We await the full details of Donald Trump’s ‘take it or leave it’ solution to the Ukraine war, but at least Romans liked that sort of clarity. Take the war between Rome and the Carthaginian Hannibal, begun in 218 bc.
Rome had already defeated Carthage in a long drawn-out battle over the possession of Sicily. In search of revenge, the father of young Hannibal made him swear never to befriend Rome. His family conquered southern Spain, rich in silver mines, agriculture and manpower, and when in 219 bc Hannibal sacked Saguntum, a town allied to Rome, Rome sent an embassy to clarify the situation. The Carthaginians complained of Roman treachery and asked what they wanted.
According to Livy, the Roman statesman Fabius ‘laid his hand on the folds of his toga gathered to his breast and said: “Here we bring you peace and war. The choice is yours.” At once came the reply: “Whichever you want: it is all the same to us.” Fabius dropped the folds and said: “We give you war.”’
Another example: in 202 bc Carthage was defeated, and Rome turned to punishing Carthage’s allies, one of whom had been King Philip V of Macedon. In 168 bc, after Philip’s death, Antiochus, the Greek king of an empire from Turkey to Iran, decided to intervene on the Greek side. His first target was Egypt, long a Roman ally. But there a Roman envoy, Popillius Laenas, met him and ordered him to withdraw, or it was war. Antiochus said he would take advice. Popillius used his staff to draw a circle around him in the sand and said: ‘Give me your reply before you step out of this circle.’
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