Episode 19. Scipio Africanus: The Turn of the War

Sources and Historiography

The sources for this period are substantially the same as for the earlier war: Polybius for military analysis and Livy for narrative texture. For the Spanish campaigns, Polybius Books 10 and 11 are essential. For Zama, Polybius Book 15 and Livy Book 30 are the main accounts, and they substantially agree on the broad outlines. The Hannibal-Scipio meeting before Zama is in both, as is the post-battle meeting in Ephesus, though scholars debate the authenticity of both encounters.

The Scipionic legend, the tradition of divine guidance and prophetic dreams, is handled very differently by the two sources. Polybius dismisses it as deliberate image-making by a man who understood the Roman audience. Livy presents it more sympathetically, or at least more credulously. The modern scholarly consensus, represented most fully by Brian Caven in Hannibal: Enemy of Rome and by Adrian Goldsworthy, tends toward something close to Polybius: Scipio understood Roman religious culture and worked with it rather than against it. Whether he believed it himself is not recoverable.

H. H. Scullard's Scipio Africanus: Soldier and Politician, published in 1970 and still useful, is the most comprehensive scholarly biography in English. Richard Miles's Carthage Must Be Destroyed provides excellent context for the Carthaginian side of the war's final stages. Adrian Goldsworthy's The Fall of Carthage covers Zama clearly and well, as does John Lazenby's Hannibal's War for the Metaurus and the Italian stalemate.

The meeting of Hannibal and Scipio at some location in the eastern Mediterranean during their shared exile is attested in Livy, Appian, and other sources, and is generally accepted as historical. The specific exchange about the greatest generals is in Livy and has the same status as most ancient anecdotes: probably based on something real, probably improved in the telling.

Works CitedPrimary Sources

• Livy. Ab Urbe Condita, Books 27–30. Metaurus through the peace treaty.
• Polybius. Histories, Books 10, 11, and 15. The Spanish campaigns and Zama.

Secondary Sources

• Caven, Brian. Hannibal: Enemy of Rome. 1980. Strong on the Carthaginian strategic perspective.
• Goldsworthy, Adrian. The Fall of Carthage. 2000. The best single-volume military narrative; covers Zama clearly and well.
• Lancel, Serge. Hannibal. 1998. The definitive French scholarly biography, clear on the Zama campaign.
• Lazenby, John. Hannibal’s War. 1978. The Metaurus and the Italian stalemate covered in detail and with analytical clarity.
• Miles, Richard. Carthage Must Be Destroyed. 2010. Excellent context for the Carthaginian side of the war’s final stages.
• Scullard, H. H. Scipio Africanus: Soldier and Politician. 1970. Still the most comprehensive scholarly biography in English.

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