 CHARLES F. HORN, ROSETER JOHNSON, AND JOHN RUD. CHARLES F. HORN, ROSETER JOHNSON, AND JOHN RUD. CHARLES F. HORN, ROSETER JOHNSON, AND JOHN RUD. The limits of her strength and a last blow throws herself on Carthage and effaces her from the world. Jealousy and antagonism had long existed between Rome and Carthage, but it was the pre-eminence of the African city which held Roman ambition in check, and for generations deferred the final struggle. But when at last Rome had acquired the strength she needed in order to assert her rivalry, it was only a question of actual preparation, and the first cause of quarrel was sure to be seized upon by either party, especially by the growing and haughty Italian power. The immediate object of contention was the island of Sicily, lying between the territory of Rome and that of Carthage. In Sicily the First Punic War, lasting about twenty-three years, was mainly carried on by the Romans with success, while on the sea Carthage for a long time maintained superiority. During the intervals between the Punic Wars two things appeared with striking force in the history of these events, the passive strength and recuperative power of Carthage, which enabled her to return again and again to the struggle from almost crushing defeat, and the marvelous development of resources in aggressive vigor on the part of Rome, in whose case the rise of powerful individual leaders more than offset the weight of long accumulated energies, supplemented, as these were, by the genius and achievement of great Carthaginian warriors. The wars progressed in a spirit of deadly hatred, constantly intensified on both sides, and the Roman determination, of which Cato was the mouthpiece, that Carthage must be destroyed, met its stubborn answer in the endeavors of the Carthaginians to turn this vengeance against Rome herself. Which had been mistress of the world, the richest and most powerful of cities, her naval supremacy alone had sufficed to secure her safety and superiority over all rivals or possible combinations of force. But the strength of her government, not so much in her people or even in her statesmen and soldiers, is in her men of wealth. A political establishment founded upon such supports was peculiarly liable to all the dangers of corruption and of public ignorance and apathy in the conduct of affairs. These causes appear conspicuously in the history of the Punic Wars, as contributing largely to the overthrow and final extinguishment of Carthage, which left to her successful rival the open way to universal dominion. The account of Floris presents in a style at once comprehensive and succinct a splendid narrative of these wars, with their decisive and world-changing events. The first Punic War, the victor people of Italy, having now spread over the land as far as the sea, checked its course for a little, like a fire, which, having consumed the woods lying in its track, is stopped by some intervening river. But soon after, seeing at no great distance a rich prey, which seemed in a manner detached and torn away from their own Italy, they were so inflamed with a desire to possess it, that since it could neither be joined to their country by a mole or bridge, they resolved that it should be secured by arms and war, and reunited, as it were, to their continent. And behold, as if the fates themselves opened away for them, an opportunity was not wanting, for Missana, a city of Sicily in alliance with them, happened then to make a complaint concerning the tyranny of the Carthaginians. As the Romans coveted Sicily, so likewise to the people of Carthage, and both at the same time with equal desires and equal forces, contemplated the attainment of the empire of the world, under the pretext, therefore, of assisting their allies, but in reality being lured by the prey, that rude people, that people sprung from shepherds and merely accustomed to the land, made it appear, though the strangeness of the attempt startled them, yet such confidence is there in true courage, that to the brave it is indifferent whether a battle be fought on horseback or in ships, by land or by sea. It was in the consulship of Appius Claudius, that they first ventured upon that straight, which has so ill a name from the strange things related of it, and so impetuous a current. But they were so far from being affrighted that they regarded the violence of the rushing tide as something in their favour, and, sailing forward immediately and without delay, they defeated Hyero, king of Syracuse, with so much rapidity, that he owned, he was conquered before he saw the enemy. In the consulship of Duelius and Cornelius, they likewise had courage to engage at sea, and then the expedition used in equipping the fleet was a presage of victory, for within sixty days after the timber was fell, a navy of a hundred and sixty ships lay at anchor, so that the vessels did not seem to have been made by art, but by the trees themselves appeared to have been turned into ships by the aid of the gods. The aspect of the battle, too, was wonderful, as the heavy and slow ships of the Romans closed with the swift and nimble barks of the enemy. Little availed their naval arts, such as breaking off the oars of a ship and eluding the beaks of the enemy by turning aside. For the grappling irons and other instruments, which before their engagement had been greatly derided by the enemy, were fastened upon their ships, and they were compelled to fight as on solid ground. Being victorious therefore at Lipar, by sinking and scattering the enemy's fleet, they celebrated their first naval triumph, and how great was the exaltation at it. Duelius, the commander not content with one day's triumph, ordered, during all the rest of his life, when he returned from supper, lighted torches to be carried and flutes to play before him, as if he would triumph every day. The loss in this battle was trifling, in comparison with the greatness of the victory. Though the other consul, Cornelius Assina, was cut off, being invited by the enemy to a pretended conference and put to death an instance of Carthaginian perfidy. Under the dictatorship of Calatinas, the Romans expelled almost all of the garrisons of the Carthaginians from aggregantum, drapanum, panormus, erics, and lilybium. Some alarm was experienced at the forest of Camarena, but we were rescued by the extraordinary valour of Calpurnius Flamma, a tribune of the soldiers, who, with a choice troop of three hundred men, seized upon an eminence occupied by the army, to our annoyance, and so kept them in play till the whole army escaped, thus by eminent success, equaling the fame of Thermopolis and Leonidas, though our hero was indeed more illustrious in as much as he escaped and outlived so great an effort notwithstanding he wrote nothing with his blood. In the consulship of Lucius Cornelius Scipio, when Sicily was become as a suburban province of the Roman people, and the war was spreading farther, they crossed over into Sardinia and into Corsica, which lies near it. In the latter they terrified the natives by the destruction of the city of Olbia, in the former by that of Euleria, and so effectually humbled the Carthaginians both by land and sea that nothing remained to be conquered but Africa itself. Accordingly, under the leadership of Marcus Satilius Regulus, the war passed over into Africa, nor were there wanting some on the occasion who mutinied at the near name of the dread of the Punic Sea, a tribute named Manias, increasing their alarm. But the general, threatening him with the axe if he did not obey, produced courage for the voyage by the terror of death. They then hastened their course by the aid of the winds and oars, and such was the terror of the Africans at the approach of the enemy that Carthage was almost surprised with its gates opened. The first prize taken in the war was the city of Cropia, which juts out from the Carthaginian shore as a fortress or watchtower. Both this and more than three hundred fortresses besides were destroyed, nor had the Romans to contend only with men, but with monsters also, for a serpent of vast size, born as it were to avenge Africa, harassed their camp on the Bagrada. But Regulus, who overcame all obstacles, having spread the terror of his name far and wide, having killed or taken prisoners of great number of the enemy's force, and their captains themselves, and having dispatched his fleet, laden with so much spoil and stored with materials for a triumph to Rome, proceeded to besiege Carthage herself, the origin of the war, and took his position close to the gates of it. Here Fortune was a little changed, but it was only that more proofs of Roman fortitude might be given, the greatness of which was generally best shown in calamities. For the enemy applying for foreign assistance and Lassidamen having sent them Xanthippus, as a general, were defeated by a captain so eminently skilled in military affairs. It was then that by an ignominious defeat, such as the Romans had never before experienced, their most valiant commander fell alive into the enemy's hands. But he was a man able to endure so great a calamity, as he was neither humbled by his imprisonment at Carthage, nor by the deputation which he headed to Rome. For he advised what was contrary to the injunctions of the enemy, and recommended that no peace should be made, and no exchange of prisoners admitted, even by his voluntary return to his enemies, and by his last sufferings, whether in prison or on the cross. The dignity of the man was not at all obscured. But being rendered by all these occurrences, even more worthy of admiration. What can be said of him but that when conquered he was superior to his conquerors, and that though Carthage had not submitted, he triumphed over fortune herself. The Roman people were now much keener and more ardent to revenge the fate of Regulus than to obtain victory. Under the consul Metalis, therefore, when the Carthaginians were growing insolent, and when the war had returned into Sicily, they gave the enemy such a defeat at Penormus that they thought no more of that island. A proof of the greatness of this victory was the capture of about a hundred elephants, a vast prey, even if they had taken that number, not in war, but in hunting. Under the consulship of Apius Claudius, they were overcome, not by the enemy, but by the gods themselves, whose auspices they had despised. Their fleet being sunk in that very place where the consul had ordered the chickens to be thrown overboard, because he was warned by them not to fight. Under the consulship of Marcus Fabius Boutio, they overthrew, near Aegemaurus, in the African Sea, a fleet of the enemy which was just sailing for Italy. But, oh, how great materials for a triumph were then lost by a storm, when the Roman fleet, richly laden with spoil, and driven by contrary winds, covered with its wreck the coasts of Africa and the Seartes, and of all the islands lying amid those seas. A great calamity, but not without some honor to this eminent people, from the circumstance of that victory, was intercepted only by a storm, and that the matter for their triumph was lost only by a shipwreck. Yet though the Punic spoils were scattered abroad, and thrown up by the waves on every promontory and island, the Romans still celebrated a triumph. In the consulship of Lutaceous Catoolus, an end was at last put to the war near the islands named Aegatis. Nor was there any greater fight during this war, for the fleet of the enemy was laden with provisions, troops, towers, and arms. Indeed, all Carthage, as it were, was in it. A state of things which proved its destruction, as the Roman fleet, on the contrary, being active, light, free from encumbrance, and in some degree resembling a land camp, was wheeled about by its oars like cavalry in a battle by the rains, and the beaks of the vessels, directed now against one part of the enemy, and now against another, presented the appearance of living creatures. In a very short time, accordingly, the ships of the enemy were shattered to pieces, and filled the whole sea between Sicily and Sardinia with their wrecks. So great indeed was the victory that there was no thought of demolishing the enemy city, since it seemed superfluous to pour their fury on towers and walls, when Carthage had already been destroyed at sea. The second Punic War. After the first Carthaginian War, there was scarcely a rest of four years, when there was another war. Inferior, indeed, in length of time, for it occupied but eighteen years, but so much more terrible from the direfulness of its havoc, that if anyone compares the losses on both sides, the people that conquered was more like one defeated. What provoked this noble people was that the command of the sea was forced from them, that their islands were taken, and that they were obliged to pay tribute, which they had before been accustomed to impose. Hannibal, when but a boy swore to his father before an altar, to take revenge on the Romans. Nor was he backwards to execute his oath. Seguntum, accordingly, was made the occasion of a war, an old and wealthy city of Spain, and a great but sad example of fidelity to the Romans. This city, though granted by the common treaty, the special privilege of enjoying its liberty, Hannibal seeking pretenses for new disturbances destroyed with his own hands and those of its inhabitants, in order that by an infraction of the compact he might open a passage for himself into Italy. Among the Romans there is a highest regard to treaties, and consequently on hearing of the siege of an allied city, and remembering, too, the compact made with the Carthaginians, they did not at once have recourse to arms, but chose rather to expostulate on legal grounds. In the meantime the Seguntines, exhausted with famine, the assaults of machines and the sword and their fidelity being at last carried to desperation, raised a vast pile in the marketplace, on which they destroyed, with fire and sword, themselves, their wives and children, and all that they possessed. Hannibal, the cause of this great destruction, was required to be given up. The Carthaginians, hesitating to comply, Fabius, who was at the head of the embassy, exclaimed, What is the meaning of this delay? In this fold of this garment I carry war and peace, which of the two do you choose? As they cried out war, take war, then, he rejoined, and shaking out the four part of his toga in the middle of the Senate House, as if he really carried war in its folds, he spread it abroad, not without awe of the part of the spectators. The sequel of the war was in conformity with its commencement, four as if the last implications of the Sagan teams, at their public self-immolation and burning of the city, had required such obsequies to be performed to them, atonement was made to their mains by the devastation of Italy, the reduction of Africa, and the destruction of the leaders and kings who engaged in that contest. When once therefore that sad and dismal force and storm of the Punic War had arisen in Spain and had forged in the fire of Siguntum, the thunderbolt long before intended for the Romans, it immediately burst as if hurried along by resistless violence, through the middle of the Alps, and descended from those snows of incredible altitude on the plains of Italy as if it had been hurled from the skies. The violence of its first assault burst with a mighty sound between the Poe and the Tikinus. There the army under Scipio was rooted, and the general himself being wounded would have fallen into the hands of the enemy, had not his son, then quite a boy, covered his father with his shield, and rescued him from death. This was the Scipio who grew up from the conquest of Africa, and who was to receive a name from its ill fortune. To Tikinus succeeded Trebia, where in the consulship of Sempronius, the second outburst of the Punic War was spent. On that occasion, the crafty enemy, having chosen a cold and snowy day, and having first warmed themselves at their fires, and anointed their bodies with oil, conquered us, though they were men that came from the south and a warm sun, by the aid, strange to say, of our own winter. The third thunderbolt of Hannibal fell at the Trasimene lake, where Flaminius was commander. There also was employed a new stratagem of Carthaginian subtlety, for a body of cavalry, being concealed by a mist rising from the lake, and by the Osears growing in the fens, fell upon the rear of the Romans as they were fighting. Nor can we complain of the gods, for swarms of bees settling upon the standards, the reluctance of the eagles to move forward, and a great earthquake that happened at the commencement of the battle, unless indeed it was the trampling of horse and foot, and the violent concussion of arms that produced this trumbling of the ground, had forewarned the rash leader of approaching defeat. The fourth, and almost mortal wound of the Roman Empire, was at Cannae, an obscure village of Apulia, which however became famous by the greatness of the defeat, its celebrity being acquired by the slaughter of forty thousand men. Here the general, the ground, the face of heaven, the day, indeed all nature, conspired together for the destruction of the unfortunate army. For Hannibal, the most artful of generals, not content with sending pretend deserters among the Romans, who fell upon their rear as they were fighting, but having also noted the nature of the ground in those open planes where the heat of the sun is extremely violent, the dust very great, and the wind blows constantly, as if it were statedly from the east, drew up his army in such a position that while the Romans were exposed to all these inconveniences, he himself, having heaven, as it were, on his side, fought with wind, dust, and sun in his favor. Two vast armies in consequence were slaughtered till the enemy were satiated, and till Hannibal said to his soldiers, put up your swords. Of the two commanders, one escaped, the other was slain, which of them showed the greater spirit is doubtful. Paulus was ashamed to survive. Varro did not despair. Of the greatness of the slaughter, the following proofs may be noticed that the Orphidus was, for some time, red with blood, that a bridge was made of dead bodies, by order of Hannibal, over the torrent of Virgellus, and that two Modi of rings were sent to Carthage, and the equestrian dignity estimated by measure. It was afterward not doubted, but that Rome might have seen its last day, and that Hannibal, within five days, might have feasted in the capital, if, as they say, that at Herbal, the Carthaginian, the son of Bamelcar, observed, he had known as well how to use his victory as how to gain it. But at that crisis, as is generally said, either the fate of the city that was to be empress of the world or his own want of judgment, and the influence of deities unfavorable to Carthage, carried him in a different direction. When he might have taken advantage of his victory, he chose rather to seek enjoyment from it, and, leaving Rome, to march into Campania and to Tarentum, where both he and his army soon lost their vigor, so that it was justly remarked that Capua proved a canne to Hannibal, since the sunshine of Campania and the warm springs of Baï subdued, who could have believed him, him who had been unconquered by the Alps and unshaken in the field, in the meantime the Romans began to recover and to rise, as it were, from the dead. They had no arms, but they took them down from the temples. Men were wanting, but slaves were freed to take the oath of service. The treasury was exhausted, but the Senate willingly offered their wealth for the public service, leaving themselves no gold, but what was contained in their children's boulet, and in their own belts and rings. The knights followed their example, and the common people that of the knights, so that when the wealth of private persons was brought to the public treasury in the consulship of Lavenus and Marcellus, the registers scarcely sufficed to contain the account of it, or the hands of the clerks to record it. But how can I sufficiently praise the wisdom of the centuries in the choice of magistrates, when the younger sought advice from the elder as to what consuls should be created? They saw that against an enemy so often victorious, and so full of subtlety, it was necessary to contend, not only with courage, but with his own wiles. The first hope of the empire now recovering, and if I may use the expression, coming to life again, was Fabius, who found a new mode of conquering Hannibal, which was, not to fight. Hence he received that new name, so salutary to the commonwealth, of Cunctator, or Delayer. Hence too it happened that he was called by the people the shield of the empire. Through the whole of Samnium, and through the Fallarian and Goron forests, he so harassed Hannibal that he who could not be reduced by Valor was weakened by Delay. The Romans then ventured under the command of Claudius Marcellus to engage him. They came to close quarters with him, drove him out of his dear Campania, and forced him to raise the siege of Nola. They ventured likewise under the leadership of Sampronius Gratius to pursue him through Lusania and to press hard upon his rear as he retired, though they then fought him, sad dishonor, with a body of slaves. For to this extremity had so many disasters reduced them, but they were rewarded with liberty, and from slaves they made them Romans. O amazing confidence in the midst of so much adversity! O extraordinary courage and spirit of the Roman people in such oppressive and distressing circumstances. At a time they were uncertain of preserving their own Italy. They yet ventured to look to other countries, and when the enemy were at their throat, flying through Campania and Apulia, and making an Africa in the middle of Italy, they at the same time both withstood that enemy and dispersed their arms over the earth into Sicily, Sardinia, and Spain. Sicily was assigned to Marcellus, and did not long resist his efforts, for the whole island was conquered in the conquest of one city, Syracuse. It's great until that period unconquered capital, though defended by the genius of Archimedes, was at last obliged to yield. Its triple wall and three citadels, its marble harbour, and the celebrated fountain of Arithusa were no defence to it, except so far as to procure consideration for its beauty when it was conquered. Sardinia Gracchus reduced the savages of the inhabitants and the vastness of its mad mountains, for so they are called, availed it nothing. Great severity was exercised upon its cities and upon Corralus, the city of its cities, that a nation, obstinate and regardless of death, might at least be humbled by concern for the soil of its country. Into Spain were sent the two Scipios, Cinaeus and Publius, who wrestled almost the whole of it from the Carthaginians. But being surprised by the artifices of Punic subtlety, they again lost it, even after they had slaughtered the enemy's forests and great paddles. The wilds of the Carthaginians cut off of them by the sword, as he was pitching his camp, and the other by surrounding him with lighted faggots after he had made his escape into a tower. But the other Scipio, to whom the Fates had decreed so great a name from Africa, being sent with an army to avenge the death of his father and uncle, recovered all that warlike country of Spain, so famous for its men and arms, that seminary of the enemy's forests, that instructurous of Hannibal, from the Pyrenean mountains, the account is scarcely credible, to the pillars of Hercules on the ocean, whether with greater speed or good fortune, is difficult to decide. How great was his speed, four years bare witness. How remarkable his good fortune, even one city proves, for it was taken on the same day in which siege was laid to it, and it was an omen of the conquest of Africa, that Carthage of Spain was so easily reduced. It is certain, however, that what most contributed to make the province submit was the eminent virtue of the general, who restored to the barbarians certain captive youths and maidens of extraordinary beauty, not allowing them even to be brought into his sight, that he might not seem, even by a single glance, to have detracted from their virgin purity. O people worthy of the empire of the world, worthy of the favor and admiration of all, not only men but gods. Though they were brought into the greatest alarm, they desisted not from their original design, though they were concerned for their own city, they did not abandon their attempts on Capua. But part of their army being left there with the consul Apius, and part having followed flakas to Rome, they fought both at home and abroad at the same time. Why then should we wonder, that the gods themselves, the gods I say, nor shall I be ashamed to admit it, again opposed Hannibal, as he was preparing to march forward when at three miles distance from Rome. For at every movement of his force, so copious a flood of rain descended and such a violent storm of wind arose, that it was evident the enemy was repulsed by divine influence, and the tempest proceeded, not from heaven, but from the walls of the city and the capital. He therefore fled and departed, and withdrew to the furthest corner of Italy, leaving the city in a manner adored. But it was a small matter to mention, yet sufficiently indicative of the magnanimity of the Roman people, that during those very days in which the city was besieged, the ground which Hannibal occupied with his camp was offered for sale at Rome, and being put up to auction actually found a purchaser. Hannibal on the other side wished to imitate such confidence, and put up for sale the banker's houses in the city. But no buyer was found, so that it was evident that the fates had their presages. But as yet, nothing had been effectively accomplished by so much valour or even through such eminent favour from the gods, for Hasdrubal, the brother of Hannibal, was approaching with a new army, new strength, and every fresh requisite for war. There had doubtless been an end of Rome, if that general had united himself with his brother. But Claudius Nero, in conjunction with Livius Salonator, overthrew him as he was pitching his camp. Nero was at that time keeping Hannibal at bay in the farthest corner of Italy, while Livius had marched to the very opposite quarter, that is to the very entrance and confines of Italy, and of the ability and expedition with which the consuls joined their forces, though so vast a space that is the whole of Italy where it is longest lay between them, and defeated the enemy with their combined strength when they expected no attack and without the knowledge of Hannibal. It is difficult to give a notion. When Hannibal, however, had knowledge of the matter, and saw his brother's head thrown down before the camp, he exclaimed, I perceive the evil destiny of Carthage. This was his first confession of that kind, not without a sure pre-sage of his approaching fate, and it was now certain, even from his own acknowledgement, that Hannibal might be conquered. But the Roman people, full of confidence from so many successes, thought it would be a noble enterprise to subdue such a desperate enemy in his own Africa, directing their whole force, therefore, under the leadership of Scipio upon Africa itself. They began to imitate Hannibal, and to avenge upon Africa the sufferings of their own Italy. What forces of Hasdrubal, good gods, what armies of Syphax, did that commander put to How great were the camps of both that he destroyed in one night by casting firebrands into them. At last, not at three miles distance, but by a close siege, he shook the very gates of Carthage itself, and thus he succeeded in drawing off Hannibal when he was still clinging to and brooding over Italy. There was no more remarkable day during the whole course of the Roman Empire than that on which those two generals, the greatest of all that ever lived, whether before or after them, the one the conqueror of Italy and the other of Spain, drew up their forces for a close engagement. But previously a conference was held between them concerning conditions of peace. They stood motionless a while in admiration of each other. When they could not agree on a peace, they gave the signal for battle. It is certain, from the confession of both, that no troops could have been better drawn up and no fight more obstinately maintained. This Hannibal acknowledged concerning the army of Scipio and Scipio concerning that of Hannibal. But Hannibal was forced to yield, and Africa became the prize of the victory, and the whole earth soon followed the fate of Africa. The Third Punic War. The Third War with Africa was both short in its duration, for it was finished in four years, and compared with those that preceded it of much less difficulty, as we had to fight not so much against troops in the field as against the city itself. But it was far the greatest of the three in its consequences, for in it Carthage was at last destroyed. And if anyone contemplates the events of the three periods, he will understand that the war was begun in the first, greatly advanced in the second, and entirely finished in the third. The cause of this war was at Carthage, in violation of an article in the treaty, had once fitted out a fleet and army against the Numidians, and had frequently threatened the frontiers of Massinissa. But the Romans were partial to this good king, who was also their ally. When the war had been determined upon, they had to consider about the end of it. Cato, even when his opinion was asked on any other subject, pronounced with implacable enmity that Carthage should be destroyed. Scipio Nasica gave his voice for its preservation. Lest if the fear of the rival city were removed, the exaltation of Rome should grow extravagant. The Senate decided on a middle course, resolving that the city should only be removed from its place, for nothing appeared to them more glorious in that there should be a Carthage which should not be feared. In the consulship of Manlius and Censorinas, therefore, the Roman people, having attacked Carthage, but giving them some hopes of peace, burned their fleet, which they voluntarily delivered up, in sight of the city. Having next summoned the chief men, they commanded them to quit the place if they wished to preserve their lives. This requisition, from its cruelty, so incensed them that they chose rather to submit to the utmost extremities. They accordingly bewailed their necessities publicly and shouted with one voice to arms, and a resolution was made to resist the enemy by every means in their power. Not because any hope of success was left, but because they had rather their birthplace should be destroyed by the hands of the enemy than by their own. With what spirit they resumed the war, maybe understood from the facts that they pulled down their roofs and houses for the equipment of a new fleet, that gold and silver, instead of brass and iron, were melted in their forges for the construction of arms, and that the women parted with their hair to make cordage for the engines of war. Under the command of the consul Mancenas, the siege was warmly conducted both by land and sea. The harbor was dismantled of its works, and a first, second and even third wall taken, while nevertheless the Birsa, which was the name of the Citadel, held out like another city. But though the destruction of the place was thus very far advanced, it was the name of the Scipios only that seemed fatal to Africa. The government accordingly applying to another Scipio desired from him a termination of the war. This Scipio, the son of Paulus Macedonicus, the son of the great Africanus, had adopted as an honor to his family, and as it appears with his destiny, that the grandson should overthrow the city which the grandfather had shaken. But as the bites of dying beasts are want to be most fatal, so there was more trouble with Carthage half ruined than when it was in its full strength. The Romans, having shut the enemy up in their single fortress, had also blockaded the harbor. But upon this they dug another harbor on the other side of the city. Not with a design to escape, but because no one supposed that they could even force an outlet there. Here a new fleet, as if just born, started forth, and in the meanwhile, sometimes by day and sometimes by night, some new mole, some new machine, some new band of desperate men perpetually started up like a sudden flame from a fire sunk in ashes. At last, their affairs becoming desperate, forty thousand men, and what is hardly credible, with Hadzdrubel at their head, surrendered themselves. How much more nobly did a woman behave, the wife of the general, who taking hold of her two children through herself, from the top of her house, into the midst of the flames, imitating the queen that built Carthage. How great a city was then destroyed is shown, to say nothing of other things, by the duration of the fire, for the flames could scarcely be extinguished at the end of seventeen days. Flames which the enemy themselves had raised, in their houses and temples, that since the city could not be rescued from the Romans, all matter for triumph might at last be burned. End of Section 19. Section 20 of the Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 2. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Mike Botez. The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 2. Edited by Charles F. Horn, Roseter Johnson, and John Rudd. The Battle of Metaurus, BC 207. By Sir Edward S. Creasy. Part 1. During the closing years of the Second Punic War, the resources of the Romans were drained to such an extent as to bring great disheartenment to their rulers and generals. Under the stress of financial difficulties, the cost of living greatly increased, and the state was compelled to resort to loans of various kinds, and to levy upon citizens of means for the pay of seamen. This scheme for raising Roman ship money was one of the most significant indications of the extreme weight, resting upon the Republic in the prosecution of this arduous war. A war with Sicily was fortunately terminated, releasing some additional force for employment against the Carthaginians. But for some time little headway was made by the Roman commanders, and when in BC 207 the people were called up on to elect consuls, their affairs were still in a condition which caused serious anxiety. The consuls chosen in that year were Marcus Livius and Caius Claudius Nero, and without delay they went to take command in southern Italy, which the Carthaginians under Hannibal, though not in much strength, had invaded. But when later in the season Hasdrubal crossed the Alps from the north to join his brother, Hannibal, the aspect of the war became still more grave in the eyes of the Romans. Hasdrubal solicited the support of the Gauls, but to little purpose. Meanwhile Hannibal made skillful use of his small forces in alluding the consul Nero. But the capture by the Romans of dispatches from Hasdrubal disclosed his plans, and Nero at once formed his own for intercepting him. The result was that Nero and Livius joined their forces in Hasdrubal's front, and to the Carthaginian they offered immediate battle. Hasdrubal attempted a retreat, but was compelled to give battle on the banks of the Metaurus. Of this, one of the decisive battles of the world, Chrissie has left an authoritative and graphic account which here follows. The part of the consul Nero in the campaign is thus remarked upon by Lord Byron, the consul Nero, who made the unequaled march which deceived Hannibal and deceived Hasdrubal, thereby accomplished an achievement almost unrivaled in military annals. The first intelligence of his return to Hannibal was the sight of Hasdrubal's head thrown into his camp. When Hannibal saw this, he exclaimed with a sigh that Rome would now be the mistress of the world. To this victory of Nero's it might be owing that his imperial namesake reigned at all, but the infantry of the one has eclipsed the glory of the other. When the name of Nero is heard, who thinks of the consul? But such are human things. About midway between Rimini and Ancona, a little river falls into the Adriatic, after traversing one of those districts of Italy, in which a vain attempt has lately been made to revive, after long centuries of servitude and shame, the spirit of Italian nationality and the energy of free institutions. That stream is still called the Metauro, and wakens by its name, the recollections of the resolute daring of ancient Rome, and of the slaughter that stained its current, two thousand and sixty-three years ago, when the combined consular armies of Livius and Nero encountered and crushed Nero's banks, the varied hosts which Hannibal's brother was leading from, the Pyrenees, the Rhone, the Alps and the Po, to aid the great Carthaginian in his stern struggle to annihilate the growing might of the Roman Republic, and to make the Punic power supreme over all the nations of the world. The Roman historian who termed that struggle the most memorable of all wars that ever were carried on, wrote in no spirit of exaggeration, for it is not an ancient but in modern history that parallels for its incidents and its heroes are to be found. The similitude between the Contest which Rome maintained against Hannibal, and that which England was for many years engaged in against Napoleon, has not passed unobserved by recent historians. Twice, says Arnold, has there been witnessed the struggle of the highest individual genius against the resources and institutions of a great nation, and in both cases the nation has been victorious. For seventeen years Hannibal strove against Rome. For sixteen years Napoleon Bonaparte strove against England. The efforts of the first ended in Zama, those of the second in Waterloo. One point however of the similitude between the two wars has scarcely been adequately dwelt on, that is the remarkable parallel between the Roman general who finally defeated the great Carthaginian and the English general who gave the last deadly overthrow to the French Emperor. Scipio and Wellington both held for many years commands of high importance, but distant from the main theatres of warfare. The same country was the scene of the principal military career of each. It was in Spain that Scipio, like Wellington, successively encountered and overthrew nearly all the subordinate generals of the enemy, before being opposed to the chief champion and conqueror himself. Both Scipio and Wellington restored their countrymen's confidence in arms when shaken by a series of reverses, and each of them closed a long and perilous war by a complete and overwhelming defeat of the chosen leader and the chosen veterans of the foe, nor is the parallel between them limited to their military characters and exploits. Scipio, like Wellington, became an important leader of the aristocratic party among his countrymen, and was exposed to the unmeasured invectives of the violent section of his political antagonists. When early in the last reign an infuriated mob assaulted the Duke of Wellington in the streets of the English capital on the anniversary of Waterloo, England was even more disgraced by that outrage than Rome was by the factious accusations which demagogues brought against Scipio, but which he proudly repelled on the day of trial by reminding the assembled people that it was the anniversary of the battle of Zama. Happily a wiser and a better spirit has now for years pervaded all classes of our community, and we shall be spared the ignonomy of having worked out to the end the parallel of national ingratitude. Scipio died of voluntary exile from the malevolent turbulence of Rome. Englishmen of all ranks and politics have now long united in affectionate admiration of our modern Scipio, and even those who have most widely differed from the Duke on legislative or administrative questions forget what they deem the political errors of that time-honored head. While they gratefully call to mind the laurels that have rested, Scipio at Zama trampled in dust the power of Carthage, but that power had been already reprobably shattered in another field, where neither Scipio nor Hannibal commanded. When the Matoros witnessed the defeat and death of Hasdrubal, it witnessed the ruin of the scheme by which a lone Carthage could hope to organize decisive success. The scheme of enveloping Rome at once from the north and the south of Italy by two chosen armies led by two sons of Hamilcar. That battle was the determining crisis of the contest, not merely between Rome and Carthage, but between the two great families of the world, which then made Italy the arena of their oft-renewed contest for prominence. The French historian Michelet, whose Histoire Romaine would have been invaluable if the general industry and accuracy of the writer had in any degree equalled his originality and brilliancy, eloquently remarks, it is not without reason that so universal and vivid a remembrance of the Punic Wars has dwelt in the memories of men. They formed no mere struggle to determine the lot of two cities or two empires, but it was a strife on the event of which depended the fate of two races of mankind, whether the dominion of the world should belong to the Indo-Germanic or to the Semitic family of nations. Bear in mind that the first of these comprises, besides the Indians and the Persians, the Greeks, the Romans and the Germans. In the other are ranked the Jews and the Arabs, the Phoenicians and the Carthaginians. On the other side is the genius of heroism, of art and legislation. On the other is the spirit of industry, of commerce, of navigation. The two opposite races have everywhere come into contact, everywhere into hostility. In the primitive history of Persia and Caldea, the heroes are perpetually engaged in combat with their industrious and perfidious neighbors. The struggle is renewed between the Phoenicians and the Greeks on every coast of the Mediterranean. The Greeks supplants the Phoenician in all his factories, all his colonies in the east. Soon will the Romans come and do likewise in the west. Alexander did far more against Tyre than Shalman Esser or Nebuchadnezzar had done. No content with crushing her, he took care that the newer should revive, for he founded Alexandria as her substitute and changed forever the truck of the commerce of the world. There remained Carthage, the great Carthage and her mighty empire, mighty in a far different degree than Phoenicians had been. Rome annihilated it. Then occurred that which has no parallel in history. An entire civilization perished at one blow. Banished like a falling star. The Periplus of Hano, a few coins, a square of lines in Plautus, and lo, all that remains of the Carthaginian world. Many generations must needs pass away before the struggle between the two races could be renewed. And the Arabs, that formidable rearguard of the Semitic world, dashed forth from their deserts. The conflict between two races then became the conflict of two religions. Fortunate was it that those daring Saracenic Cavaliers encountered in the east the impregnable walls of Constantinople. In the west the chivalrous valor of Charles Martel and the sword of the Sid. The crusades were the natural reprisals for the Arab invasions and formed the last epoch of the great struggle between the two principal families of the human race. It is difficult amid the glimmering light supplied by the allusions of the classical writers to gain a full idea of the character and institutions of Rome's great rival. But we can perceive how inferior Carthage was to her competitor in military resources and how far less fitted than Rome she was to become the founder of centralized and centralizing dominion that should endure for centuries and fuse into imperial unity the narrow nationalities of the ancient races that dwelt around and near the shores of the Mediterranean Sea. Carthage was originally neither the most ancient nor the most powerful of the numerous colonies which the Phoenicians planted on the coast of northern Africa, but her advantageous position the excellence of her constitution of which though ill-informed as to its details we know that it commanded the admiration of Aristotle and the commercial and political energy of her citizens gave her the ascendancy over Hippo, Utica, Leptis and her other sister Phoenician cities in those regions and she finally reduced them to a condition of dependency similar to that which the subject allies of Athens occupied relatively to that once imperial city when Tyre and Sidon and the other cities of Phoenicia itself sunk from independent republics into mere vassal states of the great Asiatic monarchies and obeyed by turns a Babylonian, a Persian and a Macedonian master their power and their traffic rapidly declined and Carthage succeeded to the important maritime and commercial character which they had previously maintained the Carthaginians did not seek to compete with the Greeks on the northeastern shores of the Mediterranean or in the three island seas which are connected with it but they maintained an active intercourse with the Phoenicians and threw them with lower in Central Asia and they and they alone after the decline and fall of Tyre navigated the waters of the Atlantic they had the monopoly of all the commerce of the world that was carried on beyond the Straits of Gibraltar we have yet extant in a Greek translation the narrative of the voyage of Hanno one of their admirals along the western coast of Africa as far as Sierra Leone and in the Latin poem of Festus Avienos frequent references are made to the records of the voyage of another celebrated Carthaginian admiral Himilco who had explored the northwestern coast of Europe our own islands are mentioned by Himilco as the lands of the Hiberni and Albioni it is indeed certain that the Carthaginians frequented the Cornish coast as the Phoenicians had done before them for the purpose of procuring tin and there is every reason to believe that they sailed as far as the coasts of the Baltic for amber when it is remembered that the Marner's compass was unknown in those ages the boldness and skill of the seaman of Carthage and the enterprise of her merchants may be paralleled with any achievements that the history of modern navigation and commerce can produce in their Atlantic voyages along the African shores the Carthaginians followed the double object of traffic and colonization the numerous settlements that were planted by them along the coast from Morocco to Senegal provided for the needy members of the constantly increasing population of a great commercial capital and also strengthened the influence which Carthage exercised among the tribes of the African coast besides her fleets her caravans gave her a large and lucrative trade with the native Africans nor we must limit our belief of the extent of the Carthaginian trade with the tribes of central and western Africa by the narrowness of the commercial intercourse which civilized nations of modern times have been able to create in those regions although essentially a mercantile and seafaring people the Carthaginians by no means neglected agriculture on the contrary the whole of their territory was cultivated like a garden the fertility of the soil repaid the skill and toil bestowed on it and every invader from Agathocles to Scipio Emilianus was struck with admiration at the rich pasture lands carefully irrigated the abandoned harvests the luxuriant vineyards the plantations of fig and olive trees the thriving villages the populous towns and the splendid villas of the wealthy Carthaginians through which his march lay as long as he was on Carthaginian ground although the Carthaginians abandoned the Aegean and the Pontus to the Greek they were by no means disposed to relinquish to those rivals the commerce and the dominion of the coasts of the Mediterranean westward of Italy for centuries the Carthaginians strove to make themselves masters of the islands that lie between Italy and Spain they acquired the Balearic islands where the principal harbor Port Mahon still bears the name of a Carthaginian admiral they succeeded in reducing the greater part of Sardinia but Sicily could never be brought into their power they repeatedly invaded that island and nearly overrun it but the resistance which was opposed to them by the Syracusians under Galon Dionysius, Timoleon and Agathocles preserved the island from becoming Punic though many of its cities remained under the Carthaginian rule until Rome finally settled the question to whom Sicily was to belong by conquering it for herself with so many elements of success with almost unbounded wealth with commercial and maritime activity with a fertile territory with a capital city of almost impregnable strength with a constitution that ensured for centuries the blessing of social order with an aristocracy singularly fertile in men of the highest genius Carthage yet failed signally and calamitously in her contest for power with Rome one of the immediate causes of this may seem to have been the want of firmness among her citizens which made them terminate the first Punic war by begging peace sooner than endure any longer the hardships and burdens caused by a state of warfare although their antagonists had suffered far more severely than themselves another cause was the spirit of faction among their leading men which prevented Hannibal in the second war from being properly reinforced and supported but there were also more general causes why Carthage proved inferior to Rome these were her position relatively to the mass of the inhabitants of the country which she ruled in her habit of trusting to mercenary armies in her wars our clearest information as to the different races of men in and about Carthage is derived from Diodorus Siculus that historian enumerates four different races first he mentions the Phoenicians who dwelt in Carthage next he speaks of the Libby Phoenicians these he tells us dwelt in many of the maritime cities and were connected by intermarriage with the Phoenicians which was the cause of their compound name thirdly he mentions the Libyans the bulk and the most ancient part of the population hating the Carthaginians intensely on account of the oppressiveness of their domination lastly he names the Numidians the nomad tribes of the frontier it is evident from this description that the native Libyans were a subject class without franchise were political rights and accordingly we find no instance specified in history of a Libyan holding political office or military command the half castes the Liby Phoenicians seem to have been sometimes sent out as colonists but it might be inferred from what Diodorus says of their residence that they had not the right of the citizenship of Carthage and only a single solitary case occurs of one of these races being entrusted with authority and that too not emanating from the home government this is the instance of the officer sent by Hannibal to Sicily after the fall of Syracuse when Polybius calls Metinus the Libyan but whom from the fuller account in Livy we find to have been a Liby Phoenician and it is expressly mentioned what indignation was felt by the Carthaginian commanders in the island that this half castes should control their operations with respect to the composition of their armies it is observable that though thirsting for extended empire and though some of her leading men became generals of the highest order the Carthaginians as a people were anything but personally warlike as long as they could hire mercenaries to fight for them they had little appetite for the irksome training and the loss of valuable time which military service would have entailed on themselves as Michelet remarks the life of an industrious merchant of a Carthaginian was too precious to be risked as long as it was possible to substitute advantageously for it that of a barbarian from Spain or Gaul Carthage knew and could tell to a drachma what the life of a man of each nation came to a Greek was worth more than a companion a companion worth more than a Gaul or a Spaniard when once this tariff of blood was correctly made out Carthage began a war as a mercantile speculation she tried to make conquests in the hope of getting new mines to work or to open fresh markets for her exports in one venture she could afford to spend 50 000 mercenaries in another rather more if the returns were good there was no regret felt for the capital that had been sunk in the investment more money got more men and all went on well armies composed of foreign mercenaries have in all ages been as formidable to their employers as to the enemy against whom they were directed we know of one occasion between the first and second Punic wars when Carthage was brought to very brink of destruction by a revolt of her foreign troops other mutinies of the same kind must from time to time have occurred probably one of these was the cause of the comparative weakness of Carthage at the time of the Athenian expedition against Syracuse so different from the energy with which she attacked Gellon half a century earlier and Dionysius half a century later and even when we consider her armies with reference only to their efficiency in warfare we perceive at once the inferiority of such bands of Condotieri brought together without any common bond of origin tactics or cause to the legions of Rome which at the time of the Punic wars were raised from the very flower of a hardy agricultural population trained in the strictest discipline habituated to victory and animated by the most resolute patriotism and this shows also the transcendency of the genius of Hannibal which could form such discordant materials into a compact organized force and inspire them with the spirit of patient discipline and loyalty to their chief so that they were true to him in his adverse as well as in his prosperous fortunes and throughout the checkered series of his campaigns no Punic route ever disgrace the division under his command no mutiny or even attempt at mutiny was ever known in his camp and finally after 15 years of Italian warfare his men followed their old leader Tuzama with no fear and little hope and there on that disastrous field stood firm around him his old guard till Shippio's Numidian allies came up on their flank when at last surrounded and overpowered the veteran battalions sealed their devotion to their general by their blood but if Hannibal's genius may be likened to the Homeric god who in his hatred to the Trojans rises from the deep to rally the fainting Greeks and to lead them against the enemy so the calm courage with which Hector met his more than human adversary in his country's cause is no unworthy image of the unyielding magnanimity displayed by the aristocracy of Rome as Hannibal utterly eclipses Carthage so on the contrary Fabius, Marcellus, Claudius Nero even Shippio himself are as nothing when compared to the spirit and wisdom and power of Rome the senate which voted its thanks to its political enemy Varro after his disastrous defeat because he had not despaired of the common wealth and which disdained either to solicit or to reprove or to threaten or in any way to notice the 12 colonies which had refused their accustomed supplies of men for the army is far more to be honored than the conqueror of Zama this we should the more carefully bear in mind because our tendency is to admire individual greatness far more than national and as no single Roman will bear comparison to Hannibal we are apt to murmur at the event of the contest and to think that victory was awarded to the least worthy of the combatants on the contrary never was the wisdom of God's providence more manifest than in the issue of the struggle between Rome and Carthage it was clearly for the good of mankind that Hannibal should be conquered his triumph would have stopped the progress of the world for great men can only act permanently by forming great nations and no one man even though it were Hannibal himself can in one generation affect such a work but where the nation has been merely enkindled for a while by a great man's spirit the light passes away with him who communicated it and the nation when he is gone is like a dead body to which magic power had for a moment given unnatural life when the charm has seized the body is cold and stiff as before he who grieves over the battle of Zama should carry on his thoughts to a period 30 years later when Hannibal must in the course of nature have been dead and consider how the isolated Phoenician city of Carthage was fitted to receive and to consolidate the civilization of Greece or by its laws and institutions to bind together barbarians of every race and language into unorganized empire and prepare them for becoming when that empire was dissolved the free members of the common wealth of Christian Europe end of section 20 section 21 of the great events by famous historians volume two this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Mike Botez the great events by famous historians volume two edited by Charles F. Horne, Roseter Johnson and John Rudd the battle of Metaurus BC 207 by Sir Edward S. Crecy part two it was in the spring of 207 BC that Hasdrubal after skillfully disentangling himself from the Roman forces in Spain and after a march conducted with great judgment and little loss through the interior of Gaul and the passes of the Alps appeared in the country that now is the north of Lombardy at the head of troops which he had partly brought out of Spain and partly levied among the Gauls and Ligurians on his way at this time Hannibal with his unconquered and seemingly unconquerable army had been eight years in Italy executing with strenuous ferocity the vow of hatred to Rome which had been sworn by him while yet a child at the bidding of his father Hamilcar who as he boasted had trained up his three sons Hannibal Hasdrubal and Mago like three lion's welps to pray upon the Romans but Hannibal's latter campaigns had not been signalized by any such great victories as marked the first years of his invasion of Italy the stern spirit of Romual resolution ever highest in disaster and danger had neither bent nor dispaired beneath the merciless blows which the dire African dealt her in rapid succession at Trebia at Thrasimony and at Cannae her population was thinned by a repeated slaughter in the field poverty and actual scarcity ground down the survivors through the fearful ravages which Hannibal's cavalry spread through their cornfields their pasture lands and their vineyards many of her allies went over to the invader side and new clouds of foreign war threaten her from Macedonia and Gaul but Rome receded not rich and poor among her citizens wide with each other in devotion to their country the wealthy place their stores and all place their lives at the state's disposal and though Hannibal could not be driven out of Italy though every year brought its sufferings and sacrifices Rome felt that her constancy had not been exerted in vain if she was weakened by the continued strife so was Hannibal also and it was clear that the unaided resources of his army were unequal to the task of her destruction the single dear hood could not pull down the quarry which he had so furiously assailed Rome not only stood fiercely at bay but had pressed back and gored her antagonist that still however watched her in act to spring she was weary and bleeding at every poor and there seemed to be little hope of her escape if the other hound of old Hamil cars race should come up in time to aid his brother in the death grapple Hasdrubal had commanded the Carthaginian armies in Spain for some time with varying but generally unfavorable fortune he had not the full authority over the punic forces in that country which his brother and his father had previously exercised the faction at Carthage which was at feud with his family succeeded in fetching and interfering with his power and other generals or from time to time sent into Spain whose errors and misconduct caused the reverse that Hasdrubal met with this is expressly attested by the Greek historian Polybius who was the intimate friend of the younger africanos and drew his information respecting the second punic war from the best possible authorities Levy gives a long narrative of campaigns between the roman commanders in Spain and Hasdrubal which is so palpably deformed by fictions and exaggerations as to be hardly deserving of attention it is clear that in the year bc 208 at least Hasdrubal outmaneuvered Publius Scipio who held the command of the roman forces in Spain and whose object was to prevent him from passing the Pyrenees and marching upon Italy Scipio expected that Hasdrubal would attempt the nearest route along the coast of the Mediterranean and he therefore carefully fortified and guarded the passes of the eastern Pyrenees but Hasdrubal passed these mountains near their western extremity and then with a considerable force of Spanish infantry with a small number of african troops with some elephants and much treasure he marched not directly toward the coast of the Mediterranean but in a northeastern line toward the center of Gaul he halted for the winter in the territory of the Arverni the modern Uverni and conciliated or purchased the goodwill of the Gauls in that region so far that he not only found friendly winter quarters among them but great numbers of them enlisted under him and on the approach of spring marched with him to invade Italy by thus entering Gaul at the southwest and avoiding its southern maritime districts Hasdrubal kept the Romans in complete ignorance of his precise operations and movements in that country all that they knew was that Hasdrubal had baffled Scipio's attempts to detain him in Spain that he had crossed the Pyrenees with soldiers elephants and money and that he was raising fresh forces among the Gauls the spring was sure to bring him into Italy and then would come the real tempest of the war when from the north and from the south the two carthaginian armies each under a sun of the thunderbolt were together together around the seven hills of Rome in this emergency the Romans looked among themselves earnestly and anxiously for leaders fit to meet the perils of the coming campaign the senate recommended the people to elect as one of their consuls Caius Claudius Nero a patrician of one of the families of the great Claudian house Nero had served during the preceding years of the war both against Hannibal in Italy and against Hasdrubal in Spain but it is remarkable that the histories which we possess record no successes as having been achieved by him either before or after his great campaign of the Metaurus it proves much for the sagacity of the leading men of the senate that they recognized in Nero the energy and spirit which were required at this crisis and it is equally creditable to the patriotism of the people that they followed the advice of the senate by electing a general who had no showy exploits through a command him to their choice it was a matter of greater difficulty to find a second consul the laws required that one consul should be a plebeian and the plebeian nobility had been fearfully thinned by the events of the war while the senators anxiously deliberated among themselves what fit colleague for Nero could be nominated at the coming commission and sorrowfully recall the names of Marcellus, Dracus, and other plebeian generals who were no more one taciturn and moody old man sat in sullen apathy among the conscript fathers this was Marcos Livius who had been consul in the year before the beginning of this war and had then gained a victory over the Illyrians after his consulship he had been impeached before the people on a charge of speculation and unfair division of the spoils among his soldiers the verdict was unjustly given against him and the sense of this wrong and of the indignity thus put upon him had wrinkled unceasingly in the bosom of Livius so that for eight years after his trial he had lived in seclusion in his country seat taken no part in any affairs of state laterally the censors had compelled him to come to Rome and resume his place in the senate where he used to sit gloomily apart giving only a silent vote at last an unjust accusation against one of his near kinsmen made him break the silence and he hurrung the house in words of weight and sense which drew attention to him and taught the senators that a strong spirit dwelt beneath that unimposing exterior now while they were debating on what noble of a plebeian house was fit to assume the perilous honors of the consulate some of the elder of them looked on marcus livius and remembered that in the very last triumph which had been celebrated in the streets of Rome this grim old man had sat in the car of victory and that he had offered the last thanksgiving sacrifice for the success of the roman arms which had bled before capital line jove there had been no triumphs since Hannibal came into italy the illyrian campaign of livius was the last that had been so honored perhaps it might be destined for him now to renew the long interrupted series the senators resolved that livius should be put in nomination as consul with nero the people were willing to elect him the only opposition came from himself he taunted them with their inconsistency in honoring the man who they had convicted of a base crime if i am innocent said he why did you place such a stain on me if i am guilty why am i more fit for a second consul ship than i was for my first one the other senators remonstrated with him urging the example of the great camillus who after an unjust condemnation on a similar charge both served and saved his country at last livius ceased to object and kayus claudius nero and marcus livius were chosen consuls of rom a quarrel had long existed between the two consuls and the senators strove to effect a reconciliation between them before the campaign here again livius for a long time obstinately resisted the wish of his fellow senators he said it was best for the state that he and nero should continue to hate one another each would do his duty better when he knew that he was watched by an enemy in the person of his own colleague at last the entreaties of the senate prevailed and livius consented to forgo the feud and to cooperate with nero in preparing for the coming struggle as soon as the winter snows were thawed hasdrubal commenced his march from ubernie to the alps he experienced none of the difficulties which his brother had met with from the mountain tribes hunnibals army had been the first body of regular troops that had ever traversed their regions and as wild animals a sailor traveler the natives rose against it instinctively in imagined defense of their own habitations which they supposed to be the objects of carthaginian ambition but the fame of war with which italy had now been convulsed for 12 years had penetrated into the alpine passes and the mountaineers now understood that a mighty city southward of the alps was to be attacked by the troops whom they saw marching among them they now not only opposed no resistance to the passage of hasdrubal but many of them out of love of enterprise and plunder or allured by the high pay that he offered took service with him and thus he advanced upon italy with an army that gathered strength at every league it is said also that some of the most important engineering works which honeyball had constructed were found by hasrubal still in existence and materially favored the speed of his advance he thus emerged into italy from the alpine valleys much sooner than had been anticipated many warriors of the ligurian tribes joined him and crossing the river poe he marched down its southern bank to the city of placentia which he wished to secure as a base for his future operations placentia resisted him as bravely as it had resisted honeyball 12 years before and for some time hasrubal was occupied with a fruitless siege before its walls six armies were levied for the defense of italy when the long dreaded approach of hasrubal was announced 70 000 romans served in the 15 legions of which with an equal number of italian allies those armies and the garrisons were composed upward of 30 000 more romans were serving in sicily sardinia and spain the whole number of roman citizens of an age fit for military duty scarcely exceeded 130 000 the census taken before the commencement of the war had shown a total of 270 000 which had been diminished by more than half during 12 years these numbers are fearfully emphatic of the extremity to which rom was reduced and of her gigantic efforts in that great agony of her fate not merely men but money and military stores were drained to the utmost and if the armies of that year should be swept off by a repetition of the slaughters of thrasimony and cannae all felt that rom would cease to exist even if the campaign were to be marked by no decisive success on either side her ruin seemed certain in south italy hunnibal had either detached rom's allies from her or had impoverished them by the ravages of his army if hasrubal could have done the same in upper italy if etruria umbria and northern latium had either revolted or been laid waste rom must have sunk beneath sheer starvation for the hostile or desolated territory would have yielded no supplies of corn for her population and money to purchase it from abroad there was none instant victory was a matter of life or death three of her six armies were ordered to the north but the first of these was required to overall the disaffected etruscan the second army of the north was pushed forward under portus the pretor to meet and keep in check the advanced troops of hasrubal while the third the grand army of the north which was to be under the immediate command of the consul livius who had the chief command in all north italy advanced more slowly in its support there were similarly three armies in the south under the orders of the other consul claudius nero the lot has decided that livius was to be opposed to hasrubal and nero should face hunnibal and when all was ordered as themselves thought best the two consuls went forth from the city each his several way the people of rome were now quite otherwise affected then they had been when el emelius paulus and c terentius varro were sent against hunnibal they did no longer take up on them to direct their generals or bid them dispatch and win the victory be times but rather they stood in fear lest all diligence wisdom and valor should prove too little for since few years had passed wherein some one of their generals had not been slain and since it was manifest that if either of these present consuls were defeated or put to the worst the two carthaginians would forthwith join and make short work with the other it seemed a greater happiness than could be expected that each of them should return home victor and come off with honor from such mighty opposition as he was like to find with extreme difficulty had rome held up her head ever since the battle of cannae though it were so that hunnibal alone with little help from carthage had continued the war in italy but there was now arrived another son of hamiclar and one that in his present expedition had seemed the man of more sufficiency than hunnibal himself for whereas in that long and dangerous march through barbarous nations over great rivers and mountains that were thought unpassable hunnibal had lost a great part of his army this hasdrubal in the same places had multiplied his numbers and gathering the people that he found in the way descended from the alps like rolling snowball far greater than he came over the Pyrenees at his first setting out of spain these considerations and like of which fear presented many unto them caused the people of rome to wait upon their consuls out of the town like a pensive train of mourners thinking upon Marchelus and Crispinus upon whom in the like sword they had given attendance the last year but so neither of them returned alive from a less dangerous war particularly old Q Fabius gave his accustomed advice to M. Livius that he should abstain from giving or taking battle until he well understood the enemy's condition but the consul made him a forward dancer and said that he would fight the very first day for that he thought it long till he should either recover his honor by victory or by seeing the overthrow of his own unjust citizens satisfy himself with the joy of a great though not an honest revenge but his meaning was better than his words. Hannibal at this period occupied with his veteran but much reduced forces the extreme south of Italy it had not been expected either by friend or foe that Hasdrubal would affect his passage of the Alps so early in the year as actually occurred and even when Hannibal learned that his brother was in Italy and had advanced as far as Placentia he was obliged to pause for further intelligence before he himself commenced active operations as he could not tell whether his brother might not be invited into Etruria to aid the party there that was disaffected to Rome or whether he would march down by the Adriatic Sea Hannibal let his troops out of their winter quarters in Brutium and march northward as far as Canusium Nero had his headquarters near Venusia with an army which he had increased to 40,000 foot and 2,500 horse by incorporating under his own command some of the legions which had been intended to act under other generals in the south there was another Roman army 20,000 strong south of Hannibal at Tarantum the strength of that city secured this Roman force from any attack by Hannibal and it was a serious matter to march northward and leave it in his rear free to act against all his depots and allies in the friendly part of Italy which for the two or three last campaigns had served him for a base of his operations moreover Nero's army was so strong that Hannibal could not concentrate troops enough to assume the offensive against it without weakening his garrisons and relinquishing at least for a time his grasp upon the southern provinces to do this before he was certainly informed of his brother's operations would have been a useless sacrifice as Nero could retreat before him upon the other Roman armies near the capital and Hannibal knew by experience that a mere advance of his army upon the walls of Rome would have no effect on the fortunes of the war in the hope probably of inducing Nero to follow him and of gaining an opportunity of outmaneuvering the Roman consul and attacking him on his march Hannibal moved into Lucania and then back into Apulia he again marched down into Brutium and strengthened that army by a levy of recruits in that district Nero followed him but gave him no chance of assailing him at a disadvantage some partial encounters seem to have taken place but the council could not prevent Hannibal's junction with his Brutian levies nor could Hannibal gain an opportunity of surprising and crushing the consul Hannibal returned to his former headquarters at Canusium and halted their in expectation of further tidings of his brother's movements Nero also resumed his former position in observation of the Carthaginian army meanwhile Hannibal had raised the siege of Placentia and was advancing toward Ariminum on the Adriatic and driving before him the Roman army under Portius nor when the consul Livius had come up and united the second and third armies of the north could he make head against the invaders the Romans still fell back before Hannibal beyond Ariminum beyond Demetorus and as far as the little town of Sena to the southeast of that river Hasdrubal was not unmindful of the necessity of acting in concert with his brother he sent messengers to Hannibal to announce his own line of march and to propose that they should unite their armies in south Umbria and then wheel round against Rome those messengers traversed the greater part of Italy in safety but when close to the object of their mission were captured by a Roman detachment and Hasdrubal's letter detailing his old plan of the campaign was laid not in his brother's hands but in those of the commander of the Roman armies of the south Nero saw at once the full importance of the crisis the two sons of Hamilcar were now within 200 miles of each other and if Rome were to be saved the brothers must never meet alive Nero instantly ordered 7000 picked men 1000 being cavalry to hold themselves in readiness for a secret expedition against one of Hannibal's garrisons and as soon as night had set in he hurried forward on his bold enterprise but he quickly left the southern road toward Lucania and wheeling round pressed northward with the utmost rapidity toward Picennum he had during the preceding afternoon sent messengers to Rome who were to lay Hasdrubal's letters before the senate there was a law forbidding a consul to make war or march his army beyond the limits of the province assigned to him but in such an emergency Nero did not wait for the permission of the senate to execute his project but informed them that he was already on his march to join Livius against Hasdrubal he advised them to send the two legions which formed the home garrison on to Narnia so as to defend that pass of the flamanian road against Hasdrubal in case he should march upon Rome before the consular armies could attack him they were to supply the place of these two legions at Rome by a levy unmass in the city and by ordering up the reserve legion from Capua these were his communications to the senate he also sent horsemen forward along his line of march with orders to the local authorities to bring stores of provisions and refreshment of every kind to the roadside and to have relays of carriages ready for the conveyance of the weird soldiers such were the precautions which he took for accelerating his march and when he had advanced some little distance from his camp he briefly informed his soldiers of the real object of their expedition he told them that never was there a design more seemingly audacious and more really safe he said he was leading them to a certain victory for his colleague had an army large enough to balance the enemy already so that their swords would decisively turn the scale the very rumor that a fresh consul and a fresh army had come up when heard on the battlefield and he would take care that they should not be heard of before they were seen and felt would settle the business they would have all the credit of the victory and of having dealt the final decisive blow he appealed to the enthusiastic reception which they already met with on their line of march as a proof and a nomen of their good fortune and indeed their whole path was amid the vows and prayers and praises of their countrymen the entire population of the districts through which they passed flocked to the roadside to see and bless the deliverers of their country food drink and refreshments of every kind were eagerly pressed on their acceptance each peasant thought a favor was conferred on him if one of Nero's chosen band would accept ought at his hands the soldiers caught full spirit of their leader night and day they marched forward taking their hurried meals in the ranks and resting by relay in the wagons which the zeal of the country people provided and which followed in the rear of the column end of section 21