Titans of History

The laborers … built models of palaces, pavilions, and offices, and filled the tomb with fine vessels, precious stones and rarities. Artisans were ordered to install mechanically triggered crossbows set to shoot any intruder. With quicksilver the various waterways of the empire, the Yangtze and Yellow rivers, and even the great ocean itself, were created and made to flow and circulate mechanically. With shining pearls the heavenly constellations were depicted above, and with figures of birds in gold and silver and of pine trees carved of jade the earth was laid out below.

Qin Shi Huangdi’s immediate legacy did not last long. He had declared that the empire he had built would last for a thousand years, but it collapsed only four years after his death, as China entered a fresh period of civil war. Yet Qin Shi Huangdi created the reality and the idea of a Chinese empire, a similar territory to today’s People’s Republic of China.

HANNIBAL

247–c. 183 BC

Let no love or treaty be between our nations. Arise, unknown avenger, from my ashes to pursue with fire and sword … may they have war, they and their children’s children!

The suicidal Dido, queen of Carthage, to her lover Aeneas, who has abandoned her to found Rome—in the words of Virgil’s Aeneid

The Carthaginian general Hannibal was the man who came closest to bringing Rome to its knees. A commander of determination and resourcefulness, he devised novel strategies and tactics that are still studied today. He achieved the seemingly impossible in leading an army and more than thirty war elephants over the Alps into Italy, where he inflicted a series of crushing defeats on the Romans. To them he was their nemesis, a terrifying and ruthless figure, his very name evoking fear and dread and inspiring the phrase “Hannibal is at the gates!”

Carthage, near modern-day Tunis, had been settled by Phoenicians from Tyre in the 9th century BC, and their descendants, the Carthaginians, proceeded to build up their own trading empire in the region. It was in Sicily that Carthage first came up against its rival for power in the western Mediterranean: Rome. The consequence was the First Punic War, from which Rome emerged victorious in 241 BC.

Hannibal’s father, the general and statesman Hamilcar Barca, had fought in this war, and it is said that he made his young son swear eternal hatred for the Romans. Hannibal fought alongside him as he conquered a new Carthaginian empire in Spain that was, at least partly, a family fiefdom. In 221 BC, some years after his father’s death in battle, Hannibal was appointed commander in Spain, and here, three years later, seeking revenge for his father’s defeat by the Romans, he deliberately provoked the Second Punic War by capturing the city of Saguntum, an ally of Rome.

Determined on the complete destruction of his sworn enemy, Hannibal assembled 40,000 infantry, 12,000 cavalry and a contingent of war elephants. With this mighty force he crossed the Pyrenees and traversed southern Gaul and the waters of the Rhône to the foothills of the Alps. Historians argue about Hannibal’s precise route, but whichever sequence of passes he used would have presented formidable obstacles. Not only did he have to contend with narrow icy paths, landslides and starvation, but he also had to fight off hostile local tribes. Eventually, after a five-month ordeal, Hannibal and the surviving half of his army arrived on the plains of northern Italy, ready to march on Rome.

The Alpine crossing had been made possible by the immense loyalty Hannibal commanded. Even Hannibal’s staunchest enemies recognized his remarkable rapport with his men, who were drawn from many different peoples. As the historian Polybius remarked, his enterprises were “desperate and extraordinary,” but Hannibal never asked his men to do what he would not do himself. He had been only twenty-six when the army in Spain had elected him their commander, and in all his long career there is no record of mutiny or even a desertion among his forces.