Henceforth Carthage was to pay an annual war-contribution to
Rome, and was not to enter upon war with any nation in Africa, or
anywhere else, without the consent of her conquerors. Scipio returned
to Rome in the year 201, and enjoyed a magnificent triumph, the name
Africanus being at the same time added to his patronymic. Other honors
were offered him, but the most extraordinary of them he declined to
accept.
Hannibal, though overcome, stands forth as the greatest general. At the
age of forty-five he now found himself defeated in the proud plans of
his youth; but, with manly strength, he refused to be cast down, and
set about work for the improvement of his depressed city. It was not
long before he aroused the opposition which has often come to public
benefactors, and was obliged to flee from Carthage. From that time, he
was a wanderer on the earth. Ever true to his hatred of Rome, however,
he continued to plot for her downfall even in his exile. He went to
Tyre and then to Ephesus, and tried to lead the Syrian monarch
Antiochus to make successful inroads upon his old enemy. Obliged to
flee in turn from Ephesus, he sought an asylum at the court of Prusias,
King of Bithynia. At last, seeing that he was in danger of being
delivered up to the Romans, in despair he took his own life at Libyssa,
in the year 182 or 181.
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