into his camp and told him of the fate of the last
of the Carthaginian troops.

With Hasdrubal out of the way, young Publius Scipio easily reconquered
Spain and four years later the Romans were ready for a final attack upon
Carthage. Hannibal was called back. He crossed the African Sea and tried
to organise the defences of his home-city. In the year 202 at the battle
of Zama, the Carthaginians were defeated. Hannibal fled to Tyre. From
there he went to Asia Minor to stir up the Syrians and the Macedonians
against Rome. He accomplished very little but his activities among these
Asiatic powers gave the Romans an excuse to carry their warfare into the
territory of the east and annex the greater part of the AEgean world.

Driven from one city to another, a fugitive without a home, Hannibal at
last knew that the end of his ambitious dream had come. His beloved city
of Carthage had been ruined by the war. She had been forced to sign a
terrible peace. Her navy had been sunk. She had been forbidden to make
war without Roman permission. She had been condemned to pay the Romans
millions of dollars for endless years to come. Life offered no hope of
a better future. In the year 190 B.C. Hannibal took poison and killed
himself.

Forty years later, the Romans forced their last war upon Carthage. Three
long years the inhabitants of the old Phoenician colony held out against
the power of the new republic. Hunger forced them to surrender. The few
men and women who had survived the siege were sold as slaves. The city
was set on fire. For two whole weeks the store-houses and the pal-aces
and the great arsenal burned. Then a terrible curse was pronounced upon
the blackened ruins and the Roman legions returned to Italy to enjoy
their victory.

For the next thousand years, the Mediterranean remained a European sea.
But as soon as the Roman Empire had been destroyed, Asia made another
attempt to dominate this great inland sea, as you will learn when I tell
you about Mohammed.

THE RISE OF ROME

HOW ROME HAPPENED

THE Roman Empire was an accident. No one planned it. It "happened." No
famous general or statesman or cut-throat ever got up and said "Friends,
Romans, Citizens, we must found an Empire. Follow me and together we
shall conquer all the land from the Gates of Hercules to Mount Taurus."

Rome produced famous generals and equally distinguished statesmen and
cut-throats, and Roman armies fought all over the world. But th