The Terror of Hannibal

Much like Sparta and Athens two hundred years earlier, the western Mediterranean became a battleground in an all out struggle for dominance between two rising political juggernauts, the land dominance of the Roman Republic's legions and the navy protecting Carthage's maritime trade empire. 

The hundred year conflict would see both civilizations dedicate everything they had to destroying the other, an army of elephants cross snow-covered mountains to invade Italy, one out of every eight Romans dead, and Carthage ultimately wiped from the face of the Earth.

Rome would never again face a foreign enemy or danger as great as the Carthaginians, but this victory also sparked the flames that would eventually consume the Republic from within.

Directions: Read “Hannibal and the Punic Wars” to help fill in the chart and answer the questions on your worksheet.