Scipio Africanus: Rome's Greatest General Book

3.5 stars.

I think there's a lot of interesting stuff here. Definitely Gabriel expects that you know the story, probably you've read the account by Livy and perhaps even Polybius, because he spends more time analyzing what has been said, what we think we know, vs. telling the story of Sciopio.

Because of this, while things are chronological, Gabriel doesn't mind moving backward or forward while trying to guess what logically happened and why.

An interesting exercise, by someone who obviously knows a lot about the subject. His control of the information is fluid and concise and it admits what we so often do not admit in history...we do not really know much about what happened. Just scattered accounts from the victors and almost nothing from the losers.

However, because this is a logical exercise, sometimes Gabriel makes judgments about the actions of Scipio or Hannibal which I don't think are well-founded. Just because *he* can't think of a reason why Scipio should do XYZ doesn't mean it was a mistake. I also felt like he imagined the players as knowing far more than they did. Even if you're a strategic genius, hey, it's the ancient world and you're on the ground with limited spies and information and thousands of ways the war could go. Because we know something (hindsight) doesn't mean that they did, even if we find it plausible that they did.

So...interesting. Fairly easy to read for a history. Nice logistical viewpoint. Doesn't overwhelm you with a Hannibal obsession when they're really meant to be talking about the Romans.