And the memory's all that's left for you now

I've started on Livy with Book XXI - the War with Hannibal - and Hannibal and Scipio are facing each other down at Trebbia. It's all very familiar after Goldsworthy and I'll have to try and work out how much he relies on Polybius as well as Livy when I get round to the former.

Livy is like the historical novels I used to read when I was a kid. Big heroic speeches, lots of anacronism (he talks about the outcome and the future quite a lot) and from what I've read so far he seems to be pretty focused on the 'main' characters. You could pretty much use it as the script. What's grabbed me the most is probably the attempt to be even handed. Livy's Hannibal criticises Rome and tells his soldiers why they have to fight - admittedly the Roman reasons are given far more time and justification, and they cast the Carthaginians as treacherous - which is not what you'd expect.

I suppose this is all part of the heroic genre - the building up of a worthy foe to make victory all the sweeter - Hector and Turnus are probably the best examples. But what is strange is that you are left questioning the 'rightness' of Rome, even by a Roman writer. Sagnutum is clearly south of the Ebro - so what was the Roman justification for war? Given their interventions in Sardinia and originally in Sicily itself (the cause of the First Punic War), their moral high ground looks somewhat unstable.

More later