14.
Sulpicius was ill and remained at Pergamum; but Villius, when he learned that the king was involved in the war in Pisidia, set out for Ephesus, and while he tarried there for a
[2??]
few days he saw to it that he had frequent meetings with Hannibal,1 who
[3??]
happened to be there, that he might explore his sentiments and, if it was in any way possible, dispel his fear that any danger threatened him from the Romans.
[4]
By these conversations nothing else was accomplished, yet it followed automatically, as if it had been consciously sought, that Hannibal, by reason of them, was less highly valued by the king and was more an object of suspicion in all respects.
[5]
Claudius, following the Greek history of Acilius,2 reports that Publius Africanus was a member of that embassy and that at Ephesus he conferred with Hannibal, and he even relates one conversation:
[6]
[p. 43]when Africanus asked who, in Hannibal's opinion,3 was the greatest general, Hannibal named Alexander, the king of the Macedonians, because with a small
[7??]
force he had routed armies innumerable and because he had traversed the most distant regions, even to see which transcended human hopes.4
[8]
To the next request, as to whom he would rank second, Hannibal selected Pyrrhus;5 saying that he had been the first to teach the art of castrametation;6
[9]
besides, no one had chosen his ground or placed his troops more discriminatingly; he possessed also the art of winning men over to him, so that the Italian peoples preferred the lordship of a foreign king to that of the Roman people, so long the master in that land. When he continued, asking whom Hannibal considered third, he named himself without hesitation.
[10]
Then Scipio broke into a laugh and said, “What would you say if you had defeated me?”
[11]
“Then, beyond doubt,” he replied, “I should place myself both before Alexander and before Pyrrhus and before all other generals.”7
[12]
Both this response, with the unexpected turn given it by Punic cleverness,8 and this unlooked-for kind [p. 45]of flattery, he says, stirred Scipio deeply, because9 Hannibal had segregated him from all other commanders as one beyond estimation.10
1 The flight of Hannibal from Carthage to Syria was reported in XXXIV. lx ff.
2 The meaning of this phrase has been much debated, as has also the identification of this Claudius with Claudius Quadrigarius, who was one of the annalists used by Livy. I see no objection to taking the phrase literally, that Acilius (ca. 150 B.C.), who wrote a Roman history in Greek, was the source of Claudius, whether he be Claudius Quadrigarius, Claudius (Clodius) Licinus, or someone else. Nevertheless, the appearance of the same story in Appian (Syr. 10) suggests that the actual source of both Livy and Appian is Polybius, though the incident is not found in the extant portions of Polybius. There is an additional difficulty in the fact that Scipio was not, according to XXXIV. lix. 8, a member of this embassy, but Livy has omitted much of the narrative (cf. the note to xiii. 4 above), and there may have been other embassies: cf. the note to sect. 12 below.
3 B.C. 193
4 This seems to refer to Alexander's expeditions to Arabia and India.
5 Pyrrhus' campaign in Italy was used to show the necessity for the invasion of Greece in the Second Macedonian War: cf. XXXI. vii. 8, etc.
6 Neither Plutarch nor Appian confirms this; rather, Plutarch (Pyrr. xvi. 5) says that Pyrrhus admired the skill of the Romans in laying out camps: cf. the similar remark of Philip, quoted by Livy at XXXI. xxxiv. 8.
7 The story thus far is found, with slight changes, in Appian (Syr. 10) and Plutarch (Flamin. xxi), although the latter writer has another version (Pyrr. ix) in which he names Pyrrhus, Scipio and Hannibal as the foremost commanders. An important item, omitted by Livy and Plutarch but included by Appian, gives the reasons of Hannibal for listing himself in third place. While the story is generally regarded to-day as apocryphal, the ranking as given by Livy may be genuine and represent Hannibal's considered judgment.
8 Scipio's final question gives Hannibal an opening which he is quick to seize, for paying an indirect compliment to his conqueror. Appian also speaks of his “delicate flattery” of Scipio. Cf. also xlii. 8 below for another tribute to Hannibal's wit. An anecdote of him preserved by Cicero (de or. II. 75), on the other hand, represents him as distinctly lacking in tact in his remarks about a rhetorician.
9 B.C. 193
10 The value of this story for characterizing purposes is evident, and it would be pleasant if we could believe it. Cf. also the final sentence of the note to XXXVII. xlv. 16 below.
Livy. Books XXXV-XXXVII With An English Translation. Cambridge. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1935: published without copyright notice.
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