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Hey! What are you still doing here?
I said go and buy it now! (dramatic music)
All right, our beloved mercenaries. Let's hear it.
Okay, thank you one and all for your hard work
fighting in the First Punic War.
Would've been nice if you'd won.
Maybe tried a little harder.
But this isn't the finger pointing convention.
I know you all have one thing on your minds.
"Hey, when are we all getting paid?"
(crowd cheering)
All right, all right, simmer down!
Remember you lost, you, okay.
Jim, why don't you tell them?
I'm not telling them, you tell them!
Ugh.
Look, you're not getting paid.
(crowd gasps) What?
We lost the First Punic war
and owed the Romans a ton of reparations.
Of course we can't pay you in full.
Let's burn this place to the ground!
(crowd cheers)
Hey! Hey!
Don't burn this place to the ground!
Come on, fellas.
Will killing us really make you feel better
about your money?
Yes.
Way to go, sir.
Shut up, Jim! You're fired!
I guess that makes two of us.
Huh? (yells)
(suspenseful music)
In the aftermath of the First Punic War,
Carthage's disgruntled mercenaries
left unpaid for all their hard work revolted
and Carthage found itself caught up
in an extremely destructive Mercenary War.
The panicked Carthaginians hired more mercenaries
to fight the mercenaries they couldn't afford to pay,
and Carthage came dangerously close to collapse.
All the while, across the water, there was Rome.
Ha. Look at those morons.
We just kicked their in the First Punic war
and now their own mercenaries are revolting.
Ha ha. Yeah.
Wait, First Punic War?
You mean there's gonna be a second one?
Well, we're definitely taking advantage of this situation,
so almost certainly yes.
The Romans did in fact take advantage of the situation.
Amongst the chaos,
rebels on the Carthaginian Island of Sardinia
sent out a cry for help to Rome.
"Hot diggity dog," said the Romans,
"that's free real estate."
And so in they went.
Whoa, whoa, whoa.
That's our island! Get the hell off!
Hey, they requested our help. We're simply helping.
Oh, no, you don't.
Look, we're sending our own army
to deal with the rebels, okay?
But just to be clear,
we're not trying to start a fight with you.
So you know, don't declare war on us or anything.
War!
We surrender!
Great and as part of the peace treaty,
we get to keep these islands.
No!
The Carthaginians we're hopping mad.
As if their humiliating loss
in the First Punic War wasn't bad enough,
the Romans now took advantage of their mercenary problem
and stole their islands.
This shocking land grab was pretty hard to justify
even by Roman standards.
Additionally, the Romans now demanded Carthage pay them
even more money on top of what was already owed.
If Rome was trying to make Carthage as mad as possible,
they were doing a fantastic job.
The seeds of a Second Punic War were being sown,
and they were being watered with Carthaginian tears.
Resentment in Carthage only continued to grow.
Eventually, Carthage solved their mercenary problem
thanks to Carthaginian military genius
and hero of the First Punic War, Hamilcar Barca.
He sorted those naughty mercenaries out
with some good old fashioned atrocities
and the destructive Mercenary War was over.
Still, all was not well.
In Carthage, mere decades ago,
they were the top dogs in the Western Mediterranean.
Now, after the crushing defeat in the First Punic War,
and a huge bill to pay the Romans,
Carthage was well and truly under Rome's thumb.
What on earth were they supposed to do?
If they wanted any chance
at regaining their former strength,
there was one thing they needed now more than anything.
Money.
But as long as they owed Rome a bazillion dollars,
there was nothing they could do.
Fortunately for them,
amongst their ranks, there was one big hunk of a man
with one big clump of a brain.
Me!
- [Senators] Hamilcar Barca?
- Yes.
Wait, why do you all have the exact same voice?
(yells) I have it too!
That's right, hero of the First Punic War,
greatest general alive and the poster above my bed.
Hamilcar Barca had an idea.
All right, we need money?
Well, I've got one word for you. Spain.
An area filled with lucrative silver mines
from which the silver would flow like a river,
and our pockets would be stuffed
like Tony's mother at a buffet.
Hey! So here's my proposal.
You send me with an army to Spain,
I'll expand our territory,
get those silver mines up and running,
and we'll be able to pay the Romans back in no time.
Okay, but just to check,
you're not secretly raising the money
to go on a bloodthirsty revenge spree against Rome, are you?
Because we can't afford that.
Hanno, my dear,
I'm simply going to pay them back.
Well, that wasn't reassuring.
Few in Carthage were as bitter about their loss
in the First Punic War as Hamilcar Barca.
98% of his brain matter had been reallocated
to thoughts of revenge.
He was also fed up with the Carthaginian politicians
for what he deemed a cowardly betrayal
when they surrendered at the end of the last war.
And so for Hamilcar, going to Spain
meant being able to act independently
from the weak Carthaginian government,
building his own strength,
and then perhaps somewhere down the line, revenge.
However, he wasn't going to Spain by himself.
Hannibal. Yes, father?
Would you like to come with me to build an empire in Spain?
Oh boy, would I!
Barbara, mind if I take our nine-year-old son with me?
I want to implant an intense hatred of Rome in him
and prepare him for a glorious campaign of vengeance.
(sighs) Just try not to traumatize him dear.
No promises.
The young boy Hannibal would accompany his father,
watching, learning.
Boy, you see that city over there?
Yes, father?
That is Rome. Do you know what we do to Romans?
No, Father.
We hate them, Hannibal.
We hate them with every fiber of our being.
But why, Father? Can't I just play with my digimons?
No son! They took everything from us.
Our land, our wealth, our pride.
Those animals! I'll tear them limb from limb!
I'll burn their pathetic city to the ground!
Dad?
I'm sorry, son, I've just never been so proud. Keep going.
I'll slaughter their people.
I'll cut off their faces and wear them as masks!
(sobs) I love you, son!
After taking Hannibal to the temple of Baal
and having him swear an oath never to be a friend of Rome,
off dad and son went
for their lovely beach holiday in Spain.
But Spain was already inhabited by many tribes people.
And when Hamilcar suddenly showed up in their territory,
they were like, hey, who the hell are you?
What are you doing here?
I'm teaching my son how to become a warrior like me.
Aw! Well, that's sweet.
Well then little guy, let's see what you got.
Good boy.
As Hamilcar got to work fighting the tribes of Iberia
and expanding Carthaginian influence,
Hannibal became a child of war,
even earning battle scars from a young age
and he grew to become a great military leader himself,
making his father very proud.
I love you so much, son.
Dad, not in front of the enemy!
(army laughing)
You killed that guy so well, son.
(army laughing) Dad!
The Barcas successfully consolidated Carthaginian power,
got those silver mines up and running,
and were sending buckets of cash
back to a money-starved Carthage.
And symbolizing Carthage's regrowing strength,
a beautiful new city would eventually be founded in Spain,
New Carthage with a magnificent palace at its center.
Carthage is back, baby!
What in the name of Apollo is going on here?
(yells) Romans!
Flowing silver mines? Dancing elephants?
What are you up to, Hamilcar?
I'm simply gathering the money to pay you back.
Oh. Oh, okay then.
Or are you rebuilding strength
to go on a bloodthirsty revenge spree?
Like I said, Claudius,
I'm simply trying to pay you back.
Aw, you guys are hugging.
No, we're not!
I was.
I was hugging! (sobs)
Hamilcar had practically carved out
a kingdom for himself in Spain,
free from the meddling Carthaginian politicians.
His power was becoming immense.
But dad.
Yes, my son?
I'm confused. Are we really simply paying the Romans back?
We're not gonna go on a bloodthirsty revenge spree?
Of course we are.
I'm just saying that to get the Romans off our backs.
Listen, here's the most important life lesson
I have for you: vengeance is everything.
An all-encompassing thirst for vengeance
is great for your mental health.
Are you still confused?
No, no, I get it now.
But what if the Romans find out what we're up to?
They won't find out.
Why?
Well Hannibal, because I use NordVPN!
I'm confused again.
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all your passwords being stolen
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Me neither. And that's why I use NordVPN.
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And as always, you'll be supporting my channel.
So thank you. Now, where were we?
Oh yeah.
Carthaginian tears, a child of war,
and the Carthaginian conquest of Spain.
The Carthaginian recovery had been staggeringly quick
and Rome was seriously alarmed.
But they were also preoccupied with ongoing wars elsewhere,
including an expansionist war to the north
where they were enslaving thousands of northern Celts.
So for now, to keep Carthage in check,
the Romans insisted on a new treaty.
See this river?
The two sides agreed that everything above it
was in Rome's sphere of influence,
while beneath it was Carthage.
Under no circumstances were the Carthaginians
to expand north of that river.
But for now, Hamilcar and son were living it up.
Well son, here's to many more years
of successful campaigning in Spain.
Now if you'll excuse me, I just have to go fight those guys.
See you later, son.
I love you!
What the? Aw crap.
I drowned? Oh well.
Always remember, son,
you are vengeance!
Also, delete my browsing history.
Hamilcar Barca was tragically ambushed at a river
and drowned.
His son-in-law and possibly also his lover,
no further questions, took charge for a while,
but he too was later assassinated,
leaving finally a 26-year-old Hannibal
in charge of the Carthaginian armies in Spain.
Sources say the men readily accepted him as their leader.
He chose to suffer the same hardships as his men.
He lived in the same conditions,
was often the first into battle, and the last one out.
And it also helped that he looked a lot like his dad.
He had the total respect of his men.
If he said, "jump," they said "how high?"
If he said "tuck me in," they said "how tight?"
If he said, "talk to a girl without peeing your pants,"
they said "that's impossible. Nobody can do that!"
An army that would follow him anywhere would be crucial
for exacting his vengeance against Rome.
Hannibal's army had become
a strong and loyal fighting force,
and that was making a certain nation very uncomfortable.
Seeing Carthage restrengthened so quickly
was not something Rome had expected.
Yet here they were, paying off their debts
and expanding their territory.
It didn't feel very much like Carthage
was under Rome's thumb at all
and Rome wanted to put an end to it.
Tensions were strung tighter than your lyre's g-string
and all it would take was one incident
to trigger all-out war.
And in 219 BC, a city in Spain
would find itself at the very center
of that fateful incident, Saguntum.
Remember that treaty
declaring everything south of this river
to be Carthage's sphere of influence?
Well, Saguntum should therefore
obviously be Carthaginian, right?
Wrong!
Saguntum had actually scored itself
an informal alliance with Rome
after Rome had helped it with an internal dispute.
With Carthaginian encroachment,
Saguntum began to fear for its independence,
and Rome declared itself Saguntum's protector.
But this clearly went against the Ebro River Treaty,
so what on earth was Rome doing?
Were the Saguntines and the Romans truly just BFFs?
It's possible.
Or was Rome deliberately trying to interfere
with Hannibal's Spanish expansion
and maintain a staging post for a future war with Carthage?
More likely.
And Hannibal certainly viewed this Rome-Saguntum alliance
as an outrage.
Yet another example of Roman arrogance.
At first, he left Saguntum alone.
But having learned from his father to hate all things Roman,
and having inherited his father's dream
of bringing Rome to its knees, more and more,
Hannibal may have begun to see Saguntum as an opportunity.
Could this controversial alliance
be just what devilish little Hannibal needed
to kickstart a second war with Rome
and restore Carthaginian dominance?
It's even possible that Rome were also using Saguntum
to goad Hannibal into a fight
so they could go and kick him out of Spain.
And as the two giants began gearing up for round two,
the poor people of Saguntum had no idea
that they were about to be crushed in the collision.
Hey, your alliance with Saguntum is an insult
and we won't stand for it.
They're our friends Hannibal,
and if you lay a finger on them, it'll be an act of war.
Yeah, Hannibal! Back the hell off!
War, eh?
I was thinking I might just besiege their city
and massacre their people.
I hope you do, Hannibal! Find out what happens.
Yeah, we hope you do, Hani- Wait, what?
Maybe I will.
Go ahead, kill them all.
Uh. Okay, then.
Fine. Fine.
Okay. Guess I'll do just that.
Consul? We look forward to it.
Consul? You're gonna protect us though, right, Consul?
Consul?!
Oh no!
To top it all off,
when the Saguntine people made the genius decision
of raiding into Carthaginian territory, enough was enough.
In an action that was guaranteed
to provoke the Romans into war, Hannibal besieged the city.
The siege of Saguntum lasted eight cruel months
before Hannibal broke through the city defenses
and turned Saguntum into a killing field.
It was a massacre.
What the hell?
Tell me I didn't just catch you massacring our friends,
the Saguntise!
Well Consul, if you like the Saguntise so much,
perhaps you should Sagundeez nuts!
(all cheering)
Hearing word of the attack on Saguntum,
Rome was understandably in an uproar
and all eyes were now fixated on what would happen next.
As Rome sent a delegation to Carthage
led by one of the most highly esteemed Roman senators,
Fabius Maximus.
He demanded an answer for Hannibal's sins.
All right, listen up scum.
You've got a rogue general in Spain attacking a Roman ally.
What are we supposed to do about it?
Well, there shouldn't have even been a Roman ally in Spain.
You're the aggressor here!
Hand Hannibal over to us as a criminal
so we can punish him severely.
No. Yes.
No! Look,
I hold in the folds of my toga both peace and war.
Which one should I let drop?
Whichever one you want!
Then I choose war!
(dramatic music)
The Second Punic War had begun.
Pack it up boys we've got 'em!
We already destroyed these clowns once,
and we were the underdogs!
Now, we're the, over dogs?
Hotdogs. Exactly.
This is gonna be E-Z. Here's the plan.
Consul Longus, you take your army
and sail straight for Carthage.
Burn that city to the ground!
And Consul Scipio, you just head on over to Iberia
and make sure this Hannibal guy doesn't do anything crazy.
I mean, what's he gonna do? Cross the Alps?
(all laugh)
We're going to what?!
Cross the Alps!
We're going to what?!
I just told you.
Hannibal, we'll freeze to death!
Trust me, Jerome.
The Romans are expecting us to fight
the same way we did last time,
passively, taking no initiative.
They think it's gonna be E-Z.
So this time, we have to be aggressive.
We have to go on the attack!
It sickens me to say this,
but this time we have to be a little more Roman.
(all gasp)
You mean we're gonna take poops and baths together?!
But I'm insecure about my hairy legs!
No! I'm saying this time we're gonna take the fight to them.
Think about it.
Rome thinks they're simply going to invade us
and win the war.
So when they suddenly find themselves being invaded
from the north, they'll freak out
like Tony's mother when the buffet runs out of shrimp.
Hey!
I gotta admit, it's actually kind of genius.
And my hairy legs will insulate me from the cold!
That's the spirit!
Hannibal, you have my sword.
And my spear.
And my legs!
Bleugh.
Hannibal's plan, a daring Alpine trek to surprise the Romans
was a bold but risky strategy.
If it paid off, he could catch the Romans
with their pants down, but he could also end up losing
a ton of men and supplies
in the hostile mountain conditions.
Nevertheless, in 218 BC, with a fire in his eyes
and some vengeance in his belly, Hannibal brought his force
of almost a hundred thousand men across the Ebro River.
They spent months on the road trekking through the cold,
hostile mountain conditions.
And when they finally reached the other side,
they said, "Hooray! We did it.
We crossed the Alps."
No, those were the Pyrenees.
Those are the Alps.
(wind whooshing)
(army crying)
After crossing the Pyrenees,
the army then had to pass through Southern Gaul,
a vast territory filled with tribes people,
many of whom were hostile to Hannibal's presence.
His journey to the Alps was an ordeal in itself
as he was forced to fight his way through
and incurred pretty hefty losses
before even reaching the mountains.
His plan was almost stopped in its tracks entirely
as the Roman Consul Scipio on his way to Iberia
discovered Hannibal was right on his doorstep.
Suddenly, Hannibal's journey became a race
as he rushed to get his massive army
across the vast Rhone River
before the Romans could intercept him.
The crossing was chaotic,
with the panicking elephants causing several men to drown.
And the first combat of the war occurred
when small scouting parties from each side
encountered one another.
When Scipio finally caught up to Hannibal's position,
what he found was an empty Carthaginian camp.
Hannibal had slipped through his fingers.
The Roman Consul Scipio felt the weight of the situation.
Quite unbelievably,
Hannibal was going to cross the Alps into Italy
and the Romans had no idea where he would emerge.
For the first time,
a Carthaginian force had the Roman homeland under threat.
Scipio sent his men onto Iberia as planned,
but he himself rushed home to raise a new army
so that if Hannibal survived the crossing,
Scipio would be there waiting.
Would you look at that, boys?
We're here! The Alps!
Although it is a little later than I expected.
Yeah, it's kind of chilly.
We'll set up camp here and wait for spring, right?
It's way too cold, right?
Hannibal?
(wind whooshing)
Hannibal's famous crossing of the Alps was brutal.
It was already autumn and the men suffered terribly.
It was cold. Men would fall off the sides of icy cliffs.
They starved, they fell off the sides of icy cliffs.
Some sources say they had to eat their pack animals
and would finish off dying comrades
in order to take their clothes for extra warmth.
And then, they would fall off the sides of icy cliffs.
Imagine an army of 50,000 men with all of their horses,
supplies and 37 elephants trying to navigate
the most hostile mountain range in Europe.
And it wasn't just nature that they were up against.
Tribes people lived in the mountains
and they couldn't believe what they were seeing.
A tribe approached Hannibal and said,
hey man, geez, that's some nice armor. What is that, gold?
Man, I'd really like that armor.
Hey boss! They've got food as well.
Shut up! Be cool.
Hey, why don't you let us guide you
through this narrow gorge?
We're not gonna kill you or nothing.
Just walk right on through there. We're not gonna kill ya.
It's just right this way.
We're not gonna kill ya!
Hannibal's army were forced to fight their way
through the gorge
as massive boulders rained down on them from above.
Some clever reorganization of his line helped them survive,
and they were able to fend off the opportunistic tribes.
But losses from the constant attacks were heavy.
As the journey continued, men who went over the sides
would get stuck on the ice sheets below
and had to make a grizzly choice
between starving to death or just getting it over with.
When the deeply demoralized army reached the summit
and rested for a couple days,
Hannibal tried to lift their spirits with a rousing speech.
Look, men! down there, it's Rome.
These plains stretching out in front of you
are bountiful with food to eat and Romans to kill!
Move, Bessie!
Look! You have just climbed the walls of Rome.
The hard part is over.
From here on out, it's all downhill
and nobody else will die!
Except for them.
The rest of us here, no one dies.
Starting now.
Okay, let's go.
Oh for goodness sake!
As it turned out, the descent was as deadly as the way up
with the cold really starting to set in.
The path became even more narrow.
And at one point, the men spent three days
in the freezing cold repairing a collapsed road.
When they finally reached the bottom,
Hannibal said look guys, we did it!
(army groaning)
Well, I thought it went really well!
When Hannibal left Spain,
he had about a hundred thousand men.
By the time he reached the Italian plains,
his numbers had dwindled to about 26,000.
He was now caught in enemy territory
without a supply line or a source of reinforcements.
And any elephants who had survived to this point
were almost certainly traumatized.
So what on earth was Hannibal up to?
This supposed military genius
had just led a starving and weakened army
right into enemy territory.
Any modern general who lost half their men to mountains
would be immediately fired
and possibly even depantsed on live TV.
Here's the thing, while Hannibal may not have planned
on losing quite so many men,
he had almost certainly expected considerable losses,
and he always had a plan for how to replace them.
Need men?
Northern Italy was full of men, big burly Celtic men.
All the men Hannibal would ever need to beat off Rome.
These Celts were filled with resentment,
having only recently been conquered by Rome.
Hannibal hoped to be seen as a liberator,
convince the Celts to cut ties with Rome,
and instead join him in crushing Rome.
That way, he could gain a source of reinforcements
and supplies right in Rome's backyard.
But sir, in order to win the loyalty of the Celts,
we would need to make a seriously favorable impression
on them.
How do we get 'em to like us?
Hmm.
Kill them. (dramatic music)
One of Hannibal's first actions in Italy
was to obliterate a nearby tribe who wouldn't join him.
This sent a clear message to all the other tribes.
It was his wrath they should fear, not Rome's.
The realization that a Carthaginian army
had just invaded them
must have been shocking for the Romans.
But when they looked at this rag tie group
broken by the Alps,
they couldn't have felt very intimidated.
However, Hannibal was now in Italy
and he was about to embark
on one of the most astonishing military campaigns
in all of human history.
The Romans may not have known it yet,
but there was now a monster loose in their territory,
and he was vying for Roman blood.
(dramatic music)
(dramatic music continues)