In Act 1 of 1 Henry VI, Joan la Pucelle, who has just defeated the Dauphin in hand-to-hand combat and so established herself as the reviver of the French forces, announces her intention to become ‘The English scourge’ with a striking analogy for the evanescent nature of glory achieved by military success: In a seldom cited essay, Percy Simpson identified the source of this analogy in the Punica, or History of the Punic Wars, an epic poem written by Silius Italicus in the first century AD. 1 In Book 13, the Roman army, terrified by a massive storm, halts its advance on Capua until it is roused into action: