Livy wrote this History of Rome in Latin under Augustus. Book 28 continues the Second Punic War — Rome against Carthage — after Hasdrubal, Hannibal's brother, was crushed at the Metaurus and his head thrown into Hannibal's camp. Spain still had to be cleared, and the Senate began arguing about invading Africa.

Scipio finishes the war in Spain. At Ilipa the last great Carthaginian field army in the west comes apart. A mutiny at Sucro is broken with a mix of theater and steel. Syphax and Masinissa, Numidian kings from roughly Algeria, become the keys to African cavalry. Fabius, the old delayer, and cautious senators fear a consul — one of two officials elected to run Rome for a year — who wants to carry the war to Carthage while Hannibal still walks in the toe of Italy. Allied Italy is exhausted. Scipio's friends speak of Jupiter's favor; his enemies smell a king. Spain has given silver, veterans, and a man who believes the war can be ended only on Carthaginian ground.