Rome's Darkest Hours: Hannibal, Spartacus & Attila Quiz

Answer: Second Punic War

No it wasn't called the Hanniballistic War but I'm sure that eventually it seemed like both sides were going ballistic. Hannibal was the son of the great Carthagian general Hamilcar and he certainly wasn't overshadowed by his father. In fact, it is said that when Hannibal was nine years old his father made him swear to be Rome's enemy forever (guess it ran in the family). Carthage is in northern Africa.

Answer: Pyrenees

After attacking Saguntum in Spain, a war-provoking act, Hannibal and his army of 90,000 infantry, 12,000 cavalry, and nearly 40 elephants went on a 1,000 mile march to invade Italy. They crossed the Pyrenees, Rhone River and Alps. That must have been quite a workout with all those elephants- not to mention with the Roman army on their tails.

After the crossing, Hannibal's army was quite bruised and battered but not so much that they couldn't give Rome a taste of their own medicine.

Answer: an ambush

Hannibal also had many other victories, for example Trebia and Cannae, but Lake Trasimene included a very clever ambush on his part. First of all, Hannibal made sure he arrived at the battlefield before his army. Then he divided his army into three parts. West of his camp, he had his heavy infantry. On hills north of the lake were light infantry. His Gallic infantry and cavalry were placed further west in a wooded valley.

When the Romans arrived by the Lake, all of Hannibal's men charged from their positions. With their enemies coming right, left, and centre, eventually some of the Romans escaped, but most were killed or captured.

Answer: attacked Numidia and Carthage (North Africa)

After Lake Trasimene and Cannae, Scipio the Younger and Fabius Maximus took over as generals and started achieving victories. Enough was enough, this war had been going on for the past 15 years and Rome was humiliated. They started by defeating the reinforcements which had come to help Hannibal.

Then they defeated Numidia and forced it to support Rome. Finally they attacked Carthage, forcing Hannibal to return to protect his homeland. Finally the inevitable, the showdown, the battle of Zama occurred.

This was where Hannibal lost, and surrendered. Despite that, he had still led an army over the Alps, and won countless victories against Rome, no easy feat at the time.

Answer: killed himself by drinking poison

After the Battle of Zama, Carthage surrendered. It could now only have African territory, had to give up its fleet, pay reparations, and promise to never wage war again. Hannibal got a job in the Carthagian government, but eventually Rome got a little jealous that a defeated state was doing so well and their general still alive, so they demanded Hannibal's personal surrender. Hannibal spent the next few years on the run from Rome in various countries. Finally, when trapped, he opted to drink poison instead of capture.

What a fascinating story! Hannibal caused a lot of trouble ...

Answer: Thrace

Thrace in the Ancient world included parts of modern European Turkey, Greece and Bulgaria. Information on Spartacus's early life is rather sketchy and largely unrecorded. He may have served in the Roman legions - the same people he ended up trying to kill later on).
The real records of Spartacus start in 73 BCE when he became a gladiator. Something must have gone awry for him because he was sold into slavery and taken to a gladiator school in Capua, his fate being to train as a gladiator and fight in the arenas. But Spartacus had something else in mind.

Answer: kitchen knives

As the story goes, Spartacus and the gladiators used kitchen knives to rebel and leave the gladiator school. As you can imagine, discontent was probably high in the school, so Spartacus had all the fuel he needed to start his revolt. Fewer than 100 men escaped, but Spartacus' army grew as they traveled since many slaves joined. Taking the weapons of soldiers they happened to defeat, the slave army set up camp on Mt. Vesuvius to plan their next move.

This could not be overlooked by the Romans. But they would have to be ready.

Answer: they used vines to climb down the other sides of the mountain and then ambushed the army

First the kitchen knives, then the vines. Spartacus must have been clever. Quietly, in the dead of night, using ropes made of vines, Spartacus' warriors climbed down the mountain and crept to the Roman camp (while carrying those weapons). You can imagine the havoc in the Roman camp when they woke to find they were being attacked by a bunch of slaves. And not just attacked but defeated. Spartacus won, and the survivors had to go back to Rome to explain why a bunch of trained soldiers couldn't defeat a bunch of slaves. Spartacus the slave and gladiator became Spartacus the Rebel and has remained an icon of rebellion.

Answer: Marcus Licinius Crassus

At the time, Crassus was one of the praetors (leaders) of the Republic. The Romans treated their slaves like dirt, so multiple defeats at the hands of slaves must have been ultimate humiliation. So Crassus took his ten legions in search of the slaves.

Meanwhile Spartacus, it seemed, was heading for the Alps but something made the army turn round; no one knows what. After a few more victories, eventually the time came to meet Crassus on the battlefield. The result was devastating for the slaves. They suffered a large scale defeat with many casualties. Several thousands of the slave survivors fled the scene.

Answer: crucified them

It wasn't any ordinary crucifixion. Every slave who took part in the revolt and who wasn't killed in battle was crucified along the Appian Way, from Capua to Rome. Any traveler would have seen a road lined with crosses, and heard the wails and moans of the people dying on them. The slave revolt, or the Third Servile War, was over.
Although Spartacus' body was never found, it is almost certain that Spartacus the Rebel became Spartacus Crucified.

Answer: Scourge of God

The Romans nicknamed him "Scourge of God" (or "Flagellum Dei") and with good reason. Attila spent his life terrorizing Rome and its Empire. But everybody has their roots and Attila's was a noble child in the Hunnic army. The Huns were a nomadic people that lived in Hungary (surprise, surprise) and descended from Asian tribes.

Born around 406, in his 20s he took the reins from his uncle and became the leader of the Huns (along with his brother Bleda). Attila was a warrior and now he had a whole tribe of warlike people under his command.

Answer: Eastern Roman Empire

Remember how I said that Rome was on the decline? By this time the empire had split into two: Eastern Rome and Western Rome. At the time the emperor of Eastern Rome Theodosius II, and he certainly didn't want Hun attack. The peace negotiation was that the Eastern Empire would pay a huge sum of gold to the Huns every year (in other words, a bribe).

But the Eastern Empire could not keep this promise, so Attila spent two years (441 to 443) terrorizing various towns and cities in Eastern Roman Empire. Finally peace was arranged, the attacking stopped, and the Eastern Empire owed a ton more money.

Answer: Valentinian's sister

The sister, Honoria wrote to Attila asking for help getting out of a proposal. Attila, her Hun in shining armour, showed up asked to marry her and for half the empire. Big brother was none too happy about this, so Attila took out his anger on Gaul and France with more attacks, more raids, and more terror. They called him "Scourge of God" for a reason.

Where was Bleda during all this? A couple years back, Attila had killed him to become sole leader. So while Bleda bled (couldn't help that one hehe) Attila went on rampage through Europe.

Answer: Alps

Attila took his army over the Alps, just like Hannibal did 600 years before. The reason? More raids and attacks on Italy and Gaul. In the meantime, Aetius, the Roman general was preparing to face the Huns in battle. He made a deal with Theodoric I, king of the Visigoths (another "barbarian tribe" settled in Italy so that together they met Attila at the Catalaunian Plains (France) in 451.

Theodoric died, and Attila suffered his only defeat.

Answer: his wedding

Attila the Hun died on his wedding night and we are not yet sure how he did. He made have had a hemorrhage and choked to death on his blood. Other accounts say he was murdered by his wife Ildico (some honeymoon!). Ildico wasn't his first wife anyways, he had had many. Attila was a busy fellow.

After the Huns gave their farewell to their beloved king, his three sons all wanted to rule and therefore ended up dividing the Hunnic empire.