TITUS LIVIUS

FROM THE FOUNDING OF THE CITY

BOOK XXI.

I. In this portion of my work, I may be permitted to state what most writers of history have professed at the beginning of their entire enterprise: that I am about to write of the most memorable war of all that have ever been waged, the war which the Carthaginians, under the leadership of Hannibal, waged against the Roman people. Never have states and nations more powerful in resources engaged in conflict with one another, nor did they themselves ever possess so much strength or vigor. They were not unacquainted with each other’s arts of war, but had tested them in the First Punic War. The fortune of the war was so variable and the outcome so uncertain that those who ultimately conquered were in greater danger. They also fought with hatreds almost greater than their strength; the Romans were indignant that the conquered should take up arms against their victors, while the Carthaginians were angered by the belief that their previous defeat had been managed by the Romans with arrogance and avarice. There is even a story that when Hannibal was about nine years old, he boyishly coaxed his father Hamilcar to take him to Spain, and while Hamilcar was sacrificing before leading his army there after the completion of the African war, he led the boy to the altar, touched the sacred offerings, and made him swear an oath that as soon as he was able, he would be an enemy to the Roman people. The loss of Sicily and Sardinia tormented this man of great spirit: for he felt that Sicily had been conceded through too hasty a despair of the situation, and that Sardinia had been intercepted by the treachery of the Romans during the disturbances in Africa, with an additional financial indemnity imposed upon them. II. Anxious with these cares, he conducted himself in the African war, which took place shortly after the recent peace with Rome, for five years, and then for nine years in Spain while increasing the Carthaginian empire, in such a way that it was apparent he was turning over in his mind a war greater than the one he was waging. If he had lived longer, it would have been under the leadership of Hamilcar that the Carthaginians would have brought war to Italy, just as they did under the leadership of Hannibal. The death of Hamilcar and the youth of Hannibal delayed the war. Hasdrubal, who came between the father and the son, held command for almost eight years; he was supposedly first endeared to Hamilcar in the bloom of his youth, and was later adopted as his son-in-law because of other qualities of his spirit. Because he was a son-in-law, he was placed in command—not really by the will of the leading men, but by the influence of the Barcine faction, which held more than moderate power among the soldiers and the common people. He managed matters more by policy than by force, [strengthening] the Carthaginian cause...