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Archive 1Archive 2Archive 3Archive 4

Disambiguation page

This page is going to be moved to Hannibal Barca in the near future and Hannibal transformed to disambiguation page. Muriel 11:41, 14 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Why? Out of the hundred-odd link to "Hannibal", maybe 1-2 are not to Barca, and it's always going to be that way. Just create a Hannibal (disambiguation) and link to it from the top, a la London. Stan 13:35, 14 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Who Says He's the greatest?

Perhaps we don't have any information on who says specifically that Hannibal was one of the greatest Generals. By comparison to his record on the battlefield and his brilliant strategies at which he used to attain victory to other famous generals, I would write in this article "Hannibal was one of the greatest generals in history, says I" or simply leave that which is already writen. Hannibal is ranked as one of the best military commanders in history - By whom? RickK 04:57, 2 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Doesn't everybody know that? :-) But his article in the OCD, by the eminent Howard Hayes Scullard, says "by common consent adjudged one of the world's greatest soldiers", so there you have it. Stan 05:09, 2 Nov 2003 (UTC)

OK, and what's the OCD? I don't necessarily disagree with the contention in the article, but it should probably say who thinks so. RickK 05:12, 2 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Oxford Classical Dictionary. Most of my military history books are more specialized, so they don't have an opportunity to say "one of the best" about Hannibal. It would be good to have a specific source, like a top-10 list from some expert. I'm visiting library tomorrow, will see if I can find something. Stan 07:03, 2 Nov 2003 (UTC)

I am a fan of Hannibal Barca, and am rather biased to him as opposed to the others on the list, with the possible exception being Alexander the Great. I believe however that it isn't within the spirit of Wikipedia to note anyone as being "one of the best" of any field without an independent source to qualify it. --Ahmed Stephens 07:20, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC)

The fate of Saguntum

I was reading the Alexander Wiki and thinking "what a white wash" but then I thought what about Saguntum. I'v read the Livy account: the mass suicide and how Hannibal had givven orders to put all adult males to the sword. But it is so similar to the fate of Carthage that I smell Roman propaganda or is that the Hannibal fan in me speaking? Does anyone know what modern scholarship hav to say on this?

Dating system

Please excuse my ignorrance as I know little about wikipedia. Is BC and AD or BCE and CE the accepted format here?

Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers) allows either. The year articles themselves use "BC", so it's slightly favored. Since all Hannibal dates are in the same era, it's good style to only use "BC" the first time and then piping, as in "[[202 BC|202]]" for subsequent years. Exception is life dates, which are normally written "247-182 BC". Stan 12:29, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Who committed the suicide?

In the last sentence of the second paragraph, I assume that Hannibal commited suicide, not Prusias? The grammar makes it look like Prusias committed suicide, but it's ambiguous. -- Creidieki 17:59, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Yeah it was Hannibal who committed suicide, and I've changed the sentence to make that clear. Prusias may have committed suicide too for all I know, but if he did, he did it mighty late for it to be about avoiding handing Hannibal over to the Romans. Binabik80 01:06, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)

The Great Hannibal once was alive, but committed suicide. How would our world be today, if not for his actions. In the roman point of view, Hannibal was seen as an evil hateful person who had no pitty for no one. Well, in my point of view he was a loyal son. Why? If I recall, didn't he take an oath, that swore to eternal hatred towards Roman. Not only that, but wasn't he the one influenced by his father's actions as a child. I mean a child can be emotionally hurt for a life time, if one sees their parents actions and be present in a time of war.

2006 film in Aramaic?

I removed the info that the 2006 film will be in Aramaic because I couldn't find anything anywhere to confirm it. The fact that its star is an English-speaker & that none of the English-language sites I visited mentioned its language strongly indicates to me that it's in English. Binabik80 02:16, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Not to mention the fact that Hannibal's native language wasn't Aramaic but Punic - We also know he was fluent in Greek. -Eltinwë 19:29, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Misrepresentation

The problem isn't lack of citation to the Roman quotes. Rather, the problems with this section are many-fold: (1) It summarily dismissed the validity of the Roman accounts without a factual basis for doing so (attacking the source without providing anything that actually refutes the characterization is a logical fallacy); (2) it wasn't presented NPOV; and (3) doesn't deal at all with why the Romans' considered his tactics brutal/cruel. The flaws in this section are MAJOR, and until they get ironed out, it's inclusion "as is" is inappropriate. Brian Brockmeyer 04:53, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Let's take a look at the excised section:
Hannibal has suffered a long history of distortion. The only writings left to us are the very hostile Roman sources, and Rome considered him the greatest enemy it had ever faced. Livy gives us the idea that he was extremely cruel. Not only does this charge seem motivated by a general hatred of Hannibal as Rome's enemy, it is almost hypocritical. When Hannibal's successes had brought about the death of two Roman consuls, he searched vainly for one on the shores of Lake Trasimene, and he sent Marcellus' ashes back to his family in Rome. When Nero had accomplished his wonderful march back and forth to and from the Metaurus he flung the head of Hannibal's brother into Hannibal's camp. It would not seem that Hannibal was possessed of more cruelty than his opponents, yet the idea that he was still persists. Even Cicero, when he talked of Rome and her two great enemies, spoke of the "honorable" Pyrrhus and the "cruel" Hannibal.
And your objections, point by point:
1) It summarily dismissed the Roman accounts without a factual basis for doing so (attacking the source without providing anything that actually refutes the characterization is a logical fallacy)
This is simply not true. The paragraph states that all our sources for Hannibal were written by people hostile to him, which is true & is cited in every treatment of Hannibal of the Punic Wars I can ever remember reading. Two specific examples are used to criticise the Roman sources for calling him cruel—by implication, especially in the case of Cicero (who contrasts him with Pyrrhus), more cruel than the Romans or the Romans' other opponents. The original editor (who appears to have been anonymous) then provides an example of Hannibal's treatment of the defeated Romans (searching Trasimene for the consuls' bodies, & returning Marcellus' ashes to his family), and contrasts it with Roman behaviour (throwing Hasdrubal's head into the Carthaginian camp).
2) it wasn't presented NPOV
This is true, but I think is largely addressable without a major rewrite. The first sentence is certainly POV, but it can be removed without affecting the integrity of the rest of the paragraph. The same goes for the fourth sentence. Let the reader draw his own conclusions, rather than drawing for him.
3) doesn't deal at all with why the Romans considered his tactics brutal/cruel
This is true and will require some work, though I think that it would entail more of an addition to the section than a rewrite of it. The most famous example of Hannibal's cruelty is, I think, Saguntum—see above on this talk page for a discussion of why the questions about that story's credibility. Why the final decision was simply not to mention it, rather than to include & mention the reservations about it, I don't know. But this Misrepresentation section seems to me like the perfect place to include it. There are
I've reinserted the section & will now do some trimming for (2). (3) might take me a day or two to get to. If anyone else wants to take a crack at it, Chapter 63 ("The Man and the Soldier") of Theodore Ayrault Dodge's has a pretty good dissection of the unreliability of the Roman sources on Hannibal. I'd like to reiterate, as a general principle, the necessity of bringing problems to an article's talk page before summary deletion of sections from articles. Binabik80 15:46, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Hannibal's Ethnicity

The article doesn't mention Hannibal's heritage. I assume he was a moorish Spaniard? anyone know?

Well he predated the Spanish Moors by several centuries so I don't believe so. My understanding was that he was of the semetic peoples (I use that term in the broadest sense to cover Arabic-looking but semetic speaking peoples). Basically, he'd looked like a modern Arab man.
EVIDENCE - Hannibal is usually depicted as a white man, but his coins in the British Museum and the Museo Kercheriano, Rome, show him to have been an African of the purist type, with rings in his ears. Col. Hennebert, perhaps the leading authority on Hannibal, declares that none of the several differing portraits now exhibited as Hannibal is he, "We do not possess any authentic portrait of Hannibal" he says.(Histoire d'Annibal, Vol. I, p.495, Paris,1870.) These coins were struck by Hannibal while he was in Italy. In the absence of other information the most logical argument is that they bore his own effigy, the more so, as several of them bear the same likeness. Above all, let us remember that he was an African. User:Tom Bailey - Talk
This seems to me as pretty silly talk. A "pure type of African"?! As opposed to "white"?! What does that mean? Come on, we're not talking about some American guy of the XXI century... Velho 19:28, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

Hello Tom Bailey. I´ve deleted the paragraph you had added to the article on Hannibal (and that you have on your User Page). I did this because what you've written is clearly Racialist POV (not explicitly Racist, though). You see, the racial categories you work with have no meaning at all for many people around the world (look up the Race article and connected pages). Hannibal was probably similiar to other North Africans (past and present), and this in a time well before major Sub-Saharan influences. For many those populations are White or Caucasoid (see also Caucasian race)! The same can be said of the Phoenicians, from whom the Carthaginians were derived. How can you say he was "an African of the purist type with rings in his ears" - can you tell someone's "pure type" (whatever that is!) by their earings? If you want to use the information on the fact that you do not know exactly how he looked like (following Hennebert, who wrotte in 1870 - are you sure he is the "the leading authority on Hannibal"? 135 years of academic work have passed since then...), I think that that could be interesting and relevant, but saying he was a Black African using as source a book from 1936 that uses the category of Negro is obviously POV. You say "Above all, let us remember that he was an African", by that meaning he was not white. Well, he was a North African and in that article it is stated that "North Africa is often set apart from the sub-Saharan African region, as the desert serves more of an obstacle to communication than the sea itself. It is principally inhabited by Berbers and Arabs, who are scarcely distinguishable physically, along with minorities of other ethnic groups. The Berbers are the indigenous people in the Maghreb, and are believed to have come from the east. The Berber peoples range from very fair to quite dark. The majority of people in North Africa are ultimately of Berber descent, but, outside of most of Morocco and parts of Algeria, most identify themselves as Arabs." Of course, in Hannibal's time the Arabs weren't around in North Africa, but the Berbers are of Upper Paleolithic origin, that is to say they represent the main populational group in North Africa well before Hannibal's time! And we would be speaking of Mediterranean North African populations (look up the genetics and phenotypical sections on the Berber article), not the deep desert ones... I hope you understand my reasons for the removal of you paragraph. The Ogre 15:06, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

This is conversation that can only exist if the above museums are not visited and the coins are not viewed. This world has been influenced by all of the people who inhabit it. I challenge anyone to visit Museo Kercheriano in Rome to look at the coins that bare his likeness, that were struck and approved by Hannibal himself. Believing that he was African isn't narrow. Believing that he couldn't possibly have been, is what's narrow. Any speculation in the absence of viewing his coins is hollow, even if that speculation is centuries standing. These coins were placed on display in Rome by Romans, not by Africans. User:Tom Bailey - Talk, 11/08/05
I'd be interested to see the coins but on the other hand the bust that is usually assumed to be him shows someone with features that are considered to be Semitic ie white Arab. The whole idea of race applied to Hannibal is a little anachronistic. The Carthaginians were regarded by some Greeks as in a sense Greek because they had a constitution and city life while to Demosthenes the Macedonians were barbarian. In short, it is so hard to say what race he is because the ancients while they could be prejudiced were not racially aware in the modern sense. Really North Africa isn't part of our modern concept of Africa but West Eurasia. Dejvid 14:56, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
This is exactly the point that I'm trying to make. Because of a constitution, Carthaginians are given the wonderful oportunity of being considered Greeks. What was that, a step up in class for Carthage? I don't think so. There are people that somehow have to inject their own likeness into anything of great historical value. Such as King James ruling by Divine Right. Or Columbus discovering America, when there were already millions of Native Americans living in the land. All Columbus did was visit the land not discover the it. If you let enough time go by eventually books could read that Elvis Presley discovered Rock and Roll. To say or believe that there were no black Africans in Carthage Africa, would be to say centuries from now that there were no Native Americans in Canada and no Mexicans in New York. It's as if the obvious is being disregarded in favor of the conceptual. There is stunning visual evidence of Hannibal's appearance in Rome. Unless these coins are destroyed the truth of Hannibal's appearance will always resurface. Forever. User:Tom Bailey - Talk.
It seems rather ironic that you're denouncing people for "people ... hav[ing] to inject their own likeness into anything of great historical value" while you are the one trying to shoehorn ancient peoples into modern Western cultural constructs of race. (And I'm not sure what James I & VI's political philosophy has to do with this. He felt that being in a position to inherit the throne was a mark that God had chosen you to rule, and therefore your authority was greater than Parliament's. So?) You were given an example to illustrate the point that our constructs of race don't make sense when applied to the ancients—that the Greeks to some degree based their ideas of Carthaginian "ethnicity" on political sophistication rather than skin colour or genetic ancestry—and you are the one who automatically assumed a moral value was being assigned to each race. The bias being exposed here is your own, not Dejvid's.
(Did the ancient Greeks think they were paying the Carthaginians a compliment by equating them with Greeks? Well yes, of course. Because the ancient Greeks were bigots. But not racists—because, like the rest of the ancient world, they had no modern Western—I'd go so far as to say modern Anglophonic—concept of race. Dejvid's completely value-neutral statement in no way implied any endorsement of that position.)
To address your tangent—Columbus did indeed discover the Americas, and to describe what he did as "visiting" is at best intellectually ingenuous; a visit implies he had a destination and itinerary before he left, whereas he didn't even know there was a destination there. He was not the first to discover the Americas, since, as you point out, their was a whole cultural grouping already living there. But (aside from oddities like Roman coins in Venezuela and the minor footnote of Lief Eriksson's brief expedition) the American cultural grouping and Columbus's cultural grouping—Christendom (for lack of a better term)—had no contact with or knowledge of each other or of each other's geography. So Columbus discovered the Americas for Christendom—and it was as a direct result of Columbus's discovery that knowledge of the Americas was spread to the Islamic world, sub-Saharan Africa, Central and East Asia, and Australasia. So Columbus actually discovered the Americas for the most of the planet—but not for the people who lived there at the time. Of course, the vast, vast majority of the people of now live in the Americas come from a cultural heritage outside the Americas, so it would be revisionist history of the worst kind for them not to learn of Columbus as the discoverer of the Americas. That doesn't imply that he was the first man to visit them; it implies that he opened them up to Europe and the rest of the Old World. Binabik80 23:27, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

Point taken. Did you notice Velho's comment of silly talk? The Org commented that North Africans are white and had no contact with Sub Saharan Africans? When it is historically clear that mankind went north from southern Africa. What we're really debating here is what Hannibal looked like. You see he had to look like something. I declare strongly that he looked like his coins. The Greeks were pompus in not accepting Carthage's differences on an equal basis. I understand that racism and the concept of race was different to them than it is to us. But I'm not talking to them. I'm talking to people in the modern era and addressing their concept of race. Obviously the Ancient Romans had no problems with what Hannibal looked like. They're the ones who kept the coins. I don't have a bone to pick with them or the Greeks on race issues. I question only the heart of those who don't believe that he was dark, regardless of the coins. I too would be challanged to believe the reports of modern historians, if not for the coins. It is the coins that are the basis of my belief. Therein lies the difference between me and the other writers herein. Where the Greeks had to draw a common ground with society in Carthage to accept them as equals, modern historians today seemingly have to draw an ethnic commomness to Hannibal in order to accept his greatness. In other words, they had to lighten him up to accept him. Only Dejvid mentioned interest in seeing the coins. No one else has even commented on them. How am I to interpret that? Since the Ancients had no concept of race as we have today, proves that they were different than us. Why can't we be like the Ancients who saw Hannibal and kept the coins? This is a question that you and many others can answer only in your own hearts. Of course there were light skinned people in Carthage, but Hannibal wasn't one of them. I accept that I am biased because of the coins if others will accept that they are biased inspite of them. I also accept that I could have used better examples, with the exception of the one about Elvis. Think about it, Rock and Roll had been played by Black Americans for more than two decades. It was only accepted in mass once it was lightened up. The same goes for Hannibal. User:Tom Bailey - Talk.

Hello Tom Bailey. I believe you are making some confusions. Of course Hannibal had to look like something! But the fact is that we do not have an acceptable likeness of his image, even if there are some coins (and of course we all would like to see them!). And I must note that coins say nothing about his colour... And of course I agree with you that European Racism has, over the centuries, tried to portrait Hannibal as White, whatever that means! And of course there were people in Antiquity most people in the Western world today would classify as Black (but maybe not in other areas of the world - look up the civil war in Sudan, namely in Darfur, between "Arabs" and "Blacks"; to an European eye thay are all Black Africans, but not for themselves...). And of course there has been a lot of withewash on the participation of people we could consider Black in World History. However, and that is why I said you should look up the makeup of Mediterranean North African populations (looking up the genetics and phenotypical sections on the Berber article), even if "it is historically clear that mankind went north from southern Africa" (in fact, not "from southern Africa", but more a less from East Central Africa), they did not do so in a straight line (why don't you look up the The Genographic Project home page and look at the early migration routes routes of human populations- there you can see that North Africans mostly came from the Middle East, as well, obviously, as from other places, including Sub-Saharan Africa; also look at the world distribution of haplogroups, Mitochondrial and Y chromosome). And this is not all. The question is not only that people in Antiquity did not have the same concept and categories of Race as people in Modern times have. The question is that we, today, do not all have the some concepts and categories of race! Someone that you may find Black, I may not, or vice-versa. Racial categories are social definitions based, among other things, in different cultural appropriations of physical appearance. Furthermore, even if Eurocentric narratives and images of Hannibal are clearly Racialist POV, bluntly and definitively stating that Hannibal was "Black" is also an extreme statement of the same type, not only because we have no reliable sources, but also because the category itself is problematic. Nevertheless one could say that there is a polemic about such an issue as Hannibal's Ethnicity or Race (and also because Ethnicity and Race are polemic...) and explain it. That would not be POV. Once again, I hope you understand my reasoning. Please Tom Bailey (and others) properly sign your comments on talk pages using four tildes (4 times the symbol ~); this will automatically produce your name and the date. By the way, it's The Ogre, not The Org. The Ogre 15:25, 19 November 2005 (UTC)
Very good information. There have been more people to read our writings than have responded. So I suspect that some will take time to see the coins when visiting Rome. I am concerned that you however don't considered them an acceptable likeness of Hannibal. I have to say that I trust The Museo Kercheriano, Rome, and their display of the coins. It is true that coins do not accurately depict skin color, but what's unique about the coins are their heavy negroid features and that they are the same. While there have been many varying portraits of Hannibal through the centuries, there has been no variance in coins claiming to bare Hannibals likeness. I believe that all other effigies of Hannibal that look different than the coins are made up and made in the likeness of the people who made them up. I'm glad that you mentioned the whitewashing of history. Thank you for that. I will be content if modern historians remove from their belief that "he couldn't have possibly been black" and accepting that a declaration that he was purely black is as equal an opposite. But please remember that it is these coins (alone) that were struck by Hannibal himself and the only way to discount them would be to believe that the Museo Kercheriano, Rome, is perpetrating a fraud. If modern historians would consider them fraud in favor of the varying effigies of Hannibal then who am I to deny them that?. The references that you gave will be very interesting reading however they do not address whether these coins are considered accurate in their depiction of Hannibal. If anything, you've convinced me that you don't quite see their relevance. I've been as redundant as one can be in explaining my belief in these coins. If anyone is still unconvinced of their accuracy or existence, then they can remain unconvinced. Are we seeking the true face of history, or just concepts that we can live with? Tom 23:04, 19 November 2005 (UTC))

Hello again Tom Bailey. I am sorry, but we seem to be speaking of different things! Mine is an argumentation that there is no absolute evidence of Hannibal's likeness and that the most probable is that he looked as most North Africans do today (and that is clearly non-Black by most reasonable and non-biased standarts, including official U.S. classifications). This is even more so given the fact that the Barcid family was an elite Carthaginian family, claiming descent from a younger brother of Dido (according to Silius Italicus in his Punica: 1.71–7), less likely to intermarriage with Sub-Saharan populations. If you want to speak about what some coins might portrait, an argument dear to Afrocentric positions (as ideological as Eurocentric ones), look at the ones bellow!

File:Hannibal.gif
Hannibal - Silver double shekel, c. 230 BC, The British Museum
File:Coin showing Hannibal Barca(1).jpg
Hannibal
File:Coin showing Hannibal Barca(1).jpg
Hannibal - shekel, The British Museum
File:Hannibal coin color.gif
Hannibal - shekel, The British Museum
File:Hannibal1.jpg
Hannibal - AR ½ shekel, 218-209 BC, 3.56 gm, SNG Cop 296
File:Hannibal2.jpg
Hannibal - AR shekel, 218-209 BC, 5.7 gm, Villaronga 201.1
Hannibal - AR ¼ shekel, 228-218 BC, 1.84 gm, SNG Cop 293
File:Hannibal4.jpg
Hannibal - AR shekel, 218-209 BC, 7.24 gm, SNG Cop 295
File:Hannibal5.jpg
Hannibal
File:Hannibal6.jpg
Hannibal
File:HannibalCoin.gif
Hannibal
File:Hannibalcoin.jpg
Hannibal
File:Hannibal-Melkart.gif
Hannibal - Outline of tridrachm (1½ shekel), 221-218 BC
File:Small.Coin showing Hannibal Barca(1).jpg
Hannibal - Detail
Hasdrubal

Notice that, at least for me..., no one could classify this images of Hannibal as depicting a "Black" man! No even that of his younger brother Hasdrubal! And these are the coins in good conditions... Most of the other ones available are just a blur! Of course Hannibal might have been "Black" (whatever that means...). One could even say that whatever he looked like, some people will always try to say that he was either "White" or "Black"! Well... Hannibal was Hannibal, a Carthaginian General. And the population makeup of Carthaginians is well known. The Ogre 18:39, 20 November 2005 (UTC)


Hannibal was a negro like most if not all cathagian-rulers at that time: http://www.whenweruled.com/articles.php?lng=en&pg=15

File:Hannibal head1.jpg
The Head of Hannibal


caid--Caid 16:26, 11 October 2006 (UTC)



I suppose The Ogre put it the right way. I think that anything we can possibly say about Hannibal's "race" or "ethnicity" is as pov as any other pov. Actually, I think Hannibal looks very much like me on these coins, and I'm neither white nor black. Velho 19:19, 20 November 2005 (UTC)
I stand corrected on other coin images and can cleary see that these coins are simular to each another. I can also see that these coins do not portray Hannibal as a Black African. Thank you for your research. Can you determine when they were made? Tom 03:33, 21 November 2005 (UTC))
Hello Tom. I've added some of the dates and info on the coins. They are all of Barcid mint in Iberia (namely in Carthago Nova). They are not dificult to find using [1] or just Google. Here is some bibliography on the subject.
Jenkins GK & Lewis RB Carthaginian Gold and Electrum Coins. London, 1963.
Sylloge Nummorum Graecorum: Danish National Museum (SNG Copenhagen), Jenkins GK vol 42 North Africa: Syrtica – Mauretania. Copenhagen, 1969.
Jenkins GK Coins of Punic Sicily. Parts 1-4 Swiss Numismatic Review 50:25-78,1971; 53:23-41, 1974; 56:5-65, 1977; 57:5-68, 1978.
Robinson ESG Punic Coins of Spain and Their Bearing on the Roman Republican Series. in Carson RAG and Sutherland CHU (eds) Essays in Roman Coinage Presented to Harold Mattingly. Oxford, 1956.
Robinson ESG Carthaginian and Other South Italian Coinages of the Second Punic War. Numismatic Chronicle, 7th series 4:37-64, 1964.
Villaronga L Las Monedas Hispano-Cartaginesas. Barcelona, 1973.
Visona P Carthaginian Coinage in Perspective. Am J Numismatics 10:1-27, 1998.
Noble Numismatics Pty Ltd Sale #64A: the Stephen P Mulligan Collection, July, 2000.
Enjoy! The Ogre 14:29, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

Rather than argue about what race or ethnicity that Hannibal may or may not have been why don't we just determine who he would most look like today? Given his familial roots the answer is that he would most look like a 21st century greek or arab. Not sure what race that makes him but I don't think he looked like a sub-saharan Africa.

Lochdale

You may find this URL interesting

http://www.raceandhistory.com/cgi-bin/forum/webbbs_config.pl/noframes/read/1895 [2]

Richard 08:27, 16 April 2006 (UTC)


It is a large assumption to say thet Hannibal was a "Caucasoid"(a terminology that was created to segregate rather than actually stress any type of people, and is not even a proper type of classification). People act like there is a Great Wall between North Africa and "Sub-Saharan", which is all bs. Look at black africans.... THEY DON"T ALL LOOK THE SAME! --Vehgah 23:20, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

  • WHERE IS THE FIRE!!!!! Calm down. It doesn't matter what race Hannibal was, It didn't matter in his time, and it doesn't matter in most of the world today. He was a Carthagian! People are blowing this out of proportion. I don't know why. Would it make you personally feel better if he was an African or a Caucasian? He wasn't, he was a Carthagian. He was not a White Guy, he was not African American, his race is NOT relevant to your modern day race issues. Get over it guys. --Darkfred Talk to me 00:23, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
    • Sorry If I vented a bit, but it has just been bugging me how personally people are taking this issue. Hanibal obviously identified himself as Carthagian, putting him in some arbitrary group created much later in history just doesn't make sense. Politically the only people with slight claim to him are tunisians and that is tenious. --Darkfred Talk to me 00:35, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Hannibal Coins

I notice there had been lots of discussion on the Hannibal coins. According to a book written by the Chief of Staff of the British Museum and the Museo Kercheriano, Rome "There are no known possessions of any authentic portrait of Hannibal" . (Histoire d'Annibal, Vol. I, p. 495, Paris, 1870). Sorry to rain on y'all parade or race war but the coins whether they look black, white, chinese or lebanese, aren't authentic so you might as well use the color of what he wore in war to debate his race. In my opinion anyways I don't see how a coin could really prove a persons race. I mean look at Socrates pictures he has some african features and look at haile sessies he isn't exaclty the most 'black' looking individually you will every see. The point is it would be pretty tough to use a picture espcially one a 3000 year old coin, to prove Hannibal was one race or another. Not to mention even if they did have accurate picture of hannibal it might not be easy to sculp certain features into a coin, espcially considering how they could only smelt iron so the shaping of it was limited at best. Anonymous.

Exactly! The Ogre 23:13, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

I concede to equal possibilities. Perhaps we'll never completely know. He was probably a mutt like most of us. Tom 12/13/05


The best methods for Whites to steal Black-African history. It could be interesting for blacks to try the same methods with important european figures. Caid--Caid 16:35, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

Blacks don't have a history of stealing one's history. It is not scholarly honorable to acknowledge that there is no known portrait of Hannibal ,yet they show all the white versions of Hannibal that are not ancient and are not the oldest. The Hannibal coin that shows his so called "Black" features is older then all of the coins and statues shown.Might I add Phoenicians are of the Canaanite stock?And Canaan is of Ham. Scholarly it is excepted that Ham is the father of the black race. Yet Ham is the father of Canaan. It was even once said that Canaan was Black and that it was a curse,in which I do not agree with black skin being a curse.No Canaan was surely black. The Phoenicians are synonymous with the Canaanites as the "Land of Purple".If Phoenicians came from Canaan how can anyone argue they are not black when that evidence and argument comes from whites themselves,but when a Ruler of great power rises they change their tune in order to steal that history and oppress people. Lies should not continue to run wild.Respect the truth. Stop faking artifacts and stop acknowledge fake artifacts. The coin of Hannibal as black africa was found in Italy and was said to have been in circulation. It's funny the euro centrist must think Blacks planted that coin in Italy and made the story about it up .The must think we forged it.lol That very coin is the oldest coin found yet you have not depicted it. It stands to reason that it is the most historically accurate since it is the most historic. 

 It is not far fetched that the romans made a coin of a black man Because they were not racist at all and even Africans could have ruled Rome. It was more liberal then america.


Hannibal was a So called Negro. Click the link for proof. http://www.realhistoryww.com/world_history/ancient/Misc/Canaan/Hannibal.htm.

Hannibal crosses the Alps

This should be a subsection. There's lots of discussion about which route he took etc, and the difficulties his forces faced. This is a great feat in the European imagination (Napoleon for one). It's not treated here at all, as of yet. --Wetman 04:29, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

Notice hacker tagging in the text of the article, first page. "I am a gigantiic douchebag... "

as of 12/17/05

Goldsworthy thinks that due to the opposition of the natives and the difficulties of ground and climate the costs of Hannibal's march were considerable.

I am a gigantiic douchebag who reads mother theresas column. I am gollumn. I LIKE COCK. YAYAYYAYAYAYYAY PWN KTXHBYE

Hannibal's perilous march brought him directly into Roman territory and entirely frustrated the attempts of the enemy to fight out the main issue on foreign ground. His sudden appearance among the

Stories

An attempt should be made to gather some of the many anecdotes told about Hannibal (and all Roman historical figures, for that matter) and either stick them into a big section at the end (as I did with two) or incorporate them into the body of the text. The most glaring ones, for which I couldn't find specific mention of in the two books I have on him are the Gisgo story from the field of Cannae, Hannibal's last words and any mention of the "Lion's Brood" of the Barca brothers.--Cannae 04:48, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

The frescoe as main pic

Am I the only one who thinks it's stupid that the main picture in this article is a 15th century depiction of him as a stereotypical Moor, especially when there are dozens of coins that feature his actual phenotype and a pretty decent contemporary bust?--Eupator 01:39, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

I agree. I'll put up a request for more appropriate images of Hannibal--chub 02:50, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

Meaning of name?

Okay, we seem to have some disagreements over the meaning of "Hannibal" - while everyone is virtually agreed on bal meaning Baal (logical, considering the Phoeniciansworship Baalim. On the Second Punic War, it says, "Beloved of Baal". On the Barcid family page, it originally said "grace of Baal" (formatted today to say "grace of Baal" or "mercy of Baal"). On the Hannibal page, it's different, saying "mercy of Baal." Can we reach some consensus on the matter and standardize this throughout Wikipedia? -Eltinwë 15:58, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

Why standanize when they are all, no doubt, imperfect translations of the Punic word? The inconsistency is a warning to the reader that all are only aproximations. ie It's a featur not a bug. Dejvid 16:26, 10 February 2006 (UTC)
That's true, I guess. But perhaps, then, they should all be presented? -Eltinwë 17:32, 10 February 2006 (UTC)
All would be a solution certainly.Dejvid 18:05, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

Scipio

How can Scipio be universally ranked when his name is relatively unknown in Non-European history...let alone in mainstream history? I think his importance is better suited for the "greatest military strategists and tacticians of the Western world", which is already located in the Legacy section of the article.

That's a farce. Anyone even vaguely familiar with military history knows who Scipio is, and his status as one of the greatest commanders is unquestioned.-66.254.232.219 19:42, 11 February 2006 (UTC)
Without trying to launch into a great debate, I think Scipio's place is uncertain in history. Both Dupuy and Dodge rate him well after Hannibal and Dodge places him after Claudius on the Roman side, so its best to leave it open ended about whether or not he is considered one of the best ever. Perhaps it should be rephrased to say that Scipio is ranked by many as one of the greats of military commanding.--Cannae 23:19, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

request for more images

The problem is that we don't have any portrait that definitely depicts Hannibal. That's the usual way in archaeology: We have a coin portrait and so we can compare our marbles and bronzes. Or vice versa. But there were at least three statues of Hannibal in Rome, as Pliny gives in n.h. 34,32. I feel that images of these statues and other portraits would present the viewer with a more accurate portrayl of Hannibal. And besides one neo-classical painting, the article lacks any image that illustrates Hannibal's crossing of the Alps. --chub 22:22, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

There are no "definite" portraits of Hannibal. But even aside from that, the reason I removed the image tag is that it implies that there is a problem with the article; there isn't. If you can find public domain photos of those statues, by all means, put them in. But the article itself does not suffer for lack of them; why does it matter exactly what he looked like? That tag is for articles with no images, or articles that need visual representation to make their point clear. This doesn't. Kafziel 22:39, 17 February 2006 (UTC)
It matters a lot. He certainly did not resemble the guy in that 15th century pic. I think a contemporary depiction of Hannibal is definite, at leats as close as one can get. Any image of the Tarentum bust is in the Public Domain. --Eupator 04:14, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Copyedit

Drawn in by the copyedit request, I have started by compressing the lead section (the article as a whole needs to lose weight). I have also tried to fix some problems of chronology there. Some of the detailed information I have shifted to appropriate subheads in the rest of the article. PaulV 17:55, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

Cut article

This article is seriously overlong. I propose that it be drastically reduced by moving the bulk of it to the article on Second Punic War, which is much shorter, and the material on individual battles which already have their own articles be substantially reduced. As this is a rather drastic change I will wait a week for people's comments before doing anything. Mustafa Bevi 10:45, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

Hanibal is one of the great heros of history and by that I mean that a lot of people will be comeing here to read his story who have much less interest in the wider context. And he is first of all a general so they will be expect to read about battles and marches and the like. By all means expand the 2nd Punic war article. It will however hav very different emphasis. Carthage lost the war due to events in Spain and Scicily where Hanibal played no role. So please, no.Dejvid 20:50, 12 March 2006 (UTC)
On the other hand there might be a case of cutting the battles a bit as long as the stuff relevant to Hanibal himself is kept.Dejvid 23:00, 12 March 2006 (UTC)
One standard way to proceed is to add to the article a condensed version of what has been removed, with a Main article... heading, to alert the reader to the long version he/she may require. Another is to make a precis of the article and set it at the opening, for those with abbreviated attention spans. --Wetman 11:39, 13 March 2006 (UTC)
I think we should move some of the info from the Second Punic War in Italy (218—203 B.C.) section to the Second Punic war article, and expand article regarding battles. Then, we can add links to the battle's article in this one. I know this is a painful operation for those who wrote this article, but I think it is the best for wikipedia. Of course, stuff regarding Hannibal should be kept here (and most of the info are actually about Hannibal, I reckon). For instance, in the subsection about Fabius Maximus, this part:

Rome, reeling from her disastrous defeat at Lake Trasmimene, was put into an immense state of panic. According to Polybius “On the news of the defeat reaching Rome, the chiefs of the state were unable to conceal or soften down the facts, owing to the magnitude of the calamity, and were obliged to summon a meeting of the commons and announce it. When the Praetor [the head of the Roman Senate] . . .said, ‘We have been defeated in a great battle”, it produced such consternation that to those who were present on both occasions, the disaster seemed much greater now than during the actual battle.” [2] In times of such crisis, there was but one thing to do; and that was to appoint a dictator. Dictatorial power permitted a single man to develop his own strategies, make appointments in the civil government, and prepare armies without the usual political wrangling; a post that gave him near total authority for a period of approximately six months. “Abandoning” says Polybius “the system of government by magistrates elected annually, they [the Romans] decide to deal with the present situation more radically, thinking that the state of affairs and the impending peril demand the appointment of a single general with full powers” [3]. The man they appointed as sole commander, or “dictator”, was a man named Quintus Fabius Maximus, intelligent and prudent general coined as the "Cunctator" (akin to the English noun cunctation), or the "Delayer" in Latin

should be much condensed, while the last part (Having ravaged Apulia without...) should be entirely kept. I also think that this article is a little POV, underlining Hannibal's successes but not his mistakes (if any). Gala.martin 16:58, 14 March 2006 (UTC)


On the other hand, I also think that this part (from Second Punic war) should be, at least in part, merged here:

When Scipio was sent to meet with Antiochus in Ephesus, he talked to Hannibal, asking him to name the greatest general of all time. Hannibal said, "Alexander the Great". Scipio then asked him who was the second. "Pyrrhus of Epirus", said Hannibal. Perhaps annoyed that Hannibal had not mentioned Scipio's name yet, Scipio pressed on and asked Hannibal who was the third. Hannibal said, "Myself". Scipio finally asked what would have happened if Hannibal had beaten him at the battle of Zama, and Hannibal said, "Then I would be the greatest general of all time". Rome feared Hannibal until the day he died, and even long after. Mothers would tell their children, "Hannibal ad portas", meaning "Hannibal to the gates [of Rome]" in order to scare them into being good. However, together with Philip of Macedon's attack on Italia, Hannibal's presence in the East contributed to Roman suspicion of the Hellenistic kingdoms.

Amazing article

Thanks for the good read, I haven't looked at who the major contributers are, but the article itself is great. Has it been included in feature articles? If not you might consider nominating it. A good first step would be getting a peer review from the guys over at Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Classical warfare task force --Darkfred Talk to me 21:49, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Hannibal

Good Article it could use a bit of revising but we can worry about that later. Returning to the discussion about the coins,,,uhhh guys Hannibal is Phoenician(Caanite,Yemen Migrents) Caanite(yemen Migrents Berber(yemen Migrents) Carthaginian Arab

Berbers:

Berbers are the original and first inhabitants of North-Africa, in other words, they are the natives of this part of Africa. The name by which they are called (berbers) comes from the noun "barbarians" (in english). And this, because Romans used to call All those who didn't speak their language : "barbarians"... And actually, there are only us who are still called like this ^_~ why did they use this term, they just use this noun without any feeling of a pejorative meaning. But to call themeselves in their language (Tamazight), they use "imazighen": the plural of "Amazigh".

Many people ask about our origins, and I always say that this question is sensless! it's like asking what is the origins of the Indians! Indians Don't have the same eyes as chinese but they are considered as asians so Just think about us (it's an order!) that We are berbers Thus we are Africans!

Don't forget that those who first were called africans were berbers, when you study about Rome and byzantine at school, you've probably heard about carthage and africans? these africans were the great Phoenicians,Berbers (arabs). Hence the Carthaginian Arabs.

But we can answer to which race the berbers belong to, As you know (I'm sure you don't know!^^') there are 3 races in the world:

The Caucasoid race (Europeans, Jews/hebrews, Arabs ...etc.)

The Negroid Race. (Blacks)

The Mongloid Race. (chinese, japanese ...etc.)

Berbers are predominately Caucasoid (berbers of the sahara are mixed with sub-saharans), Their language is close to the Language spoken by the old egyptians (Pharaohs...), in other words they speak an Afro-asiatic language (Hebrew, Arab, assyrian, Old egyptian, Berber...etc.) SEMETIC! XD

To see how berbers look like click google

To know how berber language sounds (through music) download this MP3 by clicking google

The lands where berbers lived in the past, were from the west of Old Egypt to the Canary-islands, But now, Berbers constitute only 25% of the population in Algeria and 40% in morocco, the berbers of the canary islands (called guanches) are spanish now and they've lost their language.

[urlhttp://imazighen.proboards40.com/index.cgi?board=history&action=display&thread=1123104351[/url]


GENETICS And Origins of Berbers Origins of Berbers: Final Genetic Make Up: Mtdna:

North african cromagnoid Ibero-maurusian (U6): about 15% "Iberian" mtdna (H, pre HV, V...etc.): 60%-80% Subsaharan Mtdna: 2%-20%

Y-dna:

Capsian (E3b2) : 60-80 % Arab (J*): 10-300% (30% in tunisians!) Subsaharan: 3%-8% RECENT European: 0-%10% Berber DNA Tested

Genetical Studies begin to be done on berbers, Be happy! YIPEEE :p

Here is the Berber DNA compared to other ethnics:

"So far, our analyses have allowed a clear dissection of almost all NW African...paternal lineages into several components with distinct historical origins. In this way, the historical origins of the NW African Y-chromosome pool may be summarized as follows: 75% NW African Upper Paleolithic (H35, H36, and H38), 13% Neolithic (H58 and H71), 4% historic European gene flow (group IX, H50, H52), and 8% recent sub-Saharan African (H22 and H28)." (Bosch et al., Am J Hum Genet, 2001) * * * Caucasoid mtDNA (maternal) sequences, labeled L3E and U6, were detected at frequencies of 96% in Moroccan Berbers, 82% in Algerian Berbers and 78% in non-Berber Moroccans, compared with only 4% in a Senegalese population. (Rando et al., Ann Hum Genet, 1998) * * *

While the origins of the Sumerians, whose language appears related to no known linguistic family, remain a mystery, the other people of the region were chiefly Semites - Canaanites (the Levant), Amorites (southwestern desert people), Akkadians and Assyrians (Mesopotamia), Arameans, Habiru (Hebrews) and Bedu (Beduin Arabs of the southern desert). The languages of these groups are closely related, and also related more distantly to Hamitic languages, which include ancient Egyptian, Coptic, and Ethiopian.

Throughout the Bronze Age there was a sporadic influx of nomads from Arabia into the area, hostile at first, but soon incorporated into the existing culture. Later, Indo-European peoples migrated into the area. Among them were the Hurrians, who moved from Turkey in the North to Iraq in the 3rd milleneum BCE and brought the light horse-drawn chariot and composite bow to the Levant. Another group sailing from the West were the so-called "Sea Peoples," whose origin is still unknown, but who were probably north-eastern European. The various Indo-Europeans intermingled with and were absorbed into the Semitic cultures, an exception being the Persians who maintain their Indo-European culture and language up to this day.

The Carthaginians (descendents of the Phoenicians) came and settled in North Africa which is inhabited by Berbers who are Arabs from Yemen that came to the land 3000 years prior. Setteling and then together founding the City of Carthage and hence here I am.

The Berbers were nomads from the Arabian Peninsula of Yemen who traveled to North Africa 4000 thousand years ago and live there still today, I am from one of the Tribes Of Amzighn

Vandalisim

well I see the vandal who edited the article to include slander of people and a rivinist theories is still hiding

He also edited my post above thankfully I always make a copy just for people like this. I suggest everyone do the same, wikipedia has always had to fight and deal with revinist's but at the very least we don't have to give them a chance or put up with them, thank you

Marduk Of babylon

more vandalisim

again the troll has made made major deletions without citing why on the discussion, his perversions have been noted on and reported, if he would like to make editions himself I encourage him to do so, however slander and Trolling will not be tolerated

Marduk

Blanking page

The guy blanking the page and the guy who keeps modifying ethnicity seem to be two different people. The fellow who is adding the ethnicity changes seems to be doing so in good faith. And references for this have been given earlier (on the talk page). I wish he would leave in the known disputes but this is the only problem I see. I will continue to revert the page blanker when he appears.

As for the other fellow you need to have a conversation with him here on the talk page if you disagree. Start by adding the unreferenced template to what you disagree with then state why here on the talk page. Hopefully you can both agree on a version together. --Darkfred Talk to me 21:02, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

Cannae

Considering the military achievements of Trebia,Lake Trasimene and Canaae. I think their should be some description of the actual battles. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.15.5.23 (talk) 14:10, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

Confusions

There have been many confusions over which war Hannibal fought in, the main argument is; did he fight in the first or Second Punic War? I have recently edited the article to say that he fought in the Second, I know this from many sources and logically deduced that he could not have possible fought in the first Punic war. The First Punic War was 264 - 241 BC, Hannibal had only been born in 247 BC, and could not have commanded or fought at the age of six. — Preceding unsigned comment added by HistoryAddict2000 (talk • contribs) 20:13, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

Gee, thanks for sorting that one out! The only problem is that the sentence was about his father. Paul B (talk) 20:29, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

Exile (195–183/181 BC)

The two last sentences of this paragraph, if correct, are misplaced: at this point of the story, Hannibal is dead! Sapphorain (talk) 10:16, 9 November 2014 (UTC)

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Syphilis

I support removing Willis speculation about syphilis which is clearly made invalid by the epidemiological history of that disease which did not exist in the old world in this period. The speculation is not important or notable enough to warrant inclusion in spite of its being clearly mistaken.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 12:58, 11 September 2015 (UTC)

  • On one hand, the source offered for the assertion that Hannibal had syphilis is one that I cannot find anywhere. Does this exist, and does it say what the editor says it does: Willis, T.E, 'Ancient Warfare re-examined: a Post-Structural Marxist Critique', p.228, 1968, Oxford University Press, ISBN 1405125683. I cannot find this source existing anywhere. Just as importantly, I cannot find other sources that repeat the speculation. It does now seem that it is at least possible that syphilis existed in the Old World during Hannibals' lifetime, see Southern Europe: International Dictionary of Historic Places by Trudy Ring, Noelle Watson & Paul Schellinger. Routledge (2013), p. 424. But this assertion, if the source actually exists and actually makes this assertion, is still unsupported WP:FRINGE WP:SPECULATION. I think even offering the barest mention -- any mention at all -- of such an unsupported assertion is automatically WP:UNDUE. I strongly advise that we do not include any mention of it it in the article.  Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 13:01, 11 September 2015 (UTC)
That handbook is not a reliable source for the presence or absence of syphilis in the old world. Try to read the introduction to History of syphilis - the pre-columbian hypothesis has been all but abandoned.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 13:27, 11 September 2015 (UTC)
Agreed. I wasn't mentioning it as a source of support for the syphilis assertion; I was trying to inoculate this discussion against other editors doing so.  Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 13:30, 11 September 2015 (UTC)
Yes I agree with both editors above. In fact I am very suspicious of the suppossed source (I can find no mention of either the author or the work cited, I think it might be a hoax). Even if this were to turn out to be a reliable source, being in apparent conflict with current scientfic consensus, it would require some supporting sources. Paul August ☎ 13:24, 11 September 2015 (UTC)
The text was added here, by an IP with no other edits. I think this is probably a bit of sneaky vandalism. Paul August ☎ 13:31, 11 September 2015 (UTC)
If so it is actually quite humorous. The title alone being "Ancient Warfare re-examined: a Post-Structural Marxist Critique". ·maunus · snunɐɯ· 14:28, 11 September 2015 (UTC)
But you see, I would never put any kind of elephant-sized academic absurdity past anyone who is a self-proclaimed post-structuralist. I would not even bat an eye if the article were genuine. So it must be investigated...  Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 15:05, 11 September 2015 (UTC)
It is cited as a book published by OUP and there are no internet hits whatsoever with the title. That screams hoax to me. I am by the way a self-proclaimed post-structuralist.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 15:31, 11 September 2015 (UTC)
You are? Well then, you have the correct knowledge base to evaluate this particular incident. Ta!  Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 15:48, 11 September 2015 (UTC)

Art: Hannibal Crossing the Alps

Regarding the color illustration of "Hannibal Crossing the Alps": it is clearly not a painting but rather an old book illustration. However, no source, no book title, author's name, or illustrator's name is given. I suspect from the artistic style that both the book and the illustration are no longer under copyright, but Wiki needs to be sure. The lack of source and artist credit is disturbing merely from a reference/encyclopedia point of view.

Regarding the illustration of "Hannibal Crossing the Alps"; the "Alps" weren't named until the 1600s AD. Othelllo (talk) 18:06, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

...And? Sapphorain (talk) 00:24, 23 December 2015 (UTC)

Hannibal as Black African

I suppressed this section, providing an exact copy of a blog post [3] in approximate English, containing an unsourced claim, and illustrated by three images from commons titled "Hannibal", but for which title no satisfactory source is provided.Sapphorain (talk) 22:12, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

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Traversette

"Our international team, led by Bill Mahaney of York University in Toronto, have finally provided solid evidence for the most likely transit route: a pass called the Col de Traversette. This narrow pass between a row of peaks is located on the border slightly south-east of Grenoble in France and south-west of Turin in Italy. Our findings are published in Archaeometry.

"The Traversette – found at about 3000m above sea level – is a torturous path even today. The route was first proposed over a century ago by the biologist and polymath Sir Gavin de Beer, but was not previously widely accepted by the academic community.

"Up to this point, many scholars have instead favoured other routes across such as the Col du Clapier, about 2400m high and further north, which is certainly less treacherous today. This popular choice was largely down to the writings of both modern and ancient historians such as Livy, who lived in Padua around 200 years after the historical event but never actually visited the site of the crossing in his lifetime. So it may be that many of Livy's accounts are more fictional than factual." [1]

Kortoso (talk) 16:39, 5 April 2016 (UTC)
  1. ^ http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2016-04-05/ancient-horse-dung-bacteria-is-helping-to-show-where-hannibal-crossed-the-alps

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Hannibal Barca Coin

Does anybody know the origin of this Hannibal Barca coin and if it was a contemporary portrayal of him? I can't really find any information on it and Wikicommons doesn't give any particulars about the coin. TheAstuteObserver (talk) 10:38, 13 October 2015 (UTC)

No one (yet) knows what Hannibal Barca looks like because of the [Battle of Carthage] where [Carthage] was destroyed circa 149 BCE. Othelllo (talk) 18:19, 22 November 2015 (UTC)

No. For starters, Carthage was finally sacked and destroyed in 146 BC, not 149 BC. And we in fact do have some coins proven to have been minted by the Barca family during their time of power in Carthage. However, we do not know if certain coins depict Hannibal or someone else in the family, such as his father Hamilcar Barca. We also have verified coins depicting Hannibal's little brother Hasdrubal Barca. For the most part, though, Carthaginians mostly minted coins depicting deities, ESPECIALLY the goddess Tanit (usually accompanied by the Greek Pegasus). Pericles of AthensTalk 17:45, 12 September 2016 (UTC)
I have since added a couple coins depicting Hamilcar Barca and two that possibly even depict Hannibal, or rather Melqart with the possible facial features of Hannibal. Pericles of AthensTalk 22:11, 12 September 2016 (UTC)
These coins are rare, and most of them on the web are protected by copyrights (so that you'd need explicit permission from the original creator of the image), even though they're flat pieces of ancient art, made by original artists, or minters I should say, who died thousands of years ago. I'll try to track down info about the pic you've shared, TheAstuteObserver, to see if we can add that image to the article with relevant info for the caption. Pericles of AthensTalk 22:13, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

Smithsonian magazine

A feature story by an essayist, not a professional historian and thus having no authority on the subject, doesn't have its place anywhere in the main sections of the article. It could possibly be given as a link in the « see also » section, but no more. Sapphorain (talk) 16:52, 1 July 2017 (UTC)

I agree. Paul August ☎ 22:42, 1 July 2017 (UTC)
Is there anything in the essay that is factually wrong? Seems useful to cite an article that gives an overview of the suggested crossing places. It doesn't seem the article advances a contentious theory or anything like that.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 01:35, 2 July 2017 (UTC)
"professional" historian is not a Wiki criterion for being a reliable source. Actually he is a profession expert on travel and that is his topic here. He retraces famous routes and is sought after as an expert by editors of leading publications of the sort Wikipedia favors--such as Smithsonian magazine. Rjensen (talk) 05:17, 2 July 2017 (UTC)
@Rjensen: Alright, since you are yourself a recognized professional historian, I will take your word for it (i.e., that this particular essayist has sufficient expertise in the subject). I would definitely not take your word if you were not an expert yourself in history. But this raises a general problem. When you state that being a professional historian is not a wiki criterion for being a reliable source in history, I presume you mean it is not necessarily a condition: then who is to decide in general, within wikipedia, whether a source by such a non professional historian is acceptable in the encyclopedia? Sapphorain (talk) 13:16, 2 July 2017 (UTC)
In this case the author is a famous expert on how difficult were famous historical journeys. Many top publications publish his travel essays. If there is a question I suggest looking to the publication to judge its standards. In this case Smithsonian is a high prestige publication of a leading world-class history museum. Its articles meet Wiki criterion for reliability. I've been on the editorial boards of a half-dozen scholarly journals. Scholarly history journals use "blind editing" -- an author sends in an article. step 1) the editor & assistant editors read it for quality control; many are rejected at this stage. 2) the editor sends an anonymous copy of the article to one or more experts in the field for their quality evaluation. 3) if the outside experts disagree then it goes to more experts until a consensus to publish/reject is made. The outside experts do not know who wrote it or the credentials of the author. The reviewers usually make suggestions for changes and rely on its content with respect to the state of scholarship in the field. (If the article shows unawareness of the published scholarship on the topic, it will get rejected.) Top history journals reject 80%-90% of submissions. Rjensen (talk) 19:30, 2 July 2017 (UTC)

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hannibal was north african

hannibal was probably some shade of brown like most people of modern day tunisia and north africa.thinking all africans are the same is just as ignorant as thinking all asians are the same.north africa has more in common genetically,culturally and historically with southern europe and the middle east than it does with sub saharan africa.it's important to be as accurate as possible with as little bias as possible.it's not a contest — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.245.249.141 (talk) 04:28, 10 May 2017 (UTC)

Actually, Hannibal, coming from an aristocratic family, was most likely descended directly from the 9th-century-BC Phoenician colonists (from what is now Lebanon) who founded the city of Carthage. Yes, he was a North African in terms of his homeland, but his Punic-speaking people originally came from West Asia. The Berbers and Numidians who surrounded the Carthaginians were certainly North African natives, though. In either case is there some sort of point you are trying to make about the article? Otherwise, Wikipedia is not a forum for general discussion about the topic of any given article. We are only allowed to talk about ways to improve the existing article. If you have suggestions (and reliable sources to back them up), then we are all ears. --Pericles of AthensTalk 23:55, 27 November 2017 (UTC)

Punic script

The Punic script comes out as empty boxes on my computer, and no doubt on most other computers too, so it is useless. It would be better to take a screenshot and include it as an illustration. Kanjuzi (talk) 05:51, 9 May 2019 (UTC)

I can see them and didn't install anything special. T8612 (talk) 13:15, 9 May 2019 (UTC)
It can be seen when I use Safari, but not when I open the page with Chrome. Kanjuzi (talk) 14:15, 13 June 2019 (UTC)

First sentence in lead

What is "brq ḥnbʿl;"? If it should be there, can we write in in a way that is more understandable? Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 20:58, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

It's the transcription of his name from Phoenician ("Barca Hannibal"). T8612 (talk) 17:15, 11 July 2020 (UTC)

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Hannibal was a very great leader in the battle against the Romans.

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