Lecture Date: March 24, 2015
Coldwell Banker Elite Lecture
Great captain, adventurer, military genius, idol of Africa, terror of Rome, and ultimately one of the biggest losers in the history of war – Hannibal was all these and more. From the moment that he crossed the Alps into Italy with his army and his elephants, Hannibal has been a symbol of an indomitable will to fight. He handed the Roman Republic its worst battlefield defeat ever at Cannae (216 B.C.) only to be destroyed by Rome in turn. The most famous citizen of ancient Carthage, Hannibal is still studied in war colleges around the world today, but the real story has never been told. Barry Strauss disentangles the man from the myth in a gripping lecture.
Lecture Photos
Speaker: Barry Strauss
Barry Strauss is a Bryce and Edith M. Bowmar Professor in Humanistic Studies and Chair of the Department of History, Cornell University. His latest book is The Death of Caesar: The Story of History’s Most Famous Assassination (March 2015). He is the author of such books as The Battle of Salamis (2004), The Spartacus War (2009), and Masters of Command: Alexander, Hannibal, Caesar and the Genius of Leadership (2012), named respectively as one of the best books of the year by the Washington Post, Books & Culture, and Bloomberg. Publishers Weekly writes, “No one presents the military history of the ancient world with greater insight and panache than Strauss….”