Scipio Africanus Rejected Ungrateful Rome

Roman general and statesman Scipio Africanus defeated Hannibal at the Battle of Zama in 202 BC but later faced political attacks from rivals, including Cato the Elder. In 187 BC, Scipio and his brother Lucius faced trials over bribes they supposedly received from the Seleucid king Antiochus III during the Roman-Seleucid War. Disillusioned, Scipio left Rome and retired to his villa at Liternum, where he died around 183 BC. Later tradition says he refused burial in Rome and ordered an epitaph reading, "Ungrateful fatherland, you will not even have my bones."

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