oops which were to be employed to garrison
Carthage, and to sustain the government there, were taken from Spain.
By thus changing the troops of the two countries, each country was
controlled by a foreign soldiery, who were more likely to be faithful
in their obedience to their commanders, and less in danger of
sympathizing with the populations which they were respectively
employed to control, than if each had been retained in its own native
land.

Hannibal knew very well that the various states and provinces of
Spain, which had refused to ally themselves with the Romans and
abandon him, had been led to do this through the influence of his
presents or the fear of his power, and that if, after he had
penetrated into Italy, he should meet with reverses, so as to diminish
very much their hope of deriving benefit from his favor or their fear
of his power, there would be great danger of defections and revolts.
As an additional security against this, he adopted the following
ingenious plan. He enlisted a body of troops from among all the
nations of Spain that were in alliance with him, selecting the young
men who were enlisted as much as possible from families of
consideration and influence, and this body of troops, when organized
and officered, he sent into Carthage, giving the nations and tribes
from which they were drawn to understand that he considered them not
only as soldiers serving in his armies, but as _hostages_, which he
should hold as security for the fidelity and obedience of the
countries from which they had come. The number of these soldiers was
four thousand.

Hannibal had a brother, whose name, as it happened, was the same as
that of his brother-in-law, Hasdrubal. It was to him that he committed
the government of Spain during his absence. The soldiers provided for
him were, as has been already stated, mainly drawn from Africa. In
addition to the foot soldiers, he provided him with a small body of
horse. He left with him, also, fourteen elephants. And as he thought
it not improbable that the Romans might, in some contingency during
his absence, make a descent upon the Spanish coast from the sea, he
built and equipped for him a small fleet of about sixty vessels, fifty
of which were of the first class. In modern times, the magnitude and
efficiency of a ship is estimated by the number of guns she will
carry; then, it was the number of banks of oars. Fifty of Hasdrubal's
ships were _quinqueremes_, as they were