Ides of March Lecture 2024

On Wednesday the 13th March, The Portsmouth Grammar School welcomed Dr Samuel Agbamu, University of Reading, for the annual Ides of March Lecture. The lecture was entitled: Sons of Hannibal: Negotiating the Legacies of Italian Imperialism and Ancient Rome.

Dr Agbamu started his lecture with Appian’s description of the sack of Carthage in 146BC. An act that fits the modern-day definition of genocide. He then demonstrated how the war against the Carthaginians cast a shadow over Europe in medieval, renaissance and modern eras. Dr Agbamu demonstrated the significance of the Carthaginian wars to the Byzantines, the Crusades, Petrach, the Ottoman Empire and the Fabians.

Most notably, the Carthaginians War was frequently in 1930s Italian Fascist propaganda. In a 1936 speech given to crowds gathered in Rome and disseminated in cinemas across the nation, the Fascist dictator of Italy, Benito Mussolini, proclaimed that Italy finally had its own empire. And the invasion of Ethiopia was presented as a modern-day counterpart to Rome’s capture of Carthage.

We are very grateful to Dr Agbamu for demonstrating how History is used by propagandists to push their own agenda: a salutary lesson for the 21st century. Dr Agbamu is currently writing a book on the reception of Roman history in Italian Fascism, and we look forward to its publication.

by Mr M Murray, Head of Classics at PGS