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Carthaginian commercial pipeline.
Watching Hamilcar Barca's every move was his son Hannibal.
Despite Hamilcar Barca's brilliant maneuvers, things in Carthage
were going from bad to worse. Roman leaders cooked up phony
stories of Carthaginian evil-doings, spread the propaganda to the
Roman population, then declared one "just" war after another to
avenge the manufactured slights.79 Carthage, which thrived on trade,
not war, was being hammered into bankruptcy.
Eventually old Hamilcar Barca died. But his son Hannibal was
determined to carry on. The 29-year-old came up with a daring
scheme to save the Carthaginian homeland.80 He would stamp the
Roman infection out at its source. Leaving his younger brother behind
to hold Spain, Hannibal would gather up his army of allies and spring
a surprise attack on Rome itself. He'd do it by approaching the city
from a route no one could possibly anticipate. He'd take his
forces--elephants and all--through the treacherous mountain passes far
to Rome's north.
The strategy seemed foolproof. For years the Romans had been
certain that no army of any size could cross the mountain slopes alive.
Since invasion from the north was clearly ludicrous, the generals of
Rome left their northern flank virtually undefended.
Crossing the Alps with nearly 70,000 men, horses and elephants
was no easy matter.81 Pack animals and battle steeds plunged off the
sides of thigh-wide mountain trails to their death. Men bogged down
in the snow, exhausted and starving, then gave up on their lives. And
the primitive folks who made the mountains home inflicted damage
with surprise attacks. But in the end, Hannibal and his followers
accomplished the impossible. They clambered down from the
treacherous mountain slopes to the "impregnable" northern Italian
plains.
ploads of silver, timber and tin from the hills of Spain into the
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