Neither Hannibal nor Scipio participated at the Metaurus (207), but it was the war’s turning point: Ennius thought Juno was now at last reconciled with Rome, and Livy presented Rome’s victory over Hannibal’s brother Hasdrubal as revenge for Cannae. Things looked bad for Rome after both consuls of 208, Marcellus and Crispinus, died in battle. Roman success was made possible by another reconciliation, between two old enemies the consuls Salinator and Nero. Nero’s forced march up Italy was enthusiastically greeted and fed en route. He returned south and threw Hasdrubal’s head before Hannibal’s camp. Appendix 8.1 concludes that Salinator was not a senior decemuir (priest) in 236. Appendix 8.2 discusses Roman battle vows and asks why Livy omitted Salinator’s Metaurus vow in his battle narrative. Appendix 8.3 examines the unusual joint triumph of Salinator and Nero. Appendix 8.4 shows another name (Sena) for Metaurus was current before Horace immortalized it.

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.

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.

Scipio’s downfall is superficially surprising: the charges were obviously invented, although he was not helped by his own arrogance. The disgrace and death in humiliating retirement of a successful, patriotic general seems a display of petty ingratitude. But in the Roman Republic, no individual, however gifted and successful, must be allowed to become too wealthy from booty or too politically powerful. The main agent of his disgrace (two phases, 187, 184), was Cato. Livy’s narrative is gripping but confused. Polybius treated the troubles of the Scipio brothers only as part of an anecdotal obituary. In 187, Cato put up two tribunes to demand an account of the money which Lucius received from Antiochus as part-payment of war indemnity. Publius, the real target, angrily tore up the account book which could have cleared him. He himself was prosecuted (184). It never came to trial. He died at his Campanian villa (183).

Hannibal was forced by Roman pressure to flee Carthage in secret (195). Livy’s narrative is lively and amusing. Like a Classical Greek taking refuge with a Persian satrap, he spent the rest of his life with eastern royalty. His flight was precipitated by the arrival of three Roman envoys, whose mission was to accuse Hannibal of plotting war against Rome in combination with the Seleucid king Antiochus III. He had long prepared for something like this, and left the African mainland for a nearby island, Cercina. There he found Phoenician ships and suspected they might take news of him to Carthage. So he organized a midsummer banquet, including a huge improvised sunshade or marquee made from the ships’ sails. In the morning the crews awoke with hangovers to find their ships incapacitated. He sailed for Tyre, then Daphne, a suburb of Antioch. Back at Carthage, his town house was formally demolished.

Scipio took the war to Africa, rather than destroying Hannibal in Italy as his enemies wanted. His temporary base was Sicily; at Syracuse, he incurred criticism by adopting Greek clothes and lifestyle. Leaving Hannibal behind was a gamble, compounded by the mere forty warships which accompanied him. Livy reports his ceremonial departure: liquid sacrifices poured from shipboard; the gods rewarded him with a favourable omen. In Africa, he won a dishonourable success, taking advantage of a truce. But it needed victory at Great Plains (203) before Carthage recalled Hannibal. Scipio’s battle tactics are analysed. Livy reports Hannibal’s departure contrariwise from Scipio’s, including bad omen on arrival. The two parleyed through interpreters. At Zama, Scipio defeated Hannibal comprehensively; tactics are analysed, including the decisive role of the Numidian Masinissa’s cavalry, Rome’s weakest arm. Hannibal persuaded his countrymen to accept the heavy peace terms, including annual indemnity, and territorial gains for Masinissa.

Scipio was neither active nor successful as a politician, although elected to prestigious roles after Zama. He celebrated his triumph over Hannibal (201). This peculiarly Roman religious ritual is explained and its conventions listed: there had been few in the war, so this was a great occasion. Scipio was not opposed to the war against Philip which Flamininus won at Cynoscephalae (197), nor did they differ over ‘philhellenism’. In 199, Scipio was elected (1) censor and (2) leading senator, princeps senatus. (2) was a one-man post for life; its main privilege was to speak first. As for (1), two censors held office for a limited period; eligibility and duties are explained. Close study of Livy suggests Scipio spoke rarely in the senate during the 190s; his censorship was certainly uneventful and non-controversial. He was consul again in 194. He visited the east (193); his conversation with Hannibal at Ephesus is defended.

Conclusions are summarized and final reflections added. Neither Hannibal nor Scipio received cult in the strong sense. The Roman Flamininus did – but only from Greek communities. Herodotus on a Hamilcar’s death might show cult was thinkable for defeated Carthaginian commanders – but the story is dubious. Neither Hannibal nor Scipio founded eponymous cities or aimed at monarchical positions. Both, as overseas commanders, took policy initiatives on the spot, including appointment of key subordinates; but Publius and Lucius Scipio in the east after 190 acted on general understanding of senatorial wishes. Neither was conspicuously successful as politician. Hannibal did at least bravely and single-handedly carry unpopular reforms to curb oligarchic corruption, but it is uncertain how long they lasted after his hasty exit from Carthage. Ancient poets and modern biographers have always found Hannibal, the glamorous failure and precursor of Cleopatra, a more popular and congenial subject than the more conventional Scipio.

This chapter begins with the families of Hannibal and Scipio. Hannibal’s mother is unknown; the name of Scipio’s abnormally pious mother, Pomponia, is preserved only in a Latin epic poem by Silius Italicus (first century CE). The older male relatives of both Hannibal and Scipio were distinguished soldiers. Hannibal married an Iberian woman; Scipio, a member of the Cornelian gens (group of families), married the daughter of another Roman aristocrat, from the Aemilian gens. Carthaginian and Roman naming habits are explained. Hannibal’s surname Barca is a family name, not an ‘ethnic’ – indicator of local origin – from the Greek city Barce. (A contrary argument is rejected in Appendix 2.1.) The childhood and youth of Hannibal and Scipio are discussed, including Hannibal’s famous oath in Iberia never to be friendly to the Romans, the events of the 230s and 220s are narrated, and pre−220 Roman and Carthaginian history and society are analysed.

Scipio had served at Ticinus, where he saved the life of his wounded father Publius the consul; at Cannae as military tribune, he rallied survivors. He was aedile (213). In 218, Publius had sent his brother Gnaeus to Iberia; he himself returned to northern Italy to fight Hannibal. In Iberia, Gnaeus scored successes against the Carthaginian Hanno. Publius rejoined him in 217. They fought and negotiated successfully until killed in separate engagements (211). In 210, young Scipio was appointed with imperium to replace them and in 209 captured the important coastal city of New Carthage, allegedly with Neptune’s help. At Baecula (208, site recently identified), he defeated Hannibal’s brother Hasdrubal (who however escaped to Italy) and another Hasdrubal (Ilipa, 206). On return, he was denied a triumph but elected consul for 205. The tradition, only in Appian, that he founded an Iberian city Italica is a myth from Hadrian’s time.

Of the two parallel lives, it is Hannibal who used an elected position to carry through political and economic reforms unwelcome to the ruling oligarchy, whereas Scipio was quiet and accepting of the status quo. A story that Hannibal was prosecuted after Zama is not believable. He urged acceptance of the peace terms after Zama, manhandling an opposing speaker; he apologized for this, pleading long absence from civil life. As elected ‘praetor’ (sufete), he antagonized powerful citizens. His summons of a ‘quaestor’ (financial official) was refused. Scipio, soon after, also had trouble with a recalcitrant quaestor. Hannibal’s main political reform was to end life tenure of the ‘judges’. Economically, perhaps using skills developed when managing the logistics of his Italian campaign, he calculated Carthage’s revenues and ended embezzlement. The unpopularity with the ruling class so generated, and Roman diplomatic pressure, caused him to flee permanently. Carthage’s second-century economy is evaluated.

Hannibal could not go to Ptolemaic Egypt or Antigonid Macedon. That left the Seleucids. But their preference for Greco-Macedonian employees meant Hannibal would never be fully accepted: Antiochus listened to Hannibal’s advice without taking it wholeheartedly. Hannibal’s Tyrian agent Ariston, sent to Carthage in Antiochus’ interest, failed. A Roman mission to Antiochus tried to turn him against Hannibal, who reassured Antiochus by recalling his childhood oath. Rome’s decision for war is explained: cooperation in Greece between Antiochus and the Aetolians, disaffected Roman allies. Hannibal’s role, and court intrigues against him, are traced. Antiochus lost on land at Thermopylae (Greece); his fleet under Hannibal was no match for Rome’s experienced allies the Rhodians. The Romans won at Magnesia, commanded by Lucius Scipio with Publius as adviser. Publius as Salian priest was delayed, then missed the battle through illness. He too gave Antiochus (cryptic) advice. Hannibal and Scipio are compared as advisers.

‘Hannibal’s legacy’ is an influential 1965 book by a controversial historian, Arnold Toynbee. It set the agenda for the next half-century and more of scholarship by arguing that the ‘legacy’ consisted of lasting damage to the agricultural economy of Italy and the political stability of Rome. Its contemporary reception is presented and analysed. The (disputed) extent of Italy’s devastation, as divinely promised to Hannibal in an alleged dream while still in Iberia, is assessed, and manpower difficulties discussed. Hannibal’s legacy at defeated Carthage was more obviously damaging, though the city did not fall until 146. Hannibal’s literary legacy in Latin and Greek literature was systematically ambiguous: fear, horror, fascination, and even admiration. Scipio’s literary afterlife and perceived qualities are explored initially through the medium of the ‘Dream of Scipio’, a fictional work by Cicero in imitation of Plato: Scipio Africanus appears to his adoptive grandson Aemilianus in his sleep.

Livy not Polybius is the main source for Roman religion; Carthaginian is less easily grasped. Literary traditions represented Hannibal as an impious perjuror, whereas Scipio enjoyed divine help (Neptune) and privileged access (Jupiter). Neither picture is true. Both made youthful vows, Hannibal never to befriend Rome, Scipio (after Cannae) to continue the fight. Neither was regularly accompanied by seers on campaign; Hannibal was his own diviner and personally executed one violent animal sacrifice. He buried defeated enemy commanders respectfully, unlike Nero after Metaurus. Scipio, unlike Hannibal, took impious advantage of a truce. Hannibal was a priest only in the sense that ancient generals conducted campaign rituals. Scipio had been a Salian priest of Mars for many years (special dress, ceremonies, obligations). There was a Hannibalic legend (advice or warnings in dreams from Jupiter and Juno) as well as the famous Scipionic legend (supernatural snake-birth and Neptune’s help at New Carthage).