[49] [Appian[f] says that Lacedæmon, being asked for a general, sent Xanthippus.]
[50] [H. Shear’s version of 1693 is here adopted. We retain the chief features of the original typographical setting, in keeping with the quaint phraseology.]
Roman Beacon Fires
CHAPTER XI. FIRST HALF OF THE SECOND PUNIC WAR
War was resolved upon and declared on both sides—a war which stands forth in the annals of the ancient world without a parallel. It was not a war about a disputed boundary, about the possession of a province, or some partial advantage; it was a struggle for existence, for supremacy or destruction. It was to decide whether the Greco-Roman civilisation of the West or the Semitic civilisation of the East was to be established in Europe, and to determine its history for all future time. The war was one of those in which Asia struggled with Europe, like the war of the Greeks and Persians, the conquests of Alexander the Great, the wars of the Arabs, the Huns and the Tatars. Whatever may be our admiration of Hannibal, and our sympathy with heroic and yet defeated Carthage, we shall nevertheless be obliged to acknowledge that the victory of Rome—the issue of this trial by battle—was the most essential condition for the healthy development of the human race.—Ihne.[b]