Carthage begins as a small trading outpost and grows into one of the richest seafaring powers in the Mediterranean, wealthy enough to fund the armies that nearly destroy Rome. The film follows Hannibal's campaign against Rome, from his early victories to the puzzle historians keep returning to: at the height of his success, with Rome exposed, he does not march on the city, and Rome survives to become the region's dominant power. Historians, psychologists, and archaeologists work through the decision together, and archaeological data feeds computer animations that reconstruct the battles and put viewers inside the tactical choices Hannibal and his officers faced in the field. The reconstructions extend to the split-second calculations of combat, showing alternative paths a battle or a campaign could have taken. Rather than treating Hannibal's fall as simple military failure, the film treats it as a case study in how a single unmade decision can redirect the course of an empire, and of the world that empire's rival went on to build.