so that he could not be charged with leaving Africa undefended. Admiration of his enterprise, and hope for their own cause from its result, would be sufficient motives with the people to secure him from recal, and many an adventurous spirit would hasten to join him. Of the details of his operations we have no account; but their result was the conquest of a large portion of the peninsula, and the subjection, by war or negociation, of many of the native tribes, whom he trained to form an army. The traces left in the next generation of his government in Spain forced from even such a bitter enemy as Cato the tribute of admiration-that no king was worthy to be named by the side of Hamilcar Barca. His further plans appear to have been just ripe for execution when he fell, in the flower of his age, in battle against the Vettones (B.C. 229). Hasdrubal, who succeeded to his father-in-law's command during the minority of Hannibal, postponed the war with Rome as the inheritance of its sworn champion, and devoted his great political genius to the consolidation of what might now be truly called the Barcine kingdom in Spain. He drew the bonds with the native tribes closer by conciliation and hospitality to their chieftains; and founded the city of New Carthage in the most convenient position and on the most splendid harbour of the coast, looking both to Italy and Africa. His moderation seems to have assured the Romans against any danger from the side of Spain, if indeed they could have believed that Carthage would venture on an aggressive war, and that not by sea but from so distant a base, divided from Italy by the Pyrenees and Alps and the wild tribes between them. They affected to be satisfied with the explanation that the conquest of Spain had been undertaken to procure means for paying the contributions due under the treaty. Meanwhile they constituted themselves, on the shores of the Iberian as of the Adriatic sea, the protectors of the Greek communities, the chief of which were Emporia (Ampurias) at the foot of the Pyrenees, and Zacynthus or Saguntum (Murviedro) south of the Ebro. With this hold upon the peninsula in case of future operations, they chose for the present to make a treaty with Hasdrubal, by which the river Iberus (Ebro) was made the limit of the two empires, and the independence of Saguntum was secured (B.c. 226). Hasdrubal was assassinated by a native after an administration of eight years; and the acclamations of the camp, which hailed HANNIBAL his successor, were ratified by the unanimous voice of the Carthaginian people, drowning the remonstrances of Hanno (B.C. 221). At the age of twenty-six, he was already trained to a per sonal courage and endurance, which surpassed that of the hardiest veteran, and practised in that knowledge of war which made him the greatest general of antiquity. But his character will appear better from his career than from the brilliant picture which Livy draws of his virtues, only to draw over it the black shadow of his crimes. He was one of those devoted men, whose lives take their complexion from the one object of their destiny; and that object was at least the salvation of his country: for the student of this period of history must never forget that Carthage had reached that crisis at which aggrandisement was the only means of self-defence; and her sole protection against the impending invasion of Africa. was to anticipate it by herself invading Rome. To have perceived and acted on this truth was the great merit of the Barcines. It is no exaggeration of Livy's rhetoric that Hannibal assumed the command in Spain with the feeling that Italy was his province. The still unfinished Celtic war seemed to combine with the Macedonian quarrel about Demetrius of Pharos to present an opportunity for attacking Rome, whose usual good fortune relieved her of these embarrassments just before the war began. The two campaigns in which he completed the subjection of the tribes south of the Ebro are represented by Livy as a stealthy approach towards Saguntum in search of a pretext for attack, but the treaty of Hasdrubal was not likely to weigh on a conscience bound by the oath imposed by Hamilcar. A real ground of hesitation was found in the ascendency of the peace party at Carthage, whither the Roman envoys, rudely repulsed by Hannibal, carried their complaints, instead of being provoked to war. It was equally in vain that Hannibal goaded on the Saguntines to give him a pretext for hostilities; and he found one at last in their pretended aggressions on a tribe allied with Carthage. The siege of Saguntum was commenced in the spring of B.C. 219, and while the Romans were wasting their time in the war with Demetrius of Pharos, the city defended itself for eight months with a desperation only paralleled by other Spanish sieges down to that of Zaragoza. Its cruel fate was the usual, though horrible consequence of such a resistance; for never do the worst passions of human nature ride so triumphant over every whisper of mercy as in a city stormed after a long siege, and the horrors of Badajoz make us slow to judge the Carthaginians for those of * Hannibal's relentless hatred of the Romans no more implies personal malignity of character than the injunction of Nelson to his midshipmen to hate a Frenchman like the devil. Saguntum. The fall of the Iberian city involved that of the stronghold of aristocracy at Carthage. The popular enthusiasm, kindled by the first news of war, was roused to a flame by the distribution of the booty. During the siege, the Romans had sent an embassy to Hannibal, who referred them to Carthage. There they addressed the Senate as being no party to the attack on Saguntum, and demanded that Hannibal should be given up. Hanno, who alone ventured to advise compliance, was heard with the silence of personal respect; but he was only answered by the complaint that the speech of the Roman ambassador had been less hostile, and the Romans were admonished to prefer the old alliance of Carthage to their recent league with Saguntum. The news of the city's fall reached Rome just as the envoys returned. Wonder at Punic audacity, regret at the waste of the forces of the republic in petty wars, and shame at having permitted the catastrophe, all contributed to a panic fear. Their fancy saw Hannibal already past the Ebro, leading after him all the nations of Iberia, and stirring up the tribes of Gaul. A war with all the world was to be waged in Italy and before the walls of Rome. But the alarm soon took the turn of decisive action; the course to be pursued was indicated by the allotment of provinces to the newly elected consuls-Spain to P. Cornelius Scipio, and Africa with Sicily to Tiberius Sempronius: and war against Carthage was voted by the comitia. The only Upon this, In the spring of B.C. 218, a last embassy was sent to Carthage, to ask simply whether the act of Hannibal was that of the state, and if so, to make the solemn declaration of war. answer was a bold defence of the justice of the act. Fabius, the chief of the ambassadors, gathering up the bosom of his toga as if he held something in its folds, said: "Here we carry for you peace and war: take which you please." With equal resolution, though in a suppressed voice, the senators replied: "Give which you like;" and when Fabius, shaking out the fold, exclaimed, "I give you WAR," they accepted it with one voice, and pledged themselves to carry it on in the same spirit. From Carthage the ambassadors passed over into Spain, to try if the tribes could be detached from the Carthaginian cause. After some success beyond the Ebro, they met with a decisive repulse from the Volcians; the reply of whose aged chieftain, even if it be invented by the rhetoric of Livy, gives a true expression of the feelings natural to the native peoples. He asked them how they dared offer the alliance of a state which had betrayed Saguntum more foully than Carthage had destroyed it, and bad them seek allies where its fate had not been heard of. The watchword was adopted by the other tribes, and the ambassadors retired into Gaul, where they were equally unsuccessful in preparing an opposition to the passage of Hannibal. It was only at Massilia that they rested from the alarms inspired by the armed councils of the Celts. Hannibal had meanwhile returned from the smoking ruins of Saguntum to New Carthage, where he spent the winter in preparing at once for the invasion of Italy, and for the defence of Spain and Africa, for he was the general-in-chief of Carthage at home as well as abroad. He had an army of 120,000 foot, 16,000 horse, and 58 elephants, and a fleet of 32 quinqueremes manned and 18 not manned, besides the reserves of ships and elephants at Carthage. But the quality of his troops differed widely from that of the common Punic armies. Discarding all mercenaries, he trusted to the Libyans and Iberians who, trained under his own eyes, found a substitute for the impulse of patriotism in attachment to their general. As a sign of his confidence and a preparation for the long campaigns that lay before them in a distant land, he gave them leave of absence for the winter; and he secured the devotion of the Libyans by a promise of the Carthaginian franchise as the reward of victory. He allotted 20,000 men to the defence of Africa, the passage of the Straits especially being secured by a strong force. In Spain he left 12,000 infantry and 2500 cavalry, with the bulk of the navy, under his brother Hasdrubal; and he placed in the fortress of Saguntum the hostages whom he took from the natives for the fidelity of their troops. All that he required of the home government was to send out 20 quinqueremes and 1000 soldiers to ravage the coasts of Italy, and, if possible, to station 25 ships at Lilybæum. His own course was to execute the plan inherited from his father-a direct invasion of Italy. A moderate force thrown on any point of the Italian coast would have had no hope of success amidst allies now more firmly bound to Rome than when they had stood faithful to her against Pyrrhus. But Rome might be approached through the recently subjugated and still faithless tribes of Gaul, who, it has been observed, were to Hannibal what Poland was to Napoleon, in his very similar Russian campaign. Treaties were concluded with the Insubrians and Boii; and, if Hannibal could force his way through the untamed savages between the Pyrenees and the Alps, he reckoned on finding, as he descended into Italy, both guides and reinforcements. CHAPTER XXVI. THE SECOND PUNIC WAR. B.C. 218 TO B.C. 201. "In parte operis mei licet mihi præfari bellum maxime omnium memorabile, quæ unquam gesta sint, me scripturum; quod, Hannibale duce, Carthaginienses cum populo Romano gessere. Nam neque validiores opibus ullæ inter se civitates gentesque contulerunt arma, neque his ipsis tantum unquam virium atque roboris fuit: et haud ignotas belli artes inter se, sed expertas primo Punico conserebant bello: et adeo varia belli fortuna ancepsque Mars fuit, ut propius periculo fuerint qui vicerunt." CHARACTER OF THE SECOND PUNIC WAR-ITS THREE PERIODS AND THREE SCENES, ITALY, SPAIN, AND AFRICA-FIRST PERIOD: MARCH OF HANNIBAL THROUGH SPAIN AND GAUL-MOVEMENTS OF THE CONSUL SCIPIO-HANNIBAL'S PASSAGE OF THE ALPS -BATTLES OF THE TICINUS AND THE TREBIA-HANNIBAL IN ETRURIA-BATTLE OF THE TRASIMENE LAKE-FABIUS MAXIMUS MADE DICTATOR, QUI CUNCTANDO RESTITUIT REM -HANNIBAL IN APULIA-CNEIUS SCIPIO IN SPAIN-THIRD CAMPAIGN: BATTLE OF CANNE-ROMAN FORTITUDE-REVOLT OF CAPUA-CARTHAGINIAN WINTER QUARTERS-SECOND PERIOD: HANNIBAL'S FIRST DEFEAT, AT NOLA-HIS RE- THOUGH more than twenty centuries have passed since the second war between Rome and Carthage, and the world has witnessed, and still witnesses, conflicts compared with which its mere magnitude and the very principles at issue were insignificant, it is still in many respects "the most memorable of all wars ever waged." It displayed to the world two of its greatest generals, one perhaps the greatest of all, except him who never made a mistake in war and never lost a gun. It bequeathed to the students of the art of war every form of example and of warning, and left to free states in every age the far nobler lessons of effort, self-sacrifice, long-endurance, and confidence amidst desperate fortunes. Above all, it decided the future destiny of the world, whether the nations should become the slaves of a commercial oligarchy and of oriental superstitions, or be united under the laws of a free state, which even as a conqueror respected their liberties, in readiness to receive the truth that should make them free indeed. |