mplished
now. It is much more probable that the two great generals, on whom
the decision of the political question now devolved, offered and
accepted peace on such terms in order to set just and reasonable
limits on the one hand to the furious vengeance of the victors, on
the other to the obstinacy and imprudence of the vanquished. The
noble-mindedness and statesmanlike gifts of the great antagonists are
no less apparent in the magnanimous submission of Hannibal to what was
inevitable, than in the wise abstinence of Scipio from an extravagant
and insulting use of victory. Is it to be supposed that one so
generous, unprejudiced, and intelligent should not have asked himself
of what benefit it could be to his country, now that the political
power of the Carthaginian city was annihilated, utterly to destroy
that ancient seat of commerce and of agriculture, and wickedly to
overthrow one of the main pillars of the then existing civilization?
The time had not yet come when the first men of Rome lent themselves
to destroy the civilization of their neighbours, and frivolously
fancied that they could wash away from themselves the eternal
infamy of the nation by shedding an idle tear.

Results of the War

Thus ended the second Punic or, as the Romans more correctly called
it, the Hannibalic war, after it had devastated the lands and islands
from the Hellespont to the Pillars of Hercules for seventeen years.
Before this war the policy of the Romans had no higher aim than to
acquire command of the mainland of the Italian peninsula within its
natural boundaries, and of the Italian islands and seas; it is clearly
proved by their treatment of Africa on the conclusion of peace that
they also terminated the war with the impression, not that they
had laid the foundation of sovereignty over the states of the
Mediterranean or of the so-called universal empire, but that they had
rendered a dangerous rival innocuous and had given to Italy agreeable
neighbours. It is true doubtless that other results of the war, the
conquest of Spain in particular, little accorded with such an idea;
but their very successes led them beyond their proper design, and it
may in fact be affirmed that the Romans came into possession of Spain
accidentally. The Romans achieved the sovereignty of Italy, because
they strove for it; the hegemony--and the sovereignty which grew out
of it--over the territories of the Mediterranean was to a certain
extent thrown in