The Roman Hannibal by Claire Stocks

The Roman Hannibal: Remembering the Enemy in Silius Italicus' Punica by Claire Stocks

reviewed by Philip Matyszak

Hannibal was famously the greatest, most deadly enemy that Rome ever faced. However, as classicist and academic Claire Stocks points out, we only know Hannibal from the Roman perspective. Hannibal, the cruel, the cunning, the master general and war-leader is seen today through Roman eyes. In this book, the Roman eyes belong to Silius Italicus, a writer of the first century AD whose only surviving work is the seventeen books of the Punica, an epic poem telling the saga of Hannibal's war with Rome. One could describe The Roman Hannibal as something between an academic thesis and a commentary on the Punica...

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