Silius Italicus was a first century AD Roman orator and poet. Only one of his works has survived to the present, his 17-book history of the Second Punic War, Punica. It is the longest poem to survive from Antiquity and describes Rome’s third century BC war with Carthage and the invasion of Italy by the Carthaginian leader Hannibal. Punica was rediscovered at the beginning of the fifteenth century by the Italian scholar Poggio Bracciolini. It was first printed in 1471. This edition was printed by the Aldine press at Venice in 1523.