we are told, 'I recognize the doom of Carthage.' Then he
withdrew to Bruttium in the southern corner of Italy, with the
intention of concentrating there all the allies, whom he could not
protect if they were scattered.

Livy, xxvii. 49, 51.

_Despair_

What thou owest, Rome, to the house of Nero, let the Metaurus be
our witness, and Hasdrubal's overthrow, and that bright day that
scattered the gloom of Latium, the first to smile with cheering
victory since the dread African careered through the cities of
Italy, like fire through a pine forest or Eurus over Sicilian
waves. After this the manhood of Rome gained strength from
continued and successful effort, and temples desecrated by the
unhallowed violence of the Carthaginian saw their gods restored.
And the treacherous Hannibal at length exclaimed 'Like stags, the
prey of ravening wolves, we essay to pursue those whom it is a
rare triumph to elude and escape.... No more shall I send
triumphant messages to Carthage; fallen, yea fallen, is all the
hope and greatness of our name with the loss of Hasdrubal. Naught
is there that the hands of the Claudii will fail to perform, for
Jupiter protects them with beneficent power, and prudent
forethought brings them safe through the perils of war.'

Horace, Od. iv. 4. 36-76.

For four more years Hannibal stood at bay in South Italy. No Roman
general drove him out, no Roman army could defeat him or the soldiers
who stood by him with a matchless devotion only given to men who have,
as Hannibal had, what we call the divine spark burning within them. When
at last, after fourteen years in Italy, he sailed home, it was to try to
save Carthage, the city which had betrayed him, and now called him to
save them from the war the Romans had carried into their own country. He
knew that he could not do it. The Carthaginians had signed their own
doom when they failed to send him help. When they in their turn called
to Hannibal the enemy was at their gates. In the great battle of Zama,
outside Carthage, Scipio defeated Hannibal. This defeat was the end of
Carthage as a great power. The Roman terms had to be accepted. The power
and might of Carthage was over. The city still stood: but its empire was
gone. All its overseas possessions were added to the Roman dominions.

[Illustration: A COIN OF VICTORY]

Six years after Zama Hannibal was banished from Carthage at the bidding
of Rome, althou