Memoria Hannibalis: constructing memories of Punic War violence from the second century BCE through the fifth century CE

Title from first page of PDF file (viewed November 29, 2010)Includes bibliographical references (p. 125-129)While military historians such as Theodore Ayrault Dodge and Ernle Dusgate Shelby study the tactics and strategies of the Second Punic War, and while Toynbee studied the effects of Hannibal on Roman politics after the war and Alain Gowing studied Roman cultural memory of the Republic during the early principate, no study has explored the effects of the Second Punic War on Roman cultural memory. This thesis uses Paul Ricoeur's narrative theory to investigate how Roman authors from the mid-second century BCE to the early fifth century CE fashioned their descriptions of Hannibalic violence and Rome's experience of the Second Punic War in order to construct a cultural memory that addresses contemporary concerns. During the mid-second century BCE, in the wake of the Second Punic War, the writings of Polybius (210 - 126 BCE) reveal a sense of superiority among the Romans since they had recovered from the Hannibalic invasion and become masters of the Mediterranean. By the first century to early second century CE, Livy's (59 BCE - 16 CE), Plutarch's (46 - 126 CE), and Appian's (90 - 160 CE) narratives, written in the Pax Romana when the Roman Empire reached its greatest extent (ca. 120 CE), escalate this sentiment of superiority about themselves during an era of vast imperial expansion. Indeed, the Romans during this time felt that since they defeated Hannibal, they deserved to rule over others and no one could dare dream of harming the empire. By the late second century CE, in an era of imperial instability and civil war, Dio Cassius (155 - 235 CE) revealed that the Romans of this time remembered the Second Punic War as a time when the Romans had an external enemy to fight and not each other. By the late fourth century CE, Ammianus Marcellinus (330 CE - 408 CE) revealed that barbarian and Parthian incursions made the Romans of this era feel that their era was worse than during the Second Punic War. Moreover, the "barbarians" who were fighting for the Romans as auxiliary soldiers also used the memory of the Second Punic War as a way to become Roman. When the focus of this thesis shifts to the early fifth century CE, rebellions and further incursions into Roman territory by the barbarians made the Romans of this era feel that the Roman experience during the Second Punic War was for naught and that their empire was falling apart. When Stilicho defeated these enemies threatening Rome in 402 CE, the Roman of this time hailed him as a new Scipio, Fabius, and Marcellus. Thus, the Romans people supplanted the importance of the memory of the Second Punic War in an era of survival and toil. Despite Stilicho's seemingly single-handed victories over the enemies of the western empire, ordinary people were suffering from invasions, and the memory of the Second Punic War ceased to be an important aspect of Roman identity. Paul Ricoeur's narrative theory has allowed this thesis to study how each authors' cultural milieu influenced how they composed their narratives of the Second Punic War. These narratives are then a reflection of each author's contemporary time