640. Rome’s Greatest Enemy: Carthage at the Gates (Part 1)
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What was Hannibal's strategy after the Battle of Cannae?
On the battlefield of Cannae, the victorious Hannibal was surrounded by his officers. They were all congratulating him and urging him to take things easy for the rest of the day and the night and to allow his exhausted troops to do the same. But Mahabal, his captain of horse, had a very different take on the situation, for he was convinced that not a moment was to be lost. My lord, he declared, if you wish to understand properly what you have secured with this victory, then let me tell you that within five days you will be feasting in triumph on the capital in Rome. I will go ahead with my horsemen. The first the Romans will know of the fate about to overwhelm them will be the sight of our cavalry at the gates of their city.
All you have to do is to follow where we lead." But to Hannibal, this seemed altogether too optimistic, too ambitious a plan. While I commend your spirit, he said to Mahabal, I need time to evaluate what you are suggesting. To which Mahabal retorted, Gifts are never lavished by the gods in their entirety on a single man. You know, Hannibal, how to win a battle, but you do not know how to use your victory. So, a very celebrated moment in ancient history. This is the aftermath of the most notorious, the most shattering defeat ever suffered by a Roman army. And this is being reported two centuries later by the historian Livy. So to give people a little bit of context, the battle in question was the Battle of Cannae.
It was fought on the 2nd of August, 216 BC, and it resulted in the almost total annihilation of the largest army that the Roman Republic had ever put into the field. And last year, Tom, in our episode on the Battle of Cannae, episode 571, for people who are interested in that kind of thing, you came up with some extraordinary facts to illustrate just how industrial the slaughter at Cannae was. So the Romans suffered more casualties at Cannae, if the ancient historians are to be believed. than the British army had suffered on the first day of the Somme, or the Americans had suffered in the entire Vietnam War. The stakes in this war between Rome and Carthage are that high.
Absolutely. And if Cannae is the worst defeat in Rome's history, it is the greatest victory ever won by their enemies. the Carthaginians led by their great general Hannibal, still only just 30 when he won that victory. And it's the apogee of Hannibal's career. It's also in a sense, the apogee of Carthaginian power, because from this point onwards, it's going to be downhill for Carthage and indeed for Hannibal. And it will culminate in in 146 bc so you know not many decades later in the complete annihilation of carthage and we're going to be telling the story of how we go from can i to the complete destruction of the city in the next four episodes
An amazingly dramatic story, one of the most exciting that we've ever done. But put us into a bit of context here. So the great city of Carthage. So Carthage for centuries has been the queen of the Western Mediterranean, hasn't it?
The backstory essentially is that Carthage for centuries had ruled as the mistress of the Western Mediterranean. By far its most formidable naval power. She has tremendous natural advantages there. great harbours, a fertile hinterland. She is on the tip of what is now Tunis, so opposite Sicily, and her position there enables her to dominate those crucial straits. Traditionally, her great enemies were not the Romans, but the Greeks who had planted a whole host of colonies in the island of Sicily. And the most formidable of these colonies was a city that is still very much to be found in Sicily to this day, the city of Syracuse on the southeastern corner of the island. And exactly like Carthage, Syracuse boasted tremendous natural advantages.
So again, a superb natural harbour. Rocky heights and plateaus, very defensible. And again, like Carthage, a very commanding position on kind of the key shipping lanes that run throughout the Mediterranean, joining the western and eastern halves of the sea.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What was Hannibal's strategy after the Battle of Cannae?
0:10–6:28
2
How did the Romans respond to their defeat at Cannae?
6:28–11:48
3
What role did Carthage play in the Mediterranean before the Punic Wars?
11:48–20:05
4
What were the consequences of the First Punic War for Carthage?
20:05–29:08
5
How did Hannibal prepare for his campaign against Rome?
29:08–35:26
6
What was the significance of Syracuse in the Punic Wars?
35:26–42:46
7
What innovative military strategies did Archimedes employ?
42:46–49:24
8
How did the fall of Syracuse impact the outcome of the war?
49:24–1:00:44
Speakers
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