Silius Italicus, in full Tiberius Catius Asconius Silius Italicus[1] (ca. 28 – ca. 103), was a Roman consul, orator, and Latin epic poet of the 1st century CE, (Silver Age of Latin literature). His only surviving work is the 17-book Punica, an epic poem about the Second Punic War (218 -201 BC) and the longest surviving poem in Latin at over 12,000 lines. Hanibal and Scipio Africanus.

The poem is a work of Silius' old age, and thus his time spent at his Campanian villas collecting antiques and giving recitations, presumably of the Punica.[3] According to the epigrams of Martial cited above, the poem met with some success and was compared with the Aeneid.

From the time of Naevius onwards every great military struggle in which the Romans had been engaged had found its poet. Naevius' influence cannot be gauged because of the almost total loss of his poem on the First Punic War. Silius specifically names Virgil, Homer, and Ennius as his epic inspiration.