Cameron Trost asked Rob Edmunds:

Where did your passion for Carthaginian history come from, Rob?

Rob Edmunds For the most part, my interest in the Carthaginians was quite accidental and serendipitous. I've always had a broad fascination with ancient history, but my knowledge didn't really extend much beyond the Greeks and Romans.
By chance, I came across a little of the biography of the Numidian King Masinissa and I found it to be completely compelling. The more I learnt about him and the period and events he lived through, the more intrigued I became and the more research I undertook. It fitted nicely with some of the knowledge I already had. For instance, the Greek historian Polybius, who had met Masinissa quite late in the king's life, referred to him as "the best man of all the kings of our time."
My interest in him and Numidia naturally burgeoned out to the Carthaginians and Hannibal. Also, many of the battlefield locations in the Second Punic War, at least the ones that I became interested in, took place in the Iberian Peninsula and the southern part of modern Spain. It's an area I know quite well and this piqued my interest further.
In truth, my interest leans more towards Numidian as opposed to Carthaginian history but the two are, in large part, intertwined.
It's also a very rich seam to mine culturally. Sophonisba, the woman Masinissa loved, could be regarded as the second most well known person of all time. I recently came across a video which made that assertion on the basis of the amount of artworks, of all types, that have been made about her life. There have been, over the centuries, many plays, paintings, operas, ballets and even films which have featured her. My most recent cultural discovery also makes a few incongruous connections. The most recent person to have played Masinissa in the movies was the legendary athlete and actor Woody Strode, whose best known for his role in Spartacus. He also was one of the athletes to break the colour bar (for the second time) in the NFL and is the person after whom the character Woody from Toy Story was named. I really never thought I'd come across a connection between Disney, the Second Punic War and the Los Angeles Rams!

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