    40

    shi

    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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