Professor Josephine Quinn

So he's born in 247 BCE.

He's the son of a general called Hamilcar Barca.

And this general fought in the First Punic War against Rome.

He has two brothers.

We know that.

They're called Hasdrubal and Mago.

He has three sisters.

Nobody bothers to tell us what they're called.

Well, you know, it's a different time.

And

And what's been going on when Hannibal is born is this first war between Carthage and Rome.

And basically the relationship between the two cities gets increasingly strained due to various central Mediterranean politics.

And war breaks out in 264.

And Hamilcar, who's Hannibal's father, he's sent to Sicily to prosecute this war in 247.

So the same year that Hannibal is born until 241, when Rome defeats Carthage at the Battle of the Egadi Islands off western Sicily.

And that's the end of the First Punic War.

It's the first really big defeat ever.

Yeah, exactly.

No, because once Rome has taken Sicily and Sardinia, basically what Carthage wants to do is consolidate its holdings in southern Spain, which it's had some level of interest in before that.

But it's really the only place left that it can really expand now without hitting the Romans again.