Chapter 1: What is the significance of Hannibal Barca in history?
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Hello and welcome to You're Dead to Me, the Radio 4 comedy podcast that takes history seriously. My name is Greg Jenner. I'm a public historian, author and broadcaster. Today we're mounting our war elephants and marching back to the ancient Mediterranean to learn all about the Carthaginian general Hannibal Barca. And joining our campaign, we have two very special comrades in arms.
In History Corner, she's Professor of Ancient History at the University of Cambridge and a specialist on Roman, North African and Phoenician history and archaeology. You might have read her award-winning book In Search of the Phoenicians or her best-selling award-nominated new one, How the World Made the West, a 4,000-year history. It's brilliant. It's Professor Josephine Quinn. Welcome, Jo.
Thanks for having me. Delighted to have you here. And in Comedy Corner, he's a comedian, writer and presenter. You'll have seen him on all the TV shows like Live at the Apollo, Love Island After Sun, Roast Battle, Mock the Week, Dancing on Ice or heard him on the radio on News Jack Unplugged, Infinite Monkey Cage, Black Label.
And of course, you'll remember him from our episode on Victorian bodybuilding. It's Darren Harriot. Welcome back, Darren. Thank you for having me. Darren, last time you demonstrated incredible knowledge. I did, yeah. You were basically an expert on Eugene Sandow.
I was so excited to come in and talk about Eugene. Yeah, I know so much about bodybuilding. And I think maybe like a year before, I'd watched a documentary about him twice. So I came in here so cocky. I know it all, guys. Very different to today.
Right, I was going to say, the history of ancient North Africa.
Yeah, not really my specialist subject, that. But I'm excited. There's going to be a lot of questions I'm going to throw out, guys.
Okay. Does the name Hannibal ring a bell?
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Chapter 2: How did Hannibal's early life shape his military career?
It's actually now a sort of seaside suburb of modern Tunis. Really lovely. In fact, lots of great cafes there. But it was originally founded as a colonial settlement in the 9th century BCE by people we now call Phoenicians. And these are sailors who were based in the ports of the Levant, so modern Lebanon, more or less. OK. So cities like Tyre and Sidon and so on.
I mean, the archaeologists estimate it has about 30,000 people after about a century, which would make it an extremely massive city in the Western Mediterranean in that era. It expands by controlling access to other ports in the Western Mediterranean and to the coastline. It really kind of forbids other ports. from sailing along any of the coastlines that are interesting to it.
And then later on in its history, it actually expands inland as well, becomes a sort of farming state into North Africa. So by the 4th century BCE, so 500 years after it's founded, the Carthaginians control territory and trade across a huge swathe of North Africa, but also the islands of Sardinia, most of Sicily, and a lot of southern Spain as well.
Wow. Let's meet Hannibal. He is the most famous of all the Carthaginians. The Carthaginian Empire is vast. You said 500 years already. But we're going to talk about Hannibal today. So when was he born? What was his family background? Is he parsh? Is he kind of working class, works his way up?
So Carthage is an oligarchic republic. So it's a bit like Rome. It's got a public assembly, but it's mostly the people in charge are mostly from fairly ancient aristocratic families. And that's Hannibal's background. So he's born in 247 BCE. He's the son of a general called Hamilcar Barca. And this general fought in the First Punic War against Rome. He has two brothers. We know that.
They're called Hasdrubal and Mago. He has three sisters. Nobody bothers to tell us what they're called. Well, you know, it's a different time. And And what's been going on when Hannibal is born is this first war between Carthage and Rome. And basically the relationship between the two cities gets increasingly strained due to various central Mediterranean politics. And war breaks out in 264.
And Hamilcar, who's Hannibal's father, he's sent to Sicily to prosecute this war in 247. So the same year that Hannibal is born until 241, when Rome defeats Carthage at the Battle of the Egadi Islands off western Sicily. And that's the end of the First Punic War. It's the first really big defeat ever.
So this is the first Punic War. The fact it's the first one tells us more are coming.
Yeah, exactly.
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