Hello, and welcome to the history of Rome.

Episode 23D, The War with Hannibal.

Last week, we detoured out of Italy to cover the second Punic War in its two foreign

theaters, Spain and Sicily.

This week, we will return to Hannibal's March through Rome's backyard and attempt

to distill 10 years of complicated allegiance, switching threats, revenge, and posturing

into a single podcast.

Well, actually half a podcast, because we must also return to Spain with young Scipio

Afro-Conus to pick up the ball where his father and uncle had left it.

By the end of today, Scipio's ascendancy will intersect with Hannibal's slow decline,

and the stage will be set for the final act of the second Punic War, played out not in

Italy as Hannibal planned, but in North Africa.

But before we get to our two main focuses today, we need to detour into the third major

foreign theater of the war.

Though critically important to the war effort, the struggle with the Macedonians and the

East has thus far received little attention, because for the most part it featured Greek

allies fighting on behalf of Rome, rather than the Romans themselves, and also because

the war in the East served mostly to keep Philip the Fifth out of the war, rather than

unfolding as an integral part of that war.

Though inextricably linked to the war with Hannibal, the first Macedonian war was, in

many ways, a completely separate animal.

It is important not so much in the context of the second Punic War, but as a stage-setter

...