Hannibal Trivia
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122 free Hannibal trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
This Hannibal trivia quiz follows the Carthaginian general from the oath he swore to his father as a boy to the poison he took in Bithynia forty years later: the siege of Saguntum, the march over the Alps with elephants, the ambush at Lake Trasimene, the double envelopment at Cannae, fifteen years loose in southern Italy, defeat at Zama, reform as sufet and a long exile at foreign courts. The easy questions cover the outline: his city, his father, the mountains, the great battle of 216 BC, the Roman who finally beat him and the phrase Romans shouted when disaster loomed. The harder half is for readers of Polybius and Livy: the meaning of Barca, the wigs he wore among the Gauls, the vinegar and the rockfall, the eye he lost in the Arno marshes, the cattle with burning horns, the number of senators who died at Cannae, Maharbal's rebuke, the bronze tablets at Crotona, the trumpets at Zama, the reforms to the Hundred and Four, the philosopher he called an old fool, the clay pots of snakes, and the prophecy about Libyssan earth. Every answer was checked against Hannibal's encyclopaedia entry before publishing. If you enjoy this, try our Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar and Roman Empire quizzes next.
30 of 122 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Hannibal's home city of Carthage lay in which modern country?
Tunisia
Tunisia holds Carthage's ruins, on the edge of modern Tunis; Rome razed the city in 146 BC, then refounded it about a century later as the chief city of its African province.
Q 02Livy praised the young Hannibal's courage but charged him with a 'more than Punic' what?
Treachery
Treachery, 'a perfidy worse than Punic', is Livy's charge, set beside inhuman cruelty; yet the same passage admits he was first into every fight, last out, and slept on the ground among his sentries.
Q 03What does the cognomen Barca mean?
Lightning
Lightning, or 'thunderbolt', is the usual reading of Punic brq. It was a personal byname rather than a family surname: 'Barcid' is a label historians coined later for Hamilcar's family.
Q 04At which river did Hannibal defeat the Carpetani coalition in 220 BC?
Tagus
Returning laden with plunder, Hannibal put the Tagus between himself and the Carpetani, then cut them down as they forded it, his elephants patrolling the bank.
Q 05According to Polybius, what did Hannibal's father make him swear as a boy?
Never to be a friend of Rome
Never to be a friend of Rome: his father had him swear it at the altar, aged nine, before taking him to Spain, and Hannibal told the story decades later to convince a wary king of his loyalty.
Q 06Who first proclaimed Hannibal commander-in-chief in 221 BC?
His army in Spain
His army in Spain acclaimed him as soon as its old commander was murdered; only then did Carthage's assembly meet, and it simply ratified the soldiers' choice.
Q 07Whose assassination in 221 BC brought Hannibal to supreme command in Hispania?
Hasdrubal the Fair
Hasdrubal the Fair, Hannibal's brother-in-law, was murdered by a Celtic servant in 221 BC; he had signed the 226 BC treaty with Rome fixing the Ebro as a boundary.
Q 08According to the Roman poet Silius Italicus, what was the name of Hannibal's wife from Castulo?
Imilce
Imilce is a name known only from Silius Italicus's epic Punica; Livy says just that Hannibal took a wife from Castulo, so close was the Spanish town's alliance with Carthage.
Q 09Hannibal's attack on which Roman-allied city in Spain sparked the Second Punic War?
Saguntum
Saguntum, a Roman ally south of the Ebro, fell to Hannibal in 219 BC; a Roman embassy then offered Carthage the choice of war or peace.
Q 10What happened to Hannibal during the eight-month siege that began the Second Punic War?
Javelin wound
A javelin wound in the thigh, taken when he came too close to the wall, Livy says; the assault slackened into a blockade until he healed, and the city still fell after eight months.
Q 11From which Spanish port, the Barcid capital, did Hannibal begin his march to Italy in 218 BC?
Cartagena
Cartagena, then called New Carthage, was his base; before leaving he posted Spanish troops to Africa and African troops to Spain, so each garrison stood surety for the other's loyalty.
Q 12According to Livy, what did Hannibal use along with fire to break through a rockfall in the Alps?
Vinegar
Vinegar, poured over rock his men had first heated with a great fire, crumbled it, Livy says; Polybius, writing far closer to the events, describes the blocked path but no vinegar.
Q 13What did researchers find below the Col de la Traversette in 2016 that may mark Hannibal's route?
Ancient dung
Q 21What does Cunctator, the nickname Fabius Maximus earned against Hannibal, mean?
The Delayer
The Delayer: Fabius shadowed Hannibal for months without offering battle, and the poet Ennius later hailed him as the one man who saved Rome by delaying; such tactics are still called Fabian.
Q 22Trapped in Campania by Fabius, how did Hannibal slip his army out at night?
Torches tied to cattle's horns
Torches tied to cattle's horns, some 2,000 oxen driven up a ridge in the dark, drew the Roman pass guards off to chase the lights, and his army walked out through the gap.
Q 23At Cannae, Hannibal placed his army so that the wind drove what into the Roman soldiers' faces?
Dust
Ancient dung: churned mud dated to about 218 BC and rich in bacteria from horse guts suggests thousands of animals passed. The clincher the team still hoped for was a tapeworm egg from an elephant.
Q 14On reaching Italy, Hannibal stormed a hostile tribe's chief town in the area of which modern city?
Turin
Turin lies in the land of the Taurini, whose stronghold Hannibal took in three days; he killed those who had resisted, and Polybius says the terror brought the neighbouring tribes over to him.
Q 15How did Rome's Senate answer Hannibal's offer to ransom the prisoners he took at Cannae?
It refused to pay
It refused to pay: Livy says the Senate would not drain a treasury already spent on arming slaves, or enrich a Hannibal known to be short of money.
Q 16How did Hannibal disguise himself from assassins in the winter of 218–217 BC?
He wore differently dyed wigs
He wore differently dyed wigs, with clothes to match each one, Polybius says, so that even people who knew him well struggled to recognise him.
Q 17What caused Hannibal to lose the sight of his right eye during the march through the Arno marshes?
Conjunctivitis
Four days and three nights wading through the flooded Arno marshes brought on an eye infection, usually identified as conjunctivitis, that cost Hannibal the sight of his right eye.
Q 18Which Roman consul was killed with his army in the ambush at Lake Trasimene in 217 BC?
Gaius Flaminius
Gaius Flaminius, consul of 217 BC, died with some 15,000 men in the Trasimene ambush; Livy says Hannibal searched the field for his body to bury it, in vain.
Q 19According to Livy, what struck Italy during the battle at Lake Trasimene without the fighters noticing?
An earthquake
An earthquake, strong enough to level parts of towns and turn rivers from their beds, Livy and Plutarch both say; the two armies were fighting so hard that nobody felt it.
Q 20After the disaster at Lake Trasimene, Rome gave Fabius Maximus which office to stop Hannibal?
Dictator
Dictator, an office Rome had left unused for years: with one consul dead and the other cut off, the people chose him themselves, and impatient voters later gave his deputy equal power.
Dust, whipped off the dry Apulian plain by a hot local wind, blew straight at the Romans, Livy and Plutarch say; Hannibal had chosen his campsite with his back to that wind.
Q 24Which two consuls commanded the Roman army on alternate days at the great battle of 216 BC?
Varro and Paullus
Consuls Gaius Terentius Varro and Lucius Aemilius Paullus alternated command; Livy blames Varro, whose day it was, yet the Senate thanked him afterwards for not despairing of the Republic.
Q 25After his victories in Italy, what did Hannibal do with prisoners from Rome's Italian allies?
Freed them without ransom
Freed them without ransom, telling them his quarrel was with Rome alone: Polybius says the aim was to turn Italy's cities against her, while Roman prisoners stayed in chains.
Q 26In Livy, which cavalry commander told Hannibal, 'You know how to gain a victory, but not how to use one'?
Maharbal
Maharbal, Hannibal's cavalry commander, urged an immediate march on Rome after the 216 BC victory; Livy records this rebuke when Hannibal declined.
Q 27Which Macedonian king pledged support to Hannibal after 216 BC, starting the First Macedonian War?
Philip V
Philip V of Macedon made a treaty with Hannibal in 215 BC, but Rome's fleet and its Aetolian allies kept him busy in Greece until he made a separate peace in 205 BC, so his army never reached Italy.
Q 28What ended Hannibal's 15 years in Italy?
A recall home
A recall home: Carthage ordered him back to defend Africa once a Roman army had landed there and begun winning; Livy has him groan that Carthage's own senate, not Rome, had beaten him.
Q 29Which Carthaginian led the anti-Barcid faction and argued against reinforcing Hannibal after his 216 BC victory?
Hanno the Great
Hanno the Great mocked the victory report and urged peace instead; Livy says few senators listened, and Carthage voted Hannibal Numidian horsemen, elephants and silver anyway.
Q 30Which city did Hannibal capture by surprise in 212 BC while failing to take its harbour?
Tarentum
Tarentum's gates were opened to Hannibal by local conspirators in 212 BC, but the Roman garrison held the citadel commanding the harbour; Fabius retook the city in 209 BC.