The native ambition of Flaminius was applauded, while it found sufficient matter of employment in the wars, of which we have given an account. And his serving in the army as a tribune, after he had been consul, when no one required it of him, was regarded with a favorable eye. But after he had arrived at an age that excused him from all employments, he was blamed for indulging a violent passion for fame, and a youthful impetuosity in that inactive season of life. To some excess of this kind seems to have been owing his behaviour with respect to Annibal35, at which the world was much offended. For Annibal having fled from Carthage, his country, took refuge at the court of Antiochus. But Antiochus, after he had lost the battle of Phrygia, gladly accepting conditions of peace, Annibal was again forced to fly; and after wandering through many countries, at length settled in Bithynia, and put himself under the protection of Prusias. The Romans knew this perfectly well, but they took no notice of it, considering him now as a man, enfeebled by age, and cast off by fortune. Flaminius however, being sent by the senate upon an em bassy to Prusias about other matters, and seeing Annibal at his court, could not endure that he should be suffered to live. And though Prusias used much intercession and entreaty in behalf of a man, who came to him as a suppliant, and lived with him under the sanction of hospitality, he could not prevail.

It seems there was an ancient oracle, which thus prophesied concerning the end of that general;

35 Flaminius was only about forty-four years of age, when he went embassador to Prusias. It was not therefore an unseasonablé desire of a public character, or an extravagant passion for fame, which was blamed in him upon this occasion, but an unworthy persecution of a great though unfortunate man. We are inclined, however, to think that he had secret instructions from the senate for what he did; for it is not probable, that a man of his mild and humane disposition would choose to hunt down an old unhappy warrior: and Plutarch afterward confirms this opinion. (L.) For an account of Annibal's death, see Livy xxxix. 51, 52. We may farther remark, with a former annotator, the inconsistency of this allusion to the exemptions of age in a writer, who has expressly treated the question, Whether or not a man in advanced life ought to concern himself in the administration of public affairs?' and often affirms, with justice, that no age can

Libyssan earth shall hide the bones of Annibal.

He therefore thought of nothing but ending his days at Carthage, and being buried in Libya. But in Bithyniathere is a sandy place near the sea, which has a small village in it called Libyssa. In this neighbourhood Annibal lived. Having always however a distrust of Průsias on account of his timidity, and dreading likewise the machinations of the Romans, he had some time before ordered seven subterraneous passages to be dug under his house; which were continued a long way under ground and terminated in several distant places, all difficultly discernible from without. By those passages, as soon as he was informed of the orders which Flaminius had given, he attempted to make his escape; but finding the king's guards at the outlets, he resolved to kill himself. Some say, he wound his cloak about his neck, and ordered his servant to put his knees upon his back and pull with all his force, and not to leave twisting till he had quite strangled him. Others inform us that, like Themistocles and Midas, he drank bull's blood. But Livy writes, that having poison in readiness, he mixed it for a draught; and taking the cup in his hand, "Let us deliver the Romans," said he, "from their anxieties, since they think it too tedious and dangerous to wait for the death of a poor hated old man. Yet shall not Titus gain a conquest worth envying, or suitable to the generous proceedings of his ancestors, who sent to caution Pyrrhus, though a victorious enemy, against the poison that was prepared for him."

Thus Annibal is said to have died. When the intelligence was brought to the senate, many in that august body were highly displeased. Flaminius appeared too officious and cruel in his precautions to procure the death of that chieftain, now tamed by his misfortunes, like a bird which through age had lost its tail and feathers, and suffered to live in that condition. And as he had no orders to put him to death, it was plain that he did it out of a passion for fame, and to be recorded to aftertimes as the destroyer of Annibal36. Upon this oc

authorize a good man in withdrawing himself from the service of his country.

36 If this was really the dastardly motive of Flaminius, and

casion, they recollected and admired more than ever the humane and generous behaviour of Scipio Africanus; for after he had vanquished Annibal in Africa, at a time when he was extremely formidable and deemed invincible, he neither insisted on his banishment, nor demanded him of his fellow citizens; but, as he had embraced him at the conference preceding the battle, so after it, when he offered the conditions of peace, he offered not the slightest affront or insult to his misfortunes.

It is reported, that they met again at Ephesus; and Annibal, as they walked together, taking the upper hand, Africanus suffered it and walked on without the least concern. They afterward fell into conversation about great generals, and Annibal asserted that Alexander was the greatest general the world had ever seen, Pyrrhus the second, and he himself the third. Scipio smiled at this, and said, " But in what rank would you have placed yourself, if I had not conquered you?" "O Scipio!" said he, "then I should not have placed myself the third, but the first37."

The generality, admiring this moderation of Scipio, found the more fault with Flaminius for taking the spoils of an enemy, whom another man had slain. There were some indeed, who applauded the thing, and observed;"That so long as Annibal lived, they must have looked upon him as a fire, which wanted only to be blown into a flame. That, when he was in the vigor of his age, it was not his bodily strength or his right hand, which was so dreadful to the Romans; but his capacity and experience, together with his innate rancor and hatred to their name. And that these are not altered by age: for the native disposition still overrules the manners; whereas fortune far from remaining the same changes continually, and by new hopes invites those to new enterprises, who were ever at war with us in their hearts." And subsequent events contributed still more to Flami

nothing of a political tendency entered into his destruction of that illustrious general, it would hardly be possible for all the virtues, all the triumphs of the Romans, to redeem him from the infamy of so base an action.

37 This is recorded by Livy xxxv. 14., and (with some variation) by Plutarch himself, in his Life of Pyrrhus.*

nius' justification. For in the first place Aristonicus, the son of a harper's daughter, on the strength of his being reputed the natural son of Eumenes, filled the whole of Asia with tumult and rebellion: and Mithridates next, after such strokes as he had encountered from Sylla and Fimbria, and so terrible a destruction among his troops and officers, rose up stronger than ever against Lucullus both by sea and land. Annibal, indeed, was never brought so low as Caius Marius had been. For he enjoyed the friendship of a king, from whom he received liberal supplies, and with whose officers both in the navy and army he had important connexions; whereas Marius was a wanderer in Africa, and forced to beg his bread. But the Romans, who had laughed at his African wanderings and distresses, soon afterward bled in their own streets under his rods and axes, and prostrated themselves at his feet. So true it is, that there is nothing either great or little at this moment, which is of sure continuance; and that the changes, which we have to expérience, terminate only with our lives. For this reason, some inform us that Flaminius did not act from himself; but that he was joined in commission with Lucius Scipio, and that the sole purpose of their embassy was to procure Annibal's death. As we have no account after this of any political or military act of Flaminius, and only know that he died in his bed, it is time to proceed to the parallel.

38 See Livy xxxix. 51, where Annibal is represented as laying this to the charge of the Romans in his last speech.

288

PHILOPOEMEN AND FLAMINIUS

COMPARED.

IF we consider the extensive benefits which Greece received from Flaminius, we shall find that neither Philopomen, nor other Greeks more illustrious than Philopomen, will stand the comparison with him. For the Greeks always fought against Greeks; but Flaminius, who was not of Greece, fought for that country. And at a time when Philopamen, unable to defend his fellow citizens who were engaged in a dangerous war, passed over into Crete, Flaminius having vanquished Philip in the heart of Greece, set cities and whole nations free. If we examine their battles, it will appear that Philopœmen, while he commanded the Achæan forces, killed more Greeks, than Flaminius in asserting the Grecian cause killed Macedonians.

As to their failings, ambition was the fault of Flaminius, and obstinacy that of Philopomen. The former was passionate, and the latter implacable. Flaminius left Philip in his royal dignity, and pardoned the Etolians: whereas Philopomen, in his resentment against his country, robbed her of several of her dependencies. Besides, Flaminius was always a friend to those, whom he had once served; but Philopomen, merely for the purpose of indulging his anger, was ever ready to destroy the merit of his former favors. For he had been a great benefactor to the Lacedæmonians; yet he afterward demolished their walls, and ravaged their country, and in the end entirely changed and overturned their constitution. Nay, he seems to have sa