HANNIBAL a capital of $250,000, a savings bank, several large tobacco factories, pork-packing houses, flour mills, saw mills, founderies and car works, and 14 extensive lumber yards. Hannibal college was established in 1868, under the aus- pices of the Methodist Episcopal church South, and in 1872 had 5 professors and 35 prepara- tory and 73 collegiate students. There are 6 public schools, including a high school, having in 1872 25 teachers and 1,035 pupils; several private schools, a Roman Catholic seminary, a daily and weekly newspaper, a monthly pe- riodical, and 13 churches. HAMIBAL, or Annibal (in Punic, probably, "favorite of Baal"), a Carthaginian general and statesman, born in 247 B. C., died in Nico- media, Bithynia, in 183. He was the son of Hamilcar Barca, the Carthaginian hero of the first Punic war and leader of the popular party in his state ; and the first years of his life were spent amid the impressions caused by the achievements of his father, the disasters which terminated that protracted struggle against Rome, and the horrors of the military mutiny which followed it. Having quelled this mu- tiny, and prepared for the conquest of Spain, Hamilcar, designing to take with him his son, then a boy of nine years, led him before their departure to an altar, and made him swear eternal enmity to the Romans. Spain, which Hamilcar and his son-in-law and successor in command Hasdrubal conquered as far as the Ebro, was an excellent school of war for Han- nibal; and when the young general took the command, on the death of his brother-in-law (221), he possessed all the qualities which could promise success to the great military and polit- ical schemes of the house of Barca. His first task was to complete the conquest of the coun- try south of the Ebro. After a few victories, Saguntum (now Murviedro in Valencia) alone remained to be subdued. This city, a Greek colony, was an ally of Rome ; but this was only another inducement for Hannibal to at- tack it, and at the head of 150,000 men he was strong enough to undertake the siege against the will of his government and the wish of the predominant party in Carthage. Saguntum, after a defence of eight months, characterized by that desperate valor which has marked the struggles of so many cities in ancient as well as modern Spain, fell while Rome was still deliberating on its rescue (219). Hannibal stained his victory by cruelty, but the rich booty sent to Carthage silenced the accusations of his enemies and augmented the number of the friends of war. Rome demanded in vain the surrender of the young general, and at last through her envoy, Quintus Fabius Maximus, declared war. Thus the second Punic war was begun. Unlike the first, which was waged chiefly for the possession of the islands of the Mediterranean, the genius of Hannibal made it a struggle for the destruction of Rome, which he hoped to achieve by an invasion of Italy from the north, and with the assistance of the half subdued subjects of the tyrannical repub- lic, of whom the Insubrian and Boian Gauls had secretly promised a revolt. Having se- cured the coasts of Africa by an army of Spaniards, and Spain by another of Africans under his brother Hasdrubal, he started from New Carthage (now Cartagena) in the spring of 218, with 90,000 foot, 12,000 horse, and 37 elephants, crossed the Ebro, subdued in a se- ries of bloody struggles the warlike tribes of northeastern Spain, and passed the Pyrenees, leaving Hanno to guard the passes, and dis- missing thousands of native Spanish troops to show his confidence of success. His army was now reduced to 59,000 men, with whom h speedily traversed the country between the Pyrenees and the Rh6ne, crossed that river, unchecked by the hostile Massiliotes, old allies of Rome, and their warlike Gallic neighbors, and, avoiding the cavalry of P. Cornelius Sci- pio the elder, who had landed on the coast of Gaul, marched up the Rh6ne and Isere, and through the comparatively level peninsula of the Allobroges between those two rivers to the Alps. It is now generally believed that he crossed the Graian range by the Little St. Ber- nard, which agrees with the relation of Poly- bius; but some still hold that his route was across the Cottian range by Mt. Cenis (as Livy relates), or Mt. Genevre. The stormy autumn weather and the treachery of the Centrones, a Gallic tribe, greatly augmented the natural horrors of this 15 days' passage of an army consisting in part of horsemen and elephants along narrow paths, between precipices and avalanches, over rocky peaks and ice fields lightly covered with snow. But the spirit of the general proved equally ingenious in baf- fling the unexpected assaults of the Gauls, and in contriving artificial means for trans- porting the army with its trains. Of this, however, no more than 20,000 foot and 6,000 horse could be mustered in the valleys of the Dora Baltea. But the Insubrians and Bo- ians had kept their promise and risen against the Romans; they now readily joined his ban- ners. Having captured Taurinium (Turin), which was hostile to the Insubrians, he de- feated Scipio, who had returned with a part of his army from Gaul to meet him on his de- scent from the Alps, in a cavalry engagement on the Ticino. It was his first battle against Romans, and the first in Italy; and knowing the importance of the first impression, he had inspired his brave Numidian cavalry by a fiery speech. The consul retreated toward the for- tified town of Placentia (Piacenza), but could not prevent his colleague T. Semproiiius, after his arrival from Sicily, from accepting a bat- tle on the Trebia, in which the Romans were entrapped into an ambuscade by Mago, the younger brother of Hannibal, and completely routed. Only a part of their army escaped toward the fortresses of the Po. The cam- paign of the year 218 had thus been a succes- sion of triumphs for Hannibal from the Ebro
