There’s more. Despite commanding a load of elephants and a force of forty thousand at the Battle of Zama—each one of whom was lucky enough to get an individual close-up this week during the long wait for the real action to begin—, Hannibal lost. I’m unsure as to whether that was due to him making the same mistake as one of the Time Commanders teams and sending said elephants unaccompanied into battle as his vanguard, perhaps in the optimistic hope that once in the fray they’d turn from wrinkly transit vans into unstoppable killing machines and leave his men to simply wander in and sweep up the Roman corpses.

I know why The Wrestlers, controllers of the Carthaginian army in this week’s re-enacted historical clash, made that move. In the pre-battle training skirmish (during which the other team stands about wondering when they’re allowed to eat their sandwiches), their opponents The Board Game Enthusiasts went to pieces when faced with a single elephant. Armed with eighty of the beasts, General Gary must have thought his lot would walk it.

James, the general for the Roman side and played here by a young Hugh Bonneville, remained sturdily hopeful throughout his team’s dismal practice round failure. “That elephant has MULLERED you!” shouted presenter Gregg Wallace. “That it has, but it’s only one elephant” answered James bravely, proving that posh people always sound as if they know what they’re doing even when what they’re doing is getting trampled by only one elephant.

General Gary had failed to take into account Time Commanders’ next crucial lesson: elephants aren’t magic. That was explained with admirable patience by military history expert Dr Lynette Nusbacher, who, alongside weapons historian Mike Loades, has been a fixture on the show since it began. (Even more admirably, since the previous series the excellent Dr Nusbacher has done her bit to help correct Time Commanders’ male-leaning gender imbalance by becoming a woman. Thus far, she’s the only one to feature in the entire hour, though the sex of the elephants remains undisclosed.)

“How would you recommend one deals with an elephant?” James asked the tactical experts. “You stick spears into them” answered Dr Lynette Nusbacher with sage confidence. Another lesson you won’t learn from Sir David Attenborough.