Hannibal of Carthage (Radio Edit)

You're Dead to Me

BBC

Comedy, History

4.7 • 11.8K Ratings

🗓️ 16 January 2026

⏱️ 29 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.

This is a radio edit of the original podcast episode. For the full-length version, please look further back in the feed.

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.
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0:28.1	The traitors uncloked, the official visualised companion podcast with me, Ed Gamble.
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0:43.3	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.
0:46.3	Today we're mounting our war elephants and marching back to the ancient Mediterranean
0:50.3	to learn all about Carthaginian general Hannibal Barker. And joining our campaign,
0:55.5	we have two very special comrades in arms. In History Corner, she's Professor of Ancient
1:00.2	History at the University of Cambridge and a specialist on Roman, North African and Phoenician
1:04.8	history and archaeology. You might have read her award-winning book In Search of the Phoenicians
1:09.0	or her best-selling award-nominated,
1:39.8	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, mocked the week, dancing 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.
1:44.3	Darren, last time you demonstrated incredible knowledge in the subject. You were basically an expert on Eugene Sandal.
1:46.4	I was so excited to come in and talk about Eugene.
1:49.2	Yeah, I know so much about bodybuilder.
1:51.1	And I think maybe like a year before, I'd watched a documentary about him twice.
	...

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