14 - Hannibal Flees to Antiochus III; His Intrigues; 195–193: Aged 52–54

Summary

Hannibal was forced by Roman pressure to flee Carthage in secret (195). Livy’s narrative is lively and amusing. Like a Classical Greek taking refuge with a Persian satrap, he spent the rest of his life with eastern royalty. His flight was precipitated by the arrival of three Roman envoys, whose mission was to accuse Hannibal of plotting war against Rome in combination with the Seleucid king Antiochus III. He had long prepared for something like this, and left the African mainland for a nearby island, Cercina. There he found Phoenician ships and suspected they might take news of him to Carthage. So he organized a midsummer banquet, including a huge improvised sunshade or marquee made from the ships’ sails. In the morning the crews awoke with hangovers to find their ships incapacitated. He sailed for Tyre, then Daphne, a suburb of Antioch. Back at Carthage, his town house was formally demolished.