Outbreak of the Second Punic War

The road from Saguntum led directly to the Comitium. Roman envoys returned with Carthage’s refusal to make amends; senators in crimson-bordered togas debated the meaning of the Ebro clause and the obligations of alliance. War, once a matter of Sicilian granaries, had become an argument about lines on a map—and who drew them [1][17].

When Rome declared war, it did so with a plan: one consul to Iberia by sea, one to Africa if needed. In Carthage, the Council readied countermeasures—support in Spain, defenses near Utica, and a confidence in Hannibal unmatched by any general since Hamilcar. The Tyrrhenian and the wider Mediterranean saw sails darken the horizon [17].

Polybius’s chronology keeps the logic tight: cause (Saguntum), legal frame (Ebro), decision (war). But Hannibal, already marching north toward the Rhône and the passes, refused to let Rome’s plans dictate his path. He would invert the strategy—bring the war to Italy instead of awaiting invasion at home [1][17].

In Iberia, Carthago Nova throbbed with preparation. In Rome, the Tiber’s quays groaned as transports loaded grain and javelins. The sound of the crier reading the senatus consultum in the Forum matched the creak of oarlocks in Ostia: the Republic had chosen the longest road [17].

What followed would test every Roman habit—of alliance, of recruitment, of recovery. It would also test whether Carthage’s Iberian lifeline could keep an army moving across mountain and marsh [17][1].