member of the Barcid family of Carthaginian nobility, attacked Saguntum, a city with diplomatic ties to Rome. Hannibal then raised an army in Iberia and famously crossed the Italian Alps with elephants to invade Italy. In the first battle on Italian soil at Ticinus in 218 BC Hannibal defeated the Romans under Scipio the Elder in a small cavalry fight. Hannibal's success continued with victories in the Battle of the Trebia, the Battle of Lake Trasimene, where he ambushed an unsuspecting Roman army, and the Battle of Cannae, in what is considered one of the great masterpieces of tactical art, and for a while "Hannibal seemed invincible", able to beat Roman armies at will. In the three battles of Nola, Roman general Marcus Claudius Marcellus managed to hold off Hannibal but then Hannibal smashed a succession of Roman consular armies at the First Battle of Capua, the Battle of the Silarus, the Second Battle of Herdonia, the Battle of Numistro and the Battle of Asculum. By this time Hannibal's brother Hasdrubal Barca sought to cross the Alps into Italy and join his brother with a second army. Despite being defeated in Iberia in the Battle of Baecula, Hasdrubal managed to break through into Italy only to be defeated decisively by Gaius Claudius Nero and Marcus Livius Salinator on the Metaurus River. Unable to defeat Hannibal himself on Italian soil, and with Hannibal savaging the Italian countryside but unwilling or unable to destroy Rome itself, the Romans boldly sent an army to Africa with the intention of threatening the Carthaginian capital. In 203 BC at the Battle of Bagbrades the invading Roman army under Scipio Africanus Major defeated the Carthaginian army of Hasdrubal Gisco and Syphax and Hannibal was recalled to Africa. At the famous Battle of Zama Scipio decisively defeated – perhaps even "annihilated" – Hannibal's army in North Africa, ending the Second Punic War. Carthage never managed to recover after the Second Punic War and the Third Punic War that followed was in reality a simple punitive mission to raze the city of Carthage to the ground. Carthage was almost defenceless and when besieged offered immediate surrender, conceding to a string of outrageous Roman demands. The Romans refused the surrender, demanding as their further terms of surrender the complete destruction of the city and, seeing little to lose, the Carthaginians prepared to fight. In the Battle of Carthage the