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Whether Rome or Carthage should give laws to the nations they would
know the next day before nightfall. For not Africa, they said, or Italy,
but the whole world would be the reward of victory. A reward
matched by the danger for those whom the fortune of battle should not
favour.
Moore, 1955, 485
Where Polybius represents Scipio claiming that the Romans were fighting for world
domination, Livy places it in Hannibal’s harangue to the Carthaginian component in his
army, telling them that they faced either servitude or ruling the world (Livy, 30.33.8-
12). Silius Italicus follows Livy‟s preference for Hannibal to voice the opinion that the
battle was for world domination, and similarly places it toward close of Hannibal‟s
harangue:
Non altera restat
iam Libyae nec Dardaniis pugna altera restat.
certatus nobis hodie dominum accipit orbis.
174
Pun. 17.335-7
„Neither Carthage nor Rome can fight another battle. Today must
decide the struggle between us for mastery of the world.‟
Duff, 1989, 463.
In the Punica the ascendancy 373 of Scipio has been read as the first step toward the
principate and the one-man rule of imperial Rome. Of all the various representations in
the ancient texts over what Rome and Carthage were fighting for at Zama, it is perhaps
the Hadrianic author, Florus, who summarises the outcome in terms that most closely
reflect the historical reality: Africa was the prize of victory, the rest of the world soon
followed: praemiumque victoriae Africa fuit et secutus Africam statim terrarium orbis
(Florus, 1.22.61).
Polybius lauds Hannibal and Zama with proverbs and quotes from Homeric poetry,
closing the episode with the highest praise of Scipio. Zama is the only event given such
treatment in the extant sections of the Histories which reflects Polybius‟ belief in the
pivotal role its outcome played for changing the balance of power across the ancient
Mediterranean world. Polybius‟ first quotation, described by Walbank 374 as a
contaminated mixture of Homer‟s Iliad 2.804; 4.437 and Odyssey 19.175, compares the
373 Fears, 1981, 779: the literary image of Scipio assumes various attributes of Hellenistic kingship.
Ennius celebrated Scipio as invictus and thus associated the victory with the person not Rome as a society.
Marks, 2005, argues for Silius Italicus presenting Scipio as a „good king‟ and virtuous princeps ideal for
Domitian but is not entirely convimcing.
374 Walbank, 1967, 459.