the Carthaginians in two great naval battles within four years.

Romans cross the Sea.-Under Regulus the Romans then crossed the Mediterranean, and "carried the war into Africa." The natives, weary of the oppressive rule of the Carthaginians, welcomed their deliverers. Carthage seemed about to fall, when the presence of one man turned the tide. Xanthippus, a Spartan general, led the Carthaginians to victory, destroyed the Roman army, and captured Regulus.1

After this the contest dragged on for several years; but a signal victory near Panormus, in Sicily, gave the Romans the ascendency in that island, and finally a great, naval defeat off the Ægu'sæ Islands cost the Carthaginians the empire of the sea.

Effects.-Carthage was forced to give up Sicily, and pay thirty-two hundred talents of silver (about four million dollars) toward the war expenses. The Temple of Janus was shut for the first time since the days of Numa (p. 207).

Rome's First Province was Sicily. This was governed, like all the possessions which she afterward acquired outside of Italy, by magistrates sent each year from Rome. The people, being made not allies but subjects, were required to pay an annual tribute.

1 It is said that Regulus, while at the height of his success, asked permission to return home to his little farm, as a slave had run away with the tools, and his family was likely to suffer with want during his absence. After his capture, the Carthaginians sent him to Rome with proposals of peace, making him swear to return in case the conditions were not accepted. On his arrival, he refused to enter the city, saying that he was no longer a Roman citizen, but only a Carthaginian slave. Having stated the terms of the proposed peace, to the amazement of all, he urged their reJection as unworthy of the glory and honor of Rome. Then, without visiting his home, he turned away from weeping wife and children, and went back to his prison again. The enraged Carthaginians cut off his eyelids, and exposed him to the burning rays of a tropic sun, and then thrust him into a barrel studded with sharp nails. So perished this martyr to his word and his country.-Historic research throws doubt on the truth of this instance of Punic cruelty, and asserts that the story was invented to excuse the barbarity with which the wife of Regulus treated some Carthaginian captives who fell into her hands; but the name of Regulus lives as the personification of sincerity and patriotic devotion.

Second Punic War (218-201 B. C.).-During the ensuing peace of twenty-three years, Hamilcar (surnamed Barca, lightning), the great statesman and general of Carthage, built up an empire in southern Spain, and trained an army for a new struggle with Rome. He hated that city with a perfect hatred. When he left home for Spain, he took with him his son Hannibal, a boy nine years old, having first made him swear at the altar of Baal always to be the enemy of the Romans. That youthful oath was never forgotten, and Hannibal, like his father, had but one purpose,-to humble his country's rival. When twenty-six years of age, he was made commander-in-chief of the Carthaginian army. Pushing the Punic power northward, he captured Saguntum. As that city was her ally, Rome promptly declared war against Carthage.1 On the receipt of this welcome news, Hannibal, with the daring of genius, resolved to scale the Alps, and carry the contest into Italy.

Invasion of Italy.-In the spring of the year 218 B. C. he set out 2 from New Carthage. Through hostile tribes, over the swift Rhone, he pressed forward to the foot of the Alps. Here dangers multiplied. The mountaineers rolled down rocks upon his column, as it wearily toiled up the steep ascent. Snow blocked the way. At times the crack of a whip would bring down an avalanche from the impending heights. The men and horses slipped on the sloping ice-fields, and slid over the precipices into the awful crevasses. New roads had to be cut through the solid rock by hands benumbed with

1 An embassy came to Carthage demanding that Hannibal should be surrendered. This being refused, M. Fabius, folding up his toga as if it contained something, exclaimed, "I bring you peace or war; take which you will!" The Carthaginians answered, "Give us which you wish!" Shaking open his toga, the Roman haughtily replied, "I give you war!"-"So let it be!" shouted the assembly.

2 Before starting on this expedition, Hannibal went with his immediate attendants to Gades, and offered sacrifice in the temples for the success of the great work to which he had been dedicated eighteen years before, and to which he had been looking forward so long.

make a feigned attack on the enemy's camp. The Romans fell into the snare, and pursued the horsemen back across the river. When the legions, stiff with cold and faint with hunger, emerged from the icy waters, they found the Carthaginian army drawn up to receive them. Undismayed by the sight, they at once joined battle; but, in the midst of the struggle, Hannibal's brother Mago fell upon their rear with a body of men that had been hidden in a reedy ravine near by. The Romans, panic-stricken, broke and fled.

The fierce Gauls now flocked to Hannibal's camp, and remained his active allies during the rest of the war.

The next year Hannibal moved southward.1 One day in June, the consul Flaminius was eagerly pursuing him along the banks of Lake Trasimenus. Suddenly, through the mist, the Carthaginians poured down from the heights, and put the Romans to rout.2

Fabius was now appointed dictator. Keeping on the heights where he could not be attacked, he followed Hannibal everywhere,3 cutting off his supplies, but never hazarding a battle. The Romans became impatient at seeing their country ravaged while their army remained inactive, and Varro, the consul, offered battle on the plain of Cannæ. Hannibal drew up the Carthaginians in the shape of a halfmoon having the convex side toward the enemy, and tipped

1 In the low flooded grounds along the Arno the army suffered fearfully. Hannibal himself lost an eye by inflammation, and tradition says that his life was saved by the last remaining elephant, which carried him out of the swamp.

2 So fierce was this struggle that none of the combatants noticed the shock of a severe earthquake which occurred in the midst of the battle.

3 While Hannibal was ravaging the rich plains of Campania, the wary Fabius seized the passes of the Apennines, through which Hannibal must recross into Samnium with his booty. The Carthaginian was apparently caught in the trap. But his mind was fertile in devices. He fastened torches to the horns of two thousand oxen, and sent men to drive them up the neighboring heights. The Romans at the defiles, thinking the Carthaginians were trying to escape over the hills, ran to the defense. Hannibal quickly seized the passes, and marched through with his army.