The title of this book, a biography of the Carthaginian general Hannibal, reflects recent attempts to conceptualise the central and western Mediterranean after the death of Alexander the Great as part of the ‘Hellenistic’ world (e.g. Prag and Quinn's The Hellenistic West [2013]). M.’s project also contributes to the booming biographical industry that has produced modern portraits of the Hellenistic ‘great men’ with whom M. would align her subject. Indeed, in addition to the usual aspirations of a biography, M. presents an interpretation of Hannibal's career as a product of various influences that are animated in his background, and particular stress is laid on locating him within a Hellenistic framework of rulership and generalship. At the end of the book M. also touches on the vagaries of Hannibal's afterlife and legacy, an area in which one certainly can claim for Hannibal some parity with the Hellenistic rulers and Alexander in particular.
The introduction begins by addressing some of the larger concerns on which scholarly study of Hannibal is contingent and discussing filters through which modern interpreters engage with him: the impact of his career, his perception (and construction) by the Romans as their ‘greatest enemy’, his enduring legacy in ancient and modern cultures, the nature of the sources for him, his Carthaginian background and – crucially – his ‘Hellenistic’ background. These concerns prefigure some the major chapter topics of the book, particularly the issue of backgrounds, which is treated in Chapters 1–2. It is worth dwelling on these two chapters in detail before turning rather more summatively to the biography proper (Chapters 3–12) and then in turn to the epilogue treating Hannibal's reception.
Chapter 1, ‘Hannibal and Carthage’, synthesises what is known about Carthage prior to Hannibal's lifetime, and it provides a stimulating and evocative picture of the dead city. M. discusses Carthage's foundation stories, its continued links with its mother-city Tyre, its urban and rural topography, its economic and agricultural conditions and various aspects of its political, cultural and religious life. The purpose here is to provide context for understanding the figure of Hannibal (not yet a main subject of discussion in the book), and it usefully offers a (potential) remedy for the Roman image of Hannibal which (as M. has already noted in the introduction) has become dominant in received traditions.
Chapter 2, ‘The Great Man in the Hellenistic World: from Alexander to Hamilcar’, is essentially a survey of Carthage's history in the late fourth and third centuries in a contextual view of wider developments across the Hellenistic Mediterranean, with special emphasis placed on points of contact between Carthage and what M. calls leaders of a ‘Hellenistic mould’ (Agathocles of Syracuse, Pyrrhus of Epirus and the Spartan Xanthippus). Key innovations of the Hellenistic world and their effects at Carthage are explored, and Carthaginian naval power in particular is neatly (and aptly) contextualised in a framework of Hellenistic military innovation. The chapter's overview of third-century Carthaginian history in particular, especially of the First Punic War, is excellent, and it is in this discussion that the chapter's principal value lies. M. makes little attempt, yet, to point explicitly and concretely to how formative this Hellenistic background was for Hannibal's career or to how significant this should be for modern interpreters. However, the usual biographical reflex of ‘might have’ is used in the attempt to stress the case for Hellenistic influence: for instance, the suggestion (p. 40) that Hannibal's father Hamilcar might have fought with Xanthippus against invading Roman forces in the First Punic War – the endnote corresponding to this suggestion opens with: ‘We have no idea whether he did or didn't’ (before a case of probability, given Hamilcar's age, is constructed). Making the case for Hellenistic influence on third-century Carthage, and on the Barcids in particular, surely does not require such direct points of contact; and one wonders whether such speculations rather simplify, and undermine, the case for situating Carthage as part of a Hellenistic Mediterranean system.
The remaining chapters (3–12) cover what might be called Hannibal's biography proper, beginning with his relationship with his father Hamilcar and ending with his exile after Zama and his eventual death in 183/2 b.c. These chapters make for an engaging and well-written read, and the scholarship is generally good throughout. Worth singling out as exceptional (and most interesting for this reviewer) are the areas in which M. discusses Hannibal's self-construction in relation to the archetype of Heracles’ exploits – or, as M. perceptively suggests, to the god Melqart, Heracles’ Tyrian analogue. Although drawing heavily on earlier work here, M. adds greatly to our understanding of this imitatio Herculis. One wonders, even, if this is not another area in which Hannibal can be imagined as acting according to a Hellenistic model, given Heracles’ currency among Alexander and the major Hellenistic dynasties. Overall, these chapters do much to argue for Hannibal's extraordinary generalship, and particularly for his resilience as an independent military operator. Chapter 12's suggestion that Hannibal effectively became a rallying point for opposition to Rome nicely concludes the stature achieved by him over his career, and his sojourn in the Hellenistic east, among rulers such as Antiochus III who were engaged in their own rivalry with Rome, suggests some interesting dynamics for considering Hannibal's own ‘Hellenistic’ status.
The epilogue, ‘Hannibal's Afterlife’, emphasises the dynamism, malleability and in some cases paradoxical nature of Hannibal's model after his death. Indeed, M.’s exposure of the complexity of Hannibal's reception is elegant and well done, and shows that a more extended treatment of this topic would make an interesting monograph in its own right. One wonders, however, if more could have been made of the interplay between the ancient sources cited by M. that participate in Hannibal's posthumous construction. For instance, it seems evident that the vignette in Lucian's Dialogues of the Dead – Minos’ judgement of ‘who is best’ among Alexander, Hannibal and Scipio Africanus – is itself parodic of the (probably fictionalised) discussion of the same issue between Hannibal and Scipio (as recorded by Livy and Appian). In these texts, moreover, what seems at issue is not simply ‘who is the best general’, but also (and connectedly) ‘who is most like Alexander’, itself suggesting that Hannibal's reception also involved interpreting his career according to a Hellenistic model. This in turn begs the question: how much does M.’s attempt to push Hannibal into a Hellenistic mould reflect, and utilise, the attempts of our ancient sources to do the same? And does this undermine or actually further substantiate the case for Hellenistic influence? This is one of the questions that the book as a whole could have done better to address: was Hannibal really a Hellenistic actor, like his contemporaries in the east, or is this a model that we are imposing on him?
At any rate, in the epilogue M. captures the enduring legacy of Hannibal even in a modern context, in the final pages interestingly juxtaposing Colonel Gaddafi, Hannibal Lecter and Al Capone: all engaged in some way with the Hannibalic legacy, and the last described by Arthur Miller as ‘the greatest Carthaginian of them all’. M. demonstrates here that the ambivalence of Hannibal's model, and the questions of identity provoked by it, have persisted from ancient to modern times, alongside the enduring fascination with his exploits; M.’s own study is itself a further testimony to and product of this. Precisely how far Hannibal's life should be seen as ‘Hellenistic’ will, I suspect, remain a contested point: the case has not been definitively proven, and there are a number of important questions that have not been answered. Notwithstanding this, however, M.’s biography is an excellent achievement, arguably the best of its kind to date: it is eminently readable, well-rooted in sources and scholarship and provides a serious new study of the Carthaginian that will be of interest and value to general and advanced readers alike.
