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.

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’.

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.

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.

Military comparison between Hannibal and Scipio began early, with their conversation at Ephesus, 193. First rule of generalship was: stay alive as ‘battle manager’; this had to be balanced by felt need for heroic leadership. Both learned warlike skills from relatives (Scipio grew up with three consular uncles and a consular father), but the biggest lesson was to avoid these men’s premature battle deaths. Army reforms are reviewed; Scipio’s are better attested. In logistics, both faced similar problems, but Hannibal’s isolation meant his challenges were greater. For weaponry, Hannibal had to improvise and recycle. Hannibal’s tactics were superior to Roman at the outset, but Scipio learned from his enemy. Both practised ‘Punic’ deception. Neither shone at siege or naval warfare. Hannibal’s struggle for Italian hearts and minds conflicted with his need to extract supplies. On man management, Scipio’s handling of Pleminius was a blemish. Unlike Scipio, Hannibal never faced a mutiny.

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.

The Hannibal of this book is Hannibal surnamed Barca. Scipio is Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus. The final extra name (‘the African’) was given to him in recognition of his victory over Hannibal in north Africa. The Prologue explains that the model for this joint biograohy of Hannibal and Scipio is not so much Plutarch’s series of parallel Greek and Roman lives, as Alan Bullock’s Hitler and Stalin: Parallel Lives. Ancient, Renaissance, and modern explorations of the parallels between the two men are discussed, and a separate section sketches the career and approach of Bullock as a classically trained modern historian and biographer. Another section sets out programmatically the view of Roman and Carthaginian imperialism to be adopted in the book. The limitations of the evidence available to biographers of individuals from the ancient world are candidly acknowledged, and the use of the ‘past presumptive’ tense (so-and so- ‘will have’ done, known, or thought this or that) is renounced.