CONQUEST OF SARDINIA, CORSICA,
AND CISALPINE GAUL
The Romans, with gross ill-faith and injustice, took advantage of a revolt against Carthage by her mercenary troops to deprive her of Sardinia and Corsica (238 B. C.), and Sardinia was made into a province. Their next exploit was the conquest of Cisalpine Gaul, which was completed 222 B. C., and the Roman hold upon the new territory was confirmed by the establishment of military colonies at Placentia and Cremona.
THE CARTHAGINIANS UNDER
HAMILCAR IN SPAIN
Carthage had resolved upon revenge for past defeats and injuries from Rome, and intrusted her cause to the great Hamilcar Barca. He sought to create for his country a new empire in Spain, which might be used as a base of operations against the foe for whom he had a deadly hate. From 237 to 229 B. C. (when he fell in battle) he was engaged in reducing a large part of Spain to submission.
In 221 B. C. his son, the illustrious Hannibal, took the Spanish command, and he soon brought on a new conflict with Rome by his capture of her ally, the city of Saguntum, on the northeast coast of Spain.
HANNIBAL AND THE SECOND PUNIC
WAR, 218-202 B. C.
The hero of the Second Punic War is Hannibal, one of the purest and noblest characters in history. In 218 B. C. the Carthaginian general crossed the Alps, after a five months’ march from Spain, and descended with a storm of war upon the Romans. With a force of twenty thousand foot and six thousand horse he encountered the consular armies, and defeated them at the rivers Ticinus and Trebia (218 B. C.), in Cisalpine Gaul, the Trasimene Lake in Etruria (217 B. C.), and most decisively, and with immense slaughter, at Cannæ, in Apulia, in 216 B. C. For fifteen years (218 to 202 B. C.) Hannibal maintained his ground in Italy, defeating the Romans again and again, opposed by the cautious Fabius Maximus and the daring Marcellus (the conqueror of Syracuse), but unable to capture Rome, or to subdue Roman steadfastness and courage.
CAUSES OF HANNIBAL’S
DEFEAT
The chief causes of the ultimate failure of Hannibal, besides the doggedness of Rome’s resistance, were the faithfulness of many of Rome’s allies, especially the Latins, in Italy, the success of Roman armies, under Publius Scipio, in Spain (temporarily subdued 205 B. C.), and the want of due support by Carthage to her great leader. The crisis came in 207 B. C., when Hannibal’s brother, Hasdrubal, crossed the Alps into Italy with a powerful army which, joined with Hannibal’s in Southern Italy, would probably have effected the conquest of Rome, now [391] almost exhausted. This was not to be. Hasdrubal was defeated, and slain by the Romans at the decisive battle of the Metaurus (a river in Umbria), one of the great critical contests of history. The junction of the forces thus prevented, Rome was saved, and, in order to be rid of Hannibal, the war was carried now into the enemy’s country.
DEFEAT OF HANNIBAL BY SCIPIO
AFRICANUS AT ZAMA