event
Second Punic War (218-201 BC)
the Second Punic War
also: belli Punici secundi, Second Punic War, the Punic War
The war between Rome and Carthage launched by Hannibal, whose siege of Rome's ally Saguntum was its immediate cause. Cicero invokes it to contrast the legitimate dispatch of legates to a foreign foe with the folly of sending them to a fellow citizen.