History Literature / TheLionOfCarthage

* ArtisticLicenseLinguistics: The first book gives the impression that the entire Iberian peninsula had a single, unified language like modern Spain, because Kharbaal cohabites with a Lusitanian, a Carpetanian, an Oretanian and some Arevaci, which amounts to people from ''four'' different language groups, yet everybody seems to understand each other perfectly with all of their idiomatic nuances (and it is never explained whether they are using a single language as a common tongue, or which is it in that case - Punic? Celtic? - not that it would have been more likely for all of them to speak it fluently, anyway). This could be considered part of the AcceptableBreaksFromReality needed to make the narrative easier, but it doesn't make it any less weird, especially given that most of them are either low-ranked soldiers or labourers who shouldn't be exactly a CunningLinguist each.

** In the first book, Uiro the Lusitanian once swears by the Celtic god Lugh. In real life, his people didn't worship Lugh, at least under that name. Their equivalent deity would have been Endovelicus, which is mentioned in the story, only not among the Lusitanians, weirdly enough.

* CompositeCharacter: Hasdrubal the Fair is also called Hasdrubal Gisco, because he was apparently part of the Gisco family. In reality, the family of Hasdrubal the Fair remains unknown: there was a famous Hasdrubal Gisco in the Second Punic War, but he was a different person and completely unrelated to the Barca family.

* {{Expy}}: Quintus Fabius Maximus is portrayed as sneering and sarcastic during his brief cameo, which echoes much more his AdaptationalVillainy portrayal in Santiago Posteguillo's ''Literature/AfricanusTrilogy'' than his historical self.

* SeriesContinuityError: The third book claims Ahusa was an apprentice to Sosylus along with the Barca brothers and Maharbal. This contradicts the first book, where he is shown to be just a friend Hannibal and company first met when they went out in Iboshim. Indeed, it would have been weird that a random barbarian local had the same education as a Barca.
* ShoutOut: The expression of someone "having been born with dust and manure between his toes" to metaphorize his family's poverty is used a ton of times in Mika Waltari's ''Literature/TheEgyptian''.

It follows the lifes of [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamilcar_Barca Hamilcar Barca]] and his son [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hannibal Hannibal]] through the UsefulNotes/PunicWars.

* ArtisticLicenseLinguistics: The first book gives the impression that the entire Iberian peninsula had a single, unified language like modern Spain. In his adventures, Kharbaal cohabites with a Lusitanian, a Carpetanian, an Oretanian and some Arevaci, which makes for people from ''four'' different language groups, yet everybody seems to understand each other perfectly with all their idiomatic nuances (and it is never mentioned whether they are using a single language as a common tongue, or which is it in that case - Punic? Celtic? - not that it would have been more probable for all of them to speak fluently, anyway). This could be considered part of the AcceptableBreaksFromReality needed to make the narrative easier, but it doesn't make it any less weird, especially given that most of them are either low-ranked soldiers or labourers who shouldn't be exactly a CunningLinguist each.

** In the first book, Uiro the Lusitanian once swears by the Celtic god Lugh. In real life, Lusitanians didn't worship Lugh, at least under that name; their equivalent deity would have been Endovelicus.
** Bodus was a northern god worshipped by Gallaeci and Astures, not the Oretani. The second books justifies it a bit by having Cerdubeles call it a northern god which some locals adopted.

* CompositeCharacter: Hasdrubal the Fair is also called Hasdrubal Gisco, because he was apparently of the Gisco family. In reality, the family of Hasdrubal the Fair remains unknown: there was a famous Hasdrubal Gisco in the Second Punic War, but he was a different person and completely unrelated to the Barca family.
* DecompositeCharacter: The name forms "Indikortes" and "Indortes" are traditionally considered to belong to a single person, a Celtic mercenary hired by the Turdetanians who might or might have not been Istolatius's unnamed brother as mentioned by some chronicles. In the books, as to follow both theories, Indikortes and Indortes are two different people, the former being Istolatius's brother and the latter an unrelated Bastetanian chieftain.

* HijackedByJesus: While not exaggeratedly, the Oretani cult of the ''Dama de Baza'' is described with terminology which echoes the Virgin Mary's worship in modern Spain.

* SeriesContinuityError: The third book claims Ahusa was an apprentice to Sosylus along with the Barca brothers and Maharbal. This contradicts the first book, where he is shown to be just a friend Hannibal and company hung out with when they went out in Iboshim. Indeed, it would have been weird that a random tribal local ended up with the same education as a Barca.
* ShoutOut: The expression of someone "having been born with dust and manure between his toes" to mean his family's poverty is used a ton of times in Mika Waltari's ''Literature/TheEgyptian''.

* {{Expy}}: Quintus Fabius Maximus is portrayed as sneering and sarcastic during his brief cameo, which echoes much more his AdaptationalVillain portrayal in Santiago Posteguillo's ''AfricanusTrilogy'' than his historical self.

** Carthaginian characters sometimes mention Moloch, apparently as a synonymous of Baal Hammom. "Moloch" was actually a Hebrew mistranslation of the Phoenician word for king, which Biblical authors used for just every Canaanite god whose name remotely resembled it (not Baal, obviously). Intuitively, a Carthaginian speaking in Phoenicio-Punic language could have not committed that mistake.

* MadeOfIron: Sodalis the spy gets an eye torn out by Hannibal's torturers, a kind of injury which sometimes ''kills'' due to the shock, yet he barely screams and is well enough to keep talking afterwards.

* ShoutOut: The expression of someone "having been born with dust and manure between his toes" to mean his family's poverty evokes Mika Waltari's ''Literature/TheEgyptian''.

* ArtisticLicenseHistory:
** The author's usage of the word "Celtiberian" is wrong, as he uses it to cover Lusitanians, Carpetanians and any Spaniard tribe that is not Iberian. Actually, none of those tribes were Celtiberians: Carpetanians were Celts (albeit they ''did'' speak a variation of Celtiberian language) and Lusitanians were pre/proto-Celts (whose language was significantly different to the Celtic).
** As said in the book, Iberian Oretani tribe did have some important Celtic influences, including the god Endovelicus and the famous torque collar. However, the author once describes the owner of a dirty, cheap inn wearing a torque (and a ''silver'' one to boot), which would be completely out of place on someone with such a lowly occupation given that torques were only worn by chiefs and very powerful people.
** The trilogy's character names range from perfectly credible to completely wrong for the time and place. Among the latter we have Mádriz (a corrupted form of Madrid, a ''medieval Muslim'' city name), Iñurbe (a vaguely late Basque-sounding name which contains the letter Ñ, which first appeared in the Middle Ages) and Dimitri (a '''Russian''' form of the Greek name Demetrius).
** While Hamilcar could have believably had Greek mercenaries in his army when he invaded Hispania, those surely didn't compose the main part of his army, especially not large Hellenic-style phalangic vanguards (those would have been formed by Libyans). The probability that they were Spartans as the text insists is even more remote.
** For some undiscernible reason, Istolatius's Celtici warriors are described exactly like Gauls: they use frontal charges, carry shields as tall as a man, wield longswords, and sport blond hair and long moustaches, all of which would be an excellent description of an Alpine Gaul army. Needlessly to say, things like longswords and that kind of hair were relatively alien to Hispania and absolutely to a southern tribe like Celtici.
** In this story, presumibly for RuleOfDrama, Himilce is the daughter of the chieftain Orissus. In real life, Himilce's father was another chieftain named Mucrus, and nothing indicates she and Orissus were related in any way other than both being Oretani aristocrats.

** Bodus was a northern god worshipped by Gallaeci and Astures, not the Oretani.

* HijackedByJesus: While not exaggeratedly, the Oretani cult of the ''Dama de Baza'' is described with terminology which echoes the Virgin Mary's worship in modern Spain.