Pride of Carthage

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

For their kindness in reading early portions of this work I would like to thank Laughton and Patricia Johnston, Nick Armstrong, Beth Johnston, Jim Rankin, Gordon Eldrett, Helen Harper, Jamie Johnston, Sorley Johnston, and Jane Stevenson. Everything in these pages had to survive the prior scrutiny of my wife, Gudrun—and this was a good thing. I thank my children for filling the workdays with joyful interruptions. Especially, I am indebted to my son, Sage, for inspiring one of the novel's characters. You will know the one I mean. Thanks to Sloan Harris for continuing to represent. And thanks to all the folks at Doubleday and Anchor for their faith, especially Gerry Howard, Bill Thomas, Steve Rubin, and Alice Van Straalen. Special acknowledgment must go to Deborah Cowell, my first editor and the undeniable reason that this book is in your hands right now. I also appreciate it that the folks at the Birnam Institute in Birnam, Scotland, provided me the luxury of a chair with a view and good coffee. Much of this novel was written in that corner, looking over the gardens.

This book is a work of fiction and should only be read as a novel. It was inspired by real figures and events, but I have taken many liberties to arrange the material into a workable narrative. For those interested in a historian's take, there are many sources to consult, beginning with the ancients themselves: Polybius and Livy. Among the many more recent texts I considered, I wore a few thin and ragged: Lesley and Roy A. Adkins' Handbook to Life in Ancient Rome; Nigel Bagnall's The Punic Wars; Ernle Bradford's Hannibal; Brian Caven's The Punic Wars; Leonard Cottrell's Hannibal: Enemy of Rome; Gregory Daly's Cannae; Theodore Ayrault Dodge's Hannibal; Florence Dupont's Daily Life in Ancient Rome; Peter Berresford Ellis' The Celtic Empire; Gustave Flaubert's Salammbô; Adrian Goldsworthy's Cannae; Victor Hanson's Carnage and Culture; B. H. Liddell Hart's Scipio Africanus; Serge Lancel's Hannibal; J. F. Lazenby's The First Punic War and Hannibal's War: A Military History of the Second Punic War; John Peddie's Hannibal's War; John Prevas' Hannibal Crosses the Alps; Frank M. Snowden's Blacks in Antiquity; John Gibson Warry's Warfare in the Classical World; and Terrence Wise's Armies of the Carthaginian Wars, 265–146 B.C.