WARS and BATTLES
From Ancient Greece - to modern day.

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 effect 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 ceased, the body is cold and stiff as before.

He who grieves over the battle of Zama should carry on his thoughts to a period thirty years later, when Hannibal must, in the course of nature, have been dead, and consider how the isolated Phenician city of Carthage was fitted to receive and to consolidate the civilization of Greece, or by its Jaws and institutions to bind together barbarians of every race and language into an organized empire and prepare them for becoming, when that empire was dissolved, the free members of the commonwealth of Christian Europe."

It was in the spring of 207 B.C., that Hasdrubal, after skillfully disentangling himself and 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 saons, Hanniual, Hasdrubal, and Mago, like three lion's whelps, to prey 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 Roman resolution, ever highest in disaster and danger, had neither bent nor despaired beneath the merciless blows which "the dire African " dealt her in rapid succession at Trebia, at Ihrasymene, and at Caunae.

Her population was thinned by repeated slaughter in the field, poverty and actual scarcity ground down the survivors, through the fearful ravages which Hannibal's cavalry spread through their corn-fields, their pasture-lands, and their vine-yards; many of her allies went over to the invader's side; and new clouds of foreign war threatened her from Macedonia and Gaul.

But Rome receded not.

Rich and poor among her citizens vied with each other in devotion to their country. The wealthy placed their stores, and all placed their lives at the state's disposal. And though Hannibal could not be driven out of Italy, though every year brought its suffering and sacrifices, Home felt that her constancy had not been exerted in vain. If she was weakened by the continual 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 deerhound 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 pore; and there seemed to be little hope of her escape, if the other hound of Hamilcar's race should come up in time to aid his brother in the death grapple.

Hasdrubal bad 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 fettering and interfering with his power, and othier generals were from time to time sent into Spain, whose errors and misconduct caused the reverses that Hasdrubal met with.

The Greek historian, Polbius who was the intimate friend of the younger Africanus, and drew his information, respecting the second Punic war from the best possible authorities, expressly attests this. Livy 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.