C. San José CamposDoctrina anteire
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University of Alcalá

Christian San José Campos

Ancient History · Hellenistic History and Historiography · Carthage

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Self-portrait of Christian San José Campos

Academic profile

I grew up in Madrid and moved to Alcalá de Henares to study for a BA in History at the University of Alcalá. I then completed a master’s degree in Ancient Mediterranean Studies at the Open University of Catalonia before returning to Alcalá, where I am currently a PhD candidate in Ancient History.

My research focuses on the history and historiography of the Hellenistic world, with a particular interest in Carthage. The identification of the Hellenistic period as a distinct era of ancient history dates back to the nineteenth-century work of Johann Gustav Droysen. The period is conventionally dated from Alexander the Great’s death in 323 BC to the Roman conquest of Egypt in 30 BC. My work on historiography examines how and why accounts of the past were written and transmitted.

Online profiles

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Featured publication

Research visits

  • University Library tower, Leuven2026
    KU LeuvenLeuven, Belgium · 1 October–30 November · In progress

    Host supervisor · Stefan Schorn

  • Old College, Edinburgh2025
    University of EdinburghEdinburgh, United Kingdom · 6 January–29 March

    Host supervisor · Andrew Erskine

  • Bramante cloisters, Milan2024
    Università Cattolica del Sacro CuoreMilan, Italy · 1–29 November

    Host supervisor · Giuseppe Zecchini

Research interests

My research on Carthage spans the period from 323 BC to the city’s destruction by Rome in 146 BC. I ask how and to what extent Carthage participated in the institutional, social and cultural developments documented elsewhere in the central and eastern Mediterranean during the Hellenistic period.

These questions inform my doctoral thesis, Hannibal Barca and the imitatio Alexandri: Power and Representation in the Hellenistic World. It examines the extent to which models of power and authority associated with Alexander the Great and developed by the Hellenistic monarchies were adapted to Carthage’s African and republican traditions in the third and second centuries BC. I approach this question through Hannibal Barca, the best-documented Carthaginian in the surviving literary sources. Studying his career allows me to explore how Carthage’s aristocracy understood and exercised power.

Alongside my doctoral research, I investigate specific questions in Hellenistic historiography, particularly how and why ancient authors wrote about Carthaginian civilisation. I also examine Alexander the Great’s influence across the Mediterranean.

Looking for the evidence

Who guided Hannibal Barca across the Alps in 218 BC? Silenus, a Greek historian who accompanied the Carthaginian general, described a dream in which a divine guide led Hannibal towards Italy. His account survives indirectly through Cicero. In his account of the crossing, the second-century BC Greek historian Polybius emphasises the role of local guides and criticises explanations involving divine intervention. He says that he questioned participants in the expedition and travelled through the mountain passes himself. This example highlights the distance between an event and the ways it was narrated, transmitted and interpreted.

That same attention to terrain informed Polybius’s reading of Callisthenes, the historian who accompanied Alexander the Great on his campaigns. Examining his account of the battle of Issus, Polybius asked whether the battlefield could accommodate the armies as Callisthenes described them. His criticisms preserve a substantial fragment of a work now lost. To follow Alexander’s reign as a whole, however, we rely on much later narratives. The earliest surviving substantial account is Book 17 of Diodorus of Sicily’s Library of History, written in the first century BC, nearly three centuries after Alexander’s death.

Literary texts, whether complete or fragmentary, are just one part of the evidence. Documents also reveal what different communities chose to record, according to their needs and interests. Babylonian scribes recorded Alexander’s victory at Gaugamela (331 BC) alongside their observations of the moon. A marriage contract from Egypt sets out the commitments made by Demetria and Herakleides, while a Punic inscription from Carthage names those responsible for public works. A coin found far from its mint or an excavated farmstead in Punic Sardinia can also shed light on activities and communities that rarely appear in literary accounts.

The historical importance of an event does not guarantee that evidence for it will survive. An object, interpreted in context, can shed light both on an event and on how it was narrated. Polybius says that in southern Italy he consulted a bronze tablet on which Hannibal had listed the troops he left in Iberia. This tells us where his figures came from; the reasons for that deployment require further investigation. The historian’s task is therefore to place each testimony in context, compare it with other evidence, and ask what its author could have known, who their readers were and what interests might have shaped their account.

Sources and further reading

Ancient evidence

  • Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities 1.74.1.
  • Cornelius Nepos, Hannibal 13.3.
  • Cicero, On Divination 1.49 (Coelius Antipater’s account, drawing on Silenus).
  • Polybius, Histories 3.33.17–18; 3.47.6–48.12; 12.17–22.
  • Diodorus Siculus, Library of History, Book XVII.
  • Babylonian astronomical diary recording the battle of Gaugamela (331 BC), British Museum, BM 36761.
  • Marriage contract of Demetria and Herakleides, Elephantine (310 BC), P.Eleph. 1.
  • Verse epitaph from Miletus, Milet VI.2, 733.
  • Public works inscription from Carthage: A. Dupont-Sommer (1968), pp. 117–118; full publication below.
  • Decree of Xanthos for Kytenion, Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum 38.1476.

Studies and further reading

  • Droysen, J. G. (1836–1843). Geschichte des Hellenismus, 2 vols. Hamburg: F. Perthes.
  • Dupont-Sommer, A. (1968). “Une nouvelle inscription punique de Carthage”. Comptes rendus des séances de l’Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres 112.1, pp. 116–133 (especially pp. 117–118).
  • Gabba, E. (1981). “True History and False History in Classical Antiquity”. The Journal of Roman Studies 71, pp. 50–62 (especially pp. 51–52).
  • Ligota, C. R. (1982). “‘This Story Is Not True.’ Fact and Fiction in Antiquity”. Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 45.1, pp. 1–13 (especially pp. 7–8).
  • Alföldy, G. (1983). “La Historia Antigua y la investigación del fenómeno histórico”. Gerión 1, pp. 39–61 (especially pp. 45–48, 54).
  • Finley, M. I. (1986). Ancient History: Evidence and Models. New York: Viking (especially pp. 13–15, 30–32).
  • Gómez Espelosín, F. J. (1989). “Los riesgos de la distancia o algunas reflexiones sobre la irrecuperabilidad del mundo antiguo”. Cuadernos de Filología Clásica 23, pp. 97–116 (especially pp. 109–111, 115–116).
  • Bonnet, C. (2005). “Carthage, l’« autre nation » dans l’historiographie ancienne et moderne”. Anabases 1, pp. 139–160 (especially pp. 139–141).
  • Bonnet, C. & Krings, V. (2006). “Les Phéniciens, Carthage et nous: histoire et représentations”. In J. P. Vita & J. Á. Zamora (eds.), Nuevas perspectivas I: la investigación fenicia y púnica (Cuadernos de Arqueología Mediterránea 13). Barcelona: Edicions Bellaterra, pp. 37–47 (especially p. 44).
  • Bosworth, A. B. (2006). “Alexander the Great and the Creation of the Hellenistic Age”. In G. R. Bugh (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to the Hellenistic World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 9–27 (especially p. 9).
  • Bettenworth, A. (2007). “The Mutual Influence of Inscribed and Literary Epigram”. In P. Bing & J. S. Bruss (eds.), Brill’s Companion to Hellenistic Epigram: Down to Philip. Leiden/Boston: Brill, pp. 69–93 (especially pp. 79–80).
  • Green, P. (2007). Alexander the Great and the Hellenistic Age: A Short History. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson (especially pp. xiii, xxi–xxiv).
  • Heckel, W. (2008). The Conquests of Alexander the Great. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (chapter 2).
  • Van Dommelen, P., Gómez Bellard, C. & Tronchetti, C. (2008). “The Punic farmstead at Truncu’e Molas (Sardinia, Italy): excavations 2007”. Antiquity 82 (315), Project Gallery.
  • Chaniotis, A. (2016). “History as an Argument in Hellenistic Oratory: The Evidence of Hellenistic Decrees”. In M. Edwards & P. Derron (eds.), La rhétorique du pouvoir: une exploration de l’art oratoire délibératif grec (Entretiens sur l’Antiquité classique 62). Vandœuvres–Genève: Fondation Hardt, pp. 129–174 (especially pp. 155–160).
  • Chaniotis, A. (2018). Age of Conquests: The Greek World from Alexander to Hadrian. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press (especially p. 334).
  • Heckel, W. (2020). “Creating Alexander: The ‘Official’ History of Kallisthenes of Olynthos”. In R. Faber (ed.), Celebrity, Fame, and Infamy in the Hellenistic World. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, pp. 199–216 (especially p. 205).
  • Ash, R. (2021). “The Staging of Death: Tacitus’ Agrippina the Younger and the Dramatic Turn”. In A. Damtoft Poulsen & A. Jönsson (eds.), Usages of the Past in Roman Historiography. Leiden/Boston: Brill, pp. 197–224 (especially p. 202, n. 20).
  • Grethlein, J. (2023). “Motivation”. In Ancient Greek Texts and Modern Narrative Theory: Towards a Critical Dialogue. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 115–147 (especially pp. 115–117).
  • Oughton, C. W. (2024). “A battle of exemplarity and narratorial self-reference at Livy’s Zama”. In O. Devillers & B. B. Sebastiani (eds.), Sources et modèles des historiens anciens, 3 (Scripta Antiqua 182). Bordeaux: Ausonius, pp. 137–154 (especially pp. 137–140).
  • Ashmolean Museum (n.d.). Coins at the Crossroads of Asia. Online exhibition. Oxford: Ashmolean Museum.
CoinsInscriptions

Publications

Journal articles

  1. 2026
  2. 2026

    Melqart y Heracles en Gadir: el lenguaje ecuménico del Mediterráneo desde el extremo Occidente

    Hesperia. Culturas del Mediterráneo extra 29, España y el Mediterráneo I, 33–40
    Publisher’s issueDialnet
  3. 2025
  4. 2024
  5. 2022
  6. 2022
  7. 2021
  8. 2021

    Cartago en el contexto helenístico: procesos y consideraciones

    Cartagine. Studi e Ricerche 6, 1–40
    Author’s copy · Academia.eduDOI: 10.13125/caster/4300 · publisher link unavailable
  9. 2021

    Alexander the Great in Persepolis

    Karanos. Bulletin of Ancient Macedonian Studies 4, 13–33
    University repositoryArticle · DOI
  10. 2020

    La imitatio Alexandri de Aníbal Barca

    Studia Historica. Historia Antigua 38, 21–48
    Article · DOI
  11. 2020
  12. 2019

    Los elefantes de Aníbal

    Espacio, Tiempo y Forma. Serie II, Historia Antigua 32, 75–94
    Article · DOIDOAJ

Book chapter

  1. 2024

    Alexander, “the Great”? Alexander’s Meaning during the Second Punic War

    Filalexandros: La última frontera de Alejandro. Homenaje al profesor Francisco Javier Gómez Espelosín A. I. Molina Marín & M. Agudo Villanueva (eds.), Editorial Universidad de Alcalá, 295–312
    Publisher’s volume

Book reviews

  1. 2025
  2. 2025

Forthcoming

Book reviews accepted for publication.

  • B. Antela-Bernárdez, Alexander the Great in Love: Desire, Violence and Gender in the Conquest of Asia

    Karanos. Bulletin of Ancient Macedonian Studies

  • R. M. Loehr, Emotion and Historiography in Polybius’ Histories

    Talanta: Proceedings of the Dutch Archaeological and Historical Society

Conference papers and seminars

Conference papers, invited talks and research seminars on Carthage, Alexander and the writing of ancient history.

  1. 24 Jun 2026

    Hannibal as a Hellenistic Figure: The Making of a Historiographical Paradigm (c. 1870-2020)

    IX Jornada Internacional de Jóvenes Investigadores ANIHO-XI SHRA, Vitoria.

  2. 8-12 Jun 2026

    Alexander the Great and Hamilcar Rhodanus: A Carthaginian Spy?

    War in the Ancient World International Conference, Complutense University of Madrid.

  3. 5 Dec 2025

    Iberoamérica y los Estudios Helenísticos: Temas y Métodos

    Invited roundtable, Ibero-American Network of Hellenistic Studies, University of Concepción, Chile.

  4. 7 Nov 2025

    Ptolemy I and the West: Exemplifying an Unfinished Policy and the Creation of the Western Clause in Alexander’s Hypomnemata

    Postgraduate Work in Progress Seminar, Institute of Classical Studies, University of London.

  5. 7 Feb 2025

    The imitatio Alexandri of Hannibal Barca? The Creation of the Hellenistic Hannibal over the Last Century

    Edinburgh Classics PGR Seminar Series, University of Edinburgh.

  6. 21-23 Nov 2024

    Hannibal Barca and the imitatio Alexandri: From the Nineteenth-Century Conception to the Hellenistic Hannibal

    Annual Meeting of Postgraduates in the Reception of the Ancient World, University of Malta.

  7. 10 Jul 2024

    Hannibal’s Elephants: Some Thoughts

    War and Writing: Animals in War, University of South Africa.

  8. 14 Jun 2024

    Hannibal’s Elephants and the Rhône: Military Issue or Historiographical Misinterpretation?

    Guest lecture, War in the Ancient World International Conference, University of Graz.

  9. 18-19 Apr 2024

    Notes on Hannibal’s Designation as New General: Education and Opposition

    Annual Meeting of Postgraduates in Ancient History, University of Cardiff.

  10. 18-26 Sep 2021

    Ptolemy I and the West: Exemplifying an Unfinished Policy and the Creation of the Last Plans

    I Jornadas Estudiantiles de Egiptología, University of Alcalá.

  11. 25-26 Mar 2019

    Hannibal’s Elephants

    IV Jornadas sobre el Mundo Antiguo, Autonomous University of Madrid.

Contact

For academic correspondence, you can reach me at either of these addresses.

University email
Personal email
Personal coat of arms of Christian San José Campos