d what was
more unusual, of such sweet and winning temper, that it was said of him
that wherever he went he might have been a king.

On returning to Rome, he showed the Senate that the best way to get
Hannibal out of Italy was to attack Africa. Cautious old Fabius doubted,
but Scipio was sent to Sicily, where he made an alliance with
Massinissa, the Moorish king in Africa; and, obtaining leave to carry
out his plan, he was sent thither, and so alarmed Carthage, that
Hannibal was recalled to defend his own country, where he had not been
since he was a child. A great battle took place at Zama between him and
Hannibal, in which Scipio was the conqueror, and the loss of Carthage
was so terrible that the Romans were ready to have marched in on her and
made her their subject, but Scipio persuaded them to be forbearing.
Carthage was to pay an immense tribute, and swear never to make war on
any ally of Rome. And thus ended the Second Punic War, in the year 201.

[Illustration]

CHAPTER XX.

THE FIRST EASTERN WAR.

215-183.

Scipio remained in Africa till he had arranged matters and won such a
claim to Massinissa's gratitude that this king of Numidia was sure to
watch over the interests of Rome. Scipio then returned home, and entered
Rome with a grand triumph, all the nobler for himself that he did not
lead Hannibal in his chains. He had been too generous to demand that so
brave an enemy should be delivered up to him. He received the surname of
Africanus, and was one of the most respected and beloved of Romans. He
was the first who began to take up Greek learning and culture, and to
exchange the old Roman ruggedness for the graces of philosophy and
poetry. Indeed the Romans were beginning to have much to do with the
Greeks, and the war they entered upon now was the first for the sake of
spreading their own power. All the former ones had been in self-defence,
and the new one did in fact spring out of the Punic war, for the
Carthaginians had tried to persuade Philip, king of Macedon, to follow
in the track of Pyrrhus, and come and help Hannibal in Southern Italy.
The Romans had kept him off by stirring up the robber AEtolians against
him; and when he began to punish these wild neighbors, the Romans
leagued themselves with the old Greek cities which Macedon oppressed,
and a great war took place.

Titus Quinctius Flaminius commanded in Greece for four years, first as
consul and then as proconsul. His crowning victor