[11]
At the end of this conversation Hannibal invited Scipio to be his guest, and Scipio replied that he would be so gladly if Hannibal were not living with Antiochus, who was held in suspicion by the Romans. Thus did they, in a manner worthy of great commanders, cast aside their enmity at the end of their wars. Not so Flamininus, for, at a later period when Hannibal had fled after the defeat of Antiochus and was wandering around Bithynia, Flamininus sent an embassy to King Prusias on other matters, and, although he had no grievance against Hannibal, and had no orders from the Senate, and Hannibal was no longer for-midable to them, Carthage having fallen, he caused Prusias to put him to death by poison. There was a story that an oracle had once said:
“"Libyssan earth shall cover Hannibal's remains."1”
So he believed that he should die in Libya. But there is a river Libyssus in Bithynia, and the adjoining country takes the name of Libyssa from the river.2 These things I have placed side by side as memorials of the magnanimity of Hannibal and Scipio and of the smallness of Flamininus.
Appian. The Foreign Wars. Horace White. New York. THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. 1899.
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