642. Rome’s Greatest Enemy: Bloodbath in Africa (Part 3)

It is impossible to withhold our admiration for Hannibal's leadership, his courage, and his ability in the field when we consider the duration of his campaigns, and take note of the major and minor battles, the sieges, the defections of cities from one side to the other, the difficulties he encountered at various times, and in short, the whole scope of his design and its execution. For sixteen years he waged ceaseless war against the Romans in Italy, and the whole while, like a good pilot, he kept the love and loyalty of his forces. He had with him Africans, Iberians, Gauls, Carthaginians, Italians, and Greeks, men who had nothing naturally in common, neither in their laws, their customs, their language, nor in any other respect. Nonetheless, the skill of their commander was such that he could impose the authority of a single voice,

and a single will, even upon men of such totally diverse origins. If only he'd subdued other parts of the world first and finished with the Romans, not one of his projects would have eluded him. But as it was, since he turned his attention first to those whom he should have dealt with last, His career began and ended with them. So that was the Greek historian Pleybius.

It's one of those passages that seems written precisely to torment sixteen year old um schoolboys and schoolgirls in um British schools in the nineteen forties or something, sort of slogging their way through his torturous prose. Polybius, like him or loathe him, he's our best source for the Punic Wars, and here, in this thrilling passage, he is singing the praises of the great Carthaginian general Hannibal. Now in today's episode we are coming to the great showdown of the Punic Wars. one of the most titanic clashes in all history. This is the showdown between the Romans and the Carthaginians at the Battle of Zarma.

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