Hannibal had just crossed the Alps with elephants. Now he needed Rome to bleed. The Trebia River ran cold that December morning. Hannibal sent cavalry to provoke the Romans at dawn, then pulled back. The consul Sempronius—hungry for glory, ignoring his co-consul's caution—chased them. His 40,000 soldiers waded through icy water, no breakfast, already exhausted. Hannibal's brother Mago waited in ambush with 2,000 men hidden in a ravine. The Romans never saw it coming. Surrounded on three sides, 30,000 died or drowned in the freezing river. It was Hannibal's first major victory on Italian soil. Rome would lose two more armies within a year, each bigger than the last.
December 18, 218 BC
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