For some reason when Christians talk about history they go from Semetic/Jewish history right up to Greco-Phoenician history, where they completely drop off and act like the world paused. Then they pick up again at Roman history, with the story of Jesus, but some REALLY interesting stuff happened between that time period.
There was a group known as the Phoenicians, these were the people trading Wine, as well as making the Colors Red and Blue for trade. They made the best Crimson that lasted a long time, and they made the ONLY Blue/Purple, so they pretty much had the market cornered on ancient fashion and art. The Phoenician trade routes were basically the route that Hellenization took to move from Africa to Europe, and there was already a lot of trade between Africa and Europe around 1000 BC. Africa and Europe are not so far apart, and ancient people did not think of them as so massively distinctive as we do. Africa was not even recognized as separate from Asia until around 500 BC, and sometimes the Nile river was considered the dividing point between Africa and Asia.
But the Phoenicians created so much stuff and spread it to all the other people. They were the first ones to create boats that could go deep in to the Sea or Ocean, which allowed them to Rule the Sea until the Republic of Rome took it from them when one of their boats washed up on a Greek shore, allowing the Romans to copy it and make more. They also invented the first non-Colored glass, and the Languages Latin/Greek, and Hebrew, which became pretty much all of the other languages.
A prominent Phoenician Kingdom that became one of the most well known enemies of Rome is Carthage. Carthage was founded in Africa by Queen Dido.
Carthage was an Oligarchy at first (later made a Democracy by Hannibal, then demolished by Rome), where the rich families ruled everything, and they ruled the entire Mediterranean, and even parts of Italy (The Island now known as Sicily used to be African/Carthaginian). From what we can tell, the Phoenicians were very much like Jewish/Christian people, in that they believed the world ran on Fate/Gods Will. So when Rome took the Sea from them, they were not willing to fight to keep it.
But even though the Carthaginian leadership was not willing to fight for the Sea, there was one Soldier who was a member of a wealthy family, his name was Hamiclar Barca, and he was specifically from the Punic Ethnic group of Carthage who spoke Semitic (Hebrew type) languages. The Punics had a government separate from Carthage, and they ran it as a land owning Aristocracy. So Hamiclar decided to take fate in to his own hands, and he hired a bunch of Mercenaries to keep the battle going. He held a mountain close to the Sea, and this is where he raised his son. This was in Sicily, and Hamiclar led a series of guerrilla wars against the Romans there, this was known as the First Punic war. The leadership in Carthage promised more than they could pay, and a war started against the Mercinaries
When Hannibal was very young, he ask if he could go overseas to war, so Hamiclar took him in to a chamber with a raging fire meant for Sacrifices, and he held Hannibal over the flames and made him swear he would never be a friend of Rome. When he swore, he got to live.
At the end of the War, Hamiclar signed a treaty with Rome, drawing borders in modern Spain, the "Hispania". Hamiclar then started spreading Carthaginian influence in to Spain, establishing some towns. When Hannibal was about 20.
Hannibal's brother in Law, Hasdrubal, took over the operations in Spain and Hannibal continued under him. Then Hasdrubal was killed and the army chose Hannibal to be Commander in Chief, and Mercenaries from all around came to join him because they had heard of his father. He started going around Spain getting all the tribes to pay taxes and offer men as soldiers, and according to a treaty with Rome he was not allowed to cross the Ebro river, which he did not. Eventually he came to an established town known as "Seguntum" which was a an ally of Rome, but since they were on the Carthage side of the river, Hannibal attacked.
Rome didn't like this, so they went to the Carthaginian leaders in Africa, and they asked them to hand over Hannibal as a prisoner. They said no. Then the Roman diplomat said "Then do you want war?" paraphrased, and the Carthaginian leaders left for a moment to gather and talk, then when they came back they said "You pick".
So the Romans prepared for war, thinking they had a few seasons, and since the Carthaginians didn't have the Sea they expected that there would be a battle to get the Sea back, and not a giant land force first thing.
So Hannibal went across Europe recruiting Celtic/Spanish tribes, then he made his way to the Alps. He brought a giant troop of elephants, but during their 3 weeks in the alps, most of the elephants died and according to the Roman historians only 1 was left when he got there (by some accounts, none were left, but he had one in the battles). The alps also took out 1/3 of their men, and in a swamp Hannibal's eye was infected by a mosquito, which caused him to go blind in that eye.
Most armies would have deserted, but Hannibal took no luxuries for himself. When his men slept on the floor, he slept on the floor. When they were not eating, he was not eating. When he got paid, they got paid. So they stayed with him. When he got to Italy, the Romans were surprised and Hannibal got a quick victory, and all the Celtic tribes started sending their sons to him, because they had never heard of anyone who could defeat the Roman forces.
The Romans actually thought that they were going to have fun, and they treated the beginning of the war kind of like a sport, where they would take turns going out to fight the Barbarian. But soon they realized that Hannibal was not a barbarian, and that he was killing most of them. Hannibal announced his arrival by going through Roman cities and burning fields, then telling the people "Rome can not help you". Flavius was the leader of Rome at the time, and everyone got angry because he was not able to beat Hannibal, but this was mainly because no one was listening to him. He was the only one that was not trying to fight Hannibal, but instead starve his army away. But he could not do it with the other Romans playing their sport.
The first major victory was at a river. According to the Roman records the reason they lost was because they did not eat breakfast (lol), but that is just an excuse. What happened was the Romans had a camp that had 2 leaders, the 2 leaders were kind of arguing, so they were taking turns being in charge. And every day they changed who was in charge, they actually changed the entire way the camp worked. So Hannibal picked the leader who was more frantic, and drew him out of the camp. Then had him cross a river, and killed his people as they made it to the other side.
Then in the next Major Victory, Hannibal completely tricked the Roman army and killed tons of them again. They set up a camp and did not make any fires, so the Romans would not know where they were. Then they got a herd of Cows and tied torches to their horns, and sent them ahead. This made the Romans think that the army was closer than it was, so they ran to the cows and tired themselves out. Then Hannibal attacked from the front, while his brother attacked from behind.
The most famous battle was the battle of Cannae. Before the Battle, Hannibal was standing with his army of about 50,000 men, who were not well trained, and were not well armored compared to the Romans, who had 90,000 men. One of Hannibal's officers, named Gisgo, came to him and said (paraphrased) :
"They have so many men, we will surely lose today"
And Hannibal replied:
"One thing has escaped your notice. In all their vast numbers, there is not one of them named Gisgo".
That day Hannibal's 50,000 men killed 70,000 men, and sent the other 20,000 men running. The way the Carthaginians counted their kills was by collecting the rings of high ranking leaders, then they would just multiply the number of rings by the number of men Romans put under a man who wore a ring like that.
After this Rome kind of shut down. The city of Rome itself was locked down, and people were burying other people alive to try to make the Gods happy. According to historians, pretty much every single person in the Roman empire lost a family member in that battle. The Roman government literally banned the word "Peace" during this time.
At this time the Romans stopped thinking it was a game, and they listened to Flavius. Hannibal ruled Italy for 15 years while they figured everything out, but eventually the Romans started "sanctioning" Hannibal. This is now known as the "Flavious strategy" a more simple example is burning your fields as you run, so the enemy can not eat from your farms.
Rome was not exactly sure how to handle Hannibal, but then there was a young Roman named "Scipio Africanus" who everyone would tell "If you battle Hannibal, you will end up in the ground like your father" since his father had been killed in Spain. But Scipio asked the leaders "Why do you fight Hannibal and not Carthage" the leaders said "Cathage is across the Sea, Hannibal is a weeks march from Rome" and Scipio replied "What is Hannibal without Carthage". So they sent Scipio to Carthage, and he used tactics like Trumpets to scare the elephants. Hannibal came back to fight him, and Scipio won. After Tome took Carthage they burned it for weeks, to make sure it would never come back. They crucified a bunch of people, and put everyone else who lived there in to Roman slavery.
Hannibal was exiled, and helped the Macedonians. Then eventually he committed suicide and in his suicide not he wrote "Now you can all rest, knowing this old man is dead".
