Hannibal of Carthage: fearsome enemy of ancient Rome

You're Dead to Me

BBC

Comedy, History

4.7 • 10.9K Ratings

🗓️ 26 September 2025

⏱️ 56 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Greg Jenner is joined in ancient North Africa by classicist Professor Josephine Quinn and comedian Darren Harriott to learn about Hannibal of Carthage and his war with Rome. Located in modern-day Tunisia, Carthage was once a Mediterranean superpower that rivalled Rome. In 218 BCE, the Second Punic War began between the two powers, with the Carthaginian army led by a man named Hannibal Barca. Famously, Hannibal took his forces – including a contingent of war elephants – over the Alps and into Italy, finally marching on Rome itself. But eventually the Carthaginians were beaten back, and Hannibal ended his days in exile. In this episode we explore his epic life, from his childhood in Spain, to his tactical brilliance as a general, to his post-war career as a reformist politician. If you’re a fan of ancient Rome, genius generals and new developments in classical history, you’ll love our episode on Hannibal of Carthage. If you want more from Darren Harriott, check out our episode on Victorian Bodybuilding. Or for more plucky generals, listen to our episodes on Joan of Arc, Julius Caesar or Robert Bruce. You’re Dead To Me is the comedy podcast that takes history seriously. Every episode, Greg Jenner brings together the best names in history and comedy to learn and laugh about the past. Hosted by: Greg Jenner Research by: Emma Bentley Written by: Emma Bentley, Emmie Rose Price-Goodfellow, Emma Nagouse, and Greg Jenner Produced by: Emmie Rose Price-Goodfellow and Greg Jenner Audio Producer: Steve Hankey Production Coordinator: Gill Huggett Senior Producer: Emma Nagouse Executive Editor: Philip Sellars

Transcript

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0:00.0	BBC Sounds, music, radio, podcasts.
0:05.6	Your time starts now.
0:07.2	You're about to listen to a BBC podcast.
0:09.4	Absolutely right.
0:11.5	So, you might like to know that the BBC makes loads of other podcasts.
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0:17.2	Many of them are very funny.
0:19.1	Which I think means...
0:20.3	A hatful of ha-hars. And energy. Even if you do say so ourselves. I agree 100% to that. Find them all on BBC Sounds. Just tell us a joke. Come on, tell us a joke. Tell us a joke. Come on, tell us a joke. Just search comedy on BBC Sounds. I'm really looking forward to getting stuck in. Hello, Greg here. Just a reminder before we get going that episodes of Your Dead to Me are released on Fridays wherever you get your podcasts. But if you're in the UK, you can listen to the latest episodes 28 days earlier than anywhere else. First on BBC Sounds.
0:52.7	Hello and welcome to You're Dead to Me, the Radio 4 comedy podcast that takes history seriously.
0:57.9	My name is Greg Jenner. I'm a public historian, author and broadcaster.
1:01.3	Today we're mounting our war elephants and marching back to the ancient Mediterranean
1:05.3	to learn all about the Carthaginian general Hannibal Barker.
1:09.2	And joining our campaign, we have two very special
1:11.4	comrades in arms. In History Corner, she's Professor of Ancient History at the University of
1:16.2	Cambridge and a specialist on Roman, North African and Phoenician history and archaeology.
1:21.1	You might have read her award-winning book In Search of the Phoenicians or her best-selling
1:24.6	award-nominated new one, How the World Made the West, a 4,000-year history. It's brilliant. It's Professor Josephine Quinn. Welcome, Joe. 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 Unplodd, Infinite Monkey Cage, Black Label. And of course, you'll remember him from our episode on Victorian bodybuilding. It's Darren Harriet. Welcome back, Darren. Thank you for having me. Darren, last time you demonstrated incredible knowledge in the subject. You were basically an expert on Eugene Sandau. I was so excited to come in and talk about Eugene. Yeah, I know so much about bodybuilder. 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 them. Right, I was going to say, the history of ancient North Africa. Yeah, yeah, not really my special 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? It does, yeah. I know a couple of Hannibal's. Hannibal's from TV shows, a comedian, it stops there. Okay, Hannibal Burress. There we go. Yeah, that's it. That's my knowledge. Okay. Well, he's pretty great, but I don't know if he's ever invaded Rome. I'm not sure. So, what do you know? Well, that brings us to the first segment of the podcast.
2:52.9	It's called The Sawadio Know, where I have a go at guessing what our lovely listener might know about today's subject.
2:58.6	And when I say Hannibal, you might, like Darren, be thinking of TV people.
3:02.2	I think of the cigar-chomping leader of the A-team.
	...

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