Was the Second Punic War inevitable?

[Justin of the New Yorkii]

The Second Punic War is sometimes called "the Hannibalic War" or the "War Against Hannibal," and Polybius frames the entire conflict as a sort of personal vendetta by the Barca family against Rome:

"The first cause, we must recognize, was the anger of Hamilcar, surnamed Barca, the father of Hannibal." (Histories, 3.9.8)

But let's say, hypothetically, that Hamilcar Barca died in a random accident before his sons were born. Would some other Carthaginian general have invaded Italy with a large army?
Were Carthage's people and Rome's people so bitter toward each other that a final conflict was inevitable? Were the Barcas merely riding the crest of a historical wave, so to speak, or did they really start a war that could have been avoided?

I always wondered how the Barca family could rouse, e.g., a bunch of Numidian and Iberian tribesmen who seemingly had little reason to hate Rome, and use them to form the core of an army that campaigned in Italy for over a decade. Maybe these peoples actually had some reason to hate or fear Rome, and just by chance Hamilcar and his sons happened to be the ones who came along and tapped this latent energy?

For a long time I thought that maybe the Barcas were just excellent motivators. But I've been reading Tolstoy's War & Peace, and this passage got me thinking about this:

History studies the deeds of a single man, a tsar, a colonel, as representing the sum of men's volitions, when in reality the sum of men's volitions is never expressed in the activities of any one historical personage.
... The first fifteen years of the nineteenth century in Europe exhibit an extraordinary movement of millions of men. Men abandon their ordinary vocations, rush from one end of Europe to the other, rob, slaughter one another; they are filled with triumph and with despair, and the whole course of their lives is for a number of years changed, and undergoes a powerful movement, which at first goes on increasing and then slackens.
"What is the cause of this movement, or by what laws did it take place?" asks the human mind.
The historians, replying to this question, bring to our notice certain acts and speeches of certain dozens of men, in one of the buildings of the city of Paris, and call these acts and speeches "the Revolution"; then they give a circumstantial account of Napoleon, and of certain sympathizers and enemies of his, tell about the influence which certain of these individuals had upon the others, and they say :
" This was the cause of this movement, and here are its laws."
But the human mind not only refuses to put credence in this explanation, but declares, up and down, that this manner of explanation is fallacious, for the reason that, according to it, a feeble phenomenon is taken as the cause of a mighty one. The sum of human volitions produced both the Revolution and Napoleon, and only the sum of these volitions sustained them and destroyed them.

One could argue, for example, that "the sum of human volitions" produced Alexander's conquest of Persia, as the conflict was framed as a campaign of revenge for the Greco-Persian wars. A lot of Greeks at the time were amenable to the idea of conquering Persia, and Alexander was able to harness that energy.

But during the Second Punic War, it seems like the Carthaginian government's support for Hannibal was only lukewarm. Maybe he really was just a renegade who managed to rouse a large group of loyal supporters, while the general sentiment in North Africa and Iberia wasn't overwhelmingly anti-Roman?
Then again, we don't have any Carthaginian historians to help us gauge the prevailing sentiment of the time from their perspective, so maybe these questions can't be answered.

[Epictetus]

I think it was inevitable. One could almost see parallels with the Second World War – where the powers were unsatisfied with the termination of a previous war.

… the Carthaginians… considered that in their subjection it had been lorded over them with haughtiness and avarice.

Livy 21,1

Carthage was also annoyed at Rome’s actions after the First Punic War’s termination. After supporting Carthage against the mercenary rebellion Rome switched course and intervened to snatch Sardinia:

… Sardinia, during the disturbances in Africa, had been treacherously taken by the Romans, while, in addition, the payment of a tribute had been imposed.

Livy 21.1

It is possible that this change of policy was because some in Rome thought that the previous peace had been too lenient.

Livy details two factions in Carthage: the elite led by Hanno didn’t want a supposedly warlike Hannibal, while the more numerous commons did want him. He also says that the commons did not necessarily want Hannibal specifically, but they had a foreign policy in mind:

There was no doubt that in appointing a successor to Hasdrubal, the approbation of the commons would follow the military prerogative…

Livy, 21.3

Polybius also points to the same reasons for the war:

We must consider, then, the causes of the Hannibalic War to have been those I have stated, while its beginnings were as follows. The Carthaginians could ill bear their defeat in the war for Sicily, and… they were additionally exasperated by the matter of Sardinia and the exorbitancy of the sum they had been last obliged to agree to pay.

Polybius, 3, 12-13

If I interpret Polybius correctly, I believe he is saying that these causes forced the anger of Hamilcar, as in your above quote.

So I think that if there had been no Hannibal, Carthage would have found someone similar to restart the conflict with Rome.

[Jona Lendering]

I have two points to make.

(1)
There is a similar debate about the First World War. I have fond memories of a series of lectures I once attended, in which all arguments were mentioned: Germany was to blame, Austria, Russia, British misunderstanding, French revanchism, and so on. Very interesting. Than, at the end, my teacher turned the tables, and said, quite unexpectedly: the question is not who wanted war - the question is who wanted peace. Who was willing to pay what price? And indeed, the point is that there was a climate of hostility, since about 1890, in which the gains of one side were immediately explained as losses to the other. The deepest cause of war is that people think that war is the only way to protect what they believe to be their interests. War only breaks out if two sides believe that it is a solution.

The point is, of course, "what they believe to be". The Carthaginian government had a different opinion about Carthage's interests than Hannibal. I believe the Carthaginians were merchants, who needed business opportunities; the Barcids may indeed have wanted revenge - that's what we read, at least, in our sources and I am not a Carthaginianist who can evaluate the sources' value. But I would guess that you are right, the war was to some extent avoidable.

Who wanted peace? Hannibal didn't, the Romans -or an influential faction among them- didn't, the Carthaginian government wanted it to some extent, but not sufficiently to prevent Hannibal from seizing the initiative. So the war came, but had Rome been a bit more forthcoming, had Hannibal listened a bit better to his superiors, things might have been different. However, there was a climate of suspicion. If Rome and Carthage would, after the First Punic War, have fought against a common enemy, there might have been less distrust.

(2)
The Mediterranean world of the third and second centuries was in a process of transforming itself into some kind of unity. It had been a divided region in the fifth and fourth centuries, but now it was reorganizing itself, both culturally and politically. The creation of one, big Mediterranean Empire was inevitable, and the issue of the Second Punic War was whether this Mediterranean Empire would have a Roman or a Carthaginian face.

This does not mean that Rome or Carthage were actually aiming at world dominion. It simply means that their imperia were a consequence of a process of cultural homogenization. One way or another, some kind of Mediterranean unity was bound to come, and the big question was whether the Greek-Roman or the Phoenician-Carthaginian culture was to be the crystallization point. In this sense, war was inevitable.

[john m roberts]

The First Punic War ended in a setback for Carthage, not a defeat. It might well have resumed in the next campaigning season, but both powers were distracted; Carthage by the disastrous Mercenaries' War, Rome by an incursion of Gauls. As soon as they had these distractions settled, they resumed the war, which had only been interrupted, not ended. Even the Second Punic War ended indecisively, as Cato the Elder never tired of pointing out.

[Justin of the New Yorkii]

Thanks for the responses. It seemed to me that greater forces were at work than just the Barcids' personal vendetta.
It seems like early historians had a habit of framing these broad conflicts as personal affairs, e.g. the Trojan War being fought over a messy divorce, or names the "Mithridatic Wars" or "Jugurthine War," which seem oversimplified.
I don't know if that's for the sake of simplicity or to entertain their audiences or what, but sometimes it can obscure the real reasons why events happened.