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Hannibal: A Hellenistic Life
If history is written by the victors, can we really know Hannibal, whose portrait we see through the eyes of his Roman conquerors?
"Eve MacDonald has produced a real page-turner in this lucid account of Hannibal, the Carthaginian general whose invasion of Italy brought republican Rome almost to her knees. "—Antony Spawforth, author of The Story of Greece and Rome and co-author of The Oxford Classical Dictionary
Hannibal lived a life of incredible feats of daring and survival, massive military engagements, and ultimate defeat. A citizen of Carthage and military commander in Punic Spain, he famously marched his war elephants and huge army over the Alps into Rome’s own heartland to fight the Second Punic War. Yet the Romans were the ultimate victors. They eventually captured and destroyed Carthage, and thus it was they who wrote the legend of a brilliant and worthy enemy whose defeat represented military glory for Rome.
In this groundbreaking biography Eve MacDonald expands the memory of Hannibal beyond his military feats and tactics. She considers him in the wider context of the society and vibrant culture of Carthage which shaped him and his family, employing archaeological findings and documentary sources not only from Rome but also the wider Mediterranean world of the third century B.C. MacDonald also analyzes Hannibal’s legend over the millennia, exploring how statuary, Jacobean tragedy, opera, nineteenth-century fiction, and other depictions illuminate the character of one of the most fascinating military personalities in all of history.
"Eve MacDonald has produced a real page-turner in this lucid account of Hannibal, the Carthaginian general whose invasion of Italy brought republican Rome almost to her knees. "—Antony Spawforth, author of The Story of Greece and Rome and co-author of The Oxford Classical Dictionary
Hannibal lived a life of incredible feats of daring and survival, massive military engagements, and ultimate defeat. A citizen of Carthage and military commander in Punic Spain, he famously marched his war elephants and huge army over the Alps into Rome’s own heartland to fight the Second Punic War. Yet the Romans were the ultimate victors. They eventually captured and destroyed Carthage, and thus it was they who wrote the legend of a brilliant and worthy enemy whose defeat represented military glory for Rome.
In this groundbreaking biography Eve MacDonald expands the memory of Hannibal beyond his military feats and tactics. She considers him in the wider context of the society and vibrant culture of Carthage which shaped him and his family, employing archaeological findings and documentary sources not only from Rome but also the wider Mediterranean world of the third century B.C. MacDonald also analyzes Hannibal’s legend over the millennia, exploring how statuary, Jacobean tragedy, opera, nineteenth-century fiction, and other depictions illuminate the character of one of the most fascinating military personalities in all of history.
332 pages, Hardcover
First published January 13, 2015
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
September 11, 2017
I tend not to write many reviews on here, but I must say that I thoroughly enjoyed this take on the life of perhaps my favorite historical figure of all, Hannibal Barca. Eve MacDonald does a wonderful job of chronicling Hannibal's life and campaigns, and of putting these events in the proper context. This was a Mediterranean world that was still largely dominated by the great Hellenistic successor kingdoms of the east, though these were mostly in a process of decline at the time. MacDonald shows that Hannibal, although undeniably Carthaginian, spent the bulk of his life outside of North Africa and achieved much of his success as a largely independent warlord, much akin to Pyrrhus and others before him. His military prowess and skill as a general epitomized that which was held in such high esteem among the Hellenistic Princes of the age.
One of the best things about this book is that, though it is heavily noted and thus easy to check the sources for any particular point, it does not get bogged down too heavily in scholarly details and is thus easy to follow for non academic readers. It does not go as deep into military details (at least as far as we can know them) as others such as Goldsworthy do, but it still provides good coverage of the the Second Punic War as a whole with the main focus being on Hannibal. In my opinion this is well worth a read.
One of the best things about this book is that, though it is heavily noted and thus easy to check the sources for any particular point, it does not get bogged down too heavily in scholarly details and is thus easy to follow for non academic readers. It does not go as deep into military details (at least as far as we can know them) as others such as Goldsworthy do, but it still provides good coverage of the the Second Punic War as a whole with the main focus being on Hannibal. In my opinion this is well worth a read.
March 24, 2019
2.75 stars rounded up
Hannibal: A Hellenistic Life is a perfectly serviceable biography of Rome's greatest enemy (at least in their eyes) and a useful addendum to any general reader interested in the period. It's chief weakness is that it doesn't provide much of a context for Hannibal's life. A reader needs a solid background in late Republican/Hellenistic history to fully grasp the Carthaginian's impact in Italy.
MacDonald's notes do fill in some of that gap but I would have liked to see more integrated into the text. The notes and bibliography, which are up to date through 2015, are useful resources for further study.
Strictly from a stylistic and professional point of view, the book suffers from an unconscionable number of typos for a university press, and the writing is clunky and often repetitive. Another example of a manuscript needing one more draft before publishing to tighten it up.
Recommended with caveats to general readers interested in Roman/Hellenistic and Carthaginian history.
Hannibal: A Hellenistic Life is a perfectly serviceable biography of Rome's greatest enemy (at least in their eyes) and a useful addendum to any general reader interested in the period. It's chief weakness is that it doesn't provide much of a context for Hannibal's life. A reader needs a solid background in late Republican/Hellenistic history to fully grasp the Carthaginian's impact in Italy.
MacDonald's notes do fill in some of that gap but I would have liked to see more integrated into the text. The notes and bibliography, which are up to date through 2015, are useful resources for further study.
Strictly from a stylistic and professional point of view, the book suffers from an unconscionable number of typos for a university press, and the writing is clunky and often repetitive. Another example of a manuscript needing one more draft before publishing to tighten it up.
Recommended with caveats to general readers interested in Roman/Hellenistic and Carthaginian history.
October 15, 2024
Hannibal is a Roman myth. By this I don’t mean to suggest that the man didn’t exist; one can trace his outline in the enormous physical and psychological trauma he inflicted on his Roman adversaries, the profound wounds he left on their collective consciousness, which they bore for centuries, influencing the whole future course of their development. I mean only to point out that this outline is preserved entirely within a Roman parent horizon; that the myth of Hannibal passed on to us by the likes of Livy and Polybius (who, to be fair, also transmitted a great deal of credible history) is one that, like the Carthaginian empire itself, was absorbed, assimilated, and redeployed for Roman purposes. It is, like the Che Guevara of graphic t-shirts, a symbol of defiance transformed into a product of the dominant culture.
After Rome devoured Carthage and proceeded in short order to become the hegemonic Mediterranean power, the story of Hannibal became almost exclusively one that later generations of Romans told themselves. The urbane, mercantile, cosmopolitan Phoenician colony, once their most formidable rival, became a Roman ghost, while its legendary native son (who in fact never saw Carthage between the ages of nine and forty-five, and died in exile near present-day Istanbul) became a kind of photo negative of Roman triumphalism; his motley but daring and fiercely loyal army—composed of Libyans, Numidians, Iberians, Gauls, Greeks, and, once Hannibal ensconced himself near the southern end of the peninsula, there to remain over tremendous adversity for fifteen years, Italians—an emblem of the latent diversity of peoples and customs that were united by, but perpetually threatened to unravel, the Pax Romana. Hannibal became the quintessential anti-Roman, the perfect antagonist whose very brilliance and tenacity, the very existential threat he posed to the survival of the Roman state, called into being the imperial machinery that his lifelong enemies used to blot out his entire civilization and despoil the Hellenistic kingdoms of the east. In our Roman-curated cultural memory, if not in historical actuality (bearing in mind that the emanations of memory are far more decisive than the facts of history), the totality of Hannibal’s life—his youthful vow of enmity towards Rome; his (literally) Herculean alpine crossing; his liberation campaign in Italy; his fabled encounter with Scipio, his youthful Roman double, at Zama; his lonely senescence as an ill-fitting Seleucid courtier; his cinematic demise—has become antiquity’s great epic of futile bravado.
It is owing to whatever component of human nature enamors us with hopeless endeavors that so many—myself included—continue to find him so compelling.
After Rome devoured Carthage and proceeded in short order to become the hegemonic Mediterranean power, the story of Hannibal became almost exclusively one that later generations of Romans told themselves. The urbane, mercantile, cosmopolitan Phoenician colony, once their most formidable rival, became a Roman ghost, while its legendary native son (who in fact never saw Carthage between the ages of nine and forty-five, and died in exile near present-day Istanbul) became a kind of photo negative of Roman triumphalism; his motley but daring and fiercely loyal army—composed of Libyans, Numidians, Iberians, Gauls, Greeks, and, once Hannibal ensconced himself near the southern end of the peninsula, there to remain over tremendous adversity for fifteen years, Italians—an emblem of the latent diversity of peoples and customs that were united by, but perpetually threatened to unravel, the Pax Romana. Hannibal became the quintessential anti-Roman, the perfect antagonist whose very brilliance and tenacity, the very existential threat he posed to the survival of the Roman state, called into being the imperial machinery that his lifelong enemies used to blot out his entire civilization and despoil the Hellenistic kingdoms of the east. In our Roman-curated cultural memory, if not in historical actuality (bearing in mind that the emanations of memory are far more decisive than the facts of history), the totality of Hannibal’s life—his youthful vow of enmity towards Rome; his (literally) Herculean alpine crossing; his liberation campaign in Italy; his fabled encounter with Scipio, his youthful Roman double, at Zama; his lonely senescence as an ill-fitting Seleucid courtier; his cinematic demise—has become antiquity’s great epic of futile bravado.
It is owing to whatever component of human nature enamors us with hopeless endeavors that so many—myself included—continue to find him so compelling.
November 25, 2018
The author does a reasonably good job writing a biography on an ancient figure with limited historical sources. Like most ancient biography, there is a lot of padding (on the first Punic War, etc) but I found the padding interesting. If you are interested in this time period or Hannibal, I'd recommend picking this book up.
May 9, 2025
Very good book, describes the life of Hannibal brilliantly as well as the surrounding backdrop of the Second Punic War in interesting detail. Puts together the character of Hannibal in a way not seen before in modern literature, with the only forthcoming of this book being with its tone being far too academic at times to remain constantly intriguing.
June 8, 2021
Very well documented and easy to read. Maybe, I suggest bigger letters for the next book!!! Or maybe I need new 🤓!!! Great story, great book!!! Regards. Does this author has a book about Scipio?
December 1, 2024
A captivating study of the face one of the two superpowers of the time. Put him on the Mt. Rushmore of great/crazy generals with Alexander, Napoleon and Genghis Kahn (get shart on Julius Caesar).
September 7, 2018
Eve MacDonald has succeeded in doing the nigh impossible. She has written an engaging, critical biography of Hannibal Barca from the Carthaginian perspective, while at the same time relying on the usual Roman sources that declare Hannibal and the city of Carthage the eternal enemies of Rome. The key to her success is her interdisciplinary approach. MacDonald is an archaeologist at the University of Cardiff who has participated in excavations of ancient Carthage. She is also well versed in the critical analysis of history. Put these two skills together and you get "Hannibal: A Hellenistic Life."
I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in Ancient Mediterranean history. There are many books on Hannibal Barca and his war effort against Rome during the Second Punic War. This book promises to tell Hannibal's story, and it delivers on that promise.
I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in Ancient Mediterranean history. There are many books on Hannibal Barca and his war effort against Rome during the Second Punic War. This book promises to tell Hannibal's story, and it delivers on that promise.
November 25, 2024
This was an excellent book. Eve does an amazing job sifting through the heavily Roman biased sources to give us a perspective glimpse into the life of Hannibal. She also will mention the multiple different stories/timelines when none of the sources agree on certain years or events, while also explaining which source was written closer to the actual time of the event.
She reminds the reader that Rome destroyed all Carthaginian written history after Rome finally conquered and destroyed the city.
Hannibal had the intention to prevent Rome from becoming an empire, but in the end, debates still question if he was the reason why Rome was able to become strong enough to become an empire.
And a question will always remain, since no Carthaginian source survived or anything written by/under direction of Hannibal himself… why did he not siege Rome when he had them at their weakest?
Was it because it was too close to winter?
She reminds the reader that Rome destroyed all Carthaginian written history after Rome finally conquered and destroyed the city.
Hannibal had the intention to prevent Rome from becoming an empire, but in the end, debates still question if he was the reason why Rome was able to become strong enough to become an empire.
And a question will always remain, since no Carthaginian source survived or anything written by/under direction of Hannibal himself… why did he not siege Rome when he had them at their weakest?
Was it because it was too close to winter?
October 3, 2020
Boring. Couldn't even finish it
June 27, 2021
Manages to perfectly balance the telling of a thrilling tale with the acknowledgment of the uncertain accounts of various parts of it. A model for how it should be done.
June 1, 2023
I watched the Wonderium course and am using this book as the placeholder for the course.
I've read Cassius Dio, Livy, Plutarch, and Polybius and most of what we know about Hannibal comes from those authors. This lecture series synthesizes those historians and modernizes their stories to give a fascinating history of one of my most favorite of all characters from history.
North's translation of Amyot's French translation of Plutarch's Parallel Lives actually has a Hannibal ('Annibal') chapter. Of course, Plutarch never wrote such a chapter, but I suspect North (or Amyot) compiled the various stories about Hannibal and made a separate chapter since Hannibal is always so interesting that he deserved his own chapter, but a Roman loving author like Plutarch could not bring himself to give Rome's greatest enemy his own chapter since Hannibal was not Greek or Roman.
Hannibal is on my shortlist of most interesting people who ever lived. I would say without Hannibal there might never have been the Roman Empire, because as Nietzsche would say in order to be great one needs a great enemy. Anyhow, this series coherently ties together what was happening and shows how Hannibal became Rome's greatest enemy .
I love all things Hannibal (who amongst us doesn't?) and clearly rank this series five star.
I've read Cassius Dio, Livy, Plutarch, and Polybius and most of what we know about Hannibal comes from those authors. This lecture series synthesizes those historians and modernizes their stories to give a fascinating history of one of my most favorite of all characters from history.
North's translation of Amyot's French translation of Plutarch's Parallel Lives actually has a Hannibal ('Annibal') chapter. Of course, Plutarch never wrote such a chapter, but I suspect North (or Amyot) compiled the various stories about Hannibal and made a separate chapter since Hannibal is always so interesting that he deserved his own chapter, but a Roman loving author like Plutarch could not bring himself to give Rome's greatest enemy his own chapter since Hannibal was not Greek or Roman.
Hannibal is on my shortlist of most interesting people who ever lived. I would say without Hannibal there might never have been the Roman Empire, because as Nietzsche would say in order to be great one needs a great enemy. Anyhow, this series coherently ties together what was happening and shows how Hannibal became Rome's greatest enemy .
I love all things Hannibal (who amongst us doesn't?) and clearly rank this series five star.
August 21, 2016
An excellent, approachable work illuminating this unusual figure. I especially appreciated the careful use of original sources, and the placement of Hannibal in the greater Mediterranean context of his time. It's nearly impossible to separate the man from the Roman view of him, but this work does a remarkable job of just that.
August 27, 2015
Revisiting hannibal
MacDonald gives a valuable but generally unimaginative account of one of histories most memorable military personalities. Two stars for Hannibal: a hellenistic life.
MacDonald gives a valuable but generally unimaginative account of one of histories most memorable military personalities. Two stars for Hannibal: a hellenistic life.
January 16, 2016
Rich in detail, and very informative biography on the life and times of one of the greatest generals, strategist, and upfront leaders of antiquity. The legend of Hannibal transcends through every era of military warfare to include the common era.
November 10, 2020
Fantastic book on the man who caused Rome so much trouble in the Second Punic War. Written by an academic and with lots of footnotes, but still accessible to an informed general audience.
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews