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. This was an empire that had been secured by the Fascist regime's invasion of Ethiopia the previous year, which was brought to a successful conclusion with the capture of Adis Ababa in 1936. Mussolini's Fascist empire based its self-representation on ancient Rome, and its victory in Africa positioned as a modern-day counterpart to Rome's clashes with its Carthaginian enemies: the Punic Wars.

In this talk, Sam Agbamu will outline the afterlives of the Punic Wars in Italian imperial rhetoric, from the Renaissance until the twentieth century.