The war between Carthage and Rome, later called the Second Punic War, had been going on since the seventeenth year. Contemporary historians have rightly called it “the ancient world war.” These were one of the greatest struggles of the age and their result, as was already known, was to determine the shape of the world at that time. In 202 BC, in North Africa, in the territory controlled by Carthage, near the city of Zama (today Tunisia), two armies clashed. Carthage with the famous Hannibal and the Roman one commanded by Publius Cornelius Scipio, the most remarkable commander in the history of the Republic. Both, until then victorious, had not lost a single battle, and both had under their command the best troops, composed mainly of combat-hardened veterans.

A well-known story tells of the oath nine-year-old Hannibal took to his father Hamilcar Barkas, swearing eternal hatred toward the Romans. Although the latter liked to highlight their own virtues and present themselves as righteous and always faithful to their words, the first war between the two republics broke out because of the betrayal of the Romans – despite the established and still valid alliance, they attacked without provocation the Carthaginians. possessions in Sicily. And it was for the control of this rich island that a long war of more than twenty years was waged, during which the Romans fought for the first time at sea.

Hamilcar, great leader of the First Punic War, had reasons to hate the Romans: abandoned in Sicily by the leaders of Carthage, humiliated by the need to negotiate an unfavorable peace, he was aware of the inevitability of a decisive conflict. After the fighting in Sicily, he managed to put down a dangerous rebellion of unpaid mercenaries which lasted for three years, then decided to conquer southern Spain (237).

Original title: “Duel of the Titans”