ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the background to the writing of The Road to Rome and the problems Sherwood faced in depicting the Carthaginian general’s change of heart. It identifies The Road to Rome as a comedy done in the manner of George Bernard Shaw. The chapter discusses the importance of The Road to Rome as a curious anomaly in the history of how the First World War came to be perceived by its veterans, who tended to deal in reminiscences and personal narratives. In 1926, Sherwood left the Round Table, fed up with the group’s moral vacuity. At the time, he regarded the 1920s as “a dreadful decade for anyone idealistically or romantically or even hopefully inclined. Sherwood’s version of why Hannibal turned away from Rome, however unlikely, is justified as an experiment in drama, given the fact that the Carthaginian general’s move has never been adequately explained.
