When the Carthaginian general Hannibal invaded Italy in 218 B.C., various Roman generals strained to defeat him, but none was effective. The Roman general later called Scipio Africanus looked at the situation differently: the problem wasn’t Hannibal himself, or his base in Spain, or his ability to restock his supplies by sea from Carthage; the problem was Carthage itself. This was a country with an intractable hatred of Rome, and a long power struggle had endured between the two. Instead of taking on Hannibal, a brilliant military man, in Italy, then, Scipio invaded Carthage, forcing Hannibal
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