Hannibal Barca Personality Traits

A man by the name of Hannibal Barca, was a general for Carthage. He lived from 247 BC to 183 BC. He was known as Rome’s greatest enemy (Hoyos 1). He made his greatest impact during the Second Punic War against the Roman Empire. His animosity for the Romans was influenced by his father and his unique tactics used in the Second Punic War were innovative but they did not win him the war. Hannibal Barca’s hatred started when he born; he was born into a Roman-hating family. His father, Hamilicar Barca, was his greatest influence on his anti-Roman attitude. When Hannibal was nine years old, his father made him take an oath. Right before Hamilicar was leaving for an expedition to Spain, he was making a sacrifice. Hannibal wanted to go on the expedition too, so Hamilicar asked him if he …show more content…
Hamilicar made his son, Hannibal, swear never to be friends with Rome and at the earliest opportunity become an enemy of Rome. Hamilicar was a general in the First Punic War and he talked about his son being a great Carthaginian general someday. Hamilicar shaped Hannibal into being a leader when he got older. Hannibal had many good personality traits to be a leader, like persistence and cunning. He got those from his father along with his animosity for Rome. The tactics and strategies used by Hannibal during the Second Punic War were unusual. His plan to take Rome was to convince Rome’s allies that Carthage was the most powerful empire and that they should join Carthage instead of Rome. Then when the allies joined Carthage they would attack and defeat Rome. Besides the big plan, he did a tactic no one had done before, he brought around 40 elephants across the Alps and Apennines Mountain ranges to the Italian Peninsula along with almost 60,000 men. Many of those elephants and men died due to the harsh conditions of the Alps and the marsh they later crossed. The remaining