The Romans might have expected to destroy Carthage easily, but they soon met surprisingly determined opposition from the Punic defenders. What was supposed to be a quick campaign dragged on into a lengthy and bloody siege with skillful Carthaginian counterattacks and sallies. Only when Scipio Aemilianus, adopted grandson of the great Africanus, arrived to supreme command did the tide begin to turn. Even so, the final moments of Carthage would resonate long after her capital was reduced to ruins....
Jun 17, 2023•37 min•Season 1Ep. 52
The thirty years following the deaths of Scipio and Hannibal saw Carthage revive economically. Relations with Rome and Numidia, however, remained strained to the utmost, especially due to the Numidian King Masinissa's continued encroachment on Carthaginian territory with tacit Roman approval. When the frustrated Carthaginians finally struck a blow to defend their land, Rome seized the opportunity to invade and finish her rival off - once and for all. Check out The Warlords of History Podcast web...
Feb 18, 2023•33 min•Season 1Ep. 51
The disaster of Zama left Carthage in political turmoil. In the years which followed, Hannibal was able to achieve a series of ambitious reforms which led to a remarkably fast economic recovery for Carthage. His autocratic nature soon excited jealousy from his fellow aristocrats though, and with Rome's help, Hannibal was forced into exile. After a long series of flights from one eastern court to the next, the Romans at last tracked him down in the mountainous kingdom of Bithynia. His death close...
Oct 01, 2022•26 min•Season 1Ep. 50
With Hannibal’s recall to Africa, we finally reach the final showdown of the Second Punic War. Scipio and his disgraced survivors of Cannae faced Hannibal’s veterans of Italy on the plains of Zama. The victor would decide the war – and the course of history. Link to the Episode 49 page on the Layman's Historian website Recommended further reading: The Histories by Polybius Hannibal's War by Titus Livius A Companion to the Punic Wars (Blackwell Companions to the Ancient World) Edited by Dexter Ho...
Jul 02, 2022•22 min•Season 1Ep. 49
Following the disaster at the Metaurus, Hannibal retreated to southern Italy. Unable to defeat him openly yet fearful to leave him unopposed, the Roman Senate engaged in a fierce debate with the brilliant Publius Cornelius Scipio who had recently returned from Spain. In a tense showdown, Scipio convinced a grudging Senate to authorize an invasion of North Africa. While politicking with the turbulent Numidian kingdoms and establishing his ally Massinissa on the throne, Scipio also managed to crus...
Apr 09, 2022•26 min•Season 1Ep. 48
In the bitter and bewildering struggle during the years after Cannae, Rome at last gained the upper hand. However, Hannibal would be afforded one last chance to turn the tide of the war. This was the arrival of his brother, Hasdrubal, with a great army of mercenaries in northern Italy in 207 BC. As the two brothers attempted to join forces, the Romans would execute an audacious plan to corner Hasdrubal by the banks of the Metaurus before he could unite with his elder brother.... Link to the Epis...
Jan 28, 2022•22 min•Season 1Ep. 47
While the conflicts in Spain and Sicily raged, Hannibal still clung tenaciously to the gains he had made in Italy. In the years following Cannae, he would experience a dizzying array of successes and setbacks against the Romans ranging from failed alliances with Macedon to the capture and recapture of major Italian cities. Even so, as the years wore on, the scales of Fortune seemed ever more inclined towards Rome.... Link to the Episode 46 page on the Layman's Historian website Recommended furth...
Nov 06, 2021•26 min•Season 1Ep. 46
Unlike Spain, Sicily had been relatively quiet during the opening years of the Second Punic War. That all changed in 216 BC with the death of Hiero II, King of Syracuse. Staunchly pro-Roman, Hiero had feared that his grandson and natural heir, Hieronymus, would lead Syracuse to disaster. His greatest fears were justified - shortly after the old king's death, Hieronymus broke with Rome and allied with Hannibal. When Hieronymus was assassinated, one of the most confused and confusing conflicts of ...
Sep 04, 2021•25 min•Season 1Ep. 45
With Hannibal immersed in the mire of Italian geopolitics, the Second Punic War shifts to theaters overseas. Keenly aware of the strategic importance of maintaining pressure on Carthage’s outposts in Spain, the Scipio brothers – Gnaeus and Publius Cornelius – grappled with Hannibal’s younger brother, Hasdrubal Barca for years, chipping away at the Barcid power base. When both Scipio brothers perished within days of each other in 211 BC, Publius Cornelius Scipio the Younger volunteered to take th...
Jul 17, 2021•31 min•Season 1Ep. 44
Following Cannae, Hannibal descended into the rich agricultural lands of Campania in Magna Graecia. Chafing under Roman rule and eager to reclaim her place as hegemon of southern Italy, the ancient Etruscan city of Capua quickly came to an agreement with Hannibal. In exchange for defecting to the Carthaginian side, Hannibal would allow Capua autonomy, secure her place as mistress of Italy, and allow her to be governed by her own rulers and marshal her own army. A stormy honeymoon followed, with ...
Jul 17, 2021•25 min•Season 1Ep. 43
In the stillness following the destruction of their greatest army at the Battle of Cannae, the Romans faced an awful choice. The triumphant Hannibal stood poised to march on Rome herself and besiege the capital, and there was little the surviving remnants of legionaries could do to stop him. The Italian allies had already begun to waiver in their resolve, and some even among Rome's patricians began to advocate for abandoning Italy entirely. In this hour of doubt, Hannibal's envoys arrived to dis...
Jul 17, 2021•24 min•Season 1Ep. 42
Fabius the Delayer may have saved Minucius from disaster at Geronium, but he would not always be there to protect his impetuous colleagues from rushing into trouble. Following Fabius's relinquishment of the dictatorship, one of the newly-elected consuls, Gaius Terentius Varro, accused Fabius and the patricians of intentionally prolonging the war. Instead of continuing to follow Fabius’s delaying tactics, Varro urged the Romans to immediately engage Hannibal to obtain decisive victory. Despite th...
Jul 17, 2021•32 min•Season 1Ep. 41
Following Hannibal's daring escape from Campania, Fabius's reputation in Rome lay in shambles. Subsequent victories by the Scipios in Spain and the fierce rhetoric of Fabius's lieutenant Minucius at last succeeded in having Minucius appointed as co-equal commander of the Roman army. Undeterred by this humiliation, Fabius continued in his single-minded determination to preserve Rome's army. That selflessness would save Rome from another near disaster when Minucius predictably fell into Hannibal's...
Nov 15, 2020•20 min•Season 1Ep. 40
Following the disaster at Lake Trasimene, the Roman Senate took the drastic step of appointing a dictator - a single man with full military powers - to meet the crisis. The man chosen - Quintus Fabius Maximus Verrucosus - differed greatly from the typical Roman aristocrat of his day. Cool-headed and steady handed, Fabius implemented a strategy of delay and harassment against Hannibal, hoping to whittle down the Carthaginian forces without risking another devastating defeat in open battle. Althou...
Sep 26, 2020•31 min•Season 1Ep. 39
Following the Battle of the River Trebia, Hannibal descended upon the rich province of Etruria in his advance into Italy. The new Roman consul, Gaius Flaminius, set out to confront the invaders with a mixture of fresh recruits as well as the survivors from Trebia. Arrogant, brash, and reckless, Flaminius led his legionaries in hot pursuit of the marauding Carthaginians - just as Hannibal intended. Flaminius finally caught up with Hannibal near the shores of Lake Trasimene, a name which would soo...
Aug 15, 2020•27 min•Season 1Ep. 38
Having narrowly skirted disaster in the Alps, Hannibal and his army regrouped in the Po Valley of northern Italy while the Roman Consuls, Scipio and Sempronious, scrambled to intercept him. After thrashing the Romans under Scipio at the River Ticinus, Hannibal pursued Scipio’s retreating legions to the River Trebia. Here, Sempronious - proud, headstrong, and impetuous - would seek to meet the Carthaginians in decisive battle. In the December, 218 BC, the two armies would clash at the Battle of t...
Jul 12, 2020•27 min•Season 1Ep. 37
In early October 218 BC, Hannibal performed his most famous - and controversial - feat: the crossing of the Alps. Fighting hostile tribes, freezing cold, blinding snow, treacherous paths, and even the solid rock which barred his way, Hannibal forged a path across Europe’s tallest mountain range, elephants in tow. When he emerged into Italy, his forces had been drastically reduced, but the men who remained formed the nucleus of what would become the Roman's worst nightmare. Recommended further re...
May 31, 2020•16 min•Season 1Ep. 36
After he learned news of Rome's dramatic declaration of war, Hannibal departed New Carthage in May 218 BC to bring the war to Rome's heartland. Following a harrowing march through the Pyrenees, hostile Gallic tribes, and a major contested crossing of the Rhone River, Hannibal reached the fabled Alps where legend holds he declared: "I will find a way, or I will make one." Recommended further reading: The Histories by Polybius Hannibal's War by Titus Livius A Companion to the Punic Wars (Blackwell...
Apr 18, 2020•27 min•Season 1Ep. 35
Hasdrubal's sudden assassination catapulted Hamilcar's eldest son, the twenty-five-year-old Hannibal Barca, to power as Carthage's supreme general in Spain. Raised to be a soldier by his father and trained in both the theoretical and practical arts of warfare, Hannibal quickly subdued most Spanish tribes southeast of the Ebro. Only Saguntum, an ostensible Roman ally, doggedly resisted Carthaginian sway. Ignoring Roman warnings to leave Saguntum alone, Hannibal besieged the city in 219 BC, a choi...
Mar 14, 2020•21 min•Season 1Ep. 34
Returning to the narrative, Hamilcar Barca, continuing his campaigns into the Spanish interior, died suddenly battling against hostile tribes in 228 BC. With Hamilcar's eldest son, the famous Hannibal, still in his teens, Hamilcar's son-in-law, Hasdrubal the Fair, succeeded the great Barcid leader in Spain. Charming, sophisticated, and diplomatic, Hasdrubal consolidated Hamilcar's foothold in southern Spain by a series of treaties, guest-friendships, and political marriages along with occasional...
Feb 15, 2020•20 min•Season 1Ep. 33
Ever since the disastrous Battle of the Crimissus in 339 BC, Carthage proved reluctant to send her own citizens to war, preferring instead to pay others to do her fighting for her. Thus, her recruiters scoured the earth in search of the best mercenaries money could buy to supplement her native North African contingents of Libyans and Numidians. Although on paper, Carthage's polyglot armies appeared inferior to Rome's more homogenous organization, in practice, if well-equipped and well-led, Carth...
Dec 29, 2019•20 min•Season 1Ep. 32
In this second of three special episodes, we take an in-depth look at the Roman army which fought the majority of the Punic Wars - its equipment, formations, and most importantly, the fighting ethos which animated the men within it. What was the key to the Roman's success? Superior discipline? A flexible fighting style? Not so. Although these things contributed to Roman success, it was Roman virtus balanced by disciplina which gave the legionary his edge. Want to see what the Triplex Acies looke...
Oct 13, 2019•27 min•Season 1Ep. 31
After a lengthy and unexpected absence, we are back with a new episode. In this episode, we take a break from the narrative and discuss the sources for the Punic Wars. Boring, you say? Not so. The writers on the Punic Wars form a rather eclectic assortment of characters, and the reasons that certain facts have come down to us often seems more due to chance than anything else. Besides the usual grumblings about lost manuscripts, this episode chronicles the various historians to whom we owe much o...
Aug 31, 2019•54 min•Season 1Ep. 30
In the wake of the Truceless War, the Carthaginians struggled to pick up the pieces of their broken country. Financially exhausted from the toll of the First Punic War, the huge war indemnity still owing to Rome, and the devastation of Carthage’s heartland by the rebel mercenaries during the Truceless War, the future looked dire for most if not all of Carthage's common citizens. Faced with the ruin of their livelihoods, these citizens banded around Hamilcar Barca and his son-in-law Hasdrubal, em...
Nov 17, 2018•37 min•Season 1Ep. 29
The murder of Gisco precipitated an escalation of the Truceless War. Both sides invented new ways to torture and slaughter their prisoners, with the mercenaries continuing to brutalize Carthaginian captives while Hamilcar threw his any rebels who fell into his hands to his elephants to be trampled to death. Worse news arrived when mercenary troops tasked with holding Sardinia revolted in a bid to seize control of the island, and matters spiraled further out of control when the force sent to put ...
Sep 22, 2018•24 min•Season 1Ep. 28
In the wake of the First Punic War, Carthage soon found the loss of her Sicilian holdings and Rome's harsh indemnity to be the least of her problems. Nearly bankrupt after twenty-four years of continuous warfare, she could not afford to pay her mercenary army which was returning from Sicily. The crisis was further compounded by the blundering efforts of the Carthaginian leaders to defuse the situation, and what began as a pay dispute suddenly exploded into full-scale rebellion. What followed was...
Aug 19, 2018•38 min•Season 1Ep. 27
With both Rome and Carthage exhausted by the constant strain of war, the Carthaginians dispatched the young Hamilcar Barca to take over a much-depleted command in Sicily. While Hanno the Great insisted on demobilizing the Carthaginian war fleet to save money and opened up new fronts against the Numidians in the African interior, Hamilcar led his meager army deep into enemy territory to conduct a guerrilla campaign against the Romans. Hamilcar would face a succession of Roman commanders, all of w...
Jul 29, 2018•30 min•Season 1Ep. 26
Following the Battle of Tunis, the Carthaginians felt supremely confident in their newly revamped land forces and rebuilt navy. That confidence did not last, however. The Roman relief fleet sent to retrieve the survivors of Regulus' failed expedition trounced Carthage's war fleet once again, right before it was also destroyed in a cataclysmic storm. The next eight years saw the fortunes of each side vacillate back and forth with the Romans winning the Battle of Panormus by effectively countering...
Jul 01, 2018•35 min•Season 1Ep. 25
With Carthage on the ropes after the Battle of Cape Ecnomus, the Romans landed on the Cape Bon Peninsula, a mere forty miles from Carthage, and began ravaging the rich countryside. Confident of victory, Regulus, the Roman consul in command, offered such harsh terms to the Carthaginians that they chose to continue fighting rather than submit to such a humiliating peace. All seemed lost until Xanthippus, a Spartan mercenary soldier who had recently arrived in Carthage, advised the Carthaginian gen...
Jun 17, 2018•27 min•Season 1Ep. 24
Bolstered by their early successes with their new battle fleet, the Romans determined to gamble everything for a decisive "killing blow" in order to bring Carthage to her knees. Equipping a massive armada, the Romans sailed to invade North Africa itself in an attempt to defeat Carthage on her home soil. However, a newly revamped Carthaginian fleet lay in wait to intercept the Romans near Ecnomus in southern Sicily. The resulting clash would go down as perhaps the largest naval battle of all time...
Jun 02, 2018•23 min•Season 1Ep. 23
