Hannibal was a military tactician.
Hannibal . One of his most famous achievements was at the outbreak of the Second Punic War , when he marched an army which included war elephants from Iberia over the Pyrenees and the Alps into Italy . Scipio had studied Hannibal 's tactics and brilliantly devised some of his own , and finally defeated Rome 's nemesis at Zama , having previously driven Hannibal 's brother Hasdrubal out of the Iberian Peninsula . Hannibal is often regarded as one of the greatest military strategists in history and one of the greatest generals of Mediterranean antiquity , together with Philip of Macedon , Alexander the Great , Julius Caesar , and Scipio Africanus . Military historian Theodore Ayrault Dodge called Hannibal the `` father of strategy '' , because his greatest enemy , Rome , came to adopt elements of his military tactics in its own strategic arsenal .