Tom Holland

Neither of them will command armies ever again.

But Hannibal, I mean, he remains the dominating figure in the Carthaginian state.

And he actually proves very impressive as a civilian leader.

He streamlines the finances in Carthage.

There's kind of endless fraud, embezzlement and so on.

And he appreciates that Carthage is going to need every last bit of coin that it can scrounge together.

And he also democratizes the Carthaginian government.

So he is essentially a populist.

He's not popular with his fellow Carthaginian aristocrats, but he's very, very popular with the mass of the Carthaginian people.

And so he introduces reforms that are designed to weaken the hold of the Carthaginian aristocracy on the justice system.

And Simon Hornblower, a great ancient historian, author of a brilliant book,

dual biography of hannibal and scipio describes an energetic left-wing innovator left-wing innovator the tony ben of uh wow of carthaginian history um i mean obviously this means that loads of his his fellow senators have even more reason now to loathe him i mean not only are they jealous of him but they they're resentful of him that he's um kind of trying to undermine their power but you know he remains massively popular with the carthaginian people and so for now

He's trailing clouds of glory.

And he is given a stupefying succession of honours.

So he's given a triumph.

Interesting that he doesn't insist that Hannibal walks in that triumph.

It reflects the fact that Scipio continues to respect Hannibal and that treating Hannibal with respect in a way burnishes his own glory.

Because if you humiliate Hannibal, then in a sense, you're downgrading him as an enemy.

So I think that's probably what's been going on in Scipio's mind.

Anyway, he has his triumph.