Tom Holland

And ultimately, Tom, that's the lesson of history.

I mean, it's interesting you say that because Scipio actually dies in the same year, 183.

And he, unlike Hannibal, had died in his bed of natural causes.

He died very wealthy, adorned with honours, admired by his fellow citizens, secure in his fame as the man who had beaten Hannibal.

But amazingly, he also had died as an exile.

And the reason for this is that in 187, when Scipio returns with his brother Lucius from the Eastern Campaign…

And they are loaded down with wealth and money and cash and tremendous piles of plunder.

This causes consternation in the Senate that these two Scipio brothers are now so wealthy that perhaps they might end up putting Rome itself in their shade.

And Cato and his allies feel strong enough to go on the attack.

And so they openly accuse Lucius of embezzlement.

Remember, you know, Cato's background as a paymaster.

He knows where to sniff around.

And Scipio is accused of complicity in this.

And he's so offended that he arrives in the Senate and he pulls out his account books and he rips them up before the full gaze of the Senate.

and indignantly and to a degree justifiably reminds his accusers of all the treasure that he has won for Rome.

But the thing is

He's not prepared to stand and fight because he feels the humiliation of it too deeply.

He's not going to bother swatting aside these pygmies as he sees them.

Instead, he retires in high dudgeon to his country estate in Campania, so down by the Bay of Naples.

And essentially for the rest of his life, he's a broken man.