The conditions now imposed by the victors were far more humiliating than the original ones. In addition to the former demands the Carthaginians were required to pay an annual tribute of two hundred talents for a period of fifty years; they were not to wage war outside of Africa; and in Africa they were not to make war without the permission of Rome, or of Rome’s allies, and then only within Carthaginian territory. By the acceptance of these terms, which left the once haughty Mistress of the Seas little more than a Roman protectorate, there ended in 201 B.C., after seventeen years’ duration, the Second Punic War. Just as, centuries later, the Allies believed that they had permanently crippled Germany by the terms imposed on her at Versailles, so the Romans congratulated themselves on having crushed their rival forever. But their gratulations were premature. Relieved of the burden of maintaining great military and naval establishments, free to devote themselves to the profitable pursuits of peace, the Carthaginians proceeded to come back with a rapidity which amazed and alarmed the Romans. Under the wise administration of Hannibal, Carthage set its house in order, reorganized its finances, suppressed its political abuses, and paid off in less than half the allotted time the enormous war indemnity which had been imposed upon it. Ere long the anxiety of the Romans turned to something not far removed from panic. Though Hannibal had scrupulously observed the terms of peace, with such a man at liberty, Rome could not sleep o’ nights and the Senate peremptorily demanded his surrender. Carthage was powerless to refuse the demand; so Hannibal, who had no illusions as to the fate his malignant and unchivalrous enemies, smarting from their long series of defeats at his hands, had in store for him, fled from the city which he had served so long and brilliantly and to whose arms he had brought imperishable fame. At first the illustrious fugitive sought refuge on the Kerkenna Islands, off the eastern coast of Tunisia, near the modern Sfax; but, when the long arm of Rome reached out to pluck him thence, he again sought safety in flight, this time to Asia Minor, where he found a welcome at the court of King Prusias of Bithynia. But even there he was not safe from the hatred of Rome, and in 183 B.C., rather than bring disaster on those who had befriended him, the great captain died in exile by his own hand.