| abstract
| - After the final Carthaginian naval defeat at the Aegates Islands the Carthaginians surrendered and accepted defeat in the First Punic War, Hamilcar Barca (meaning lightning) a leading member of the Patriotic party in Carthage and a general who operated with ability in the course of the First Punic War, sought to remedy the losses that Carthage had suffered in Sicily to the Romans. In addition to this, the Carthaginians (and Hamilcar personally) were embittered by the loss of Sardinia. After the loss of the war to the Romans; the Romans imposed terms upon the Carthaginians that were designed to make Carthage a tribute paying city to Rome and simultaneously strip her of her fleet. There had been a time when Carthage was the sole maritime power of the Western Mediterranean, and had contended with many powerful nations for control of the primary sea lanes of the Mediterranean. Concerning many of these, she was indeed the undisputed master. Eratosthenes relates how the Carthaginians would seize every ship found sailing towards the Straights of Gades or Sardinia and throw anyone on board into the ocean. In spite of these terms, the Romans did not by and large strip Carthage of her strength. She was the most prosperous maritime trading port of her day, and the tribute that was imposed upon her by the Romans was easily paid off on a yearly basis while simultaneously waging a war against Carthaginian mercenaries who were in revolt. The Carthaginian patriot party was interested in conquering Iberia, a land whose variety of natural resources would fill its coffers with sorely needed revenue, replacing the riches of Sicily that, following the end of the First Punic War, were now flowing into Roman coffers. In addition, it was the ambition of the Barcas, one of the leading noble families of the patriotic party, to some day employ the Iberian peninsula as a base of operations for waging a war of revenge against the Roman military alliance to destroy it. Those two things went hand in hand; and in spite of conservative opposition to his expedition, Hamilcar set out in 238 BC to begin his conquest of the Iberian peninsula with all the said objectives in mind. Marching west from Carthage towards the Pillars of Hercules, where his army crossed the strait and proceeded to subdue the peninsula, in the course of nine years Hamilcar conquered the south eastern portion of the peninsula. His administration of the freshly conquered provinces led Cato the Elder to remark of Hamilcar, "there was no king equal to Hamilcar Barca." In 228 BC, Hamilcar was killed (Hannibal saw his father die) in a campaign against the Celtic natives of the peninsula. His son in law, and the commanding naval officer, also a member of the Patriotic party – Hasdrubal "The Handsome" – was rewarded by the officers of the Carthiginian Iberian army with the chief command. Now there were a number of Grecian colonies along the eastern coast of the Iberian peninsula - the most notable one being the trade emporium of Saguntum. These colonies expressed concern about the consolidation of Carthaginian power on the peninsula, which Hasdrubal's deft military leadership and diplomatic skill was placing on a firm basis. For protection, Saguntum turned to Rome, who sent a garrison to the city and a diplomatic mission to Hasdrubal's camp, based out of Cartagena, and informed him that the Iberus river, must be the limit of the Carthaginian advance in Spain. The conclusion of the treaty and the embassy were sent to Hasdrubal's camp in 226 BC. In 221 BC, Hasdrubal was killed at the hands of an assassin. It was in that year that the officers of the Carthaginian army in Iberia expressed their high opinion of Hamilcar's 29 year old son, Hannibal, by electing him to the chief command of the army. Having assumed the command; which was retroactively confirmed by the Carthaginian Senate, of the army that his father had welded through nine years of hard mountain fighting, Hannibal declared that he was going to finish his father's project of conquering the Iberian peninsula – which had been the first objective in his father's plan to bring a war to Rome in Italy and defeat her there. Hannibal spent the first two years of his command in seeking to complete his father's ambition, while simultaneously putting down several potential revolts that menaced the Carthaginian possessions already conquered thus far – a flaring resulting in part from the death of Hasdrubal. He attacked the tribe known as the Olcades, and captured their chief town of Althaea. A number of the neighboring tribes were astonished at the vigor and rapacity of this attack, as a result of which they submitted to the Carthaginians. He received tribute from all of these recently subjected tribes, and marched his army back to Cartagena. Here, he rewarded his troops with gifts and promised them future gifts later. During the next two years, Hannibal successfully reduced all of Iberia south of the Ebro to subjection, excepting the city of Saguntum, which, under the aegis of Rome, was outside of his current program, for the present. So Catalonia and Saguntum were the only areas of the peninsula not in Hannibal's possession.
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