The contradictions which, according to Livy, were everywhere rife with regard to P. Scipio’s end, are a remarkable instance of the way in which even impossible statements were got up; and we see from thence, that even at a time in which contemporary history was already written, when the work of Fabius was ended, and that of Acilius began, these accounts were very little substantiated. We do not know for certain the year in which Scipio died. What is quoted in Livy from the speech of Tib. Gracchus, must be deemed to be worth more than the stories of the annalists. There is no doubt that L. Scipio was once called upon in the senate by the Petillii to answer to the charge of having received sums of money from Antiochus, and of not having accounted to the republic for those which had been gained during the course of the war. This kind of impeachment is one of the earliest which we meet with among the Romans. The consuls might indeed freely dispose of the _manubia_; they might distribute them among the soldiers, or deposit them in the _ærarium_; but they were always to be ready to give account, as the Romans in money matters were very particular with regard to this point. L. Scipio sent for his books, and produced them in the senate; but his brother snatched them out of his hands and destroyed them, saying that it was a shame, when he and his brother had made the state so rich, to ask an account for such a trifle as a million of drachmæ. Thus 225,000 dollars were already then a trifle! Hereupon an impeachment was brought against P. Scipio; he spoke a few proud words, and then it was--which can hardly be otherwise than authentic--that he cried out, “This is the day that I conquered Hannibal at Zama, on which ye are always wont to offer sacrifice: let those who are well disposed, follow me.” The tribunes alone are said to have staid behind. This accusation may perhaps be made to agree with the fact that Gracchus himself had wanted to have L. Scipio arrested, and that on this, when the prætor Terentius Culleo was about to try the case, P. Scipio had in all haste come up from Etruria, and rescued his brother from the beadles. And therefore as P. Africanus _plus quam civiles animos gerebat_, he too was impeached. He either did not wait for this prosecution, and retired to Liternum, a Latin colony, or _colonia maritima_, between Cumæ and Minturnæ, or he had lived there already before. Thus much is certain, that the last years of his life he did not pass in Rome. That he lived at Liternum in exile, and not for his own pleasure, becomes probable from the circumstance, that before his death, some one else was _princeps senatus_. Such an exile was easy to bring about; for, if he settled at Liternum as a citizen, he had thereby renounced the right of Roman citizenship.