that name in the area I called him Libya instead to avoid confusion.

The awkward meeting between Rome and Carthage in Libya really happened. The swearing did not, as far as the historians can tell, though I am sure that it reflects what was on the minds of the ambassadors.