So Who is This Guy Called Hannibal? The Man Who Nearly Took Down Rome

Hannibal is for many people the only thing of Carthage that people are familiar with, for most the great city state of Carthage is completely unknown, it is forgotten, lost in the mists of time. By the time of Hannibal's birth, Carthage had fallen on hard times. They had been defeated in the First Punic War against the Roman Republic. The loss devastated the Carthaginians who before the war had being the dominant force in the Western Mediterranean. The Romans imposed harsh terms upon Carthage, including seizing the provinces of Sicily, Corsica and Sardinia. Hannibal's father, Hamilcar Barca was the Carthaginian general who was charged with the task of restoring prestige by invading the Iberian peninsula in 237 BCE. Hannibal, at the tender age of eleven accompanied him and began learning the trade of war. In 221 BCE. Hannibal assumed command of the Carthage armies in Hispania, made ground and rose the old enemy, Rome, thus beginning the Second Punic War in 218 BCE. Hannibal was in no mood to sit around waiting for the onslaught, he brought the war to Rome, fighting his way through the Pyrenees, subduing the local tribes there.

Reasons for Fall of the Roman Empire

The fall of the Roman Empire is traditionally dated to year 476 when the last Western Roman Emperor Romulus Augustulus was deposed by Germanic military leader Odoacer despite the fact that the eastern half of empire - the Byzantine Empire has survived for nearly a millennium. The barbarian invasions undoubtedly contributed to the fall of the Roman Empire but some historians believe that the barbarians merely accelerated its collapse.

The first signs of the decline of the Empire can be traced back to the second half of the 2nd century, while the situation in the empire reached its critical point in 235 when emperor Alexander Severus was murdered and the empire broke up into three competing states. The civil war that lasted until the ascension of Diocletian to the throne in 284 and raids of Germanic peoples in the Roman provinces severely hit the Roman economy, in first place the long-distance trade because traveling and transport were no longer safe.