Defeat by Rome in the first Punic war (264−241) had nevertheless left a Carthaginian political and military presence in Iberia. Hannibal’s father Hamilcar and brother-in-law Hasdrubal commanded there in turn, and were succeeded after their premature deaths by Hannibal. He attacked the Rome-friendly city of Saguntum, and the outbreak of the second Punic war followed. Its much-disputed causes are addressed. Hannibal wrong-footed the Romans by crossing the Pyrenees and Alps with elephants and descending into Italy. By brilliant tactics, he won four battles in rapid succession (218−216) and increasing order of scale and gravity: at the Ticinus and Trebia in north Italy, then an ambush at Lake Trasimene in Etruria, and finally the massive victory at Cannae. But he rejected his lieutenant Maharbal’s advice to march on Rome. Appendix 3.1 argues that Hannibal became increasingly isolated after these successes, and Appendix 3.2 that there was only one Maharbal.

After Cannae, Hannibal needed a maritime base to allow reinforcements and supplies to reach him. But he failed to win over or capture Naples, an old Roman naval ally, and had mixed results elsewhere in Campania: he was successful at proud Capua. He was under-supported from Carthage for all his time in Italy, whether because they could not or would not help him. In 215, he signed a treaty of alliance with Philip V of Macedon. This brought few benefits to either party and would long be remembered by the Romans. Syracuse in Sicily went over to Hannibal in 214 but was recaptured by Claudius Marcellus (late 212). Similarly most of coastal Tarentum in south Italy was in his hands, but only between 212 and 209. In 211, when Capua was under Roman pressure, Hannibal marched on Rome as a diversionary tactic but soon withdrew. Capua fell and was harshly treated.

Scipio had served at Ticinus, where he saved the life of his wounded father Publius the consul; at Cannae as military tribune, he rallied survivors. He was aedile (213). In 218, Publius had sent his brother Gnaeus to Iberia; he himself returned to northern Italy to fight Hannibal. In Iberia, Gnaeus scored successes against the Carthaginian Hanno. Publius rejoined him in 217. They fought and negotiated successfully until killed in separate engagements (211). In 210, young Scipio was appointed with imperium to replace them and in 209 captured the important coastal city of New Carthage, allegedly with Neptune’s help. At Baecula (208, site recently identified), he defeated Hannibal’s brother Hasdrubal (who however escaped to Italy) and another Hasdrubal (Ilipa, 206). On return, he was denied a triumph but elected consul for 205. The tradition, only in Appian, that he founded an Iberian city Italica is a myth from Hadrian’s time.

Scipio’s downfall is superficially surprising: the charges were obviously invented, although he was not helped by his own arrogance. The disgrace and death in humiliating retirement of a successful, patriotic general seems a display of petty ingratitude. But in the Roman Republic, no individual, however gifted and successful, must be allowed to become too wealthy from booty or too politically powerful. The main agent of his disgrace (two phases, 187, 184), was Cato. Livy’s narrative is gripping but confused. Polybius treated the troubles of the Scipio brothers only as part of an anecdotal obituary. In 187, Cato put up two tribunes to demand an account of the money which Lucius received from Antiochus as part-payment of war indemnity. Publius, the real target, angrily tore up the account book which could have cleared him. He himself was prosecuted (184). It never came to trial. He died at his Campanian villa (183).

Hannibal was forced by Roman pressure to flee Carthage in secret (195). Livy’s narrative is lively and amusing. Like a Classical Greek taking refuge with a Persian satrap, he spent the rest of his life with eastern royalty. His flight was precipitated by the arrival of three Roman envoys, whose mission was to accuse Hannibal of plotting war against Rome in combination with the Seleucid king Antiochus III. He had long prepared for something like this, and left the African mainland for a nearby island, Cercina. There he found Phoenician ships and suspected they might take news of him to Carthage. So he organized a midsummer banquet, including a huge improvised sunshade or marquee made from the ships’ sails. In the morning the crews awoke with hangovers to find their ships incapacitated. He sailed for Tyre, then Daphne, a suburb of Antioch. Back at Carthage, his town house was formally demolished.

Ancient communications were slow and precarious, so overseas commanders enjoyed/suffered from partial absence of control by home authorities. Isolation should not be overdone. Literary sources mention official letters home only when remarkable for some reason. Requests to the senate for supplies from Rome were made routinely. Equally, some messages and orders arrived from Carthage. ‘Peripheral imperialism’, far-reaching decisions by men on the spot, are a feature of Roman operations in Iberia. Publius Scipio (father)’s decision to fight the war there is a good example. Other examples are reviewed. Hannibal’s treaty with Philip was co-signed by Carthaginian advisers. Appointment of good subordinates is an important indicator of the quality of a commander’s personal initiatives. Italian Locri is taken as a case study because Hannibal and Scipio both made decisions affecting it. Hannibal’s appointee Hamilcar was guilty of long-term arrogance but was perhaps not as bad as Scipio’s scandalous lieutenant Quintus Pleminius.

This chapter is about Greek culture, but there is a political aspect too: Hannibal promised freedom to Italian Greeks, but not all welcomed him, nor were his promises kept. Scipio at Syracuse enjoyed Greek lifestyle, including attending the gymnasium, an institution suspect among Romans for perceived immorality; but it had a paramilitary function, especially in Sicily. Scipio’s promotion of south Italian Greeks is illustrated by the career of Sextus Digitius from Paestum. Hannibal’s command of Greek is discussed (also in Appendix 13.1, on Greek ‘letters’, taught him by Spartan Sosylus). After enduring an Athenian philosopher lecturing at Ephesus on generalship he expressed impatience in frank if inelegant Greek. Religious and cultural hellenism at Rome and Carthage is explored, with special attention to Livius Andronicus’ invention of a Latin literature, and the Carthaginian philosopher Hasdrubal, self-reinvented as ‘Clitomachus’. Barcid Iberian city foundations are assessed, Hannibal’s in Asia Minor postponed to Chapter 17.

The Apamea peace conference after Magnesia included Roman demands for Hannibal’s extradition; he forestalled this by going on his travels again. These are poorly documented. A Cretan visit is probably historical but hard to explain. It was unconnected with attested contemporary Roman official visits. A Polybius fragment may allude to a financial ploy by which he kept his savings intact. He moved to Armenia, where inscriptions attest familiarity with Greek poetry; his stay is attested mainly by Plutarch’s Lucullus. He helped King Artaxias to found Artaxata, but moved on again, for reasons unknown. His next choice, King Prusias’ Bithynia, is puzzling (closer to Italy), but Prusias was at war with Rome’s friend Eumenes of Pergamum. Hannibal won a sea battle for Prusias, but weird details are suspect. Here too he helped a king found a city: Prusa. But Prusias succumbed to Roman vindictiveness and Hannibal took poison. His tomb site is unknown.

Hannibal and Scipio left no autobiographies, except that Hannibal in 205, before leaving Italy for Africa, inscribed a bilingual account of his military resources. Scipio’s contemporary funeral elogium (list of his offices and achievements, a kind of succinct obituary) does not survive (a much later one does). This chapter offers, by way of introduction, semi-fictional replacements for these missing documents and explains what Hannibal’s full inscription is likely to have contained. Other first-person evidence by the two men is quoted and discussed, such as letters reported in the literary sources. The chapter closes by asking what Hannibal and Scipio looked like. Appendix 1.1 lists and evaluates the sources for the book, and there is a sub-section on reliability of speeches. Appendix 1.2 addresses the problem of whether Plutarch’s lost Life of Scipio was about Hannibal’s opponent or Scipio Aemilianus, his younger relative by adoption. Appendix 1.3 is about ‘roving anecdotes’.

Livy not Polybius is the main source for Roman religion; Carthaginian is less easily grasped. Literary traditions represented Hannibal as an impious perjuror, whereas Scipio enjoyed divine help (Neptune) and privileged access (Jupiter). Neither picture is true. Both made youthful vows, Hannibal never to befriend Rome, Scipio (after Cannae) to continue the fight. Neither was regularly accompanied by seers on campaign; Hannibal was his own diviner and personally executed one violent animal sacrifice. He buried defeated enemy commanders respectfully, unlike Nero after Metaurus. Scipio, unlike Hannibal, took impious advantage of a truce. Hannibal was a priest only in the sense that ancient generals conducted campaign rituals. Scipio had been a Salian priest of Mars for many years (special dress, ceremonies, obligations). There was a Hannibalic legend (advice or warnings in dreams from Jupiter and Juno) as well as the famous Scipionic legend (supernatural snake-birth and Neptune’s help at New Carthage).

Of the two parallel lives, it is Hannibal who used an elected position to carry through political and economic reforms unwelcome to the ruling oligarchy, whereas Scipio was quiet and accepting of the status quo. A story that Hannibal was prosecuted after Zama is not believable. He urged acceptance of the peace terms after Zama, manhandling an opposing speaker; he apologized for this, pleading long absence from civil life. As elected ‘praetor’ (sufete), he antagonized powerful citizens. His summons of a ‘quaestor’ (financial official) was refused. Scipio, soon after, also had trouble with a recalcitrant quaestor. Hannibal’s main political reform was to end life tenure of the ‘judges’. Economically, perhaps using skills developed when managing the logistics of his Italian campaign, he calculated Carthage’s revenues and ended embezzlement. The unpopularity with the ruling class so generated, and Roman diplomatic pressure, caused him to flee permanently. Carthage’s second-century economy is evaluated.

Neither Hannibal nor Scipio participated at the Metaurus (207), but it was the war’s turning point: Ennius thought Juno was now at last reconciled with Rome, and Livy presented Rome’s victory over Hannibal’s brother Hasdrubal as revenge for Cannae. Things looked bad for Rome after both consuls of 208, Marcellus and Crispinus, died in battle. Roman success was made possible by another reconciliation, between two old enemies the consuls Salinator and Nero. Nero’s forced march up Italy was enthusiastically greeted and fed en route. He returned south and threw Hasdrubal’s head before Hannibal’s camp. Appendix 8.1 concludes that Salinator was not a senior decemuir (priest) in 236. Appendix 8.2 discusses Roman battle vows and asks why Livy omitted Salinator’s Metaurus vow in his battle narrative. Appendix 8.3 examines the unusual joint triumph of Salinator and Nero. Appendix 8.4 shows another name (Sena) for Metaurus was current before Horace immortalized it.