The decision allow Hannibal to return to Carthage was made by Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus. After the Battle of Zama, Hannibal escaped to Hadrumetum. Scipio then had the decision whether to besiege and destroy Carthage, or to allow the city to negotiate a treaty on Roman terms. Besieging the city would have taken months. The Carthaginians had probably been preparing for a siege for months and had no doubt stockpiled food and water. Scipio was anxious to go home and have a triumph, and he didn’t want some other general to have the glory of ending the war.
Thirty prominent Carthaginians came to Scipio to beg for peace terms. Hannibal let it be known that he would support peace and persuade hold outs of the necessity of signing a treaty on whatever terms Scipio proposed. Scipio decided that Hannibal’s support was important and allowed him to go back to Carthage, where he did, indeed support the peace treaty.
Hannibal remained in Carthage for about eight years where he became a politician and businessman. Around 194 B.C. he became Suffete-the Carthaginian equivalent of a Consul. He pressed for reforms and gained the enmity of various Carthaginian oligarchs who appealed to Rome to interfere. Against Scipio’s advice, the Romans we all too happy to do this and sent a delegation to Carthage. Hannibal was spooked and commandeered a ship and fled to the Middle east where he offered his services to Antiochus III who was about to go to war with Rome.
Antiochus was defeated by the Romans at the Battle of Magnesia in 189 B.C. and forced into a treaty on Roman terms. One of the provisions of the treaty was that they hand over Hannibal to the Romans. Hannibal, however, fled to Crete. He wandered around Greece and the Middle East for the next six years, finally taking refuge with King Prusius of Bythinia. A Roman ex Consul, Titus Quinctius Flamininus was in the area and found out about Hannibal’s whereabouts. He prevailed upon the King to surrender Hannibal. Upon learning of this and realizing he was trapped, Hannibal took poison that he kept in a ring and died.
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