In this respect the Greeks were unsurpassed; the Greek engineers were the wonder of the world, as was subsequently shown at the siege of Syracuse; and how great soever the superiority of the Romans to the Carthagenians in this arm of service, it was as nothing to the skill of the Greek artillerists, and the excellence of the Greek machinery.
What this combination might—I should rather say might not—have effected, it were difficult to show; more difficult to show how Rome could have resisted it. For my part, having examined the question in all its lights, I am of opinion that, had this alliance gone into effect, and Philip acted with energy and steadiness of purpose equal to his bravery and ambition, Marcellus never would have taken Syracuse, nor Scipio conquered Spain; but that from both those countries triumphant reinforcements would have poured in to Hannibal, over the Alps, across the Straits of Messina, that an Italian Tama would have sealed the doom of Rome, and a Punic ploughshare razed the foundations of the capitol.
But such—it is well for humanity—was not to be the issue of the war. Philip’s ambassadors, returning with the treaty signed and ratified by Hannibal, were taken by the Roman squadron off the Calabrian coast, and sent to the city with their papers.
A year elapsed before the treaty could be renewed; and, meantime, the Romans, awakened to a perception of their danger, found means to enkindle the Ætolians and Illyrian pirates against Philip, and in the end to organize a Greek confederation against Macedon, which gave its active and ambitious sovereign plenty of work to do on his own side of the Adriatic. At a later period he found cause to repent that he had ever meditated intervention.
Such strokes of fortune, so historians call them, as that capture of the ambassadors of Philip, which, perhaps, saved Rome—as that strong gale which blew on Christmas Eve on Bantry Bay, dispersing Hoche’s armament to the four winds of heaven—such strokes, I say, of fortune, I hold to be the visible agencies and instruments of God’s providence, in the government of nations, to the welfare of the world.
From Rome that peril was averted. The arms of Macedon abstained, perforce, from the shores of devastated Italy. The arms of Syracuse, of Spain, were wrested from the hands which would have wielded them in the behalf of Carthage. The arms even of the unbridled Numidians were turned against the masters whom they had served so fatally for Rome. And out of the furnace of that scathing war, the giant form of the chosen republic emerged, without one hair singed, one thread of its vestments injured; and that, like the faithful sons of Israel, by the especial providence of the Almighty.
Years passed, and events hurried toward their consummation. Yet still, though from this date the tide of Hannibal’s affairs began to ebb, and that of Rome’s to flow with a healthier, prouder current, it was not until twelve more terrible campaigns had been fought out in vain, that the star of the great Carthaginian set in blood at Zama, and the name of Carthage herself, all but one brief spasmodic sound of fury and despair, went out and was forgotten from among the nations.
Then rousing herself, like a galled lioness, Rome went forth to avenge and conquer.
Hitherto she had fought at home for existence, henceforth she fought abroad for dominion; and abroad as at home, until her mission was accomplished and His work done fully to the end, she was invincible, as the fruit of her labors is eternal.
The war, which had been undertaken against Philip by the Romans shortly after his giving them the first offense, had languished from the beginning on both sides, and peace had been concluded between the contending parties some three years before the decisive victory of Zama.