ἱστορίαι Historiai
Figure

Hannibal

also answers to Hannibal Barca — catalog apparatus · kind: person
1098 mentions across 524 episodes of the record — counted by the house’s first pass receipt — the figure shelf, first pass receipt — the curator’s pass

The regnal line — the editor’s table of years, never the record’s voice

The editor’s table of years hangs in this house, but this life is not yet pinned to it. Until it is, the when is a label, not a shelf.

··
The life on our shelf — told from the witnesses; every quotation is the record’s own · not yet read back at the desk

Hannibal carried a Carthaginian army over the Alps, destroyed a Roman army at Cannae, and kept the war on Italian soil for sixteen years. The record of him is kept entirely by the other side, and it begins with a ledger. Polybius, the Greek analyst of Rome's rise (2nd century BCE), an Achaean detainee writing in Rome itself (Evelyn S. Shuckburgh's 1889 translation), counts Cannae like a clerk: of six thousand horse, seventy escaped, while of the infantry that stood in the line "all the rest died nobly, to the number of seventy thousand". His sharpest portrait is indirect — when the senate refused to ransom the eight thousand prisoners he took, Hannibal was less gladdened by the victory than staggered by the temper of the men he had beaten.

Livy (c. 27 BCE–17 CE; of his 142 Latin books only 1–10 and 21–45 are extant; Rev. Canon Roberts's 1912 translation) holds Rome's own vantage, and it opens in admiration: as the armies first faced one another near the Ticinus, he grants that Hannibal "had not only dared to attempt but had actually accomplished the passage of the Alps". Sixteen years on, his Romans rehearse the life-shape with dread — reared amid arms in his father's headquarters, a soldier in boyhood, a commander scarcely out of his teens — and tell each other that the seat of danger has changed, not the danger.

Plutarch, writing under Trajan (c. 100 CE; Bernadotte Perrin's 1914–1926 translation), shelves him only inside the lives of the men sent against him — Fabius Maximus, Marcellus, Titus Flamininus — where he is measured enemy by enemy until he stands "worn out with fighting Marcellus, and afraid of Fabius when not fighting".

Where the shelves cross, the record argues with itself. The talk at Ephesus — Hannibal ranking Alexander first, Pyrrhus second, himself third, Scipio smiling at the answer — reaches Livy through a named chain, "Claudius, following Acilius who wrote in Greek", and returns reworded in Plutarch's Titus Flamininus. The same life serves the death in variants: at Prusias' court in Bithynia, near a village called Libyssa, Titus deaf to the king's intercessions, his seven underground exits met by the king's guards, the old man ended it — by a cloak twisted at the throat, some say, or bull's blood after the manner of Themistocles; "but Livy says that he had poison". When the story reached the senate, many found Titus "odious, officious, and cruel"; and some there were, Plutarch adds, who held a living Hannibal a fire that wanted fanning. Every witness on this shelf wrote from the side that fought him — what would the file hold if the defeated had kept their own?

Sources: Plb. 3.117 · Plb. 6.58 · Liv. 21.39 · Liv. 30.28 · Liv. 35.14 · Plut. Fabius Maximus 19 · Plut. Marcellus 24 · Plut. Titus Flamininus 20 · Plut. Titus Flamininus 21

cast from the served record · every quoted span verified against it receipt
The witnesses — who says so
Plutarch · the biographer's shelf
Plut. Titus Flamininus 21 named 11 times in this episode — as “Hannibal” Titus Flamininus · Bernadotte Perrin, 1914–1926
Plut. Marcellus 24 named 10 times in this episode — as “Hannibal” Marcellus · Bernadotte Perrin, 1914–1926
Plut. Fabius Maximus 7 named 6 times in this episode — as “Hannibal” Fabius Maximus · Bernadotte Perrin, 1914–1926
Plut. Fabius Maximus 19 named 6 times in this episode — as “Hannibal” Fabius Maximus · Bernadotte Perrin, 1914–1926
Plut. Titus Flamininus 20 named 6 times in this episode — as “Hannibal” Titus Flamininus · Bernadotte Perrin, 1914–1926
Livy · the shelf
Liv. 35.42 named 9 times in this episode — as “Hannibal” The History of Rome · Rev. Canon Roberts, 1912
Liv. 23.7 named 8 times in this episode — as “Hannibal” The History of Rome · Rev. Canon Roberts, 1912
Liv. 35.14 named 8 times in this episode — as “Hannibal” The History of Rome · Rev. Canon Roberts, 1912
Liv. 23.9 named 7 times in this episode — as “Hannibal” The History of Rome · Rev. Canon Roberts, 1912
Liv. 28.42 named 7 times in this episode — as “Hannibal” The History of Rome · Rev. Canon Roberts, 1912
Liv. 21.39 named 6 times in this episode — as “Hannibal” The History of Rome · Rev. Canon Roberts, 1912
Polybius · the shelf
Plb. 6.58 named 7 times in this episode — as “Hannibal” The Histories · Evelyn S. Shuckburgh, 1889

…and 512 more episodes attest — counted by the house’s first pass.

Deeds this life stands in — standing in the same episodes; counted by the house’s first pass
siege of Carthage — a candidate entry siege of Capua — a candidate entry battle of Cannae — 54 episodes attest fall of Capua — a candidate entry destruction of Carthage — 40 episodes attest fall of Saguntum — a candidate entry siege of Saguntum — a candidate entry siege of Syracuse — a candidate entry
Doors to the sister houses
logoi — the words

No door is cut to the word-house from this room yet. Doors are cut from the record itself, never guessed; logoi.health keeps the words meanwhile.

mythoi — the stories

No door is cut to the story-house from this room yet. mythoi.health keeps the stories meanwhile.

The record here: The Histories, Herodotus — Godley, 1920–25 · Parallel Lives, Plutarch — Perrin, 1914–26 · 166 works · 12,119 episodes served

lives · deeds · times · the shelf