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The Sibyl predicts that Hannibal will be condemned before leaving Carthage; he will die
in exile, away from his homeland and his family. There will be no state funeral or any
rites in accord with Carthaginian custom for Hannibal. Within the Punica, the imagery
contrasts with Scipio‟s glorious triumph at the close of the poem which culminates with
confirmation of Scipio‟s divine origins and title of pater patriae (Pun. 17.625-54). The
Sibyl is quiet on the parallel to Scipio‟s own death in voluntary exile (Livy, 39.52.6; cf.
Hist. 23.14).
Silius‟ reinterpretation of Hannibal‟s role with Prusias as nothing more than a slave is
also found in Juvenal Satire 10.161-2. Silius and Juvenal reflect what might be the
contemporary attitude to Hannibal, that despite his glorious victories and the serious
threat he had once posed to Rome, he had come to nothing. The end of Hannibal‟s life
is, as presented by Juvenal, an anti-climax.
Representations of Hannibal committing suicide by poison are appropriate. Suicide
is, after all, the only independent option for an eternal enemy, and poison is a suitably
ignominious method. But they are probably literary constructs. Pausanias related a
different, rather more mundane, version of events. The geographer wrote that Hannibal
was being pursued by Flamininus and was turned away by Prusias when he approached
the king as a suppliant. As Hannibal left the king, he cut a finger on his sword and died
of a fever a few days later at a place called Libyssa (Pausanias, 8.11.11). The item was
of interest to Pausanias because an apocryphal story of an oracle from Ammon said that
when Hannibal died he would be buried in Libyan earth. Hannibal, like so many
recipients of oracles, misunderstood the prophecy, erroneously believing that it meant
he would destroy the Roman empire and return to his home in Libya to die of old age.
The location of Libyssa as the site where Hannibal died, whether or not by suicide,
was accepted by others. Cassius Dio wrote that a tumulus by the river Libyssa was
decorated with white marble by Septimius Severus 435 in the belief that it belonged to
Hannibal, a fellow North African (Cassius Dio, 64; Zonaras 9, 21).
In today‟s world, there is a memorial „Hannibal garden‟ at Gebze (Libyssa in modern
Turkey) containing a white rock inscribed with Hannibal‟s features and the words „by
the order of Ataturk, in honour of Hannibal.‟ 436
435 Birley, 1999, 142 for discussion of Cassius Dio as a possible witness to the dedication by Septimius.
436 Chaabane, 2004, 20.
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