Hannibal's Children

Hannibal's Children

First edition cover
Author John Maddox Roberts
Cover artist Scott Grimando
Country United States
Language English
Genre Alternate history, Novel
Publisher Ace Books
Publication date
 May 2002
Media type Print (Hardback & Paperback)
Pages 368 p. (first edition, hardback) & 359 p. (paperback edition)
ISBN ISBN 0-441-00933-6 (first edition, hardback) & ISBN 0-441-01038-5 (paperback edition)
OCLC 48579406
813/.54 21
LC Class PS3568.O23874 H36 2002
Followed by The Seven Hills

Hannibal's Children is the 2002 alternate history novel by John Maddox Roberts.

Blurb

215 B.C. - The Third Punic War has left Rome defeated and in ruins. Under the leadership of the legendary Hannibal, the troops of Carthage are prepared to slaughter their enemies. But Hannibal gives them a choice: exile or extermination. And so, the Romans retreat. Hannibal thinks he has brought peace with honor. But he has made a grave miscalculation.

100 B.C. - For 115 years, the Romans have channeled the rage of defeat into a ferocious war machine. From the rich Carthaginian colonies in Egypt, to the walled shores or Carthage itself, they have one eye on revenge. In the ultimate battle for supremacy, Rome will never be found second best...

Plot summary

The novel opens at the alternate close of the Second Punic War. Hannibal offers terms to the Romans: abandon your city and move north of the Alps, or be destroyed. The Romans, under the dictator Q. Fabius Maximus, accept the offer and withdraw into Germania, vowing to return. The Carthaginians declare victory and go home.

One chapter and several generations later, the Romans have long since reestablished their republic. These Romans, largely out of need, have adopted a practice of Cultural Romanization more pronounced than the historical Romans did: large numbers of Germans have been adopted into the Roman society, forming a large proportion of both the legions and the Senate. A series of auspicious omens prompt the Senate to send a delegation south into Latium. The expedition leaders are subtly but immediately at cross purposes: the commander, Marcus Scipio, a scion of the ancient patrician Cornelii Scipiones family, is wholly motivated by a desire to reestablish the Republic in the Mediterranean basin. His deputy, Titus Norbanus, one of the newer, Germanic Romans, seeks personal glory, at least in part to ensure that the Germans (particularly his own family) remain as powerful within the expanded Republic as they do under the current scheme.

It quickly becomes clear to the Romans that generations of constant warfare in Germania have strengthened them, whereas the Carthaginians have grown soft in the absence of real opposition. The Republic quickly begins playing the Carthaginians off against the Egyptians, the only other serious power in the Mediterranean, reclaiming Latium in the process. At the close of the novel, the Egyptian army led by Scipio and armed with fearsome weapons from the School of Archimedes from the Library of Alexandria, outlasts the Carthaginian force, which hurriedly retreats upon hearing the news of the Roman reconquest of Italy. The four Roman legions led by Norbanus, technically Carthaginian auxiliaries, decide to ignore Scipio's offer to join him in Alexandria, and chart their own path to Rome.

Characters in Hannibal's Children

Marcus Scipio
Leader of Roman Expedition to Carthage and Egypt
Titus Norbanus
Second in command of Roman Expedition
Aulus Flaccus
Senator and diplomat, assistant and friend to Marcus Scipio
Selene II
Queen and Regent of Egypt
Hamilcar II
Shofet of Carthage
Princess Zarabel
Sister of Hamilcar, leader of the Cult of Tanit

Major themes

As with Roberts's other series, Hannibal's Children and its sequel The Seven Hills explore the decline of the Republic in the face of ambition. In the former, the Caesars and in the latter Norbanus aggressively pursue power for its own sake, in the process exposing weaknesses in the Republic.

Release details

See also