The first edition of the play contained a cast list of the original production, making the 1637 quarto an important information source on English Renaissance theatre.
Out of the vast array of historical source material on the subject, Nabbes relied primarily upon the account of the Second Punic War given by Livy in his history of Rome, Ab Urbe condita, and upon Plutarch's Lives of Hannibal and Scipio.
The role assignments for Hannibal and Scipio, what the list itself calls "The speaking persons," are:[7] Nabbes structures his play so that each of the five Acts has a different setting – Capua; Syphax's court; Utica; Carthage; and Bithynia.
"Nabbes organizes events...in order to present a series of contrasts – between Hannibal and Scipio, Syphax and Masinissa, continence and lust, public duty and private passion – which constitute variations on his main theme of the nature of human virtue.
"[8] Through this pattern of contrasts, Nabbes constructs "a play with two protagonists, one tragic and one epic;" when Hannibal dies, Scipio is forced to realize the limits of his quest for military glory and turn toward the "contemplative virtues" of philosophy.