The Historians' History of the World 05

At Rome the peace was confirmed with Antiochus. The greater part of the ceded territory was granted to Eumenes, Lycia and a part of Caria to the Rhodians (whose usually prudent aristocracy committed a great error in seeking this aggrandisement of their dominion), and such towns as had taken part with the Romans were freed from tribute. L. Scipio triumphed on his return to Rome, and assumed the surname of Asiaticus, to be in this respect on an equality with his illustrious brother.

[189-183 B.C.]

Cn. Manlius Vulso succeeded Scipio in Asia (189), and as the Roman consuls now began to regard it as discreditable and unprofitable to pass their year without a war, he looked round him for an enemy from whom he might derive fame and wealth. He fixed on the Gallo-Grecians, as the descendants of those Gauls were called who had passed over into Asia in the time of Pyrrhus, and won a territory for themselves, named from them in after-times Galatia. He stormed their fortified camp on Mount Olympus in Mysia, gave them a great defeat on the plains of Ancyra, and forced them to sue for peace. The booty gained, the produce of their plunder for many years, was immense. Manlius then led his army back to the coast for the winter. The next year (188) ten commissioners came out to ratify the peace with Antiochus; they added some more conditions, such as the surrender of his elephants; the peace was then sworn to, and the Romans evacuated Asia.

Roman Battering Ram

Hannibal, when he found that the Romans demanded him, retired to Crete; not thinking himself, however, safe in that island, he left it soon after and repaired to the court of Prusias, king of Bithynia, who felt flattered by the presence of so great a man. But the vengeance of Rome did not sleep, and no less a person than T. Flamininus was sent (183) to demand his death or his surrender. The mean-spirited Prusias, immediately after a conference with the Roman envoy, sent soldiers to seize his illustrious guest.c

Cornelius Nepos thus describes the tragic result:

Hannibal constantly confined himself to one place, being a castle with which the king had presented him as a reward for his services, which he so contrived, that he had sallies on all sides through which he might escape if he should have occasion; for he always suspected that that would befall him, which at last did really happen. The Roman ambassadors, accompanied with a great number of men, having at length surrounded this castle on all parts, his servant perceiving them from the gate, runs to his master and acquaints him that there appeared a more than usual company of armed men; upon which he commanded him to go round all the doors of the house and speedily bring him word whether there was any way to escape. When the boy had immediately acquainted him how the case stood, and had farther assured him that all the passages were stopped, he was soon satisfied that this could not happen by accident, but that they came to seize his person; and that consequently he could not long enjoy his life, which he was resolved should not be in another man’s disposal: upon which he immediately swallowed a dose of poison, which he was always accustomed to carry with him. Thus, this our most valiant hero, harassed with numerous and various labours, reposed himself in death.h

It is said that Scipio Africanus died in the same year with his illustrious rival, an instance also of the mutability of fortune, for the conqueror of Carthage breathed his last in exile. In the year 193 he had had a specimen of the instability of popular favour; for while at the consular elections he and all the Cornelian gens exerted their influence in favour of his cousin P. Cornelius Scipio, the son of Cneius who had been killed in Spain,—and who was himself of so exemplary a character that, when the statue of the Idæan mother Cybele was, by the direction of the Sibylline books, brought to Rome from Pergamus, it was committed to his charge, as being the best man in the city—they were forced to yield to that of the vainglorious T. Quinctius Flamininus, who sued for his brother, the profligate L. Quinctius. But, as the historian observes, the glory of Flamininus was fresher; he had triumphed that very year; whereas Africanus had been now ten years in the public view, and since his victory over Hannibal he had been consul a second time, and censor—very sufficient reasons for the decline of his favour with the unstable people.

[187-183 B.C.]