39.51
Prusias had for some time fallen under
suspicion in Rome, partly owing to his having sheltered Hannibal after the
flight of Antiochus and partly because he had started a war with Eumenes. T.
Quinctius Flamininus was accordingly sent on a special mission to him. He
charged Prusias, amongst other things, with admitting to his court the man
who of all men living was the most deadly foe to the People of Rome, who
had instigated first his own countrymen and then, when their power was
broken, King Antiochus to levy war on Rome. Either owing to the menacing
language of Flamininus or because he wished to ingratiate himself with
Flamininus and the Romans, he formed the design of either putting Hannibal
to death or delivering him up to them. In any case, immediately after his first
interview with Flamininus he sent soldiers to guard the house in which
Hannibal was living. Hannibal had always looked forward to such a fate as
this; he fully realised the implacable hatred which the Romans felt towards
him, and he put no trust whatever in the good faith of monarchs. He had
already had experience of Prusias' fickleness of temper and he had dreaded
the arrival of Flamininus as certain to prove fatal to himself. In face of the
dangers confronting him on all sides he tried to keep open some one avenue
of escape. With this view he had constructed seven exits from his house,
some of them concealed, so that they might not be blocked by the guard. But
the tyranny of kings leaves nothing hidden which they want to explore. The
guards surrounded the house so closely that no one could slip out of it.
When Hannibal was informed that the king's soldiers were in the vestibule,
he tried to escape through a postern gate which afforded the most secret
means of exit. He found that this too was closely watched and that guards
were posted all round the place. Finally he called for the poison which he had
long kept in readiness for such an emergency. "Let us," he said, "relieve the
Romans from the anxiety they have so long experienced, since they think it
tries their patience too much to wait for an old man's death. The victory
which Flamininus will win over a defenceless fugitive will be neither great
nor memorable; this day will show how vastly the moral of the Roman
People has changed. Their fathers warned Pyrrhus, when he had an army in
Italy, to beware of poison, and now they have sent a man of consular rank to
persuade Prusias to murder his guest." Then, invoking curses on Prusias and
his realm and appealing to the gods who guard the rights of hospitality to
punish his broken faith, he drained the cup. Such was the close of Hannibal's
life.
