When the Romans defeated King Antiochus III's Syrian forces at Magnesia (in 189 BC), they demanded that Hannibal, Antiochus' advisor and the man who had routed Roman forces at Lake Trasimeno and Cannae three decades before, be handed over to them. Though Hannibal wisely fled, first to Crete and then to Bithynia (in Asia Minor), a batallion of Roman soldiers soon found him...
Clearly cornered, Hannibal removed the phial of poison which he always carried with him and promptly drank it. "Let us relieve the Romans of the fear which has so long afflicted them," he declared, "since it seems to tax their patience too hard to wait for an old man's death."
[When Hannibal crossed the Alps to invade Italy, his military engineers employed fire to smash immovable rocks. Heated with blazing logs and doused with vinegar, they split into fragments which could be pushed aside.]
Sources
Livy, Annals
