The Battle of Zama in 200 BC played out in Orient Street, Batemans Bay, on Tuesday, thanks to the artistic skills of street painter Garry Donnellan.
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Mr Donnellan, originally from Canberra, was in Batemans Bay to visit relatives and, on a huge canvas stretched on the
footpath, continued his depiction of the ancient battle between the armies of Rome and Carthage in acrylic paint.
Carthaginian leader Hannibal, who famously took a herd of battle elephants across the Pyrenees in 218BC, was defeated by the Romans at the Battle of Zama in Tunisia in 200BC.
Dozens of onlookers stopped to admire Mr Donnellan’s elephant-sized art work and chat to him about the epic project, which has consumed 800 hours of his time.
While he doesn’t sell his work, he collects donations from those watching him exercise his talent, and Batemans Bay folk were generous on Tuesday.
“It’s like a busking act,” he said.
Mr Donnellan has been a street painter for the past 10 years, and was an indoors painter before that.
In 2006 he went overseas and painted on footpaths all over the world at exotic locations like Rome and Vienna, and has spent the past two years travelling around Australia.
