219—The Carthaginians pursued their conquests in Spain, and the celebrated Hannibal took Saguntum, which 218—brought on the second Punic war, as the war with Carthage was termed.
217—Hannibal, with great celerity, crossed the Pyrenees and the Alps—having first completed the conquest of Spain—and defeated the Romans in the battle of Ticinus, and again at Trebia.
217—The Achaian confederacy, now in the height of its glory in maintaining the liberties of Greece, united all the Greeks in a confederacy under the influence of Philip, king of Macedon, with the hope of arresting the power and ambition of Rome.
216—Hannibal inflicted a dreadful defeat on the Romans near the Thrasymenean Lake. The Romans were greatly alarmed, and made Fabius Maximus dictator, whose habit of refusing a pitched battle, wearing out his adversary by skirmishes and cutting off his supplies, is called “The Fabian Policy.” This plan is, by maneuvering and delay, to wear out and destroy an invader in detail without peril of defeat in battle. The Romans kept armies in Spain to prevent the Carthaginians from sending reinforcements to Hannibal.
215—At the close of this year Fabius resigned his dictatorship and the consuls appointed to succeed him abandoned his policy. They offered battle to Hannibal at Cannæ and the army was annihilated. 40,000 Romans were slain on the field. These defeats had destroyed the flower of their fighting population, but Roman courage and resolution always rose with defeat. They did not despair, but raised a fresh army and put Fabius again at its head, against whom the talents of Hannibal were vain. They fomented disturbances in Greece to keep Philip, King of Macedon at home, and besieged Syracuse in Sicily, which had joined the Carthaginians, 212—for three years, and then took it by stratagem. Archimedes, a celebrated mathematician of Syracuse, who had protracted the siege by his ingenious and powerful engines was killed in the sack of the city. Soon 210—after the whole island was subdued and remained a Roman province.
206—Asdrubal, the brother of Hannibal, general of the Carthaginian forces in Spain, crossed the Pyrenees and the Alps to reinforce Hannibal, but was defeated by the Romans and slain before Hannibal knew of his march.
202—Scipio, who had conquered in Spain, led an army into Africa, Hannibal being considered too formidable to attack, though his forces were very small. Scipio put 40,000 Numidians, allies of Carthage, to the sword, besieged the neighboring cities and defeated a large Carthaginian army. Hannibal was now called home to defend the metropolis. He fought a battle with raw 201—troops, at Zama, and was defeated—20,000 Carthaginians being slain. The Carthaginians begged for peace, Hannibal declaring that the war could not be protracted. The Roman terms left them little but their city. Such was the fruit of inflexible resolution.
5. The Romans are an example of a people, who, from first to last, had one clearly defined end, to which everything else was subservient. They formed their state for conquest, and that idea controlled the Kingdom, the Republic and the Empire. They were much wiser than the Spartans, for, devoting themselves to war, they meant to secure and enjoy all the fruits of conquest, and they did all that was possible to promote the prosperity of their people that they might produce warriors in abundance; but they relied mainly on actual war for discipline. They were constantly exercised in the art in the field and the orderly and sensible instinct of the race made discipline a matter of course. They were sometimes defeated when they encountered unfamiliar difficulties, or by the mistakes of their leaders, but never abandoned a purpose once adopted and never sued for peace.
Morally, the object they set before them was entirely unjustifiable, according to the standard of national rights accepted in our day. But such a conception never entered the minds of men in the ancient times. It is the fruit of modern civilization alone. The Romans, and many a nation after them, must work out the destructive consequences of that doctrine that “Might makes Right” before the universal sense of mankind would recoil from it. It was the accepted doctrine of the ancients, and has not yet disappeared from the world.
197—Sicily, Spain and Carthage were conquered, and Roman valor looked around for opportunities of winning fresh laurels. Philip of Macedon, an ambitious prince, threatened the Athenians, who implored help from Rome. An army immediately proceeded to Greece, penetrated into Macedonia, and completely defeated Philip at Cynocephalæ.