Presented by Two Small Blocks
The year is 182 BC. Rome is rising in Italy. Greece has been thrown into chaos by a series of destructive wars. The Seleucids rule in Israel, where the seeds of the Maccabee Revolt are already brewing. In Africa, Carthage is defenseless. In less than forty years, it will be destroyed. In Asia Minor, in the kingdom of Bythnia, King Prusias is fighting pressure from Roman diplomats. On the coast of the Mediterrainean Sea, in the Bythnian city of Libyssa, there is large villa overlooking the ocean. Here lives Hannibal of Carthage, the greatest general since the death of Alexander the Great.
It has been nearly forty years since Hannibal set out from Cartagena, Spain, with the sworn intent of destroying the Roman Republic. Crossing the mid-winter alps with an army of horsemen, infantry, and elephants, Hannibal laid waste in Italy for sixteen years, ultimately killing almost eighty thousand Roman soldiers and occupying nearly the entire Italian peninsula for many years. During this time, battles raged across Spain, Greece, Italy, and the Mediterrainean sea. Of note to this story is the defense of Syracuse, which came under Roman blockade in 214 BC. Due to the war machines of the inventor Archimedes, Syracuse held out under siege for three years, until it fell by an act of treason. Although it was on the coast of Sicily, Syracuse was a Greek colony, and was considered very much a part of the hellenistic world.
In 202 BC, worn by years of fighting in hostile territory, Hannibal was forced to return to Africa to protect Carthage from the army of Scipio Africanus. Hannibal’s brothers in Spain were dead, and his allies in Greece had succumbed to force and treachery. In 201 BC, Hannibal was finally defeated at the Battle of Zama.
Hannibal remained for a short time as the governor of Carthage, before being forced out by Roman insistance. Exiled from Carthage, Hannibal fled to Macedon, where he assisted Antiochus III in a doomed campaign against Rome. With the defeat of Antiochus in 190 BC, Hannibal escaped to Ephesus, and then to the court of king Prusias in Bythnia, a kingdom on the coast of Asia Minor. King Prusias, under pressure from the Roman ambassador Titus Quinctius Flamininus, has relegated Hannibal to the villa in Libyssa. At this point, Rome rules all of Italy and Spain, and considers most of Greece its “protectorate”. Although Carthage is recovering vitality, the Roman Republic is now the dominant power in Europe and Africa, and there is no longer any serious obstacle to its expansion. Hannibal is nearly seventy years old, but the war is fresh in the memory of Europe, Africa, and the Levant. Although he has no actual power, the retired general is a hugely symbolic figure in Mediterrainean politics, which are swiftly changing, and ever volatile. . .
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