569. Hannibal: Elephants Cross the Alps (Part 2)

Weigh Hannibal in the scales. How many pounds will that peerless general mark up today? This is the man, for whom Africa was too small a continent, though it stretched from the surf beaten ocean shores of Morocco east. to the steamy Nile, to Ethiopian tribesmen and the uncharted habitats of elephants. Now Spain swells his empire, now he surmounts the Pyrenees.

Nature throws in his path high alpine passes, blizzards of snow, but he splits the very rocks asunder, moves mountains, with vinegar. Now Italy is his, yet still he drives himself on. So that was the Roman poet Juvenal, and he wrote a satire on the vanity of human wishes, so a classic case of hubris followed by Nemesis.

We actually heard a version of that, didn't we, Tom, a few weeks ago when we did our series about Peter the Great and the rise of Russia. So that was Dr. Johnson that we heard from in 1748, and he was turning juvenile's Latin into English and updating the characters. So it was all about Charles the Twelfth. That's right, yes.

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