Quotulatiousness

July 7, 2026

Carthage at the Gates – The Second Punic War | EP 1

The Rest Is History
Published 2 Feb 2026

Our whole series on Rome vs Carthage can be found here: • Rome Vs Carthage

[NR: Last year’s animated episode on Cannae is here — The Bloody Battle of Cannae]

Did Hannibal march on Rome after his legendary victory at the Battle of Cannae in 216 BC? How could Rome fight on after losing so many men? And, where would their next cataclysmic clash take place …?

Join Tom and Dominic, as they discuss the beginning of the end for the once mighty city of Carthage, and her masterful general, Hannibal Barca.

00:00 Cold open
02:02 After Cannae
05:20 Carthage vs Rome: the long backstory
12:44 The Barcid dynasty
15:37 Hannibal’s invasion route
18:37 Why Hannibal doesn’t march on Rome
21:30 Roman morale collapse (and recovery)
25:01 Rome’s “Lord Halifax moment” that never happens
28:00 Fabius Maximus takes control
31:06 Early heroes and hard choices
33:39 The Fabian strategy returns
34:26 Italy fractures
36:10 The Capua turning point
37:07 “Hannibal at the gates”
39:40 The war becomes a stalemate
43:08 Syracuse at its peak
50:14 Archimedes’ war machines
51:15 Syracuse switches sides
52:06 Marcellus besieges Syracuse
56:20 The fall of Syracuse
57:25 Death of Archimedes
58:40 What Syracuse means for the wider war
(more…)

QotD: “I was just following orders” — the Nuremberg Defence

Filed under: Germany, History, Law, Military, Quotations, USA, WW2 — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 01:00

    JerryRigEverything @ZacksJerryRig
    It is illegal to obey illegal orders.
    It is illegal to obey illegal orders.
    It is illegal to obey illegal orders.
    It is illegal to obey illegal orders.
    It is illegal to obey illegal orders.
    It is illegal to obey illegal orders.
    Congress has not declared War.
    Pass it on.

Hot Take: The “Nuremberg Defense” should be completely legally valid because it was for the entirety of human history until the Nuremberg Trials.

The idea that the average GI Joe has the knowledge and capability to parse the legality of orders in life-and-death situations is one of the best examples of how Liberalism simply does not comport with reality.

Every lawyer knows this to be true, too. Ask any number of attorneys a question on a matter of law and if the question is worth a damn you’ll get as many answers as participants. All good legal questions start with the same answer: “It depends.”

If you can’t even get a team of attorneys to always agree on whether something is legal, with hours to days to weeks of research put into the question, why/how do you expect a normal joe to figure that out?

You don’t. He can’t. You know that.

You just want to inspire doubt, raise mutiny, and have a way to punish people who did things you don’t like on the orders of someone out of your reach.

J.T. Alexander, The social media site formerly known as Twitter, 2026-04-06.

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