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In this quote Livy echoes Cato‟s famously proverbial delenda est Carthago through
Hannibal‟s announcement to his men shortly before crossing the Alps that their goal is
to wipe out the name of the Romans. It marks the start of a theme that „Hannibal is
marching to Rome‟ which pervades Livy‟s first pentad and culminates in Hannibal‟s
appearance outside the city in 211.
Livy‟s methods of presentation of the theme that Hannibal is marching to Rome are
sufficiently frequent, varied, and carefully situated in his text to be described as forms of
a foreshadowing 207 technique which build up tension and the sense of fear at Rome prior
to Hannibal‟s appearance outside the city in 211. There are threats, discussions, an
aborted attempt and feints. „Rome resisting Hannibal‟s attack‟ in 211 marks both the
literary midpoint of the third decad and the temporal midpoint of the war (if it is
measured between Hannibal‟s siege of Saguntum in 219 and his defeat at Zama in
202). 208
The central importance of book 26 is indicated through its opening scene: the first
sentence begins ordinarily enough in typical annalistic format with the names of the
consuls, but, atypically, they are convening their inaugural Senate meeting during the
Ides of March to discuss the res publica (Livy, 26.1.1). It is one of the most important
senate meetings of the year and lies at the heart of Roman culture; the only other book
in the third decad with a comparable opening scene is the final one, book 30, although
the meeting in that scene is not specifically identified as taking place during the Ides of
March (Livy, 30.1.1).
One effect of the theme „Hannibal marching on Rome‟ is to regularly return the
audience attention to Rome even though the focus of the narrative may be on events far
removed from the city. Given that Livy‟s overall focus is Rome, it is not Hannibal‟s
appearance per se which is the centrepiece to the third decad but „Rome‟ in a communal
sense of the physical city with her inhabitants and her army resisting his attack. The
centrality of the city of Rome to Livy‟s third decad concurs with his title, ab urbe
condita, and with the role of the city in the other extant sections of the text. At the
halfway point in the first decad, for example, Camillus has a substantial oration in which
he summarises the preceding events of the pentad in terms that stress the importance of
207 See use of this term in Kraus & Woodman, 1997, 61; and Luce, 1977: on the architectural structure in
Livy. Mellor, 1999, 59-60: on architectonic patterns in the Hannibalic books.
208 219 – 202 = 17 years. Divide 17 by 2. 219 – 8 = 211. Livy does not, by this reckoning, „stretch the
bounds of history,‟ as suggested by Ahl, Davis, Pomeroy, 1986, 2505.
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