Detail from the Battle of Zama. Hannibal (247-183/182 BC) was a Carthaginian military commander and tactician. At the outbreak of the Second Punic War, he marched an army and war elephants, from Iberia over the Pyrenees and the Alps into northern Italy. Hannibal occupied much of Italy for 15 years, but a Roman counter-invasion of North Africa forced him to return to Carthage, where he was defeated at the Battle of Zama by Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus. Brussels tapestry, silk and wool, 1540s.