Hannibal and Scipio

Hannibal and Scipio is a Caroline era stage play, a classical tragedy written by Thomas Nabbes. The play was first performed in 1635 by Queen Henrietta's Men, and was first published in 1637. The first edition of the play contained a cast list of the original production, making the 1637 quarto an important information source on English Renaissance theatre.

As its title indicates, the play relates the historical rivalry between Hannibal and Scipio Africanus. Out of the vast array of historical source material on the subject, Nabbes relied primarily upon the account of the Second Punic War given by Livy in his history of Rome, Ab Urbe condita, and upon Plutarch's Lives of Hannibal and Scipio.

Earlier English plays on the subject had been written and acted. A Scipio Africanus, author unknown, was staged at the English Court on 3 January 1580; a Hannibal and Hermes by Thomas Dekker, Michael Drayton, and Robert Wilson dated from 1598; it was followed by a Hannibal and Scipio by Richard Hathwaye and William Rankins in 1601. (None of these works is extant.) John Marston's The Wonder of Women (1606) deals with the related figure of Sophonisba.

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