Hannibal of Carthage: fearsome enemy of ancient Rome

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Hello, Greg here.

Just a reminder before we get going that episodes of Your Dead to Me are released on Fridays wherever you get your podcasts.

But if you're in the UK, you can listen to the latest episodes 28 days earlier than anywhere else, first on BBC Sounds.

Hello and welcome to Your Dead to Me, the Radio 4 comedy podcast that takes history seriously.

My name is Greg Jenner.

I'm a public historian, author and broadcaster.

Today we're mounting our war elephants and marching back to the ancient Mediterranean to learn all about Carthaginian general Hannibal Barker.

And joining our campaign we have two very special comrades in arms.

In History Corner, she's professor of ancient history at the University of Cambridge and a specialist on Roman, North African and Phoenician history and archaeology.

You might have read her award-winning book In Search of the Phoenicians or her best-selling award-nominated new one, How the World Made the West, a 4,000-year history.

It's brilliant.

It's Professor Josephine Quinn.

Welcome, Joe.

Thanks for having me.

Delighted to have you here.

And in Comedy Corner, he's a comedian, writer, and presenter.

You'll have seen him on all the TV shows like Live at the Apollo, Love Island After Sun, Roast Battle, Mock the Week, Dancing on Ice, or heard him on the radio, on News Jack Unplugged, Infinite Monkey Cage, Black Label.

And of course, you'll remember him from our episode on Victorian Bodybuilding.

It's Darren Harriett.

Welcome back, Darren.

Thank you for having me.

Darren, last time you demonstrated incredible knowledge on this subject, you were basically an expert on Eugene Sandow.

I was so excited to come in and talk about Eugene Saundah.

Yeah, I know so much about bodybuilder.

And I think maybe like a year before, I'd watched a documentary about him twice.

So I came in here so cocky.

Oh, I know it all, guys.

Very different to today.

Right, I was going to say, the history of ancient North Africa.

Yeah, yeah, not really my specialist subject, that.

But I'm excited.

There's going to be a lot of questions I'm going to throw out, guys.

Okay.

Does the name Hannibal ring a bell?

It does, yeah.

I know a couple of Hannibals.

Hannibal's from TV shows, a comedian.

It stops there.

Okay, Hannibal Burrez.

Hannibal Burrez, there we go.

Yeah, that's it.

That's my knowledge.

Okay.

Well, he's pretty great, but I don't know if he's ever invaded Rome.

I'm not sure.

So, what do you know?

Well, that brings us to the first segment of the podcast.

It's called the So What Do You Know?

Where I have a go at guessing what our lovely listener might know about today's subject.

And when I say Hannibal, you might, like Darren, be thinking of TV people.

I think of the cigar-chomping leader of the A-team.

Oh yeah!

I know free!

Free Hannibal references!

More likely, you're thinking of the famous fictional serial killer, but today it's less Hannibal the Cannibal and more Hannibal of Carthage.

Hannibal has appeared in a ton of historical novels, including ones by Ross Leckie and Ben Kane, several films as well, the 1959 film Annibale and the 2009 film Hannibal.

And apparently, if Vin Diesel gets his way, maybe soon we'll be getting a high-octane Hannibal trilogy, because that's what Vin Diesel wants to make.

I cannot wait.

I can't wait to watch an elephant power drift around a hairpin corner.

That is what we all want to see.

But what is the fact behind the fiction?

Did Hannibal really have an elephant era?

Did a hailstorm change history?

Let's find out.

Right.

Professor Joe, before we meet Hannibal, I think we probably need a quick crash course on the Carthaginist.

Actually, you know what?

I'm going to turn to Darren and put you on the spot.

Oh, there we go.

Where was Carthage in...

I'll give you North Africa.

Yeah, North Africa, okay, yeah.

Or how north are we talking?

Pretty north.

Okay.

Under the sea.

By the sea.

Yeah.

That doesn't really help me.

Like Egypt?

Okay.

I mean, that's a fairly

near.

West of.

West of.

Yeah.

Where's west of Egypt?

Is that Morocco?

Too west.

Too west.

Ah!

I'm going back to Joe.

Joe.

Hold on, keep doing it with me for a little bit.

We could be here for an hour.

Warmer, cold devil.

it's right in the middle so ancient carthage is in modern tunisia it's actually now a sort of seaside suburb of modern tunis really lovely in fact lots of great cafes there but it was originally founded as a colonial settlement in the ninth century bce

by people we now call phoenicians and these are sailors who were based in the ports of the levant so modern lebanon more or less okay so cities like tyre and sidon and so on and they kind of trade and settle throughout the Mediterranean.

And in fact, the name of Carthage in the Phoenician language is Karth-Hadasht, which literally means new city.

Oh, great.

And it becomes this really important trading centre.

It's basically the biggest of the Phoenician trading posts in the Mediterranean.

I mean, the archaeologists estimate it has about 30,000 people after about a century, which will make it an extremely massive city in the Western Mediterranean in that era.

It expands by controlling access to other ports in the Western Mediterranean and to the coastline.

It really kind of forbids other cities from sailing along any of the coastlines that are interesting to it.

And then later on in its history, it actually expands inland as well, becomes a sort of farming state inland into North Africa.

So by the fourth century BCE, so 500 years after it's founded, the Carthaginians control territory and trade across a huge swathe of North Africa, but also the islands of Sardinia, most of Sicily, and a lot of southern Spain as well.

Wow.

They were kind of bossing it, right?

So that's the official history, and that's what the archaeology can tell us and the historical sources.

There's also a myth about the founding of Carthage, an ancient myth.

Any guesses on how it would have gone?

How would you tell the myth of the founding of a city?

The myth of founding the city.

Yeah.

Normally, oh.

people just stumble upon things, though, don't they?

That's kind of how they sort of stumble on it.

I want to go with that.

Somebody stumbled upon it.

It just sort of went, this is nice.

Yeah, walked around and went, this is nice.

And then they found something on the floor that sounds similar to Carthage.

And they went, you know what?

They saw carpet.

And they went, you know what?

That sounds like Carthage.

And they stumbled upon it.

They wanted to have furniture show.

Yeah, they did.

This is great.

My DFS.

So they went, hold on.

Sounds like it.

That's a lovely, generous, kind guess.

It's like a child telling of it, isn't it?

Yes.

It is

to some extent right.

Come on!

Yeah,

there's a bit more kind of backstory to it, if the only thing.

To some extent, it's doing some heavy lifting with Joe.

Let's be honest, let's come.

I love Joe.

So there's the king of Tyre called Pygmalion.

I've heard of him.

Right.

He unfortunately kills his sister's husband,

which annoys his sister, who then flees with a whole bunch of Tyrian senators and so on.

And they flee west across the Mediterranean and they stumble upon this place called, well, and then they decide to call it Carthage.

And this is supposed to have happened in 814 BCE, which some ancient, I mean, ancient ancient historians think was the same date as Rome was founded.

Oh, wow.

And one of the stories goes, one of the sort of famous stories about this goes that when his sister Dido arrived with her friends from Tyre, that she negotiated with the locals to purchase as much land as could be covered by an ox's hide, which is not very much land.

But what she does, because she's cunning, is she cuts the hide into an incredibly long strip, like peeling an orange.

I don't know if she actually peels the ox.

Yeah, can you peel an ox?

I don't know.

I'm not quite sure how that was.

Yes, ox is less sign.

She basically peels an ox and

gets such a long thin strip that she can enclose the whole of the Beersa Hill with it, which is like still the core of Carthage.

But there is another story that they find a horse's head buried in the city.

And this is a sign.

This is a good luck sign.

I can't tell you why finding a horse's head is a good luck sign.

Yeah, because I've seen the godfather.

I'm just about to say that.

It's a bad sign if anyone.

It was a good sign.

So that was also another kind of sign that that was the right place for the city.

And then the other big myth that a lot of people have heard of about Carthage is the story told in Virgil's Aeneid, which is actually a very late version of the story, where he takes this myth about this amazing woman who flees as a refugee and founds the city and adds this Trojan prince, Aeneas, and has her fall in love with him.

So he turns up, she falls in love, but then he leaves to found Rome.

And when Aeneas leaves to found Rome, Dido dies by suicide by falling on a sword, and she proclaims there will be endless enmity between Carthage and Rome.

Ooh, foreshadowing for our episode.

Thank you.

Thank you for that.

That's a lovely summary.

So you're very charming with your stumbling upon.

Yeah, but.

Not too bad.

Not too bad.

At the start of the wars, I said DFS.

I was quite looking there.

Okay, so when Rome and Carthage eventually did meet, do you think it's a sort of a romantic meet-cute between two Mediterranean powers?

Or do you think they're enemies?

No, I don't.

No, it doesn't sound like it would be.

So you think Dido's prophecy is true?

They immediately become enemies?

Yeah.

Yeah.

I want to, yeah.

Did they?

No, so.

Really?

See, the thing is, one important thing is that Carthage is much more powerful than Rome initially.

That's what I thought.

It was because it was powerful.

It would have just stumbled up in my head.

Just went all over Rome and just took over.

I think it does try to.

So

it keeps making treaties about allies officially for a long time, but Carthage is definitely the senior ally.

So they make treaties in the 6th century, in the 5th century, in the 4th century, and they're all about what Rome isn't allowed to do, basically.

But then Rome actually calls on Carthage to help when the general Pyrrhus of the Pyrrhic victory fame, when he comes over and invades Italy in 275 BCE, the Romans actually get the Carthaginians to help him defeat them.

So they actually have a relatively friendly relationship up until.

That's just going to sound.

It's quite surprising, right?

Because we're used to hearing about the Romans being the absolute boss empire, but they're basically like kind of the upstarts asking for collabs.

Yeah, I was just about to say that.

It does sound a bit odd because I would have thought exactly that.

We just hear how dominant Rome was in their army.

And I do like the idea that really needed help.

They were really asking for help.

How do you ask for help in the ancient world?

Do you just sort of send a dove saying, help?

You send an envoy.

An envoy, okay.

I send an envoy.

And he just, help!

Yeah, help!

Just help us!

Usually, he then gets captured by other people on the way, and it all goes wrong.

Let's meet Hannibal because he's the sort of person we're talking about today.

He is the most famous of all the Carthaginians.

You know, the Carthaginian Empire is vast, you've said 500 years already, but we're going to talk about Hannibal today.

So when was he born?

What was his family background?

Is he part?

Is he, you know, is he kind of working class, works his way up?

Okay, so Carthage is an oligarchic republic.

So it's a bit like Rome.

It's got a public assembly, but it's mostly, the people in charge are mostly from fairly ancient aristocratic families.

And that's the background, that's Hannibal's background.

So he's born in 247 BCE.

He's the son of a general general called Hamilcar Barker.

And this general fought in the First Punic War against Rome.

He has two brothers.

We know that.

They're called Hasdrubal and Mago.

He has three sisters.

Nobody bothers to tell us what they're called.

I'm sure they're

a different time.

And

what's been going on when Hannibal is born is this first war between Carthage and Rome.

And basically the relationship between the two cities gets increasingly strained due to various central Mediterranean politics and war breaks out in 264.

And Hamilcar, who's Hannibal's father, he's sent to Sicily to prosecute this war in 247, so the same year that Hannibal is born.

And it's his leadership that really sustains Carthaginian resistance to Rome for six more years until 241 when Rome defeats Carthage at the Battle of the Egade Islands off western Sicily.

And that's the end of the First Punic War.

It's the first really big defeat ever, basically.

They call it the Punic War.

When I try typing it in my script, autocorrect turn it's a punic war.

So

let's just clarify.

P-U-N, I see, okay?

And what Punic mean?

It's the Latin word for Phoenician, basically.

Because the Romans didn't pronounce ph for a long time.

They pronounced it p.

They didn't have aspiration like that.

Ah.

So they call Phoenicians basically Poenicians.

So that's where Punic comes from.

Okay.

So in the West, Western Phoenicians, the ones who settled in the West, are often called Punic.

So this is the first Punic war.

The first Punic War.

The fact it's the first one tells us more are coming.

Exactly.

Exactly.

Okay.

So what's the kind of upshot of this first war?

Well, actually, I'll ask you, Darren, what do you think is the upshot of this first war?

Carthage has been defeated.

Yeah.

Rome is really happy.

They're over the moon.

They're like, look at us.

Wouldn't they?

I mean, it seems like the Carthagin people was a lot about trade.

Trade was their big thing.

So if Rome wouldn't beat them in the war, wouldn't there be some sort of trade?

Wouldn't Rome want more or take more, I guess, if you won in a war?

And then that changes the power?

Absolutely.

So what Rome gets, basically, as its reward for winning is Sicily.

And then Sardinia, too.

They kind of take Sardinia as a dessert.

Not bad.

Yeah.

Not bad.

And so what that is, it's not only a load of trading ports, but it's also really good agricultural land.

And that's extremely good for Roman access to grain, basically.

Fabulous.

So the dad, Hamilcar Barker, it's a good name.

He's a sort of great Carthaginian general.

He is

a man of the Western Phoenician Empire.

He's fought the Romans.

It hasn't quite gone to plan, but he's sort of put his shift in.

So he's been fighting in Sicily.

Where do you think his son grows up?

Did his son grow up in Sicily?

I mean, that's a sensible guess.

Well, you wouldn't take your son with you, would you?

No, he grows up in Spain.

What?

Was that just to protect him?

Was that just to protect his family?

How did he grow up in Spain?

No because once Rome has taken Sicily and Sardinia

basically what Carthage wants to do is consolidate its holdings in southern Spain which it's had some level of sort of interest in before that but it's really the only place left that it can really expand now without kind of hitting the Romans again.

So Hamilcar, who's really, I mean his reputation is really enhanced by what happened in the First Punic War, even though they lost, he was, you know, the big, the big Carthaginian star.

So he takes a force to Spain in 237, and once he gets there, he basically acts a bit like an independent prince, but it's all with the permission of the Carthaginian Senate.

And the reason that Hannibal goes with him, I mean, the story goes that he's nine years old when his dad leaves to go to Spain and he begs to join the expedition.

And so his dad lets him, and he doesn't get back to Carthage until he is 45 years old.

Yeah, nine.

Yeah.

And so so in Carthage, he does it all his education, all his growing up there.

So in Spain.

So he's taught military strategy, he's taught how to fight on horseback.

He's also taught Greek.

He claimed later, very late in life,

he claimed that his father made him swear an oath never to be a friend to Rome when he was a little child.

So we don't know if that's true or not, but that's kind of his own kind of

that's the story he wants people to know about him.

So from the age of nine, he's sort of training to be a warrior.

Yeah, he's trained to be a warrior.

And in his story, at least, against Rome.

And then his dad dies in battle in 229, 2298.

Hannibal's about 18 at this point, and obviously he's too young to take command.

So the command of the Carthaginian armies in Spain goes to his brother-in-law, who's called Hasdrubal the Fair.

Great name.

I mean, we've got Hamilcar Hasdrubal, Hannibal, and another Hasdalbral.

I mean, Hasdrubal, yeah.

Hamilcar, Hasdrubal, Hannibal and Hasdrubal.

Darren, are you keeping up with the Carthasians?

I love that.

Yes, I am.

I'm on Series 3.

And we're historians,

we call this family the Barker family, but we refer to them as the Barkids, which is kind of cool.

How do you think the brothers get on?

How do you think, because Hannibal's got brothers, he's got sisters, how do you reckon?

I'm gonna, there was probably, they probably didn't like each other, there was probably a power struggle of some sorts.

Older taking over.

He's old enough to fight.

He's been in Spain.

Did they all grow up in Spain?

Did they?

A lot of the families do seem to kind of grow up in Spain together.

And they actually, they kind of get on okay.

And Hasdrubal seems to be a pretty good replacement for Hamilcar.

But the big thing he does is that he signs a treaty with Rome.

I know.

I know.

No, but this is, but you know, it's a treaty that's pretty favourable to Carthage because what the Romans agree not to take an army south of the Ibro River and the Carthaginians agree not to go north of the Ybro River.

But the Ybro Ibro River's pretty far north in Spain.

It's closer to the French border now than to Madrid.

It's not a bad treaty.

Hasdrubal also found a city of New Carthage on the southern coast.

So that's actually

a new Carthage city.

It's like a new, new city.

And we don't know very much about what Hannibal's doing in this period, but he's definitely leading some of the military campaigns against some of the local populations into their territory.

The only other thing we really kind of hear about him in this period is that he seems to marry an Iberian woman, maybe an Iberian princess.

But we don't know much about that.

We don't know whether they had children or anything like that.

Do we know her name?

Maybe Imil K.

Maybe.

All of this is written down much later, so

the details may not be exactly on point.

When you said Imil K, I thought you said MLK.

Martin Luther King.

Wow.

Yeah, that wouldn't be the turn-up.

Okay, so

Hannibal has married Imulke.

Maybe.

He's living in New Carthage in Spain.

He eventually manages to replace his brother-in-law as the supreme commander in Iberia.

How do you think he manages it?

How do you think he manages to replace him?

Yeah.

As in what happened to him.

Yeah, he died.

Did he kill him?

He didn't kill him.

No.

Poor old Hasjabal gets assassinated by one of their allies, apparently.

About 222, 2221.

Sounds like a Roman to me.

I mean, who knows?

What may be going on behind the scenes?

But what happens is that the Carthaginian troops then choose Hannibal as their new leader.

And by now he's 26, so it's a kind of respectable age.

And he's unanimously confirmed by the Carthaginian people and senate back at home as well, even though he hasn't been home at this point for almost 20 years.

Oh, wow.

And he starts campaigning straight away.

So after a year, he's moved further into Iberia than either Hamilcar or Hasdrubal after him.

And he's, you know, we hear he treats his troops very well.

He's also a natural risk taker and he's a great soldier.

But he's 26.

Now, come on, Darren, would you follow a 26-year-old into battle?

No.

I remember being 26.

I was an idiot.

Yeah, no, yeah.

I was an idiot.

Yeah, same year old.

I would have followed literally anybody, but to battle, no.

To the shops?

Yes.

To the pub?

Yeah, to the pub, yeah.

Beer garden?

Yeah.

But I guess

he was ready, wasn't he?

He was kind of prepped.

He saw this as his future.

When he was the leader, he probably gave a really great speech.

Yeah.

You know, brother-in-law.

Ah.

Come on.

He's like, ah.

Yeah, I mean, he'd been preparing since he was nine.

I mean, that's all he's kind of known, right?

Was battle, war, his dad, his family.

So, yeah, I'm guessing he was ready for it.

Wow, fair enough.

Okay, you've convinced me.

Hannibal was now spending his twenties like many lads do, annoying the Spanish locals, rampaging around with his buddies.

And then he falls out with Rome.

How has he fallen out?

I mean, look, come on we know what's happening next but like what's what's the sort of story here?

Okay so there's a town called Saguntum on the east coast of Spain.

It's now a suburb of Valencia and it's the last holdout against Hannibal and the Carthaginians south of the Ebro River and so the Saguntines appeal to Rome for support against Hannibal.

And Rome officially warns Hannibal to leave Saguntum alone, even though it's south of the Ebro.

And so it's really in Hannibal's sphere.

And so, he calls their bluff and he besieges the city anyway.

And you know, we hear he kind of directly engages with the fighting, he only leaves the battlefield when he takes a wound to the sternum, and he has to go off and deal with another uprising at that point.

Wow, okay, so he sort of poked the ball a little bit because you've kind of the Romans are like, Don't, and he's like, I'm gonna.

I mean, it was it was in his territory, so It was.

I mean the Romans' case is that Saguntum is an ally of theirs and you're not supposed to attack Rome's allies even if they're in your territory.

Carthage's case is it wasn't an ally when they made the treaty.

So it's a kind of question of whether you can kind of post-date.

The contract is out of date.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It says we can get you.

I'm going to attack you now.

Yeah.

And I read Greek, so I've read this and it says it.

There's a lot of discussion of this at the time.

We now get the Second Punic War, not the Pubic War, Second Punic War in 218 BCE.

I mean, we get a proper famous Roman now.

We're not yet into Julius Caesar territory, but we get a really famous Roman, Scipio.

Can you tell us about him?

Yeah, so Rome...

sends an embassy to Carthage in 218 to declare war.

And their initial plan is to send a consul called Publius Cornelius Scipio.

And he's actually the father of the famous Scipio

to fight Hannibal in Spain.

And their idea is they're going to send one consul to Spain and another consul to Africa.

So two consuls take the Roman army in two directions and get rid of the whole threat in both directions.

But then what happens is that Hannibal again basically decides to kind of call their bluff and he actually decides to invade Italy himself, which they are not expecting.

You know what?

I'm really liking this Hannibal.

I didn't expect that at all.

He'd be great.

He doesn't care, does he?

So So he basically has to take his troops and elephants over land from Spain to Italy, because Rome essentially controls the sea at this point.

They have far more ships on the sea.

I'm going to stop you there.

Why elephants?

I mean, oh, yeah, I missed that.

Yeah.

I can put it.

I'm fine with taking your troops.

I'm fine with taking your horses.

Why is he bringing elephants?

Well, elephants are quite useful in ancient battles as long as the people you're fighting haven't met many elephants before.

I mean, if they're used to them, then they know how to scare them and how to, and they don't really work.

But the first few, and Rome hasn't often, Pyrrhus brought a few elephants, but they haven't had much to do with elephants.

So the elephants are pretty frightening.

Could you imagine going to the battle?

You've never seen an elephant.

Yeah.

You're like, what is that?

What?

That's a very good idea.

Yeah, I never thought of that.

Yeah, I guess I don't have Discovery Channel.

They can't check these things out.

That would terrify me if I'm ready for a battle and there's an elephant there.

Also, all these crazy animals that you hear about, and like kind of sea beasts and land beasts and so on.

And then to find out that one really exists, it also suggests that all the others might really exist as well.

He's got elephants, he might have a griffin.

He's like a manticore.

Okay, Darren, obvious question.

How would you convince a bunch of angry elephants to cross some mountains?

Because he's crossing from Spain to Italy, so he's going over the Alps.

Well, he's going over the Pyrenees, then the Pyrenees, and then the Alps.

That's a very good point.

How would you?

I mean, maybe, like, do peanuts work?

I've seen peanuts work quite a bit.

Maybe a trail of peanuts.

Maybe some cashews going off a mountain.

14,000 tonnes of peanuts

along hundreds of miles of mountain pathway.

It's not a bad idea.

Bribery, right?

Bribery.

You've got to carry not sticks, okay.

The elephants would have to carry the peanuts, wouldn't they?

And then they'd be able to just eat them with their trunks.

That's a very good point.

You just have to put a good ziplock on.

Make sure they actually make it so you can get them across.

Okay, Joe, how do you convince elephants to go to go off route, off mountain pistes?

Okay, so the real problem with the elephants isn't actually the mountains.

The elephants can kind of manage the mountains.

It's the river.

It's when he has to cross the Rhone in between the Pyrenees and the Alps.

And elephants really don't like crossing water.

So what he has to do is construct a kind of bridge of rafts rafts and then cover it in earth so the elephants think that it's land,

but then they leave the female elephants on first, so the other elephants will just follow.

So, that's that's also

like a night out, that is.

So, eventually, they do, but we don't know.

He leaves Iberia with 37 elephants, and we honestly don't know how many arrive in Italy.

He leaves with 37 and he shows up with

some elephants.

Okay, so he leaves Iberia with 50,000 soldiers on foot, 9,000 cavalry, 37 elephants.

How many soldiers do you think he arrives with, Darren?

Did you say 50,000?

Yeah, so 50,000 foot troops, 9,000 cavalry.

How long do we think days-wise it takes to get there?

How long do you think we're going to talk about?

It took him 15 days just to cross the Alps.

So it's going to be, I mean, it's several months.

So

he starts marching in late or early summer, say May, June of 218, and he actually gets there in October.

Oh,

okay.

I'm gonna go.

I'm gonna go

20,000.

Ads, bang on.

Whoa!

That's amazing.

As far as we can tell, Joe, he arrives 20,000 soldiers are left and about 6,000 cavalry.

He's lost more than half his army.

How do you keep the spirit going?

Just ready to still ready to fight when you've lost that many.

I guess you're eating the elephants, maybe.

Elephant barbecue lads, lads, anyone?

Okay, so he's shown up with half his army devastated already just by that long, long march.

And then what?

Was there a Roman army waiting for him to ambush him?

Yeah, there is, but it doesn't do them much good because he has this series of incredible victories.

In his first months in Italy, he wins the Battle of Ticinus in November,

right after he's crossed the Alps.

He wins the Battle of Trebia in December.

Then the following June, he wins this enormous battle at Lake Trisimeni.

So this is all kind of northern central Italy.

And then he carries on south.

And in the autumn of 2017, there's a...

2017 BC, right?

Sorry, sorry, Dan, 2017.

Okay.

Sorry.

Sorry, sorry.

In the autumn of 217, Rome has a temporary dictator because it's a state of emergency, Quintus Fabius Maximus.

And he tries to block a pass in Apulia and ambush the Carthaginian army.

But what Hannibal does is that he ties burning burning brands to the horns of 2,000 cattle and drives them up against the Roman troops.

So that gets rid of the Roman troops.

He sets fire to live cows and charges them at the Romans.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

He's got a lot of time on his hands, hasn't he?

He's doing very well.

And he also gains loads of allies in Italy.

He basically convinces a lot of Italian cities to desert the Romans, who are the big imperial force.

He's a rotation like at this point, winning all these battles.

He's very popular.

People think that he's going to

be certainly the new power in Italy.

And so eventually, Rome appoints two new consuls

who have very different ideas about how one is kind of a hawk, one's a dove, basically.

And the problem is that because they're both fighting in the same battle,

they have to command the army on alternate days.

Oh, that's amazing.

I love that.

Right, you tech Mondays on their Tuesday.

What did you do on Tuesday?

Oh,

come on.

Doing a job share with someone who fundamentally disagrees with you on everything.

Completely opposite.

Nightmare.

So those consoles are Gaius Terentius Varro, Lucius Aemilius Paulus, and they just don't see eye to eye.

They don't see eye to eye at all.

And then comes the Battle of Canai, and this is the biggest defeat of all for the Romans, unsurprisingly.

And they've got more troops.

So Rome's got somewhere between 70 and 85,000 troops.

There are 50,000 Carthaginians and allies at this point.

But the reason that Hannibal wins is this amazingly brilliant tactic, which is that he has a deliberately weak centre in his army to attract the Romans to attack him in the centre.

And then he has cavalry, a very strong cavalry on both wings, with one of his nephews and who's called Hanno and another guy called Hasdraval on the other side.

And so what happens is that the Romans kind of surge into this centre where they see the weakness and then they're surrounded by the cavalry.

And this is complete and bit of tactical brilliance on Hannibal's part.

And Rome suffers incredibly heavy losses, including one of the consuls, the one who didn't think they should go into battle.

Monday and Wednesday, dead.

So this is the Battle of Cannai.

It's one of the greatest...

battles in history.

It's taught to modern military commanders.

Like if you go to Sandhurst now to go and study, you know, you've still learned about the Battle of Cannai, the pincer movement.

Is that what it is?

Is that what it's called?

So you basically you invite people in.

So come, come, get me my sort of...

Oh no, what am I going to do?

And then suddenly, yeah, swoop around with the fast cavalry.

I wonder how long it took to just clear them out once they get in, because they would have just been so primed and ready.

I bet it didn't take very long to just empty them all out.

It'd be horrific, wouldn't it?

We're talking tens of thousands of people just slaughtered.

It's an absolutely brutal,

brutal battle, but it's a huge win.

And so Hannibal has crushed the Romans again.

He has killed one of the consuls.

So geographically, where is he now, Hannibal, after this big win at Cannai?

After Cannai, he's in the south of Italy.

So how close is he to Rome?

About 400 kilometers.

Darren, would you?

Would you march on Rome?

I would so go into Rome.

Yeah, I think he went into Rome and just tried to take over.

And just tried to kill whoever he could kill.

And then just

set fire to

a bunch of cats with like little daggers.

And they just all ran in there.

What a weird animal thing he is doing this to.

He arms the cats and sets fire to them as well.

He arms the cats and sets fires to them.

Yeah, he's not taking any chances in Rome.

Amazingly, later on, the Romans figured out one of the ways to fight elephants is you set fire to pigs and you get the pigs to charge towards the elephants and that terrifies the elephants.

So mobile bacon, I guess, is

cats on fire.

Joe, does he march on Rome?

Because Darren would.

No, no, he doesn't.

He doesn't, though.

I'm afraid he's really sensible.

I mean, what he does is he's...

He's sensible for what you said about him.

I'm actually in shock that he didn't do that.

Okay.

So what he actually does is he uses this massive victory to consolidate his support in Italy.

So he wins over Capua and Tarentum, which are two of the really big cities in southern Italy.

He also wins over Syracuse in Sicily.

And he makes another important ally further east, which is that he makes a treaty with King Philip of Macedon.

So he's one of the most powerful rulers of the Mediterranean at that point.

So they sign a treaty in 215.

And I mean, Hannibal is very dangerous at this point for the Romans.

But eventually, when he so he does eventually march on Rome, but it's five years later in 211.

And the reason he does it is that the Romans have besieged Capua, which is to the south of Rome.

And it's really Carthage's key ally in Italy.

And so Hannibal marches right up to the gates of Rome, but he doesn't attack.

He doesn't attack.

Is it just to show, I can do this?

Like, I can come here anytime I want.

Well, the later Roman sources kind of make it out to all be a kind of terrible mistake.

There's a hailstorm that he takes as an unfavourable omen.

And he also hears that Rome is diverting troops to Spain at this point, so he thinks they're not taking him seriously.

And he basically chickens out.

But, I mean, that's quite important to Romans to make him seem like a really superstitious kind of scared person.

So this is a later Roman historian Livy.

Exactly.

This is Livy's version of the story.

But actually I think a much more likely way of telling the story is that he never intended to actually conquer Rome.

It's much too big a job.

And also there's no real profit to Carthage in acquiring Rome or destroying it.

I think the strategy behind his whole campaign is to reduce Roman power in Italy and then in the Mediterranean more generally, basically to put Rome back in its box.

And the immediate goal of the march on Rome is to lift the siege of Capua.

He thinks that they'll have to lift the siege of Capua in order to come back and save Rome or at least split their troops.

It's pretty small.

I mean, what the really bad piece of luck for Hannibal is that on the very day that he arrives at Rome, unbeknownst to him, the Romans have actually

called a muster of soldiers in the city because they're recruiting some new legions.

So, actually, Rome is full of soldiers.

You got there on the parade day.

Basically, yeah,

so the whole plan basically falls through and they don't lift the siege of Capua, not in time.

And so he marches back south to the side.

That's amazing.

That's like trying to do like a bank job when it's like the police training day and all the police are there.

What the luck.

Okay, so the sources say hailstorms, but you think strategically he's just like,

this is not.

Yeah, it's not, it doesn't make sense.

Is that quite a big kick to his ego?

Because he's had a lot of wins, and this is going to be talked about.

Well, I mean, what happens is, so they do then lose Capua to Rome, and maybe it is because

something went really badly wrong at this point.

I mean, this is a hinge point in history, like this.

If he'd crushed Rome in that moment, we might never have had the Roman Empire.

Or even if he'd just...

kept Capua, maybe.

Rome could have been put back in its box and it would have a much more multipolar Mediterranean.

It's like when Blockbuster had the chance to buy Netflix and they didn't.

And then Netflix became way bigger.

And this is it.

He is, he's, yeah, he's the ancient Blockbuster.

Sorry, I used to buy for Blockbuster.

I like that job.

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Okay, so the hailstorm is probably a later sort of Roman literary sort of legend or whatever.

But he doesn't take Rome and then and then it doesn't kind of work out.

So he gets sort of trapped down in Brutium.

Yeah.

And he's there for four years.

Four years, exactly.

Yeah.

What goes on in this period is that Scipio, Scipio the son,

the good one.

Yeah, yeah.

He gets elected commander in Spain and he captures.

So

the Romans start to make real progress in Spain.

So Scipio captures New Carthage in 209.

Ancient Gardes, which is modern Cadiz, surrenders to the Romans after Mago leaves to join Hannibal in 206.

So basically the Barkids lose control of Iberia at this point.

And there are some reinforcements that come from Iberia to Hannibal.

But when the leader of the reinforcements is killed in battle on the way,

and this is, I mean, this is actually Hannibal's brother.

Oh, no.

Yeah, and Hannibal learns of his brother's death when his severed head is thrown into Hannibal's camp.

Can I just say, I was waiting for a severed head

to be given to somebody.

Wow.

That one moment at the gate, and it all just changes.

Yeah.

I mean, that's just history is pure chaos, isn't it?

You never know.

They throw his head.

Right.

He's spiraling.

He's got to go crazy now.

So Hasdrubal's severed head lands in his camp, and Hannibal knows that the cavalry's not coming because the cavalry is dead.

Yeah, exactly.

Okay, so at this point, what Hannibal just sort of has to go, all right, peace treaty.

No, what happens now is that Scipio, having done quite a bit of damage to the Carthaginians in Spain, he now takes the war to North Africa.

So the Romans actually invade North Africa, and Scipio sets fire to a Carthaginian camp near Utica, which is west of Carthage in Tunisia.

We're in 203 now.

And so he sets fire to a Carthaginian camp.

He also sets fire to a neighbouring camp of their local Numidian allies.

These are the local kings.

And this really devastates the Carthaginian forces

in North Africa.

And it also destabilises their local alliances because they were kind of collateral damage.

And Scipio then defeats the Carthaginians.

in battle, a Carthaginian force led by another Hasdrabal, I'm afraid, Hasdrubal Jisco.

Yeah.

And at that point, the Carthaginians sue for peace and they try and blame everything on the Barkids.

Of course they do.

So Scipio orders them to withdraw from Gaul, Spain and Italy.

They have to give up their navy apart from 20 ships and they have to pay a huge fine.

Now,

then it gets a bit tricky.

So they provisionally accept this treaty, but it hasn't been formally signed off.

And at that point, the Council of Carthaginian Elders finally summon Hannibal home to Africa.

So he's been away for 15 years?

Oh, much longer.

Yeah, he's been away for more than 35 years.

Oh, from home.

Yeah, but he's not.

But

he left with his elephants in 218, was he?

Yes, yeah.

So he's been away from Spain for

Italy.

Right, yeah.

So he's been at war in Italy for 15 years.

Yeah.

And then suddenly he gets a letter saying, get home.

Yeah, yeah, come home.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And then what happens is that Carthage breaks this, certainly what Rome thinks is a truce

by looting Roman supply vessels.

Some Roman envoys get attacked by a mob at Carthage and the Council of Elders encourages Hannibal to go after Scipio.

And Hannibal, first of all, he tries to kind of negotiate a slightly milder treaty with Scipio, but Scipio refuses.

And then you have the Battle of Zama, and this is the final big Roman victory in Africa.

Yeah.

So the reason that Scipio is known as Scipio Africanus is because he wins the Battle of Zama and defeats Carthage in Africa.

I mean both sides suffer heavy losses, but and you know Livy praises Hannibal for his command but in the end the Carthaginians are defeated and there is a final peace treaty which means that Carthage now can't fight wars outside Africa.

They have to pay 10,000 silver talents.

Fine and massive amount of money.

They have to hand over all their elephants and they have to reduce their fleet to 10 ships.

The rest of the fleet is firm.

10 ships?

It's handing over your elephants like in a movie where a sort of Maverick cop have to turn in shield and guns.

There you go, chief.

Yeah.

Sorry, Sarge.

But I'm still going to pursue the case.

Wow.

So only 10 ships left.

They can't leave North Africa.

This mighty empire that we met at the beginning of the episode.

Yeah.

It's all gone wrong under Hannibal.

He's bungled it.

That's one way of looking at it.

I mean he does disappear from the records for a few years after that.

But then he comes back.

He comes back.

So he comes back to politics in Carthage, you know, where he hasn't been since he's a child.

And so he's he, he, yeah, he becomes one of the two shophets, who are the two kind of senior magistrates at Carthage, 196 BCE.

And apparently he's good.

He reorganises state finances to pay off the war debt.

He changes the constitution to reduce the power of traditional ruling families.

But the next year he gets into trouble with Rome.

So the Romans by now have moved on.

They're fighting a king of Syria,

the Seleucid king, Antiochus III.

And

they hear that Hannibal is in contact with Antiochus.

And

even though...

Yeah, even though Scipio himself defends Hannibal in the Roman Roman Senate, they believe that he's plotting behind their back with Antiochus.

So Scipio, the former enemy who defeated him at Zama, says, no, no, no.

Hannibal's a good bloke.

He wouldn't do this.

He's definitely keeping by the peace treaty.

Do we trust that, Darren?

No.

No.

Wow.

Oh, and he was burning inside him, I bet.

Just so angry.

All those wins and that one time, everything just goes downhill.

I mean, so, Joe, in terms terms of what we know, was Hannibal colluding with Antiochus of Syria?

Okay, we don't know, but when Rome asks Carthage to indict him, he's outlawed and he does flee to Antiochus's port for Ephesus.

So, you know,

and he does then play kind of a minor role in Antiochus's war with Rome.

But then the Romans defeat the Seleucids, and again, they demand that they give up Hannibal.

And he escapes.

Again, he goes further east and he ends up in the kingdom of Bithynia on the Black Sea.

And he's also got famously an amazing military tactic or a naval tactic.

Ah, yeah, yeah.

So he helps the Bithynians in their war against the Atelids, who are Roman allies in Anatolia.

He organises that they throw pots of snakes at Atelid ships.

I love it.

I bore animals.

Throw pots of snakes.

Yeah, I don't think they're burning snakes.

I think they're just snakes.

Just throw pots of snakes.

It's great.

Yeah, I mean, I've seen snakes on a plane.

i would definitely watch snakes on a ship snakes on a ship yeah snakes in pots somebody get rid of these snakes off this ship

does anyone have samuel jackson's agent on the phone because i've got a plot for him um i mean he was he's a genius wasn't he definitely a quite a good a real good thinker when you said anatolia that that's what west turkey uh yeah turkey yeah

so he's really got around the place right we started in North Africa, then Spain, then he sort of crossed into Italy.

Yeah, he's into North Africa.

Back to North Africa, then did a run into Syria

Turkey on then

ends up on the Black Sea yeah god he must have some serious air miles I know right lounge pass and everything yes

okay Darren do you know what happens to Hannibal in the end no no he I mean he defeats the Romans oh you're clinging to that story are you it just sounds great um

it's even

no i don't know what happens to him uh how okay how does he die i don't think it's gonna be in battle okay i think i i i just one of those like stupid deaths that happens back then or something.

That's what I honestly think it was.

Was it an animal?

Did an elephant accidentally fall on him?

There was a famous king who was crushed by his own elephant right there.

I think he ran up, he was fighting against elephants, he ran underneath it, stabbed it with a spear from underneath, and the elephant just sat on it.

I can't remember the name of the king, but that is a famous death.

Joe, why?

Why?

What happened to my new hero?

So, okay, the Romans beat the Bithynians, bit of a broken record at this point, and the peace treaty stipulates they have to give up Hannibal.

And at this point, he's got, yeah, he's run out of road at this point.

And reportedly, he always carried poison with him in case he was captured by the Romans.

So

he seems to have died by suicide sometime around 182 BCE.

So, Joe, how old was Hannibal when he died?

About 65.

Oh, that's way above the average back then.

Oh, he's been been alright.

You know what, Adam Boy's all right.

Yeah.

65.

Just always has a bit of poison in his pocket.

Just in case.

He's got a sort of cyanide capsule in there, isn't he?

It's quite the life, Darren.

Well, quite the life, yeah.

He's one heck of a traveller.

I really like the fact that he just

wouldn't give up.

He just always had it in his heart that he just didn't, he just didn't like them, just wanted to get them.

And he nearly did.

Oh, poor guy.

are you ready are you ready for the vin diesel movie

yeah i wonder what car he's going to be going around all these places in

um wow hannibal of carthage quite the career the nuance window

Okay, time now for the nuance window.

This is where Darren and I sit silently in the command tent to strategise for two minutes while Professor Joe takes centre stage to tell us something we need to know about ancient North Africa.

So, my stopwatch is ready.

Take it away, Professor Quinn.

Thank you.

Okay, so after all these men and all their battles, I want to talk about a Carthaginian woman who played her own important role in the war between Carthage and Rome by marrying not one but two Numidian kings, and in the end proved braver than both of them.

So, Sophonisba was an aristocratic Carthaginian woman, Safanbal in her own language.

We hear that she was beautiful, learned, musical, and she was the daughter of the general Hasdrubal Disco, who we've seen being defeated by the Romans in 203.

And what we're told is that in 206, she had been engaged to the local Numidian king Massanissa, and he controlled the inland region beyond Carthaginian territory, so in a lot of what's now Tunisia.

The Carthaginian Senate, though, ordered her to marry his rival Syphax instead.

And Syphax ruled most of what's now Algeria from Cirthum on Constantine.

Syphax was considered a more important strategic ally to Carthage than Massinissa.

And Sophonispa accepted this decision, but Massinissa wasn't happy.

And this is supposedly what persuaded him to throw his support and his crack cavalry behind Rome instead of Carthage.

And this was absolutely crucial for Rome's eventual victory at Zama.

Meanwhile, Sophonispa had persuaded her new husband, Syphax, to stick with Carthage in the final stages of the war.

But in the end, after Scipio defeated Hasdrabalgisco in 203 with Massanisa's help, Massanissa himself wins a decisive victory over Syphax with Roman help.

And he takes the other king prisoner and he comes to Kyrta to take possession of his palace and his wife.

And so Sophonisba and Massanissa finally marry.

But when Scipio, when the Roman general finds out that Sophonisba had played a decisive role in Syphax's calculations against Rome, he demands that Massinissa turn her over to him as a prisoner.

And that's not going to happen.

So instead, Massinissa offers his new bride a cup of poison, which she courageously drinks, and then he takes Scipio her corpse.

I have to say, he can't have been too upset though, because he then remains an ally of Rome for 50 years.

So

that's mem for you.

What a story.

Thank you, Joe.

I mean, Sophonisba, she really, I mean, she played quite a dangerous game there.

Yeah.

I mean, she was in all the rooms where it happened.

Right.

How extraordinary.

I mean, final thoughts on that, Darren.

It's not just Hannibal.

No.

I mean, yeah, she definitely played a dangerous game.

The idea of giving her poison and then just bringing her body and then being like, well, okay.

Just message me later.

We'll keep talking.

There's her body for you.

Wow, it's crazy.

I guess

everybody just wants to survive, don't they?

They just do whatever they can, even if it is brutal.

Did you say, Did she know it was poison, or did he?

Yeah, no, she knew, she knew, she knew, yeah, yeah.

No, she was absolutely in on it.

Yeah, she didn't want to be a prisoner of Rome any more than he did.

Wow, she was like, Are you gonna take it?

I was like, No, no, no, no, um, afterwards, I'll you first,

and then I've just cleaned my teeth, actually.

I don't wanna.

So, what do you know now?

This is our quickfire quiz for Darren to see how much he has learned today.

Darren, I think you've enjoyed it.

I've had a great time.

Honestly, every time something fun, really fun, whether it was war or just Hannibal's general attitude, I really enjoyed, I stopped writing because I was just too invested in the story.

Every battle, I was just so invested in.

And him being a lover of animals as well, of course.

Well, you say lover of animals, I mean, he killed a lot.

He killed a lot of animals.

Could you imagine the ones he practiced on just

to see what worked.

You don't immediately

light cows on fire.

You have to practice first.

Still a hero.

Darren, I've got 10 questions for you.

Oh, here we go.

These are all things we've talked about, but let's see how you do.

Okay, question one.

What was the name of Hannibal's father?

Oh, it was a similar...

Hock Hanwal?

Hannibal car.

Yeah, we go.

Yeah, yeah, well done.

Hamilkar Parker.

Well done.

Question two.

What childhood oath did Hannibal reportedly swear at aged nine?

Oh, it was

never of allegiance to Rome or something.

Yeah, that's it.

Never be a friend of Rome.

There we go.

Question three.

Hannibal's defying of Roman orders and besieging Saguntum incited which major war?

Oh no, say that again.

Hannibal defying the Roman orders, besieging the city of Saguntum on the border in his lands, incited which major war?

Um, I can't remember.

I can't, uh, was that the Punit War?

Yeah, very Punit War.

Second, second, second war.

Yeah, hold on.

Question four.

How did the Carthaginians transport elephants across the Rhone River?

Oh, it was a whole convoluted.

They had to put something on the floor to make it look like it was grass on the river, and then they had to go across the...

And then it got the females first.

Yeah.

Right?

Yeah.

Very good.

Well done.

According to the Roman historian Livy, why didn't Hannibal besiege Rome in 211 BCE?

Oh, well, there was...

Oh, because there was too many army there.

It was just bad timing.

And also the weather?

And there was a storm.

It's supposed to be like a hell storm.

Hell storm, very good.

Well done.

And diverting troops to Spain as well, apparently.

Question six, how did Hannibal defeat the much bigger Roman army at the famous Battle of Cannae?

I can't remember what it was called, but he basically tricked them, lured them into the centre, and then just took them out and made his centre seem like it was easy and easy to take.

Very good.

The Pincer movement of June.

Question 7.

What role did Hannibal assume in Carthage after losing the Second Punic War?

What role?

Wasn't he in politics?

He was, yeah, he won.

He was a chief magistrate.

Well done.

I'll let you have that.

Question eight.

Name two of the ensuing peace conditions between Rome and Carthage that were forced on the Carthage?

Basically, it couldn't leave leave the area, it had to stay in the area, and they had to give up, set fire to all their ships, leave 10.

Was that what it was?

Yeah, and

that's two, yeah.

And hand over their elephants.

Oh, yeah, hand over the elephants, of course.

And pay a bigger fine of 10,000 silver talents.

Question nine, which Roman general defeated Carthage, but then defended Hannibal in the Senate when Hannibal was accused of plotting against Rome in Syria?

I can't remember the full name, but it was Scipio the Sun, right?

That's it, Scipio the Son.

Very good.

This for a perfect term.

What measure did Hannibal allegedly take against possible Roman capture?

Oh, poisoned himself.

He did.

You nailed it, Darren.

10 out of 10.

That was great.

Thank you.

Fantastic.

Well done.

I can't wait to see Vin Diesel play this guy.

I'm very excited.

I mean, the budget on the animal handlers alone.

I know, right?

I mean, honestly.

Family.

Elephants go.

Who's Dwayne the Rock Johnson going to be?

That's what I want to know.

Thank you so much, Darren.

And of course, thank you so so much, Professor Joe.

Listener, if you want more from Darren, of course, check out the episode on Victorian bodybuilding.

That was also huge fun.

For more plucky generals from history, we've got episodes on Joan of Arc, Julius Caesar, the younger, well, the young Julius Caesar, Robert Bruce, of course.

And remember, if you've enjoyed the podcast, please share the show with friends.

Subscribe to You're Dead to Me, either on BBC Sounds in the UK to get episodes 28 days early, or if you're outside the UK, use the BBC app or the BBC.com website.

I'd just like to say a huge thank you to our guests in History Corner.

We have the amazing Professor Josephine Quinn from the University of Cambridge.

Thank you, Joe.

It's been a pleasure.

Thank you.

And in Comedy Corner, we have the dazzling Darren Harriet.

Thank you so much, Darren.

Thank you so much for having me.

Loved it.

And to you, lovely listener.

Join me next time as we lay siege to another tricky historical topic.

But for now, I must go and teach elephants how to ski.

Winter Olympics, here we come.

Bye.

You're Dead to Me is a BBC Studios production for BBC Radio 4.

I'm Rory Stewart and I want to talk about heroes.

When I was a child I imagined a heroic future for myself in which I would achieve great things and die sacrificing my life for a noble cause before I was 30.

But my experiences in the Middle East and in politics showed me that there was something deeply wrong with my idea of heroism.

From BBC Radio 4, my podcast, The Long History of Heroism, explores ideas of what it meant to be a hero through time.

How have these ideas changed?

Who are the heroes we need today?

Listen to Rory Stewart, The Long History of Heroism, first on BBC Sounds.

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There are no account fees or minimums, and you also get free instant withdrawals to eligible accounts 24-7.

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And when you're ready to invest, you can transfer your cash to one of WealthFront's expert built portfolios in just minutes.

More than 1 million people already use WealthFront to save and build long-term wealth with confidence.

Get started today at WealthFront.com.

Cash account offered by Wealthfront Brokerage LLC, member FINRA SIPC.

Wealthfront Brokerage is not a bank.

Annual percentage yield on deposits as of September 26, 2025 is representative, subject to change, and requires no minimum.

The cash account is not a bank account.

Funds are swept to program banks where they earn the variable APY.