Who Was the Better General, Hannibal or Scipio?

Hannibal was a genius when it came to battlefield tactics, but not as adept at strategy or logistics. Scipio Africanus was a genius at all three. Scipio’s Spanish campaign shows his proficiency at battlefield tactics, strategy and logistics. The first thing he did was to conquer New Carthage where the Carthaginians stored their wealth and […]

What Factors Led to the Defeat of Hannibal in the Second Punic War?

Factors in Carthage’s defeat in the Second Punic War. Roman refusal to come to terms after their overwhelming defeat at the Battle of Cannae. Hannibal sent a Carthaginian nobleman, Carthalo to Rome with peace terms. The Romans wouldn’t let him into the city. The Roman Senate declared it a crime to even mention the word […]

Were Roman Generals More Closely Involved in the Fighting than Generals are Today?

They were far more involved than generals are today. In the Second Punic War the following generals lost their lives in battle or in an ambush: Gaius Flaminius, Lucius Aemilius Paullus, Gaius Servilius Geminus, Marcus Manucius Rufus, Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus, Gneius Fulvius, Gneius Cornelius Scipio, Pubius Cornelius Scipio (the elder), Marcus Claudius Marcellus, Appius Claudius […]

How Did the Romans Recover From Their Devastating Defeat at the Battle of Cannae?

It is believed that between the battles of Trebia, Trasimene and Cannae, twenty percent of Italian men of military age perished. At the Battle of Cannae alone, some 55,000 Romans and allies were killed In addition to losing all of those soldiers, after Cannae a lot of cities, towns and tribes that had been allied […]

How are Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome Related?

According to the German historian Theodor Mommsen, the Greeks and the Romans both had cultural and linguistic roots in what is now eastern Europe. He did extensive studies on their languages and concluded that they were both offshoots of a common branch of Indo-European. Greek civilization began much earlier than Roman. The Greeks had two […]

How Was the Roman Republic Different from American Democracy?

The Roman Republic was not a democracy. It was an plutocratic oligarchy. And the U.S. Republic is also not a true democracy, it is also a plutocratic oligarchy. The Greek historian Polybius, lived in the second century B.C. and spent seventeen years as a hostage in Rome and was closely allied with a prominent Roman […]

My New Book, You Won’t Even Have My Bones, The Story of Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus, Has Been Published.

My New Book, You Won’t Even Have My Bones: The Story of Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus has been published. Although not frequently acknowledged as such, Scipio Africanus was one of the most pivotal characters in western history. If not for his accomplishments in conquering Spain and depriving Carthage of its wealthy province, and then going […]