History of Rome

​Sulpicius, being ill, remained at Pergamum; Villius, when he heard that the king was occupied with the war in Pisidia, set out for Ephesus, and while he delayed there for a few days, he made it his business ​to meet frequently with Hannibal, who happened to be there at that time, ​in order to test his disposition and, if possible, to remove any fear he might have that there was any danger to him from the Romans.

​By these conversations, indeed, nothing else was accomplished, but it nevertheless followed of its own accord, as if it had been sought by design, that because of them Hannibal became of less value to the king and more suspected in all things.

​Claudius, following the Greek books of Acilius, relates that P. Africanus was in that embassy and that he conversed with Hannibal at Ephesus, and he even records one conversation:

​when Africanus asked whom Hannibal believed to have been the greatest commander, ​he replied, Alexander, king of the Macedonians, because with a small force he had routed countless armies and had traversed the remotest shores, which it was beyond human hope to visit.

​When he asked next whom he would place second, he said Pyrrhus;

​that he had first taught how to measure out a camp; besides, no one had chosen positions or disposed guards more elegantly; he also possessed such an art of winning men to himself that the Italian nations preferred the rule of a foreign king to that of the Roman people, who had so long been preeminent in that land.

​When he went on to ask whom he considered third, he said without doubt himself.

​Then laughter arose in Scipio, and he added, “What indeed would you say if you had defeated me?” “Then indeed,” he said, “I should place myself both before Alexander and before Pyrrhus and before all other commanders.”

​Both the response, intricate with Carthaginian cunning, and the unexpected kind of flattery moved Scipio, because he had separated himself from the crowd of commanders as if beyond estimation.