Hannibal: Enemy of Rome

At last Quintus took heart. He nodded eagerly. They would fight the Carthaginians again soon. On equal or better terms. There would be a chance to regain the honour that, in his mind, they had left behind on the battlefield.

Rome would rise again, and wrench victory from Hannibal.

Author’s Note

It is an immense privilege to be accorded the opportunity to write a set of novels about the Second Punic War (218-201 BC). I have been fascinated by the time period since I was a boy, and I, like many, regard this as one of history’s most hallowed episodes. The word ‘epic’ is completely overused today, but I feel that it is justified to use it with reference to this seventeen-year struggle, the balance of which was uncertain on so many occasions. If it had tipped but a fraction in the opposite direction during a number of those situations, life in Europe would be a very different affair today. The Carthaginians were quite unlike the Romans, and not in all the bad ways history would have us believe. They were intrepid explorers and inveterate traders, shrewd businessmen and brave soldiers. Where Rome’s interests so often lay in conquest by war, theirs lay more in assuming power through controlling commerce and natural resources. It may be a small point, but my use of the word ‘Carthaginian’ rather than the Latin-derived ‘Punic’ when referring to their language is quite deliberate. The Carthaginians would not have used the term.

Many readers will know the broad brush strokes of Hannibal’s war with Rome; others will know less; a very few will be voracious readers of the ancient authors Livy and Polybius, the main sources for this period. For the record, I have done my best to stick to the historical details that have survived. In places, however, I have either changed events slightly to fit in with the story’s development, or invented things. Such is the novelist’s remit, as well as his/her bane. If I have made any errors, I apologise for them.

The novel starts with a description of Carthage in all its magnificence. In the late third century BC, it was an infinitely grander city than Rome. I have taken the liberty of describing the fortifications present at the time of the Third Punic War (149-146 BC). I did this because we do not know what defences were in place in Hannibal’s time. Because the incredible and impressive structures that held off the Romans in the final conflict were built sometime in the fifty years after Hannibal’s defeat, I did not feel that using them was a major digression from fact.

Describing Carthaginian soldiers, both native and non-native, is a whole minefield of its own. We have little historical information about the uniforms that Carthaginian citizens and the host of nationalities who fought for them wore, or the type of equipment and weapons that they carried. Without several textbooks and articles, which I’ll name later, I would have been lost. Another difficult area was Carthaginian names. In short, there aren’t very many, or at least not many that have come down to us, more than 2,200 years later. Most of the ones that have survived are unpronounceable, or sound awful. Some are both! Hillesbaal and Ithobaal don’t exactly roll off the tongue. Hence the main Carthaginian protagonist is called Hanno. There were important historical characters with this name, but I desperately needed a good one for my hero, and they were in very short supply.

The siege of Saguntum happened much as I’ve described. Anyone who visits Spain’s eastern coast could do worse than climb the huge rocky outcrop near modern-day Valencia. It’s such an impressive place that it’s not hard to imagine Hannibal’s soldiers besieging it. The formidable size of his army is attested by the ancient sources, as are the ways it was reduced by deaths, desertions and release from service. Whether any troops were left as garrisons in Gaul, we do not know. There has been much argument over which route the Carthaginian army followed after the Pyrenees, and where it crossed the River Rhone. The Volcae were surprised from the rear by a party of Carthaginians who had crossed upriver; their commander was one Hanno, not Bostar, however. The elephants were ferried over the river in the manner I’ve described.

The dramatic confrontation between the Roman embassy and the Carthaginian Council of Elders apparently took place as I’ve portrayed it. So too did the chance encounter between a unit of Roman cavalry and one of Numidians in the countryside above Massilia. I altered events, however, to take Publius back to Rome before he travelled to Cisalpine Gaul to face the invaders. Minucius Flaccus is a fictitious character, but Minucius Rufus, his brother, is not.