History of Rome

Pompey / general-history.com

Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus was that rare combination – a general and a politician. Good sense, courage and sense of planning are not always to be found in those who choose to promote themselves as politicians, whereas one needs all three virtues (plus good fortune) to become a general, unless one is a third world colonel winning a successful coup.

Pompey’s early career as a soldier was, as they say today, ballistic. In fact it was brilliant. The Roman Senate empowered him to combat Lepidus, who had not very quietly raised his own private army while he was proconsul. Virtually at the same time as he was dealing with Lepidus, Pompey was also fighting Sertorius, busy backing the Lusitani rebellion in Spain. (more…)

Octavian, later Caesar Augustus, first Emperor / blog.iese.edu

This phrase signifies the period when the Roman state and those overseas provinces it had formed were under the rule of an emperor. The first ‘Emperor’ was Augustus (27 BC), and the empire as such existed but not always flourished for nearly five centuries, until 476 AD.

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Historians are not sure of the date of birth of Hamilcar Barca, general from Carthage, and father of Hannibal and Hasdrubal. We know that he commanded the Carthaginian armies in the ultimate part of the First Punic Wars, and that it was Hamilcar Barca who negotiated the peace of 241 B.C. (more…)