Hannibal ad portas ("Hannibal at the gate!") - this Latin expression has become "winged." No enemy in the entire history of ancient Rome has brought such horror. Never before have the Roman legions suffered such brutal defeats. Not a single war has yet demanded such tension and such monstrous losses from the Eternal City - for 17 years of this massacre, Rome lost half of the male population: Hannibal was simply "crushed by mass" and "filled up with corpses"...