Tom Holland

to open confrontation with Rome.

But there is one family that is very keen to do this, and it's the greatest and the most glamorous of all the dynasties of Carthage.

And this is a family called the Barkids.

And Barker, it means lightning.

And it's a name that has been given to the city's greatest general, who's a man called Hamilcar.

and he's pretty much the only Carthaginian general to have emerged from the war with Rome with much credit.

He had fought a brilliant rearguard action in Sicily, trying to keep the Romans at bay.

The fact that he ultimately failed doesn't impair his reputation for what had been a pretty good war.

Hamilcar, in the wake of Carthage's defeat, decides that there is a need to find a replacement for Sicily, a new base for empire.

He fixes on Spain and he builds a very substantial

empire there.

And he dies there fighting against Spanish Iberian warriors, but he has three sons to succeed him.

And the eldest of these is Hannibal, the famous general who will win the Battle of Cannae.

The two other sons, Hasdrubal and Mago, and they will also feature in the war that Hannibal launches against Rome.

Because Hamilcar dies in battle in 229, and Hannibal proves a very, very worthy heir to his father.

And by the 220s BC, he's built on the foundations laid by his father, and he has fashioned Spain into a very formidable launchpad for attacking Rome and for launching what he obviously sees as a kind of war of vengeance.

Yes.

And so it's called Carthage, but the Romans will call it New Carthage.

And I think it's easier for us to follow the Roman example.

And as you say, it is modelled on the original Carthage and it is impressive in the way that the original Carthage is.