here was, it seems, a certain oracle which ends with this verse:--

"Libyssa's earth shall cover Hannibal."

Now Hannibal himself took this to mean Libya, and that he should be
buried at Carthage; but in Bithynia there is a shingly tract by the
seashore near which is a large village named Libyssa, in which
Hannibal was living. As he mistrusted the weakness of Prusias and
feared the Romans, he had previously to this arranged seven ways of
escape leading from his own room into different subterranean passages,
all of which led into the open air by concealed apertures. When then
he heard that Titus insisted upon his death he endeavoured to escape
by one of those passages, but finding every outlet watched by the
soldiers of Prusias he determined to die by his own hand. Some say
that he destroyed himself by winding his cloak round his neck, and
ordered a slave to place his knee in the small of his back and pull
the cloak violently until he choked; while some tell us that he
imitated Themistokles and Midas, by drinking bull's blood. Livy[36]
says that he prepared some poison which he kept by him ready for such
an emergency, and that as he was about to drink it he said:--"Let us
set the Roman people free from their terrible anxiety, since they
think it long to wait for the death of the old man whom they hate.
However, Titus will not gain a glorious victory, or one worthy of his
ancestors, who sent to bid Pyrrhus beware of poison, although he was
their enemy and actually at war with them."

XXI. Thus is Hannibal said to have perished. When the news was
brought to the Senate many thought that Titus had acted officiously
and cruelly in putting Hannibal to death, when he was living unharmed
and helpless, merely in order to obtain the credit of having killed
him. When they reflected upon the mildness and magnanimity of Scipio
Africanus they wondered yet more, for Scipio, after vanquishing the
terrible and unconquered Hannibal in Libya, did not drive him into
exile, or insist upon his countrymen delivering him up. He actually
met him on friendly terms before the battle, and when he made a treaty
with him after his victory he did not bear himself unseemly or insult
his rival's misfortune. It is related that they met again in Ephesus,
and that as they walked together Hannibal took the place of honour,
while Africanus walked contentedly beside him. Their conversation
turned upon great generals, and when Hannibal stated his opinio