that his imperial namesake reigned at all. But the infamy of the one has
eclipsed the glory of the other. When the name of Nero is heard, who
thinks of the consul? But such are human things.")

About midway between Rimini and Ancona a little river falls into the
Adriatic, after traversing one of those districts of Italy in which a
vain attempt has lately been made to revive, after long centuries of
servitude and shame, the spirit of Italian nationality and the energy of
free institutions. That stream is still called the Metauro, and wakens
by its name the recollections of the resolute daring of ancient Rome,
and of the slaughter that stained its current two thousand and
sixty-three years ago, when the combined consular armies of Livius and
Nero encountered and crushed near its banks the varied hosts which
Hannibal's brother was leading from the Pyrenees, the Rhone, the Alps,
and the Po, to aid the great Carthaginian in his stern struggle to
annihilate the growing might of the Roman republic, and make the Punic
power supreme over all the nations of the world.

The Roman historian,[59] who termed that struggle the most memorable of
all wars that ever were carried on, wrote in no spirit of exaggeration;
for it is not in ancient, but in modern history that parallels for its
incidents and its heroes are to be found. The similitude between the
contest which Rome maintained against Hannibal, and that which England
was for many years engaged in against Napoleon, has not passed
unobserved by recent historians. "Twice," says Arnold, "has there been
witnessed the struggle of the highest individual genius against the
resources and institutions of a great nation, and in both cases the
nation has been victorious. For seventeen years Hannibal strove against
Rome; for sixteen years Napoleon Bonaparte strove against England: the
efforts of the first ended in Zama; those of the second in Waterloo."

[Footnote 59: Livy.]

One point, however, of the similitude between the two wars has scarcely
been adequately dwelt on; that is, the remarkable parallel between the
Roman general who finally defeated the great Carthaginian, and the
English general who gave the last deadly overthrow to the French
Emperor. Scipio and Wellington both held for many years commands of high
importance, but distant from the main theatres of warfare. The same
country was the scene of the principal military career of each. It was
in Spain that Scipio, like Welli