Following the First Punic War, Rome set about the task of unifying Italy under Roman rule. They subdued the Gauls and, through the Ebro Treaty with Hasdrubal the Fair, secured the boundary between Rome and Carthage's empires in Spain at the Ebro River. Rome would control all territories north of the river and Carthage those territories to the south. The Gauls saw the Romans as conquerors and occupiers and so, when Hannibal began his operations in the Iberian Peninsula, they did little to stop him. He not only had the support of the people but, equally important if not more so, the devotion of his army. Only 28-years-old upon assuming command, Hannibal had spent most of his life in army camps on campaign. The historian Durant, quoting Livy, writes, "He was the first to enter the battle and the last to abandon the field." Hannibal's army knew they could depend on him to take care of them just as surely as they knew the punishments he would wreak upon them if they disappointed him. In this same way, the people of the region looked to Hannibal to relieve them of the Romans.

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