people had become impatient with Fabius' rule and in 216 B.C., they elected in his place two aggressive consuls, Paullus and Varro. These consuls' armies were decimated at the Battle of Cannae, disgracing Rome. Some historians believe that this concluded the rise of Hannibal.
Unexpectedly, the Roman classes united as they never had before to contribute to the war effort and managed to raise new forces to attack the Carthaginians in Spain, Sicily, Africa, Sardinia, and Greece. Two Roman generals, Publius and Gnaeus Scipio, took a small army to Spain and were eventually destroyed but not without achieving several important objectives: they had carried the war into the enemy's territory, diverting Carthaginian resources from Hannibal; they had won some allies for Rome north of the Ebro; and they had destroyed Carthage's ability to challenge Rome's navy. In 210 B.C., the Roman Senate yielded to popular demand and placed Publius Scipio's son, also named Publius, in command of a second expedition to Spain. By 206 B.C., Scipio had driven the Carthaginians out of Spain entirely. Then Carthage realized that Rome's
