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Fortune 360 will provide a means for him to retrieve his loss (Hist. 10.32.7; 10.33.1-4).
Polybius could be referring to either man.
Livy presents Hannibal turning the death of Marcellus to a political advantage by
honouring Marcellus‟ body with funerary rites (Livy, 27.28.1-2). 361 It is quite possible
that such representations upholding Hannibal as a man of honour derive from his own
historians and the imagery is adopted in Roman texts. Valerius Maximus places
Hannibal under the heading de humanitate et clementia for his treatments of Paulus and
Gracchus, and for honouring Marcellus with a Punic cloak, golden crown and funeral
ceremony (Val. Max. 5.1. ext. 6). The Punica similarly represents Hannibal honouring
Marcellus‟ body with elaborate rites, said to be worthy of his martial spirit (Pun.
15.387-396). In contrast, the only time the Romans are depicted honouring the body of
an enemy during this period is the public funeral provided for Syphax at about the time
of Scipio‟s triumph (Livy, 30.45.4; Val. Max. 6.2.3).
Invasions of Italy in 207 and 205
There is a strong tradition emphasising the importance of Hasdrubal‟s defeat in 207,
linking it to a belief that the Romans might have lost the war if the outcome had been
different (Horace, Ode, 4.4; Diodorus Siculus, 26.24.2; Appian, Hann. 8.52).
The Augustan poet, Horace, lauds the Claudians through emphasising the
significance of the victory by their ancestor, Claudius Nero, over Hasdrubal at the
Metaurus River:
quid debeas, o Roma, Neronibus,
testis Metaurum flumen et Hasdrubal
devictas et pulcher fugatis
ille dies Latio tenebris.
O Rome, how much you owe the Neronians
Metaurus stream bears witness and Hasdrubal‟s
defeat and that most glorious day which
scattering the darkness that covered Latium.
160
Horace, Ode, 4.4.37-40
Lee, 1998, 167.
360 Walbank, 1967, 244 considers the use of ���� in these passages as little more than a figure of speech.
361 Livy, 27.27.12, comments that there were many versions for Marcellus‟ death; Coelius alone had three
different versions: one from tradition, one from the funeral oration and one from his own research.