This chapter begins with the families of Hannibal and Scipio. Hannibal’s mother is unknown; the name of Scipio’s abnormally pious mother, Pomponia, is preserved only in a Latin epic poem by Silius Italicus (first century CE). The older male relatives of both Hannibal and Scipio were distinguished soldiers. Hannibal married an Iberian woman; Scipio, a member of the Cornelian gens (group of families), married the daughter of another Roman aristocrat, from the Aemilian gens. Carthaginian and Roman naming habits are explained. Hannibal’s surname Barca is a family name, not an ‘ethnic’ – indicator of local origin – from the Greek city Barce. (A contrary argument is rejected in Appendix 2.1.) The childhood and youth of Hannibal and Scipio are discussed, including Hannibal’s famous oath in Iberia never to be friendly to the Romans, the events of the 230s and 220s are narrated, and pre−220 Roman and Carthaginian history and society are analysed.

In his obituary of Silius Italicus (Ep. 3.7), Pliny uses a series of apposite intertextual allusions drawn from a variety of sources (especially from Seneca’s Dialogi and Epistles, Cicero’s Epistulae ad Familiares and Hesiod) which help him denigrate Silius’ posthumous reputation. Pliny evokes several titles of Senecan works and thus virtually creates an epistolary library with a section containing Stoic best sellers. In this letter, Pliny absorbs Seneca’s Stoicism, prompts his readers to evaluate Silius’ character through the lens of Stoic discourses and to notice an inconsistency between Silius’ Stoic death and his un-Stoic way of life, while all the while associating the epic poet with Epicureanism. He has good reasons to undermine Silius’ reputation, since the latter was Pliny’s rival for the title of Cicero’s heir. However, at the same time Pliny differentiates himself from Seneca by rejecting some of his central ideas, as e.g. his idea that human life is not short. The negative insinuations against Silius are further accentuated by intratextual links with other letters addressed to Caninius Rufus.

The word ‘hero’ in ancient terminology does not refer to the ’hero’ of a poem or play, and ancient epics do not require a central hero to unify the action. This understanding of the role of the leading figures in epic is still current for John Milton in Paradise Lost.

Chapter 2 is a detailed examination of three scenes that target the most brutal form of epic mistreatment: decapitation and further abuses aimed at the severed head. The first section analyses the death and abuse of Pompey in Lucan’s BC 8. It turns next to abuses in the second half of Statius’ Thebaid: first Tydeus’ cannibalizing of Melanippus’ head in book 8, and second the Thebans’ abuse of Tydeus’ own corpse in book 9. The last section treats the decapitation of the Carthaginian general’s ally Asbyte by Theron in Silius’ Punica 2, and Hannibal’s subsequent abuse of Theron’s corpse in retaliation for Theron’s slaying of Asbyte. These scenes are all built explicitly upon model scenes in the Iliad and Aeneid which the later epicists have infused with post mortem abuse and grotesquery either ignored or only insinuated in the earlier poems. Through consideration of the ways in which Lucan, Statius, and Silius expand upon their models, this chapter offers a vivid glimpse into the evolution of the motif of corpse mistreatment from the ‘classic’ texts of Homer and Virgil, who had sought (in unique ways) to set a limit on the level of violence congruent with the world of epic.

Chapter 6 investigates funeral rites in Silius’ Punica with special focus on the figure of Hannibal. The chapter’s interest concerns the Carthaginian leader’s perversions of Roman funeral practice when he conducts rites over the corpses of three slain Roman generals (L. Aemilius Paulus, T. Sempronius Gracchus, and M. Claudius Marcellus). This analysis sets the stage for an examination of Hannibal’s quasi-funeral rites that close the poem in book 17, mimicking and masking the triumphal parade for Scipio Africanus that simultaneously doubles as a funeral parade. The chapter closes by considering the role of the civil wars following the death of Nero in 68 CE, in particular importance for Silius of the burning of the Capitol and the Temple of Jupiter Capitolinus.