What primary sources do we have of the Punic Wars outside of Roman/Hellenistic perspective? Do we have any Carthaginian sources?

by icekiller22

I recently got into the Punic Wars. That is a story of full on awesomeness. But after reading Livy and checking out some other sources, they all come from such Roman bias that it made me wonder. What do we have regarding these wars outside of Polybius, Livy, and Dan Carlin?

QVCatullus

We have no Punic sources on the wars. We have essentially nothing in the way of literary Punic sources in any case -- what we have consists mainly of inscriptions in old Punic cities like Leptis Magna. Polybius and Livy are far and away the main sources; some other authors like Dio and Plutarch do discuss the wars, but in less detail in general than these and later even than Livy.

Note, though, that Greek-language writing on the Punic Wars need not necessarily be Roman-biased (although that's a fair assessment on Polybius). There were apparently a few Greek-language works composed by friends of Hannibal from his post-Punic-war exile in the East which are preserved in fragmentary form through quotes in Latin authors, and apparently Hannibal himself did some writing, including works in Greek. These do not survive, but it is important that we recall that most things from such a long time ago did not -- we should generally be more surprised at the rare things that do make it across two thousand years of preservation (often against all odds, with some important texts dependent totally on single-copy provenance or discovery via palimpsests) than the great number of texts that failed to do so.