Tom Holland

His masterpiece.

In a sense, perhaps the most perfect battle ever fought.

And the reason for that is that although he's outnumbered pretty much two to one, he so outsmarts his Roman opponents that his much smaller army is able to envelop the much larger Roman army and essentially wipe it out

Hannibal annihilates some 50 to 60,000 men on that single day, and it's one of the bloodiest single days of combat in the whole of military history.

And it is this victory that is the backdrop to the famous confrontation between Hannibal and Mahabal that you read.

and so you have to think that while hannibal and mahabal are having this conversation on the battlefield of can i the stench of the mass slaughter that has been inflicted that day is lying very heavy in the heat of the august evening so they've been sick they've voided their bowels there's blood everywhere absolutely the corpse is already starting to turn putrid in the heat and the dust and everyone comments on the dust on the plane at can i

So much blood has been evacuated that that dust is turning into a kind of mud.

So it is a pretty hideous scene.

It's interesting.

I think a surprising number of historians seem to take it as possibly expressing an authentic tradition.

And even if it doesn't, then the reason that it has the kind of resonance that it does – I mean, it's one of the iconic moments in ancient history – is because it does focus on this obvious question.

Why didn't Hannibal take advantage of his great victory to advance immediately on Rome?

Because we've said his family name, Barca, means lightning.

So why doesn't he strike?

And there are...

Various suggestions that have been made as to why he doesn't follow Mahabal's suggestion.

So his men are obviously exhausted.

Slaughtering large numbers of enemy is really tiring.

I mean, your arms would just be...

Many of his own men are badly wounded.