“WHO WAS THE GREATEST GENERAL?”

*** This anecdote is probably apocryphal, but it could be true.  Plus, it’s cool.

            Two of the greatest generals met in the Battle of Zama in 202 B.C.  The battle ended the Second Punic War and made Rome the dominant power in the western Mediterranean.  In the battle, Scipio defeated Hannibal outside Carthage in north Africa.  He was called Scipio Africanus after that.  Years later, the two generals met.  The conversation was cordial as both shared memories of the war.  At the end of the conversation, Scipio asked Hannibal who he thought the greatest general in history were.  Hannibal said he thought the greatest general in history was Alexander of Macedonia.  When asked who was number two, Hannibal picked Pyrrhus of Epirus.  King Pyrrhus was a general who had come to Italy to aid a city threatened by Rome.  Pyrrhus defeated the Romans in two pyrrhic victories, but was defeated in the third.  At this point, Scipio was getting perturbed that Hannibal had not picked him.  For his third place general, Hannibal picked himself.  Scipio, thinking “dude, I beat you at Zama!”, asked him where he would put himself if he had won at Zama.  Hannibal declared that if he had beat Scipio, he would consider himself the greatest general in history.  Scipio probably chuckled at that back-handed compliment and the two parted in friendship.