Hannibal

Any suggestions for books on Hannibal? Thanks in advance.

Do you mean fiction or non-fiction?

The only book I've read that deals mainly with Hannibal is Pride of Carthage : a novel of Hannibal. It was Ok - not excellent, but if you're interested in Hannibal and the Punic wars I'd say it's worth reading.

Go to the original source! It is excellent! : The War with Hannibal by Livy.

I really liked Hannibal by Ernle Bradford.

Hannibal by Ross Leckie is another excellent novelisation of the story. He follows it up by telling the story from the other side in Scipio.

A little while ago I picked up an old novel Hannibal of Carthage by Mary Dolan which I suspect is the same as the one listed on LT Hannibal: Scourge of Imperial Rome (T-151)

I haven't read this yet so can't comment.

Cheers

Hannibal by Harold Lamb is a good read.

Try Hannibal by Ernle Bradford - his account is fact based and stripped of the unspoken agendas of Livy and Polybius. Bradford also took the trouble to trace in person all of Hannibal's routes and this gives his account an added dimension. As one author put it, he has the thoroughness of Polybius but a clear, limped style - "Livy without the moralising".

>7 appaloosaman:

The "Touchstone" feature is nice, but dangerous. The link to "Hannibal" in your post took me to a page on Hannibal the Cannibal (i.e., Hannibal Lector), but since you gave Ernie Bradford as the author, all was not lost and I eventually found the right Hannibal.

It sounds like a very interesting book, cleared of Livy's "moralising." I think I'll pick up a copy, thanks to you.

Thanks for that advice - I didn't think to check but have now amended my touchstone for Ernle Bradford's Hannibal.

I believe that you will really enjoy Hannibal by Theodore Ayrault Dodge. This gives a thorough account of his family history, miltary battles, strategies, interactions with Rome, etc. Definitely has a big emphasis on military strategies & tactics, but fills in enough other details to give a reasonably good character sketch.

I'm reading Theodore Ayrault Dodge's Hannibal now and I can also give it a thumbs-up. He gives a very meaty dissertation on how Hannibal came to his place in history: not just the details of Hannibal's campaign itself, but also how the tactics and strategies of Rome, Greece, and Carthage developed and the history that precedes Hannibal. It's also a pleasure just to read Dodge's nineteeth-century style of writing.

On the other hand, I was disappointed with Pride of Carthage. The military details struck me as too superficial to do justice to the story of Hannibal (who would read about Hannibal without wanting all the military details?), and the historical fiction just felt too suspect to me. I would stick to the histories themselves instead if you want the straight dope.

Incidentally, iTunes has a free series of podcasts by Patrick Hunt of Stanford about Hannibal. Hunt's area of interest is alpine archaeology and its application to finding Hannibal's route through the Alps, but he goes through the whole background and history of Hannibal over the course of the class. It's a long listen to get through the series (perhaps twenty hours or so), and some of it is just classroom/professorial fluff, but it's definitely worth a listen if you're looking for another source. You can even hear about the British expedition to take an elephant over the Alps in the 1950's....

No one has mentioned John Maddox Roberts' Hannibal's children yet, which is an alternate history about Hannibal's defeat of Rome. Anyone have an opinion on it?

I am glad that you are also enjoying Dodge's Hannibal. I have three T.A.D. books now - Alexander, Hannibal and Caesar, and I enjoy the writing just as much as I enjoy the histories.

If you really want to get into Hannibal's story, take a deep breath and plunge into B.H. Liddel Hart's Scipio Africanus: Greater than Napolean. Here you will get Zema from the Roman perspective, as well as some background (personal & military) on the man who eventually triumphed over Hannibal. The writing is clear and concise, but of course Hart lacks Dodge's eloquence.

By the way, there is reportedly a Hannibal movie in the works, with Vin Diesel in the leading role. It will be interesting to see how that pans out...supposed to be released in 2009.

I just picked up the Leonard Cottrell biography: Hannibal: Enemy of Rome at a used bookstore. We'll see how it reads. There's some interesting reviews of it on Amazon.

Definitely go with Polybius histories, however just be careful because his historical methodology causes a lot of issues. In that his methodology is motivated by the assignment of causes (which are human thoughts and feelings motivating the action) and his causes are usually inferred from the events and should be closely scrutinized.

Livy War with Hannibal is a good yarn, despite it being very much entrenched in the Roman tradition.

Unfortunately there aren't any surviving accounts from antiquity which aren't marred by pro-Roman views regarding Hannibal. Polybius's treatment is the best.

Stevia

Hi touremike et al,
you've got some good suggestions here. For a few more check my llibrary under the PUNIC War tag:
http://www.librarything.com/catalog.php?tag=Punic+Wars

Livy War with Hannibal- amazing. I just finished reading it for the second time today. I can't get enough Livy.

Hi Tourdemike,

I just started the Punica of Silius Italicus, an Latin epic poem about the 2nd Punic War written in the 1st Century CE. In the forward the translator pretty much admits that it's a bad poem, but so far it's of the "good bad" variety.

Hannibal, who is so far the main character, is portrayed as a hollering maniac. Plus the Punic War is portrayed as if you were reading the Illiad, with individual leaders having personal combats, gods intervening in battles, etc. For those used to Livy and Polybius, it's a weird read.