Hannibal: Pride of Carthage Free Ebook

FREEHANNIBAL: PRIDE OF CARTHAGE EBOOK David Anthony Durham | 640 pages | 03 Apr 2006 | Transworld Publishers Ltd | 9780553814910 | English | London, United Kingdom Pride of Carthage - Wikipedia October 25, by Vishy. It is interesting to sometimes ponder on how we choose a book to read. I had an interesting experience on this Hannibal: Pride of Carthage recently. At that time, I thought on what book I would like to read next. I took that book out of the bookshelf. When I read the blurb on the back cover and the comments by different reviewers, I realized that I had to read this book now. So the sequence of events was this. This is the kind of random way I pick a Hannibal: Pride of Carthage for reading. The only reason I can think of is that I remember reading somewhere that Hannibal crossed the Alps on an elephant and went to fight with the Romans and maybe I wanted to explore this more through this novel. It was nice that all the stars got aligned and by some random sequence of events the time to read this book finally arrived. Here is what I think. This novel is a fictional rendering of that war. It starts with the events leading up to the war and why it started, goes into detail into the different battles which were fought and takes us through to the end of the war and a little bit of the aftermath. Most of the story is told from a Carthaginian perspective and so most of the time we sympathize with the Carthaginian point of view. Most of Hannibal: Pride of Carthage important characters in the story are Carthaginian or fight on the Carthaginian side, except for some of the Roman consuls and senators. Though a majority of the story is about the war, one thing I liked about the book is that there are stories of minor characters which are told in reasonable detail. Hannibal: Pride of Carthage is Imco Vaca, a soldier in the Carthaginian army, with whose story the books starts, and there is Aradna the Greek ragpicker who follows the Carthaginian army during its campaign and with whom Imco falls in love with, and with whose story the books ends. There is Masinissa, the Massylii prince and expert horseman and the story of his Hannibal: Pride of Carthage for Sophonisba, the Carthaginian beauty and the sister of Hannibal. There is the story of Tusselo, the Massilyii, who was formerly a slave of a Roman merchant and who now joins the Carthaginian army and wants to fight with Rome so that he can forget his past and free himself of his former life. Then there is Silenus, the Greek scribe, who accompanies Hannibal during his campaign and who knows a lot of history and has a wicked sense of humour. Somewhere at the beginning of the story, we see Mago thinking this :. He had always been disappointed by that aspect of the great tales. All that heroic grandeur resulted in rape and pillage and the utter destruction of a people. Towards the end of the war, we find him thinking this :. The last few weeks, however — with the mask removed — the unacknowledged images bombarded him unhindered. He could not help but recall the faces of orphaned children, the suffering in the eyes of captured women, Hannibal: Pride of Carthage sight of burning houses, the cold glances of people being robbed of grain and homes and indirectly, of their lives. He heard their wailing in some place beyond sound, high to the right and back of his head. Everywhere were signs of the barbarous nature of conflict, ugly to behold. Nowhere was it possible to avoid these things. It Hannibal: Pride of Carthage seemed to him, that such scenes were the full and true face of war. What place had nobility in this? Where was the joy of heroes? It was difficult to not like Mago. Though Hannibal and his campaign and his battles with the Roman army and his crossing the Alps on an elephant J rightly take up a major part of the book, my favourite parts of the book were about the minor characters — how they react to the Hannibal: Pride of Carthage of war, how they try to get on with their lives, the trials and tribulations they face, the dreams and nightmares they have, the brief glimpses of ephemeral happiness that brings joy to their hearts, the helplessness Hannibal: Pride of Carthage which they are swept away by events over which they have no control. When I read these parts, it made me angry and sad. David Antony Durham has clearly done his homework before writing this book. It is awesome and read Hannibal: Pride of Carthage chapters related to Carthage and Hannibal. The unkind might even call it pedestrian. Many of the scenes described in the book are violent scenes of battle. But in between all this plainness and mayhem, Durham manages to infuse the book with beautiful scenes. One of my favourites was this scene which describes a journey that Tusselo undertakes. Nor was nature disposed to aid him. The sun burned daylong in unclouded skies. Shade was thin and hard to come by and the landscape filled with hulking shapes in the distance. Once he traveled a barren stretch of land cut by dry rivers, some of enormous girth that might have funnelled torrents but now lay parched beneath the summer sun. Later, he traversed a wide, shallow sea, the liquid so potent that it crystallized on his feet and coated them with a crust. Round him little thrived save for thin, delicately pink birds, creatures that stood on one leg and then the other and gestured with their curved beaks as if engaged in some courtly dance. On occasion his passage disturbed them, and the birds rose in great waves, thousands upon thousands of them, like giant sheets whipped by the breeze and lifted into the air. He never forgot the sight of them. Nor of the opal sea in the morning. Nor of a stretch of white beach as smooth as polished marble. Nor the white-winged butterfly that awoke him with a kiss upon his forehead. Another of my favourite scenes — Hannibal: Pride of Carthage probably my most favourite one — was this one. It Hannibal: Pride of Carthage violent, tragic and beautiful. She was pretty. He could tell this Hannibal: Pride of Carthage her grimy face. Her chin Hannibal: Pride of Carthage a little weak, one eye lower than the other, but she was pretty none the less. Her body was still boyish, but this was not a flaw. She was not too young to be taken, nor to be sold, Hannibal: Pride of Carthage to be rented out. He walked round her and stood behind her for some time. He had to think about this. Her shoulders were so thin, but their frailty would please many. Her skin was a translucent covering over her frame. She must have been hungry these past months, but that too would make some men want her. Her hair fell over her shoulder and he could see the pulse of the artery in her neck. He Hannibal: Pride of Carthage out and touched it with his fingertips. The girl moved slightly, but he whispered her to stillness. Her pulse was strong, warm. It seemed irregular in its beating and at first he did not question why. Someone would profit from her suffering. Before the end of the month she would have been used by hundreds of men. She would be diseased and battered. She would rot from the inside out, both body and soul. But right now she was sound. In sorrow, yes. In mourning, surely. But her nightmare had not yet begun in full. He — by whatever divine hand — had been given her life to shape. Some men would have thought this a great gift, so why did it pain him Hannibal: Pride of Carthage Just after the question formed in Hannibal: Pride of Carthage mind he realized why her pulse seemed strange. He snapped his fingers away from her neck and struck the same spot with Hannibal: Pride of Carthage slicing sweep of his sword. She dropped from the stool, and he darted outside a moment later, striding away, putting the tiny house behind him. He might have become a soldier in the last few years, but he was still a brother, still a child who loved his sisters, still soft in some portion of his heart He prayed that the girl might understand his action as he had meant it : as a twisted merciful gift. Another of my favourite passages was this one this is the last one, I promise :. Not yet ready to roll the papyrus away, he lifted it, absently, to his nose and inhaled. The scents were faint at first, reluctant and shy. Something of Carthaginian palms. A taste of sea air and of dust blown high and far-travelled on desert winds. And there was Imilce. Her scent was the last to come to him. When it finally revealed itself it was the most potent. It filled him with a longing so painful that he pulled himself forcibly from it. He threw the letter on the table and stared at it as if he expected it to rise and attack him. They were more dangerous than Roman steel or cunning. The Hannibal: Pride of Carthage ends badly for most of the main characters. Only Publius Scipio, the Roman consul, comes out victorious at the end of the war.

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