I knew I was in trouble when I read the dramatis personae of this book and found that Scipio Aemilianus was married to a fictional person named Claudia Pulchra (or Pulchradina, as the author puts it.) It is well known that Scipio Aemilianus was married to Sempronia Graccha, the daughter of Cornelia the Mother of […]
Whatever Happened to Hannibal’s Elephants?
October 2, 2013 By 5 Comments
In ancient times there was widespread use of elephants in warfare. The first use of elephants in military campaigns probably occurred in India sometime during the first millennium B.C. The practice eventually spread eastward to Burma, Thailand, Cambodia and Laos, and westward to Greece and North Africa. In 326 B.C. Alexander the Great invaded India, […]
Book Review: Hannibal: A History of the Art of War by Theodore Ayrault Dodge
July 3, 2013 By Leave a Comment
Theodore Ayrault Dodge was a military historian who was born in 1842 and died in 1909. He fought as a Union officer in the American Civil War and wrote a number of biographies of history’s most famous generals, including Alexander the Great, Hannibal Barca, Julius Caesar, Gustavus Adolphus, Frederick the Great and Napoleon Bonaparte. In […]
Book Review:For the Love of Ireland by Judy Lelsie
June 9, 2013 By Leave a Comment
Much like the union between England and Ireland, the marriage of Margaret Sullivan and Alexander Sullivan was the proverbial “marriage made in Hell.” Margaret is a feisty and independent woman who defies the conventions of the late 19th century by having a career as a journalist for the Chicago Tribune. She married Alex with the […]
What Shakespeare Owes to Plautus
June 3, 2013 By Leave a Comment
Last Friday I was walking through New York’s Central Park on my way to the Metropolitan Museum of Art when I passed the Delacorte Theater. There was a long line of people there and I inquired as to why they were standing there. They told me that the theater was giving out free tickets to […]
Quotes of the Day: Education.2
May 17, 2013 By Leave a Comment
“Happy the man who has been able to learn the causes of things.”-Virgil “What nobler employment, or more valuable to the state, than that of the man who instructs the rising generation?”-Cicero “The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet.”-Aristotle “If a man neglects education, he walks lame to the end of […]
Quotes of the Day. On Friendship.
May 14, 2013 By Leave a Comment
“What sweetness is left if you take away friendship? Robbing life of friendship is like robbing the world of the sun. A true friend is more to be esteemed than kinfolk.”-Cicero “I don’t need a friend who changes when I change and nods when I nod. May shadow does that much better.”-Plutarch “Of all the […]
Quotes of the day: On War.
May 13, 2013 By Leave a Comment
“In nothing less than war do events correspond to men’s calculation. Everything is at your disposal when adjusting a peace, but in battle you must be content with the fortune the gods shall impose upon you.”-Livy, attributed to Hannibal “An unjust peace is better than a just war.”-Cicero “In peace sons bury their fathers. In […]
Book Review: Sleep of the Innocents
May 6, 2013 By Leave a Comment
Soledad is a village in an unnamed country in Latin America where life has gone on with little change for centuries. Rosario and her husband, Anibal, eke out a living on a small plot of land. Their income is supplemented by Anibal’s work for Don Rafael, a large landowner, and by Rosario’s talented needlework. Rosario […]
In The Wake of Hannibal
March 22, 2013 By Leave a Comment
I have finished my first draft of my new work in progress In the Wake of Hannibal. Gisco was a real person. He traveled with Hannibal on his epic journey across the Pyrenees, through ancient Gaul, over the Alps and into Italy. He was in Hannibal’s inner circle and was with him at the battles […]
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