Late last week, while reading about ancient Carthage in an extremely dry book, I did glean one very interesting fact:
While on the way to fight the Romans in middle Italy, Hannibal worked an alliance with a "tribe" called the Boii, up in northern Italy. Every man jack of the Boii was dragged off to fight alongside the Carthaginians for a year or so, including through the horrific Battle of Cannae. They then were split off by the Romans in another alliance making effort.
Following the Second Punic War, the Boii were resettled from Northern Italy to an area "beyond the Pale" of the "civilized world", well north of the Alps. That area later became known as Bohemia, after the Boii.
My father's family moved from Bohemia after the Thirty Years War (they were on the losing, Imperial side, if family lore can be believed) over to Bavaria, where they remained until the Red Revolutions after World War I - after being on another losing side. (Grandpa Fred was the first clarinet player in the family, a tradition that I've carried on with some degree of distinction over the years.)
(In a way, I carried on family tradition as well, being in the armored cavalry over in RVN - we lost that one as well, didn't we?)
So, since all of the male members of the Boii were dragged off to fight with Hannibal, I gotta figure that some of the Stibals were there on the line as well, dodging the elephant droppings and doing the ol' hack and thrust with the best of them, once again, fighting for the losing side.