A Carthaginian named Hannibal Barca lived between about 247 and 183 BC, the product of a military father and a mother of completely unknown qualities other than what can be imputed through her son. Before he died, presumably by suicide in Roman/Carthaginian enforced exile, he brought Rome to her knees in a virtually one man crusade started by his father. Rome got off her knees largely because this man—without timely support from his own country, and under probably unparalleled assault by adversities of fate—had exhausted his strength. The unassailable facts of Hannibal’s life are few. He is said to have been handsome, of the Hellenistic prince mode, a great general by the standards of any age, and he could turn this competence toward peaceful arenas when Carthage called him again. Perhaps his deadly enemies, the Romans, gave him the ultimate compliment. The emperor Septimus Severus is said to have erected a large monument to him at Libyssa, the little town near Marmara’s water where the Lady Barca’s oldest boy decided to make his last summation. This historical fiction is dedicated to understanding a citizen of Carthage who came very close to moving his world.
