[612] Expende.
"How are the mighty changed to dust! how small
The urn that holds what once was Hannibal!" Hodgson.
[613] Altos; others read alios; referring to the elephants of Africa as well as Asia. "Elephantos fert Africa, ferunt Æthiopes et Troglodytæ: sed maximos India." Plin., viii., 11.
[614] Aceto. Vid. Liv., xxi., 37. Polybius omits the story as fabulous. There appears, now, no reason to doubt the fact.
[615] Actum. "Nil actum referens si quid superesset agendum."
"Peace courts his hand, but spreads her charms in vain;
'Think nothing gain'd,' he cries, 'till naught remain;
On Moscow's walls till Gothic standards fly,
And all be mine beneath the Polar sky.'" Johnson.
[616] Facies.
"Oh! for some master-hand, the lines to trace!" Gifford.
[617] Luscum. Hannibal lost one eye, while crossing the marshes, in making his way to Etruria: "quia medendi nec locus nec tempus erat altero oculo capitur;" he rode, Livy tells us, on his sole surviving elephant, xxii., 2.
[618] Bithyno. When accused by the Romans at Carthage, Hannibal fled to Antiochus, king of Syria, and thence to the court of Prusias, king of Bithynia, for whom he carried on successfully the war against Eumenes. But when Flaminius was sent to demand his surrender, he destroyed himself with poison, which he always carried in a ring.