Hannibal was the son of the great Carthaginian general Hamilcar Barca. The Greek historian Polybius and the Roman historian Livy are the two primary sources for his life. According to them, Hannibal was taken to Spain by his father and at an early age was made to swear eternal hostility to Rome. From the death of his father in 229/228 until his own death about 183, Hannibal’s life was one of near constant struggle against the Roman Republic.

Hannibal’s earliest commands were given to him in the Carthaginian province of Spain by Hasdrubal, son-in-law and successor of Hamilcar. It is clear that Hannibal emerged as a successful officer, for, on the assassination of Hasdrubal in 221, the army proclaimed him, at age 26, its commander in chief, and the Carthaginian government quickly ratified his field appointment.

Hannibal immediately turned himself to the consolidation of the Punic hold on Spain. He married a Spanish princess, Imilce, and then conquered various Spanish tribes. He fought against the Olcades and captured their capital, Althaea, and he quelled the Vaccaei in the northwest. In 221, making the seaport of Kart-hadasht (modern Cartagena, Spain) his base, he won a resounding victory over the Carpetani in the region of the Tagus River.

In 219 Hannibal attacked Saguntum, an independent Iberian city south of the Ebro River. In the treaty between Rome and Carthage subsequent to the First Punic War (264–241), the Ebro had been set as the northern limit of Carthaginian influence in the Iberian Peninsula. Saguntum was indeed south of the Ebro, but the Romans had “friendship” (though perhaps not an actual treaty) with the city and regarded the Carthaginian attack on it as an act of war. The siege of Saguntum lasted eight months, and in it Hannibal was wounded. The Romans, who had sent envoys to Carthage in protest (though they did not send an army to help Saguntum), after its fall demanded the surrender of Hannibal. Thus began the Second Punic War, declared by Rome and conducted, on the Carthaginian side,