‘A Plague from Distant People’. Geography and Ideology of Conflict in Livy’s Third Decade

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The paper investigates Livy’s use of geographic and spatial references in his narrative of the Second Punic War, underlining the important role played by the ideal opposition between centre and periphery. Livy represents the Hannibalic War as an ebb-and-flow movement, developed over the whole decade: books 21-25 stage the attack launched by the world’s periphery towards its centre, while the Romans’ counterattack in books 26-30 is described as a projection of Rome’s power outside the borders of Italy.