Hello and welcome to another episode of the Ancient Warfare Podcast. My name is Jaspal Orthaus,

and I'm the editor of the magazine. Joining me today are Murray Dom, Mark DeSantis, Mark McCaffrey, and

Lindsay Powell. Hi guys. Angus Wallace of the History Network is still our technical wizard,

but as of tonight, I'll act as Master of Ceremonies. Today we're going to discuss one of the first issues of the magazine, Issue 1.4, which

deals with the Roman conquest of Spain.

The thing is, we actually did this podcast already once, seven years ago.

So somebody was not paying attention while we were preparing for this.

Nevertheless, we have some good questions from our mostly patrons I think and we can go over them and see what we can discuss and maybe we'll go off the

rails here and there and hopefully have some other things to talk about.

Mark, Descences, I believe that you had some notes prepared about the

start of how Rome got involved and that ties in pretty well with Brian's question.

Right. The advent of Roman power in Spain comes as a result of its need to defeat

the Carthaginians in the Second Punic War. If we go back a little to the 230s, in 237, Carthage

is reeling from its defeat not only in the first Punic War, which left it saddled with a massive indemnity to pay to the victorious Romans.

But it also suffered heavily as a result of the so-called mercenary revolt, which it fought against its own mercenary soldiers between 240 and 238.

There were two factors driving Hamilcar Barca's move to Spain in 237.

He leads an expeditionary army there to the south of Spain, and that is the need to obtain money to pay off the indemnity, but also

it seems very clear that Hamilcar Barker was already looking forward to a second war against

the Romans. And in Spain, not only would he be able to find the silver that Carthage would need to pay off its debts,

but also he could recruit its soldiers for his army that would then be used against the Romans.

So Spain as a nation, and I'm talking right now, the Iberian Peninsula, roughly south of the Tagus River,

that was where he would recruit his soldiers, it was where he had his silver mines,

...