History has it that when Hannibal was a young boy, his father, ruler of
Carthage, held his son over a fire and made him swear eternal enmity
toward Rome. It was not necessary: The fire already burned in Hannibal's
breast. In time, that flame would destroy the flower of the Roman
legions. In an almost unbelievable feat of courage and endurance,
Hannibal led his army over the Pyrenees and Alps to challenge Rome's
hegemony. And he succeeded against astonishing odds. They clashed at
last. In the Battle of Cannae, Hannibal's foot soldiers, cavalry, and
war elephants enveloped and massacred an army twice the size of his own
contingent. In one of the bloodiest battles ever fought in all history,
between fifty thousand and seventy thousand of Rome's troops were
massacred or captured. Ernle Bradford was born in 1922 and died in 1986.
He was a noted British historian specializing in the Mediterranean world
and naval topics. Bradford was an enthusiastic sailor himself and spent
almost thirty years sailing the Mediterranean, where many of his books
are set. He served in the Royal Navy during World War II, finishing as
the first lieutenant of a destroyer. Bradford lived in Malta for a
number of years. He did occasional broadcast work for the BBC, was a
magazine editor, and wrote many books, including Hannibal, Paul the
Traveller, Julius Caesar: The Pursuit of Power, Christopher Columbus,
and The Mighty Hood.
