LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Hannibal
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In the next few years Hannibal was reduced to minor operations which centered mainly round the cities of Campania. He failed to draw his opponents into a pitched battle, and in some slighter engagements suffered reverses. As the forces detached under his lieutenants were generally unable to hold their own, and neither his home government nor his new ally Philip V of Macedon helped to make good his losses, his position in south Italy became increasingly difficult and his chance of ultimately conquering Rome grew ever more remote. In 212 he gained an important success by capturing Tarentum, but in the same year he lost his hold upon Campania, where he failed to prevent the concentration of three Roman armies round Capua. Hannibal attacked the besieging armies with his full force in 211, and attempted to entice them away by a sudden march through Samnium which brought him within 3 miles of Rome, but caused more alarm than real danger to the city. But the siege continued, and the town fell in the same year.
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In 221, Hasdrubal was murdered and Hannibal was elected commander by the Carthaginian army in Iberia. The Carthaginian government confirmed the decision. He returned to his father's aggressive military politics and attacked the natives: in 220 he captured Salamanca. The next year, he besieged Saguntum, a Roman ally. Since Rome was occupied with the Second Illyrian War and unable to support the town, Saguntum fell after a blockade of eight months.
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Hannibal had started the war without the full backing of Carthaginian oligarchy. His attack of Saguntum had presented the oligarchy with a choice of war with Rome or loss of prestige in Iberia. The oligarchy and not Hannibal controlled the strategic resources of Carthage. Hannibal constantly sought reinforcement from either Iberia or North Africa. Hannibal’s troops lost in combat were replaced with less well-trained and motivated mercenaries from Italy or Gaul. The commercial interests of the Carthaginian oligarchy dictated the reinforcement of Iberia rather than Hannibal throughout the duration of the campaign.
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In March 217, Hannibal left his winter quarter at Bologna, traversed the Apennines and ravaged Etruria (modern Tuscany). During a minor engagement, he lost an eye (although some historians claim that he suffered from opthalmia). The Romans counterattacked with some 25,000 men, but their consul Flaminius was defeated and killed in an ambush between the hills and the Trasimene lake. Two Roman legions were annihilated. Hannibal expected that Rome's allies would now leave their master and come over to Carthage. This... did not happen, and he was forced to cross the Apennines a second time, hoping to establish a new base in Apulia, the 'heel' of Italy.
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Hannibal ("mercy" or "favor of Baal"), Carthaginian general and statesman, son of Hamilcar, was born in 249 or 247 BC. Destined by his father to succeed him in the work of vengeance against Rome, he was taken to Spain, and while yet a boy gave ample evidence of his military aptitude. Upon the death of his brother-in-law Hasdrubal (221) he was acclaimed commander-in-chief by the soldiers and confirmed in his appointment by the Carthaginian government. After two years spent in completing the conquest of Spain south of the Ebro, he set himself to begin what he felt to be his life's task, the conquest and humiliation of Rome. Accordingly in 219 he seized some pretext for attacking the town of Saguntum (modern Murviedro), which stood under the special protection of Rome, and disregarding the protests of Roman envoys, stormed it after an eight months' siege. As the home government, in view of Hannibal's great popularity, did not venture to repudiate this action, the declaration of war which he desired took place at the end of the year.
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In 203 BC, Hannibal was recalled from Italy by the war party at Carthage. After leaving a record of his expedition engraved in Punic and Greek upon brazen tablets in the temple of Juno at Crotona, he sailed back to Africa.[26] His arrival immediately restored the predominance of the war party, who placed him in command of a combined force of African levies and his mercenaries from Italy. In 202 BC, Hannibal met Scipio in a fruitless peace conference. Despite mutual admiration, negotiations floundered due to Roman allegations of "Punic Faith," referring to the breach of protocols which ended the First Punic War by the Carthaginian attack on Saguntum, and a Carthaginan attack on a stranded Roman fleet. What had happened was that Scipio and Carthage had worked out a peace plan, which was approved by Rome. The terms of the treaty were quite modest, but the war had been long for the Romans.
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Hannibal