Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 2.djvu/354

Rh 340 HANNIBAL. reforms, such a revolution could not but irritate the adverse faction, and they soon found an opportu- nity of avenging themselves, by denouncing him to the Romans as engaged in negotiations with Antio- chus III. king of Syria, to induce him to take up arms against Rome. (Liv. xxxiii. 45). There can be little doubt that the charge was well founded, and Hannibal saw that his enemies were too strong for him. No sooner, therefore, did the Roman envoys appear at Carthage than he secretly took to flight, and escaped by sea to the island of Cercina, from whence he repaired to Tyre, and thence again, after a short interval, to the court of Antiochus at Ephesus. The Syrian monarch was at this time (b. c. 193) on the eve of war with Rome, though hostilities had not actually commenced. Hence Hannibal was welcomed with the utmost honours. But Antiochus, partly perhaps from incapacity, partly also from personal jealousy, encouraged by the intrigues of his courtiers, could not be induced to listen to his judicious counsels, the wisdom of which he was compelled to acknowledge when too late. Hannibal in vain urged the necessity of car- rying the war at once into Italy, instead of await- ing the Romans in Greece. The king could not be persuaded to place a force at his disposal for this purpose, and sent him instead to assemble a fleet for him from, the cities of Phoenicia. This Hannibal effected, and took the command of it in person ; but his previous habits could have little qualified him for this service, and he was defeated by the Rhodian fleet in an action near Side. But unimportant as his services in this war appear to have been, he was still regarded by the Romans with such appre- hension, that his surrender was one of the conditions of the peace granted to Antiochus after his defeat at Magnesia, b. c. 190. (Polyb. xxi. 14, xxii. 26.) Hannibal, however, foresaw his danger, and made his escape to Crete, from whence he afterwards repaired to the court of Prusias, king of Bithynia. Another account represents him as repairing from the court of Antiochus to Armenia, where it is said he found refuge for a time with Artaxias, one of the generals of Antiochus who had revolted from his master, and that he superintended the found- ation of Artaxata, the new capital of the Ar- menian kingdom. (Strab. xi. p. .528 ; Plut. LucuU. 31.) In any case it was with Prusias that he ultimately took up his abode. That monarch was in a state of hostility with Eumenes, the faithful ally of Rome, and on that account unfriendly at least to the Romans. Here, there- fore, he found for some years a secure asylum, during which time we are told that he commanded the fleet of Prusias in a naval action against Eu- menes, and gained a victory over that monarch, absurdly attributed by Cornelius Nepos and Justin to the stratagem of throwing vessels filled with serpents into the enemy's ships ! (Liv. xxxiii. 47—49, xxxiv. 60, 61, xxxv. 19, 42, 43, xxxvi. 7, 15, xxxvii. 8, 23, 24; Appian, Syr, 4, 7, 10, 11,^14, 22; Zonar. ix. 18, 20; Corn. Nep. Hann. 7 — 11; Justin, xxxii. 4.) But the Ro- mans could not be at ease so long as Hannibal lived ; and T. Quintius Flamininus 'v^as at length despatched to the court of Prusias to demand the surrender of the fugitive. The Bithynian king was unable to resist, and sent troops to arrest his illustrious guest ; but Hannibal, who had long been in expectation of such an event, as soon as he found that all approaches were beset, and that flight was HANNIBAL, impossible, took poison, to avoid falling into the hands of his enemies. (Liv. xxxix. 51 ; Corn. Nep. Hann. 12; Justin, xxxii. 4. § 8 ; Pint. FUc- min. 20 ; Zonar. ix. 21.) The year of his death is uncertain, having been a subject of much dispute among the Roman chronologers. The testimony of Polybius on the point, which would have appeared conclusive, is doubtful. From the expressions of Livy, we should certainly have inferred that he placed the death of Hannibal, together with those of Scipio and Philopoemen, in the consulship of M. Claudius Marcellus and Q. Fabius Labeo (b. c. 183) ; and this, which was the date adopted by Atticus, appears on the whole the most probable ; but Cornelius Nepos expressly says that Polybius assigned it to the following year (182), and Sul- picius to the year after that (b, c. 181). (Corn. Nep. Hann. 13; Liv. xx;xix 50, 52; Clinton, F. H. vol. iii. p. 72). The scene of his death and burial was a village named Libyssa, on the coast of Bithynia. {Pint. Flaiuin. 20; Appian, Syr. 11; Zonar. ix. 21.) Hannibal's character has been very variously estimated by different writers. A man who had rendered himself so formidable to the Roman power, and had wrought them such extensive mis- chief, could hardly fail to be the object of the falsest calumnies and misrepresentations during his life ; and there can be no doubt that many such were recorded in the pages of the historian Fabius, and have been transmitted to us by Appian and Zonaras. He was judged with less passion, and on the whole with great impartiality, by Polybius. (ix 22 — 26, xi. 19, xxiv. 9. An able review of his character will be found also in Dion Cassius, Exc. Peiresc. 47, Eocc. Vat. 67.) But that writer tells us that he was accused of avarice by the Car- thaginians, and of cruelty by the Romans. Many instances of the latter are certainly recorded by the Roman historians ; but even if we were content to admit them all as true (and many of them are even demonstrably false), they do not exceed, or even equal what the same writers have related of their own generals : and severity, often degenerating into cruelty, seems to have been so characteristic of the Carthaginians in general, that Hannibal's con- duct in this respect, as compared with that of his countrymen, deserves to be regarded as a favour- able exception. We find him readily entering into an agreement with Fabius for an exchange of pri- soners ; and it was only the sternness of the Ro- mans themselves that prevented the same humane arrangements from being carried throughout the war. On many occasions too his generous sym- pathy for his fallen foes bears Avitness of a noble spirit ; and his treatment of the dead bodies of Flaminius, of Gracchus, and of Marcellus (Liv. xxii. 7, XXV. 17 ; Plut. Marc. 30), contrasts most favoui-ably with the barbarity of Claudius Nero to that of Hasdrubal. The charge of avarice appears to have been as little founded : of such a vice in its lowest acceptation he was certainly incapable, though it is not unlikely that he was greedy of money for the prosecution of his great schemes, and perhaps unscrupulous in his modes of acquiring it. Among other virtues he is extolled for his temper- • ance and continence (Justin, xxxii. 4 ; Frontin. iv. 3. § 7), and for the fortitude with which he endured every species of toil and hardship (Dion Cass. Eocc. Peiresc. 47.) Of his abilities as a general it is unne- cessfiry to speak : all the great masters of the art of