Carthage was also a vast city, situated in Africa, about four hundred miles south-west of Rome, the Mediterranean Sea lying between them. It originated with a small colony of people from Tyre, a maritime city in Syria, about a hundred years before Rome was founded by Romulus. It increased rapidly, and became a flourishing place. The city exercised dominion over the whole country around. Its government was a mixture of aristocracy and democracy; the chief men ruling on all ordinary occasions, but sometimes consulting the people.
The Carthaginians were an industrious nation and appear to have had no taste or leisure for the gladiator fights, the shows of wild beasts, the theatrical exhibitions and other amusements, that excited such deep interest among the idle and dissipated Romans. They were, in many respects, exemplary in their morals—even abstinence from wine being required of the magistrates while in office. Their religion, however, was a gloomy superstition, and their punishments were cruel. They even sacrificed children to their gods, in the earlier periods of their history.
Though chiefly addicted to commerce, the Carthaginians paid great attention to agriculture. The rich men laid out their surplus money in cultivating the lands; and in the time of Hannibal, the whole extent of country around Carthage, which was the territory now called Tunis, was covered with vast herds of the finest cattle, fields waving with corn, vineyards and olive grounds. There were a multitude of small villages scattered over the country; near to the great city, the whole landscape was studded with the splendid villas of the rich citizens. To such a pitch was the art of agriculture carried, that one Mago wrote twenty-eight books upon the subject. These were carried to Rome, after the conquest of Carthage, and greatly increased the knowledge and skill of the Romans, in the science of husbandry.
It was at a period when these two great powers had already extended themselves so far as to come in frequent collision, that Hannibal was born. His father was a general, who had served in Spain and fought against the Romans in the first Punic war. His mind was filled with hatred of that nation; and while Hannibal was yet a boy of nine years old, and about to accompany his father in his Spanish campaigns, he caused him to kneel before the altar, and swear eternal hatred to the Romans.
Asdrubal, the brother of Hamilcar, succeeded, at the death of the latter, to the command of the Carthaginian army in Spain; at his death, Hannibal, now twenty-one years old, was made general of the whole army, as well by the acclamations of the soldiers, as the decree of the Carthaginian senate. He immediately marched against various barbarous tribes in Spain, yet unsubdued, and quickly reduced them to submission.
During the first Punic war, Carthage had lost her finest colonies—the island of Sicily, as well as the Lipari isles—all of which had fallen into the hands of Rome. She had now recovered from the losses of that war, and Hannibal determined to revenge the injuries Rome had inflicted upon his country. Accordingly, he laid siege to Saguntum, in Spain, a large city subject to Rome, and situated on the Mediterranean, near the present town of Valencia. Faithful to their alliance, and expecting succors from Rome, the people made the most determined resistance for eight months. They were at last reduced to such fearful extremity for food, that they killed their infant children and fed upon their blood and flesh. Filled with a horrid despair, they finally erected an immense pile of wood, and setting it on fire, the men first hurled their women, slaves and treasures into the blaze, and then plunged into it themselves. Hannibal now entered the city, but, instead of finding rich spoils, he only witnessed a heap of ashes. The solitude of that scene might have touched even a warrior’s heart. The present town of Murviedo, the site of the ancient Saguntum and the witness of these horrid scenes, still abounds in remains of Roman architecture.
The second Punic war was begun by these proceedings against Saguntum. Hannibal, who had determined upon the invasion of Italy, spent the winter in making his preparations. Leaving a large force in Africa, and also in Spain, to defend these points, he set out, in the spring of the year 218, with eighty thousand foot and twelve thousand horse, to fulfil his project.
His course lay along the Mediterranean; the whole distance to Rome being about one thousand miles by the land route which he contemplated. When he had traversed Spain, he came to the Pyrenees, a range of mountains separating that country from Gaul, now France. Here he was attacked by wild tribes of brave barbarians, but he easily drove them back. He crossed the Pyrenees, traversed Gaul, and came at last to the Alps, which threw up their frowning battlements, interposing a formidable obstacle between him and the object of his expedition. No warrior had then crossed these snowy peaks with such an army; and none but a man of that degree of resolution and self-relience which will not be baffled, would have hazarded the fearful enterprise. Napoleon accomplished the task, two thousand years afterwards, but with infinitely greater facilities.
Hannibal, after a march of five months, descended the southern slopes of the Alps, and poured down upon the soft and smiling plains of Italy. The northern portion, called Cisalpine Gaul, was peopled with Gothic tribes, long settled in the country. They were desirous, however, of throwing off the Roman yoke, and therefore favored the Carthaginian cause. Hannibal, whose army had been greatly reduced in his march, especially in crossing the Alps, remained among some of these people for a time, to recruit, and then proceeded southward toward Rome.
On the banks of the river Tessino he was met by a Roman army despatched against him; but, after a bloody conflict, he was victorious. In a few weeks he again encountered the Romans, and again he triumphed. Thus, the whole of Cisalpine Gaul fell into his hands, and these people, relieved from the presence of the Roman army, aided him freely with every kind of supplies.