nian general Hamilcar Barca, and was born in 247
B.C. It is said that in his ninth year his father led him to an altar
and bade him swear eternal enmity to Rome. From the age of nine to
eighteen he was trained in war and diplomacy under Hamilcar in Spain;
and from his eighteenth to his twenty-fifth year he was the chief
agent in carrying out the plans by which his brother-in-law,
Hasdrubal, extended and consolidated the Carthaginian dominion in the
Peninsula. On the death of Hasdrubal, in 221 B.C., the soldiers with
one voice chose Hannibal, then in his twenty-sixth year, as their
general. Forthwith he crossed the Tagus, and in two years reduced all
Spain up to the Ebro, with the exception of the Greek colony of
Saguntum. That town, which claimed the protection of Rome, fell in 218
B.C., and the Second Punic War, or, as the Romans justly called it,
"the War of Hannibal," began. Garrisoning Libya with Spaniards, and
Spain with Libyans (a precaution against treachery), Hannibal set
out on his march for Rome. In the summer of 218 B.C. he left New
Carthage with 90,000 foot, 12,000 horse, and 37 elephants, crossed the
Pyrenees, and gained the Rhone, where his passage was barred by a host
of Gauls. The general thereupon sent part of his troops two days'
journey up-stream, with orders to cross the Rhone and fall on the rear
of the barbarians. His orders were executed by Hanno, and the passage
of the river was safely effected. He crossed the Alps in fifteen days,
in the face of obstacles which would have proved insuperable to almost
any other commander. His troops, reared under African and Spanish
suns, perished in thousands amid ice and snow. The native tribes
threatened the annihilation of his force, and were only dispersed by
his matchless courage and address. The beasts of burden fell over
precipices, or stuck fast and were frozen to death. In places, rocks
had to be shattered and roads constructed to enable the men to creep
round projecting crags. When he gained the valley of Aosta, Hannibal
had but 20,000 foot and 6,000 horse to attempt the conquest of a power
which had lately shown that she could put an army of 170,000
unrivalled soldiers into the field.

[Illustration: Hannibal crossing the Rhone.]

After allowing his men to recruit in the villages of the friendly
Insubres, he overcame the Taurini, besieging and taking Turin, and
forced the Ligurian and Celtic tribes on the Upper Po to serve in his
army. At the Ticinu