Research Catalog

Title

The Roman Hannibal : remembering the enemy in Silius Italicus' Punica / by Claire Stocks.

Author

Stocks, Claire

Publication

Liverpool : Liverpool University Press, 2014.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

xii, 276 p.; 24 cm.

Summary

Silius 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 scholariship on the 'Punica' has focused its attention on 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 demonished 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. 'The Roman Hannibal' provides, for the first time, 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 of 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. -- Publisher's decription.

Uniform Title

University press scholarship online.

Subject

• Hannibal, 247 B.C.-182 B.C. > In literature
• Silius Italicus, Tiberius Catius > Criticism and interpretation
• Silius Italicus, Tiberius Catius
• Hannibal / 247 B.C.-182 B.C. / In literature
• Silius Italicus, Tiberius Catius / Criticism and interpretation
• Silius Italicus, Tiberius Catius / Punica
• Hannibal, 247 B.C.-182 B.C
• Silius Italicus, Tiberius Catius
• Punica (Silius Italicus, Tiberius Catius)
• Epic poetry, Latin > History and criticism
• Epic poetry, Latin / History and criticism
• Epic poetry, Latin
• Literature

Genre/Form

Criticism, interpretation, etc.

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (p. [235]-253) and indexes.

Processing Action (note)

• committed to retain

Contents

• Acknowledgements -- Texts and translations used -- Introduction: Silius Italicus and the Roman Hannibal -- Chapter one: The Roman Hannibal defined -- 1. The power of the name -- 2. Reading the Roman Hannibal -- 3. Roman uiri are real men -- Chapter two: Before Silius: The creation of the Roman Hannibal -- 1. Examining the Carthaginian texts: the tale Hannibal might have told -- 2. Hannibal in prose and verse: from Greece to Rome -- Polybius and the Roman Hannibal -- 3. From prose to verse: Rome and her Hannibal -- crossing genre boundaries -- Chapter three: Silius' influences -- 1. Livy and his uiri (59 BC-AD 17) -- 2. Livy and Silius: structuring the Hannibalic war -- 3. Livy's Hannibal in exile: a life after the Punica -- Chapter four: Epic models -- 1. The paradox and the hero -- 2. Silius' Hannibal: more than Roman -- Chapter five: Silius' Roman Hannibal -- 1. The conception of Silius' Roman Hannibal: Juno, Dido, and Hannibal the uir -- 2. The influence of Dido --^
• 3. Fathers and son: Hannibal and the 'Barcid' family -- Chapter six: Out of the darkness and into the light -- 1. Hannibal at Saguntum -- 2. Spectacle on the battlefield -- 3. The Saguntine envoys at Rome -- 4. At war with Hannibal: Rome and her uiri -- 5. Hannibal and Fabius: delaying the man and his myth -- 6. Hannibal at Cannae: the fall of Paulus -- Chapter seven: Hannibal's decline after Cannae: separating man from myth -- 1. Hannibal at Capua: the point of separation -- 2. Succumbing to luxury -- 3. Mago in Carthage: Propogating the myth -- 4. Pacuvius and Perolla: the power of the myth -- Chapter eight: Imitators and innovators -- 1. Marcellus -- 2. Marcellus vs. Hannibal: after Sicily -- Chapter nine: Band of brothers -- 1. The Barcids and Scipiadae: brother vs. brother -- 2. Hasdrubal: a life in the shadows -- 3. Hasdrubal and Nero at Metarus -- 4. Mago: the brother-in-arms -- rChapter ten: the 'Lightning Bolts' (Fulmina) of war -- 1. Hannibal and Scipio part I --^
• 2. Scipio in the underworld: out of the light and into the darkness -- 3. Scipio in Spain: the boy becomes a man -- 4. Hannibal and Scipio part II: clash of the super-uiri -- 5. The battle of Zama -- Chapter eleven: the man and his myth: the self-defined Roman Hannibal -- 1. Books 1 and 3: choosing Hercules as a role model -- 2. Book 6: Hannibal at Liternum: erasing the past -- 3. Book 12: Hannibal at Rome: titanic aspirations -- 4. Book 17: Hannibal above the plain of Zama: this is my myth -- Conclusion: the crossing of the worlds: the move from internal to external narrative -- Bibliography -- General index -- Index locorum.

ISBN

• 9781781380284 (hbk.)
• 1781380287 (hbk.)

OCLC

• 868082855
• SCSB-12425826

Owning Institutions

Harvard Library