Context: After the Battle of Zama where Scipio defeated Hannibal, Hannibal went into a self imposed exile to avoid being captured by Rome. He took refuge in the court of Antiochus III in Syria, advising him on matters of war against Rome.
Seven years later, around 193 BC, Scipio went to the court of Antiochus III as part of a Roman delegation to settle a dispute. This is when both generals met each other face to face for the first time since the Punic war, with mutual respect for each other.
Do we have any witness reports or commentaries of this encounter? It's the first time I've heard of it! Levels of badassery not seen since then I suppose.
Livy in Ab Urbe Condita writes of a legendary meeting between these two great and influential men at the court of Antiochus III and a conversation that followed
"When Africanus (Scipo) asked who, in Hannibal's opinion, was the greatest general, Hannibal named Alexander, the king of the Macedonians because with a small force he has routed armies innumerable and because he has traversed the most distant regions, even to see which transcended human hopes. To the next request, as to whom he would rank second, Hannibal selected Pyrrhus, saying that he had been the first to teach the art of castrametation, besides no one had chosen his ground or placed his troops more discriminatingly; he possessed also the art of winning men over to him, so that the Italian people preferred the lordship of a foreign king to that of the Roman people, so long the master in that land. When he continued, asking whom Hannibal considered third, he named himself without hesitation"
Livy Ab Urbe Condita Book 35 Chapter 14
You think you're cool? Think again.
Thanks for the source!
Further, when Hannibal named himself as the third greatest general in history, Scipio laughed and asked him what if he had defeated him at Zama instead and Hannibal responded that then he would place himself before Alexander as the greatest general in history.
😎