Livy\'s Ab Urbe Condita Book XXII narrates Hannibal\'s massive defeats of the Romans at Trasimene (217 BC) and Cannae (216 BC).
Livy drew on the Greek historian Polybius, but transformed his drier treatment into a rhetorical masterpiece, which by a series of insistent thematic contrasts brings out the tensions between the delaying tactics of Fabius and the costly rashness of Flaminius, Minucius.
It is Livy\'s best and most dramatic book, and the one most likely to appeal to students at every level.
Livy\'s Ab Urbe Condita Book XXII narrates Hannibal\'s massive defeats of the Romans at Trasimene (217 BC) and Cannae (216 BC)