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assassinated in his turn by a servant avenging the death of Tagus. 134 The story in the
Punica diverges from Livy as the servant is subsequently tortured to death by the angry
Carthaginians. The servant‟s body may be broken but not his spirit, and the scene
descends into farce as he criticises his torturers for slacking at their task because he was
not yet dead despite the variety of extreme acts carried out on his person. He demands to
be crucified like his master (Pun. 1.176-80). 135 Crucifixion, the most demeaning way to
kill someone, is represented here as the more „honourable‟ way to die as far as the
servant is concerned. It is against this sordid background of Carthaginian cruelty and
monstrosity that Hannibal enters the Punica as the new commander of the Carthaginians
in Spain (Pun. 1.182-4). It is quite a contrast to Livy who inserts a sober note about the
Ebro treaty between his death-of-Hasdrubal and arrival-of-Hannibal scenes.
Appian has a slight variation on the same story given in the Punica, writing that a
slave killed Hasdrubal while on a hunting expedition. Again the assassination was in
revenge for Hasdrubal killing the slave‟s master; Hannibal convicted the slave and, by
way of punishment, ordered that the slave be tortured to death (Appian, The Wars in
Spain, 6.8). These variations on the character of Hasdrubal and the circumstances of his
death suggest that illustrating Hannibal‟s rise to power through an exhibition of his
cruelty was more important in many texts than the historical detail of Hannibal‟s
accession.
134 Wilson, 1993, 222 notes that this is the first in a series of revenge killings that feature in the Punica.
135 There are precedents for the exaggerated literary depiction of horrors in Senecan Tagedy and Lucan.
Feeney, 1982, the servant is punished for despising punishment. For Silius Italicus‟ representation of the
Carthaginians, see McGuire, 1997, 24; Hardie, 1993, 60-67.
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