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Nameless city in Africa taken by Scipio
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Steven,
Interesting you saying that you love Appian for being a code-breaker, I think Appian is the key too to understanding the Zama campaign as a whole. I suspect he simply added all known sources together (those before Polybius and Polybius` own version of events) and came up with his extended Zama campaign. I have looked for a while at the way that the main ancient historians (Polybius, Livy, Appian, and Dio) cover the events leading upto the battle and afterwards too. It just seems to me that Appian has added the earlier history (or rather an amalgam of histories; the largely lost sources of Pictor, Alimentus, Quadrigarius and Coelius perhaps) and simply added these to Polybius from the point that Appian tells us that negotiations between Hannibal and Scipio led to an agreement over Octavius` captured supply ships. That supply ships episode may have been used by Polybius to excuse the resumption of war eariler by Rome and Scipio in Africa, but this time, Appian says a second round of hostilities in late 202 is due to political pressure from the Carthaginian people. This is where the two versions of the history are joined and Polybius takes over.
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RE: Nameless city in Africa taken by Scipio - by Michael Collins - 03-24-2019, 09:17 AM

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