give battle, seized on all the drink in the camp, and fell along the
roadside quite unable to move. Before Hasdrubal could get his vanguard
across the Romans were close upon him, and there was nothing left for
him to do but to post his men as strongly as he could.

For hours they fought, and none could tell with whom the victory would
lie: then a charge by Nero decided it. When the day was hopelessly lost,
Hasdrubal, who had always been in the fiercest of the struggle, cheering
and rallying his men, rode straight at the enemy, and died fighting.
Thus ended the battle of the Metaurus, the first pitched battle the
Romans had ever gained over the Carthaginian army.

The next night Nero set off again for Apulia, bearing with him the head
of Hasdrubal, which, as we have said, he caused to be flung into
Hannibal's tent, staining for ever the laurels he had won.

* * * * *

With the triumph of Nero, and his reception in the Rome which he had
delivered, dates the last act of the second Punic war. At the news of
his brother's defeat, which was a great blow to him, Hannibal retreated
into the most southern province of Italy. His troops, whose love and
loyalty never wavered, were largely composed of foreign levies, and had
not the steadiness and training of his old Libyans and Spaniards. Never
for one moment did he think of abandoning his post till his country
called him, yet his quick eye could not fail to read the signs of the
times. The Roman senate was no longer absorbed by the thought of war.
Relieved by Nero's victory from the crushing dread which for so long had
weighed it down, it was taking measures to encourage agriculture and to
rebuild villages, to help the poor who had been ruined during these
years of strife, to _blot out_, he felt, the traces of the victories he
had won. And he had to watch it all and to know himself powerless,
though he still defied Rome for three years longer, and knew that she
still feared _him_.

* * * * *

It was in the year 204 B.C. that Scipio entreated the senate to allow
him to carry the war into Africa, which he had already visited, and
where he had already made many important allies, among them the famous
Numidian Massinissa, whom he promised to make king over his tribe.
Fabius, now ninety, declared it was folly to take an army to Africa
while Hannibal remained in Italy, and a large party agreed with him. The
people, howe