Description
Book SynopsisSilius Italicus’ Punica, the longest surviving epic in Latin literature, has seen a resurgence of interest among scholars in recent years. A celebration of Rome’s triumph over Hannibal and Carthage during the second Punic war, Silius’ poem presents a plethora of familiar names to its readers: Fabius Maximus, Claudius Marcellus, Scipio Africanus and, of course, Rome’s ‘ultimate enemy’ – Hannibal. Where most recent scholarship on the Punica has focused its attention of the problematic portrayal of Scipio Africanus as a hero for Rome, this book shifts the focus to Carthage and offers a new reading of Hannibal’s place in Silius’ epic, and in Rome’s literary culture at large. Celebrated and demonised in equal measure, Hannibal became something of an anti-hero for Rome; a man who acquired mythic status, and was condemned by Rome’s authors for his supposed greed and cruelty, yet admired for his military acumen. For the first time this book provides a comprehensive overview of this multi-faceted Hannibal as he appears in the Punica and suggests that Silius’ portrayal of him can be read as the culmination to Rome’s centuries-long engagement with the Carthaginian in its literature. Through detailed consideration of internal focalisation, Silius’ Hannibal is revealed to be a man striving to create an eternal legacy, becoming the Hannibal whom a Roman, and a modern reader, would recognise. The works of Polybius, Livy, Virgil, and the post Virgilian epicists all have a bit-part in this book, which aims to show that Silius Italicus’ Punica is as much an example of how Rome remembered its past, as it is a text striving to join Rome’s epic canon.
Trade Review'This book offers many stimulating discussions of the multi-faceted
Punica and paves the way for monographs on some of the other figures of Silius' epic world (Fabius, Paulus, Marcellus).'
Anthony Augoustakis,
Classical JournalTable of Contents
- Introduction: The Roman Hannibal
- 1. The Roman Hannibal Defined
- 2. Before Silius: The Creation of the Roman Hannibal
- 3. Silius’ Influences
- 4. Epic Models
- 5. Silius’ Roman Hannibal
- 6. Out of the Darkness and into the Light
- 7. Hannibal’s ‘Decline’ after Cannae; Separating Man from Myth
- 8. Imitators and Innovators
- 9. Band-of-Brothers
- 10. The ‘Lightning Bolts’ (fulmina) of War
- 11. The Man and his Myth; The Self-defined Roman Hannibal
- Conclusion: The Crossing of the Worlds: The Move from Internal to External Narrative
- Bibliography
- Index
