Ben Kane visits Hampton School
On the 22nd of March bestselling classical author, Ben Kane, visited Hampton School to give a talk on Hannibal’s campaign against Rome during the 2nd Punic war. Ben Kane gave a talk at Hampton last year about the life of a Roman soldier so this year his audience was eagerly anticipating his arrival. 57 boys ranging from the 1st to 5th year attended the talk.
Ben is an author whose area of expertise is historical fiction set around the time of the Roman Empire. His most popular books are the Forgotten Legion, Spartacus and Hannibal book series. Ben Kane is unique amongst most period fiction writers because he has travelled to the places he writes about giving him a much deeper understanding of day to day life for the people living there. For example he cycled the route that Hannibal took to arrive at Rome: From Sagunto in Spain, across the Pyrenees and the Alps, then into the North of Italy and finally to Rome.
He gave us a compact, forty minute long, lecture on Hannibal’s Journey to Rome and the outcome of the war. He described the bloodiest battle in human history until World War 1, the battle of Cannae, and explained the eventual outcome of the war and the impact this had on human history. Carthage, once the mightiest empire in the world, was wiped off the face of the earth by the Romans changing the course of history forever. He also explained the logistics of Hannibal’s plans and how difficult it would have been to get an army of 50,000 men as well as horses and elephants across mountains and rivers during the winter.
The descriptions were illustrated with a helpful power point slide which displayed real life re-enactments of battles some of which Ben had seen and partook in. He also passed around accurate replicas of Roman equipment. Most importantly the narration created an extremely immersive atmosphere, enthralling the audience, which mirrors his books perfectly. I cannot forget to mention the spectacular picture of the battle which he showed us. I would recommend looking at it to get a feel for how we believe the atmosphere of the battle would have been. It was painted by Jenny Dolfen for her illustrated novel, Darkness over Cannae.
Ben’s latest book, Eagles in the storm, is set in 15 AD and is about a Roman Centurion trying to recover his legion’s eagle from Germanic tribes. It’s available now.
