21.3
Moreover, we are told that the two men met again at Ephesus, and in the first place, that when, as they were walking about together, Hannibal took the side which more properly belonged to Scipio as the superior, Scipio suffered it and walked about without paying any heed to it; and again, that when they fell to discussing generals and Hannibal declared Alexander to have been the mightiest of generals, and next to him Pyrrhus, and third himself, Scipio asked with a quiet smile, And what wouldst thou have said if I had not conquered thee?
21.4
To which Hannibal replied, In that case, Scipio, I should not have counted myself third, but first of generals.Cf. Livy, xxxv. 14. Such conduct on the part of Scipio most people admired, and they blamed Titus for having laid violent hands on one whom another had slain. But some there were who praised what he had done and thought that Hannibal, as long as he was alive, was a consuming fire which needed only to be fanned;
21.5
for when he was in his prime, they said, it was not his body nor his arm that had been formidable to the Romans, but his ability and experience coupled with his ingrained bitterness and hostility, and from these naught is subtracted by old age, but the natural characteristics remain unchanged: whereas fortune does not remain the same, but changes sides, and summons with hope to fresh undertakings those whom hatred makes perpetual foes.
21.6
And subsequent events were perhaps still more a justification of Titus; for Aristonicus, the son of a harpist’s daughter, used his reputed connection with Eumenes to fill all Asia with wars and rebellions,In 131-130 B.C. and Mithridates, notwithstanding his defeats by Sulla and Fimbria and his great losses in armies and generals,In 88-84 B.C. rose once more to be a formidable antagonist of Lucullus by land and sea.In 74-67 B.C. The argument is that if so great dangers to Rome were latent in Asia, the presence of Hannibal there was a menace.
