صورة حنبعل في المصادر القديمة بين الإنصاف و الإجحاف

الملخص EN

The personality of the Carthaginian leader Hannibal al-Barqi is one of the greatest figures in ancient history, present and the most influential in the course of events, not only because he is a seasoned military leader who astonished with his plans, military genius and war victories the great roman leaders and inflicted on them the greatest defeats that they had never known before.

their home, and threatened their capital in a way that no one had done before.

but also, for the impact he had on his contemporaries, enemies and friends, which echoed in their writings.

despite the historical weight of this unique personality, it seems that it was not reflected in the necessary way on the writings of contemporaries who may not have fulfilled the position he deserves among his peers of leaders and politicians, because most of those who wrote about him, especially historians among them, did not adhere to objectivity and impartiality in dealing with historical events which he was a party to, and we mean the second Punic war.

therefore, the writings of most of them, especially the romans, prevailed over the subjectivism, which was motivated by national motives, political affiliations, and interests at the expense of historical facts.

and if we take into account the absence of Carthaginian writings in this regard, we find that the history of Hannibal was written by his enemies who wrote about him in line with their purposes and whims.

those who were more moderate and were more inquisitive about abstract facts were not satisfied with the available documents for an objective historical writing due to the oneness of the sources they took from them.

therefore, it was necessary to examine the material of the ancient Greek and roman sources, determine the directions of their authors, and compare their opinions about Hannibal and his accomplishments, to determine which writers were fair to the man and which were unfair to him through their books.