The True Story of Hannibal and Scipio

[dhampyresa]

Today, I ended up borrowing a book titled "La véritable histoire de Carthage et de Hannibal" (or, in English, "The True Story of Carthage and Hannibal"). This isn't the book I was planning to borrow, because I had no idea he had it, but as I flipped through it, I found the following bit in the passage recounting the meeting in Ephesus. (Emphasis mine.)

C'est ainsi qu'Hannibal, sans renoncer à ses rodomontades, fit discrètement sa cour a Scipion, en laissant entendre qu'il avait battu meilleur qu'Alexandre. A la fin de la réunion, Hannibal invita Scipion a accepter son hospitalité. Scipion répondit qu'il l'aurait fait de très bon cceur, « si toi, Hannibal, tu n’étais pas maintenant avec Antiochos, dont la conduite éveille les soupçons des Romains » .

Which could be translated in English as:

That was how Hannibal, without going back on his boasting, discreetly courted Scipio, by suggesting he had beaten someone greater than Alexander. At the end of the meeting, Hannibal invited Scipio to accept his hospitality. Scipio replied that he would have done so very happily, "if you, Hannibal, were not now with Antiochos, whose behavior arouses the suspicions of the Romans."

I am not even kidding. That's literally what the book says; you can't translate the bold any other way. And look, I know I ship these two really fucking hard, but I am apparently not the only one.