m before he could effect a junction with
his brother. The Carthaginians were defeated with great slaughter.
Hasdrubal fell on the field, and his head was cruelly sent to Hannibal,
who, as he looked with bitter anguish on the gruesome spectacle, sadly
remarked, "I recognize in this the doom of Carthage."

Yet for four years more Hannibal remained in the mountains of Southern
Italy, holding his own against Rome, though he had lost all hopes of
conquering that city. But Rome had now a new general, with a new policy.
This was the famous Scipio, and the policy was to carry the war into
Carthage. Fabius had done his work, and new measures came with new men.
Scipio led an army into Spain, which he conquered from Carthage. Then he
invaded Africa, and Hannibal was recalled home, after his long and
victorious career in Italy.

Hannibal had never yet suffered a defeat. He was now to experience a
crushing one. With a new army, largely made up of raw levies, he met the
veteran troops of Scipio on the plains of Zama. Hannibal displayed here
his usual ability, but fortune was against him, his army was routed, the
veterans he had brought from Italy were cut down where they stood, and
he escaped with difficulty from the field on which twenty thousand of
his men had fallen. It was an earlier Waterloo.

His flight was necessary, if Carthage was to be preserved. He was the
only man capable of saving that great city from ruin. Terms of peace
were offered by Scipio, severe ones, but Hannibal accepted them,
knowing that nothing else could be done. Then he devoted himself to the
restoration of his country's power, and for seven years worked
diligently to this end.

His efforts were successful. Carthage again became prosperous. Rome
trembled for fear of her old foe. Commissioners were sent to Carthage to
demand the surrender of Hannibal, on the plea that he was secretly
fomenting a new war. His reforms had made enemies in Carthage, his
liberty was in danger, and nothing remained for him but to flee.

Escaping secretly from the city, the fugitive made his way to Tyre, the
mother-city of Carthage, where he was received as one who had shed
untold glory on the Phoenician name. Thence he proceeded to Antioch,
the capital of Antiochus, king of Syria, and one of the successors of
Alexander the Great.

During the period over which we have so rapidly passed the empire of
Rome had been steadily extending. In addition to her conquests in Spain
and