Plutarch: Lives of the noble Grecians and Romans
ever break out into acts; but when it had vented itself in some
citizen-like freedom of speech, there was an end of it. In fine,
nobody charged malice or bitterness upon his nature, though many
imputed hastiness and levity to it; in general, he was the most
attractive and agreeable of companions, and could speak too, both
with grace, and forcibly. For instance, to divert the Achaeans from
the conquest of the isle of Zacynthus, "If," said he, "they put their
head too far out of Peloponnesus, they may hazard themselves as much
as a tortoise out of its shell." Again, when he and Philip first met
to treat of a cessation and peace, the latter complaining that Titus
came with a mighty train, while he himself came alone and unattended,
"Yes," replied Titus, "you have left yourself alone by killing your
friends." At another time, Dinocrates the Messenian, having drunk
too much at a merry-meeting in Rome, danced there in woman's clothes,
and the next day addressed himself to Titus for assistance in his
design to get Messene out of the hands of the Achaeans. "This,"
replied Titus, "will be matter for consideration; my only surprise is
that a man with such purposes on his hands should be able to dance
and sing at drinking parties." When, again, the ambassadors of
Antiochus were recounting to those of Achaea, the various multitudes
composing their royal master's forces, and ran over a long catalog of
hard names, "I supped once," said Titus, "with a friend, and could
not forbear expostulating with him at the number of dishes he had
provided, and said I wondered where he had furnished himself with
such a variety; 'Sir,' replied he, 'to confess the truth, it is all
hog's flesh differently cooked.' And so, men of Achaea, when you are
told of Antiochus's lancers, and pikemen, and foot guards, I advise
you not to be surprised; since in fact they are all Syrians
differently armed."
After his achievements in Greece, and when the war with Antiochus was
at an end, Titus was created censor; the most eminent office, and, in
a manner, the highest preferment in the commonwealth. The son of
Marcellus, who had been five times consul, was his colleague. These,
by virtue of their office, cashiered four senators of no great
distinction, and admitted to the roll of citizens all freeborn
residents. But this was more by constraint than their own choice;
for Terentius Culeo, then tribune of the people, to spite the
nobility, spurred on the populace to order it to be done. At this
time, the two greatest and most eminent persons in the city,
Africanus Scipio and Marcus Cato, were at variance. Titus named
Scipio first member of the senate; and involved himself in a
quarrel with Cato, on the following unhappy occasion. Titus had a
brother, Lucius Flamininus, very unlike him in all points of
character, and, in particular, low and dissolute in his pleasures,
and flagrantly regardless of all decency. He kept as a companion a
boy whom he used to carry about with him, not only when he had troops
under his charge, but even when the care of a province was committed
to him. One day at a drinking-bout, when the youngster was wantoning
with Lucius, "I love you, Sir, so dearly," said he, "that, preferring
your satisfaction to my own, I came away without seeing the
gladiators, though I have never seen a man killed in my life."
Lucius, delighted with what the boy said, answered, "Let not that
trouble you; I can satisfy that longing," and with that, orders a
condemned man to be fetched out of the prison, and the executioner to
be sent for, and commands him to strike off the man's head, before
they rose from table. Valerius Antias only so far varies the story
as to make it woman for whom he did it. But Livy says that in Cato's
own speech the statement is, that a Gaulish deserter coming with his
wife and children to the door, Lucius took him into the
banqueting-room, and killed him with his own hand, to gratify his
paramour. Cato, it is probable, might say this by way of aggravation
of the crime; but that the slain was no such fugitive, but a
prisoner, and one condemned to die, not to mention other authorities,
Cicero tells us in his treatise On Old Age, where he brings in Cato,
himself, giving that account of the matter.
However, this is certain; Cato during his censorship, made a severe
scrutiny into the senators' lives in order to the purging and
reforming the house, and expelled Lucius, though he had been once
consul before, and though the punishment seemed to reflect dishonor
on his brother also. Both of them presented themselves to the
assembly of the people in a suppliant manner, not without tears in
their eyes, requesting that Cato might show the reason and cause of
his fixing such a stain upon so honorable a family. The citizens
thought it a modest and moderate request. Cato, however, without any
retraction or reserve, at once came forward, and standing up with his
colleague interrogated Titus, as to whether he knew the story of the
supper. Titus answering in the negative, Cato related it, and
challenged Lucius to a formal denial of it. Lucius made no reply,
whereupon the people adjudged the disgrace just and suitable, and
waited upon Cato home from the tribunal in great state. But Titus
still so deeply resented his brother's degradation, that he allied
himself with those who had long borne a grudge against Cato; and
winning over a major part of the senate, he revoked and made void all
the contracts, leases, and bargains made by Cato, relating to the
public revenues, and also got numerous actions and accusations
brought against him; carrying on against a lawful magistrate and
excellent citizen, for the sake of one who was indeed his relation,
but was unworthy to be so, and had but gotten his deserts, a course
of bitter and violent attacks, which it would be hard to say were
either right or patriotic. Afterwards, however, at a public
spectacle in the theater, at which the senators appeared as usual,
sitting, as became their rank, in the first seats, when Lucius was
spied at the lower end, seated in a mean, dishonorable place, it made
a great impression upon the people, nor could they endure the sight,
but kept calling out to him to move, until he did move, and went in
among those of consular dignity, who received him into their seats.
This natural ambition of Titus was well enough looked upon by the
world, whilst the wars we have given a relation of afforded competent
fuel to feed it; as, for instance, when after the expiration of his
consulship, he had a command as military tribune, which nobody
pressed upon him. But being now out of all employ in the government,
and advanced in years, he showed his defects more plainly; allowing
himself, in this inactive remainder of life, to be carried away with
the passion for reputation, as uncontrollably as any youth. Some
such transport, it is thought, betrayed him into a proceeding against
Hannibal, which lost him the regard of many. For Hannibal, having
fled his country, first took sanctuary with Antiochus; but he having
been glad to obtain a peace, after the battle in Phrygia, Hannibal
was put to shift for himself, by a second flight, and, after
wandering through many countries, fixed at length in Bithynia,
proffering his service to king Prusias. Every one at Rome knew where
he was, but looked upon him, now in his weakness and old age, with no
sort of apprehension, as one whom fortune had quite cast off. Titus,
however, coming thither as ambassador, though he was sent from the
senate to Prusias upon another errand, yet, seeing Hannibal resident
there, it stirred up resentment in him to find that he was yet alive.
And though Prusias used much intercession and entreaties in favor of
him, as his suppliant and familiar friend, Titus was not to be
entreated. There was an ancient oracle, it seems, which prophesied
thus of Hannibal's end: --
Libyssan shall Hannibal enclose.
He interpreted this to be meant of the African Libya, and that he
should be buried in Carthage; as if he might yet expect to return and
end his life there. But there is a sandy place in Bithynia,
bordering on the sea, and near it a little village called Libyssa.
It was Hannibal's chance to be staying here, and having ever from the
beginning had a distrust of the easiness and cowardice of Prusias,
and a fear of the Romans, he had, long before, ordered seven
underground passages to be dug from his house, leading from his
lodging, and running a considerable distance in various opposite
directions, all undiscernible from without. As soon, therefore, as
he heard what Titus had ordered, he attempted to make his escape
through these mines; but finding them beset with the king's guards,
he resolved upon making away with himself. Some say that wrapping
his upper garment about his neck, he commanded his servant to set his
knee against his back, and not to cease twisting and pulling it, till
he had completely strangled him. Others say, he drank bull's blood,
after the example of Themistocles and Midas. Livy writes that he had
poison in readiness, which he mixed for the purpose, and that taking
the cup into his hand, "Let us ease," said he, "the Romans of their
continual dread and care, who think it long and tedious to await the
death of a hated old man. Yet Titus will not bear away a glorious
victory, nor one worthy of those ancestors who sent to caution
Pyrrhus, an enemy, and a conqueror too, against the poison prepared
for him by traitors."
Thus venous are the reports of Hannibal's death; but when the news of
it came to the senators' ears, some felt indignation against Titus
for it, blaming as well his officiousness as his cruelty; who, when
there was nothing to urge it, out of mere appetite for distinction,
to have it said that he had caused Hannibal's death, sent him to his
grave when he was now like a bird that in its old age has lost its
feathers, and incapable of flying is let alone to live tamely without
molestation.
They began also now to regard with increased admiration the clemency
and magnanimity of Scipio Africanus, and called to mind how he, when
he had vanquished in Africa the till then invincible and terrible
Hannibal, neither banished him his country, nor exacted of his
countrymen that they should give him up. At a parley just before
they joined battle, Scipio gave him his hand, and in the peace made
after it, he put no hard article upon him, nor insulted over his
fallen fortune. It is told, too, that they had another meeting
afterwards, at Ephesus, and that when Hannibal, as they were walking
together, took the upper hand, Africanus let it pass, and walked on
without the least notice of it; and that then they began to talk of
generals, and Hannibal affirmed that Alexander was the greatest
commander the world had seen, next to him Pyrrhus, and the third was
himself; Africanus, with a smile, asked, "What would you have said,
if I had not defeated you?" "I would not then, Scipio," he replied,
"have made myself the third, but the first commander." Such conduct
was much admired in Scipio, and that of Titus, who had as it were
insulted the dead whom another had slain, was no less generally found
fault with. Not but that there were some who applauded the action,
looking upon a living Hannibal as a fire, which only wanted blowing
to become a flame. For when he was in the prime and flower of his
age, it was not his body, nor his hand, that had been so formidable,
but his consummate skill and experience, together with his innate
malice and rancor against the Roman name, things which do not impair
with age. For the temper and bent of the soul remains constant,
while fortune continually varies; and some new hope might easily