by Plutarch
16. But what caused Titus the most argument and trouble of all was his intercession on behalf of Chalcis. Manius was infuriated with the Chalcidians, because of the marriage which Antiochus had celebrated there when the war was already in progress:119 it was an untimely and inappropriate marriage, with this elderly man falling in love with a young girl, the daughter of Cleoptolemus and, so they say, the most beautiful girl alive. This brought the Chalcidians over to support the king with the greatest enthusiasm, and they turned the city over to him to serve as his base for the war. After the battle, Antiochus came to Chalcis as quickly as he could, then took his girl, his money and his friends, and sailed away to Asia. The angry Manius immediately moved on Chalcis.120 He was accompanied by Titus,121 who tried to mollify him and pleaded with him until he was finally placated and won over, so effective were Titus’ entreaties with him and the Roman officials.
That was the salvation of Chalcis, and they consecrated the biggest and most magnificent of their votive offerings to Titus.122 Inscriptions are still visible such as ‘the people dedicated this gymnasium to Titus and to Heracles’, and again ‘the people dedicated this Delphinium123 to Titus and to Apollo’. Even in our own day there is a priest of Titus appointed by election, and when the Chalcidians sacrifice to Titus they sing a specially composed paean after making the libations. There is no room to quote the whole of the paean, but I give the song’s ending:
We revere the faith of the Romans,
The object of so many great prayers,
That it should offer protection through oaths;
Girls, sing
Of great Zeus, and Rome, and Titus too, and Roman faith.
Cry Paean!
Hail, saviour Titus!
17. The other Greeks too offered Titus suitable honours, and there was a further element as well, one which lent the honours truth and sincerity: that was a remarkable personal enthusiasm for his natural fairness and moderation. For even on those occasions when he clashed with individuals for reasons of politics or ambition, as with Philopoemen, and again with Diophanes124 when he was general of the Achaeans, Titus’ anger was not deep-seated and he did not carry it through into action; there would be a few words delivered with the frankness of free public debate, and that would be the end of it. So no one thought him a bitter man, though many felt he was naturally irascible and changeable; but they also noticed that he was the most pleasant of all companions, with a gift for delightful and pointed remarks.125
There was an occasion, for instance, when the Achaeans were laying claim to the island of Zacynthus,126 and Titus was trying to put them off: ‘You’ll be in danger,’ he said, ‘like the tortoise, if you poke your head out beyond the Peloponnese.’127 On his first meeting with Philip to discuss terms for a truce and a peace,128 Philip remarked that Titus had come with lots of companions, whereas he himself had no one: ‘That’s your own fault,’ retorted Titus; ‘you’ve killed all your friends and relations.’ Then there was the time when Deinocrates129 of Messene had come to Rome, got drunk at a party and danced wearing a woman’s tunic. The next day he asked Titus to give him assistance, for he planned to lead Messene in a breakaway from the Achaeans. ‘I’ll think about that,’ said Titus; ‘but I’m amazed that, if you are set on plans as great as that, you can sing and dance at parties.’ Then the Achaeans were receiving envoys from Antiochus,130 who listed all the vast numbers of the king’s army and enumerated them under their many different names. Titus told the Achaeans the story of a time when he was dining with a friend, and was taking him to task for the variety of the meat-dishes, and asking in amazement where he had got hold of such a varied diet. His friend told him that the dishes were all of pork, but had been served and spiced differently. ‘So,’ said Titus, ‘you too, you men of Achaea, don’t be amazed at the power of Antiochus, when you hear of these “spear-carriers” and “javelin-carriers” and “foot-companions”. They’re all Syrians, and only their silly little weapons are different.’
18. His achievements in Greece and the war with Antiochus now concluded, Titus was elected censor:131 that is the highest office, a sort of culmination of a political career. His colleague in office was Marcellus,132 the son of the Marcellus who was five times consul. They expelled from the senate four men, none of them persons of particular note; they also accepted as citizens all those who enrolled, provided they were of free birth. They were forced to do this by the tribune Terentius Culleo,133 who persuaded the people to vote this through in order to spite the aristocrats.
The two most distinguished and influential men of the day were now at odds with one another: these were Scipio Africanus and Marcus Cato.134 The first of these Titus made leader of the senate as a mark of his excellence and pre-eminence,135 but he came to be on very bad terms with Cato because of the following incident. Titus had a brother, Lucius Flamininus.136 He was not at all like Titus in nature, and an aspect of this was a dreadful liberality in taking his pleasures and a total contempt for decency. Lucius had a young boyfriend, whom he took out with him when he was at the head of an army, and always had with him as a provincial governor.137 There was a party once, and this boy put on a coy tone with Lucius: ‘I love you so much’, said the boy, ‘that I left the gladiatorial show to come here, even though I’ve never yet seen a man killed: that’s how much I’ve put your pleasure above my own.’ Lucius was delighted. ‘Don’t worry,’ he said: ‘I’ll make sure your desire is satisfied,’ and he gave orders for one of the condemned prisoners to be brought there from the prison. He sent for the lictor,138 and he gave orders for the prisoner’s head to be cut off right there in the party.
Valerius Antias139 says that this was a favour to a girlfriend rather than a boyfriend; Livy quotes a speech of Cato himself for the version that a Gallic deserter arrived with his wife and children140 at the doors, and Lucius received him into the party and slew him with his own hand, all as a favour to his boyfriend.141 It is reasonable to assume that this was said by Cato to aggravate his charge.142 There are many authorities who say that the executed man was not a deserter but a condemned prisoner,143 including Cicero, in his On Old Age, who puts the story in the mouth of Cato himself.
19. Then Cato became censor,144 and in the course of his review of the senate he expelled Lucius; this was despite his consular status, and the fact that his brother seemed to share in his dishonour. Thus the two of them went together before the people, humble and in tears; and their request to their fellow-citizens seemed a reasonable one, for they asked that Cato should publicly set out the reasons for his charge, and give an explanation why he should have inflicted such dishonour on a distinguished house. Cato held nothing back; he came out, stood next to his fellow-censor, and asked Titus if he knew of the party. Titus denied all knowledge of it, and so Cato gave an account of what had happened; then he challenged Lucius to state if he denied the truth of anything that had been said.145 Lucius said nothing. The people now acknowledged that the dishonour had been justified, and they escorted Cato from the rostrum with warm applause.
Titus was devastated by what had happened to his brother, and joined forces with Cato’s old enemies.146 He managed to carry the day in the senate and secure the annulment of all the public contracts which Cato had given, whether for sale, hire or purchase; he also set up many serious lawsuits against him.147 I cannot describe this as conduct which was right or worthy of a public man, to take up an incurable enmity against a law-abiding magistrate and the finest of citizens, on behalf of a man who was certainly one of his family but was also unworthy of him and deserving of his punishment.148 Still, there was one occasion when the Roman people were gathered in the theatre for a spectacle and the senate had assumed their front seats in their usual special dress;149 then Lucius was seen sitting far away from the stage, humbled and dishonoured. They felt pity for him, and the ordinary people would not put up with the sad sight; they cried out for him to move, and he finally did so, with the consulars receiving him to sit with them.150
20.
Titus’ natural ambition brought him credit, as long as he had sufficient material to exercise it in the wars which I have described. He even served a further term as tribune151 after his consulship, though no one was pressing him to do so. But he grew older, his commands were over and the rest of his life offered no sphere of action; and at this stage it became clearer that he could not restrain his lust for glory and the youthfulness of his emotions. This seems to be the key to the vigour with which he hounded Hannibal,152 something which made him very unpopular.
Hannibal had fled secretly from his home in Carthage,153 and was for some time in Antiochus’ company; but then Antiochus accepted with relief the peace terms after the battle in Phrygia,154 and this drove Hannibal into exile once more. He wandered far and wide, and finally found a home in Bithynia, at the court of Prusias.155 Everyone at Rome knew this perfectly well, but all turned a blind eye on this weak old man, and felt that he was a sort of victim of destiny. Titus now arrived at Prusias’ court; he had been sent by the senate on an embassy concerning some other matter.156 When he saw Hannibal living there, he was infuriated that he should still be alive, and despite all Prusias’ pleas and entreaties on behalf of a suppliant and friend he would not relent.157
It appears that there was an ancient oracle about Hannibal’s death: ‘Libyssan earth will hide the body of Hannibal.’ Hannibal himself took this as a reference to Libya and burial in Carthage, and inferred that he would end his days there. But there is in Bithynia a sandy place by the sea, and a small village nearby called Libyssa.158 That was where Hannibal was living, in a state of continual fear of the Romans and distrust of Prusias’ irresolution. He had consequently already made his preparations, digging seven underground tunnels out of his house; these ran in different directions, each of them coming to the surface under cover some way away. When he now heard the decision of Titus, Hannibal tried to escape through the tunnels, but was confronted by guards sent by the king. He decided to take his own life. Some say that he wound his tunic around his neck, and ordered his servant to get leverage from behind by pressing his knee against his master’s hip, then to pull the neck back hard and squeeze and twist until it choked him, and that is how he killed himself; some prefer the version that he followed the model of Themistocles and Midas and drank bull’s blood.159 Livy says160 that he had poison with him, mixed it, and said as he took the cup: ‘Let us now take their great worry away from the Romans, who thought it too much of a burden and a delay to wait for the death of a hated old man. Still, Titus’ victory will not be an enviable one, nor worthy of his ancestors, the men who sent secretly to Pyrrhus, their enemy and their victor, and warned him of the attempt to poison him.’161
21. That is how they say Hannibal met his death. When the news reached the senate, a fair number were appalled by what they saw as Titus’ excessiveness and brutality. Hannibal had been like an old bird, wingless and docked, allowed to live as a tamed animal; now Titus had killed him. No one had been pressing him to do this; it was just for his own glory, to gain his place in history as Hannibal’s killer. This put into relief the clemency and magnanimity shown by Scipio Africanus, whom they now came to admire all the more. Scipio had met the unconquered and formidable Hannibal, and had defeated him in Africa; yet he did not drive him into exile nor demand his surrender from his countrymen. When they met to negotiate before the battle he grasped his hand warmly, then when they made terms after the battle he did not add to the man’s ill fortune with any further audacity or persecution. There is a story, too, of another meeting in Ephesus.162 The first point was the way that they walked together. Hannibal took the place of honour, and Scipio made no objection, walking simply and unpretentiously. Then they fell to discussing generals. Hannibal claimed that Alexander had been the greatest general of all time, with Pyrrhus in second place and himself in third. Africanus163 gently smiled. ‘What if I had not beaten you?’ he asked. ‘In that case, Scipio,’ replied Hannibal, ‘I would not have put myself third among generals, but first.’ Most people now admired Scipio for this, and reviled Titus for the way he had behaved; it was as if he had laid hands on a corpse which belonged to others.
But there was another view as well, and some praised him for what he had done. They thought that, as long as Hannibal lived, he was a fire which needed only to be fanned. Even when he was in his prime, it was not his bodily power or the strength of his hand which the Romans had to fear, it was his brilliance and skill, coupled with his natural bitterness and hostility to Rome. Those qualities were not lessened by age; his nature was still there, deep in his character; fortune was not a constant, and as it changed it inspired hopes which elicited aggression from those whose hatred fed their hostility.
And later events perhaps offered even more justification for Titus. First there was Aristonicus, the lyre-player’s boy, who filled all Asia with wars and rebellions thanks to the reputation of Eumenes;164 then there was Mithridates, who after Sulla and Fimbria and the loss of so many great armies and generals could still rise against Lucullus with such power by land and sea.165 Nor was Hannibal’s low state any humbler than that of Gaius Marius. Hannibal had a king as his friend, he lived his usual life, he spent his days among ships and horses and soldiers; whereas the Romans regarded the fortunes of Marius, this wandering beggar in Libya, as a matter for derision, and then a little later they were being slaughtered and tortured and were worshipping at his feet in Rome.166 Thus present circumstances are no guide at all to the future; life’s changes end only with life itself. That is why some people say that Titus was not acting on his own initiative, but was sent with Lucius Scipio on an embassy whose sole purpose was Hannibal’s death.167
We have discovered no further deed of Titus, either political or military, and he met a peaceful death:168 so it is time to consider the comparison.
Comparison of Philopoemen and Titus Flamininus
1 (22). If we consider the magnitude of their benefactions to the Greeks, it is not fitting to compare Philopoemen with Titus – nor, for that matter, with many others1 who were better men than Philopoemen. For they were Greeks fighting their wars against other Greeks, while Titus was a non-Greek fighting on behalf of the Greeks; and, at a time when Philopoemen was unable to help his own beleaguered countrymen but had gone away to Crete,2 at that very moment Titus defeated Philip in the heart of Greece and set her peoples and all her cities free.3 If one were to examine the battles fought by each of them, Philopoemen killed more Greeks as commander of the Achaeans than Titus killed Macedonians4 as helper of the Greeks.
As for their mistakes, the one man’s arose from his love of honour, the other’s5 from his contentiousness; the one’s anger was swift,6 the other’s was implacable. For Titus ensured that Philip retained the title and position of king, and was forgiving to the Aetolians;7 Philopoemen was led by his anger to deprive his own country of the lands which lay around it and the contributions they paid.8 Again, the one was steadfast in his support for those he had benefited, the other was swift to cancel any links of gratitude in his wrath: for he had once been a benefactor of the Spartans, then later tore down the city’s walls and took away its territory, then finally changed and destroyed its constitution itself.9 He was also thought to have thrown away his life in his anger and contentiousness,10 for his hastening to Messene was not timely, but quicker than it should have been; he was not a man like Titus, whose campaigns were always guided by thoughtful calculation and an eye for safety.11
2 (23). If, however, we consider the numbers of wars fought and triumphs gained, then Philopoemen’s skill and experience seem the more firmly based of the two. The one man’s struggle with Philip was decided in two contests,12 the other won countless battles, and left no room for anyone to contend that it was luck, rather than expertise, which carried him to success. Again, the one gained his glory by making use of Roman power when it was at its height, the other by making use of that of Greece when she was already waning and past her best, so that the one man’s successes were his own, t
he other’s those of his state: for the one man commanded good soldiers, the other as commander made his soldiers good.
Indeed, the fact that the one man’s contests were against Greeks was certainly unfortunate, but it made his military excellence absolutely clear: for when other things are equal, the victors are those with the superior military excellence. Thus he fought his wars against the most warlike of the Greeks – the Cretans and the Spartans: the Cretans being the most accomplished in guile and the Spartans the most valiant in boldness – and he defeated both.13
Titus also won his victory with the forces which were already at hand, using the weapons and tactics which had come down to him; Philopoemen made his own innovations and changes in this sort of military organization,14 so that the key to victory was freshly discovered by the one, already available to help the other. As for hand-to-hand combat, we can point to many great deeds of Philopoemen15 but none of the other man; indeed, a certain Aetolian called Archedamus16 mocked him for this, telling of a time when Archedamus was running with drawn sword towards those of the Macedonians who were fighting and keeping their formation, while Titus was standing with his hands upturned to Heaven, deep in prayer.17
3 (24). A further point: all Titus’ noble achievements came when he was a commander or ambassador,18 whereas Philopoemen ensured that he was no worse or less active for the Achaeans as a private citizen than as a commander. For it was as a private citizen that he expelled Nabis from Messene and liberated the Messenians, and as a private citizen that he barred Sparta to the commander Diophanes and Titus as they approached, and thus saved the city.19 He was such a natural leader that he knew how to exercise power not merely according to the laws but even over the laws, when this was expedient; he did not need to be given authority by those over whom it was exercised, but he made use of these people themselves when it was necessary, for they regarded as their general the man who took thought for their welfare rather than the man whom they had chosen themselves. So Titus’ generous and caring deeds towards the Greeks were noble, but Philopoemen’s deeds towards the Romans, harsh and hard-headed as they were in their pursuit of freedom, were nobler still; for it is easier to give favours to those who want them than to resist and cause pain to those more powerful than oneself.