元老院承诺派遣军队。不过组织远征军花费了一段时间，在此期间，萨贡特陷落，整个城市被迦太基人焚毁。此举大大激怒了罗马人，元老院决定向迦太基宣战。他们派出一支罗马军队越过阿非利加海，在迦太基本土附近登陆。另一支军队则负责牵制占据西班牙的迦太基部队，阻止他们去救援。这是个绝妙的计划，人人都期待着大获全胜，甚至己经有人在谈论战后的狂欢和分享战利品了。不过，诸神却不愿让罗马人如此顺利。

　　It was the fall of the year 218 before the birth of Christ and the Roman army which was to attack the Carthaginians in Spain had left Italy. People were eagerly waiting for news of an easy and complete victory when a terrible rumour began to spread through the plain of the Po. Wild mountaineers, their lips trembling with fear, told of hundreds of thousands of brown men accompanied by strange beasts "each one as big as a house," who had suddenly emerged from the clouds of snow which surrounded the old Graian pass through which Hercules, thousands of years before, had driven the oxen of Geryon on his way from Spain to Greece. Soon an endless stream of bedraggled refugees appeared before the gates of Rome, with more complete details. Hannibal, the son of Hamilcar, with fifty thousand soldiers, nine thousand horsemen and thirty-seven fighting elephants, had crossed the Pyrenees.

　　时间正好是公元前218年秋天，负责攻击驻守西班牙的迦太基军队的罗马军团 启程离开了意大利，罗马的人们正急切期盼着一个轻松愉快的胜利消息。不过等来的却是另一个可怕的谣言，它们很快便在整个波河平原蔓延开来。先是一些粗野的山民，他们传布了一个匪夷所思的故事。他们讲，几十万棕色人带着一种奇怪的野兽，"每一只都有房子那么大"，突然从比利牛斯山的云朵之中浮现。他们现身的地方是在古格瑞安山隘，几千年前赫尔克里斯曾赶着他的格尔扬公牛途经此地，从西班牙前往希腊。不久，一眼望不到尽头的逃难人群便涌到了罗马城前，他们个个衣衫槛楼，面有菜色。从他们口中，得知了更多、更具体的细节。哈米尔卡的伟大儿子汉尼拔，统率着9万步兵、9000骑兵及37头威风凛凛的战象，已经跨过了比利牛斯山。