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the importance to Livy of enabling his reader to visualise a scene. 40 There is increasing
recognition that Livy constructed his work consciously and intentionally to promulgate
a vision of the past that addresses his and his readers‟ contemporary needs and interests.
While Jaeger‟s Livy’s Written Rome is not specifically focussed on Hannibal and the
third decad, her discussion on the importance of the physical city to Livy is developed in
chapter three of this thesis in respect of Livy‟s development of a theme of Hannibal
marching on Rome. 41 This theme, according to the argument of this thesis, pervades the
first pentad and has the effect of repeatedly returning the reader‟s attention to the
physical city.
If Livy has suffered in comparison to Polybius in terms of historical analysis, it is
nothing compared to the scathingly dismissive treatment meted out on Silius Italicus,
particularly in early to mid-twentieth century British scholarship on the quality of the
Punica. 42 Indeed, the Punica is not listed in the CAH Introduction 43 on sources for the
Punic Wars, nor is it included in the subsection of non-historical literature! Silius
Italicus is often ignored by modern historians studying Hannibal or the Second Punic
War because the Punica is considered an „unreliable‟ source: „scarcely usable as
history.‟ 44 While this might be true for the actual events of the Second Punic War and,
to some extent, their chronological sequence, the poem is a valuable source of evidence
for first century AD attitudes to Hannibal and the Romans he faced. The same may be
said of the works of other non-historiographical authors and poets who refer to
Hannibal, such as Horace, Seneca, Statius, Juvenal and Martial. 45
Martial‟s positive opinion of Silius Italicus has traditionally been given less credence
than a negative interpretation of a comment by Pliny about the great care Silius took to
write poetry: scribebat carmina maiore cura quam ingenio (Pliny, Ep. 3.7; Martial, Ep.
8.66.2). 46 Attitudes toward Silius began to change during the latter half of the twentieth
century, and, as noted by Pomeroy and Wilson, Pliny may have been applying his own
40
Miles, 1995; Jaeger, 1997; Feldherr, 1998; Moore, 2000, 487; Jaeger, 2000, 232; Rossi, 2004, 359-81.
41
Jaeger, 1997; also review by Keaveney, 1999, 92.
42
E.g. Moore, 1921, 105 „honest dullness;‟ Nicol, 1936; 1999, 293; Campbell, 1936, 57; Butler, 1909,
236: „the longest and worst of the surviving Roman epics,‟ and 244: „Silius rolls on lumbering and
unperturbed.... he has all the faults of Ovid... none of the merits of Vergil.‟
43
Astin, 1951, 10; 1989, 11.
44
Hoyos, 2008, 7.
45
For a few references to Hannibal among these texts: Horace, Odes, 2.12.1; 3.6.34; 4.4.49; 4.8.15;
Epode, 16.8; Statius, Silvae, 4.6.78, 107; 4.3.4; 4.6.75, 85; Martial, 4.14; 9.43; 9.44;13.73. See also Nisbet
and Rudd, 2004.
46
NB. Although not the focus of this thesis, Silius‟ text must have been valued more highly in the past to
ensure its transmission. See McGushin, 1985; Reeve, 1983 for history of the transmission of the Punica.
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