Surviving Hannibal is a searing tale of a struggle to endure in a world set ablaze from Spain to the Adriatic. The year is 216 BC: Hannibal, the greatest and most unconventional leader of his time, has invaded Italy and visited a terrible destruction on Rome’s battle-hardened armies, killing thousands. Narrowly avoiding catastrophe, the Roman Senate raises new armies for the slaughter, and, in northern Italy, three young men from the desolate farms around the battle-weary town of Arretium answer the summons. Grimly accepting their fate as soldiers of the Roman Republic, Marcus, Mattias, and Crispus expect to face Hannibal in southern Italy. Instead, they find themselves shipped to Spain, only to be surprised at the intensity of the fighting and the attitudes of the local population. The Spanish war, long a neglected sideshow to the pageant of devastation in Italy, offers up an unpredictable enemy and a front line that shifts without warning. Marcus and his friends find their fears tempered by the euphoria of victory and the tenderness of love, only to lose everything in the despair of defeat. Scattered across the Mediterranean as Rome’s fortunes collapse, each worries for the fate of his friends and their loved ones. Later, as a glimmer of hope unexpectedly emerges in Spain, Marcus comes to realise that his fate balances precariously on the outcome of the fighting there. Facing terrible choices as they struggle to survive their foes and keep their families intact, Marcus, Mattias, and Crispus each find their destiny on the blood-soaked battlefields of a forgotten war.