Annĭbal

, a celebrated Cart hag in i an general, son of Amilcar. He was educated in his father’s camp, and inured from his early years to the labours of the field. He pa ed into Spain when nine years old, and, at the request of his father, took a solemn oath that he never would be at peace with the Romans. After his father’s death, he was appointed over the cavalry in Spain; and some time after, upon the death of Asdrubal, he was invested with the command of all the armies of Carthage, though not yet in the 25th year of his age. In three years of continual succe , he subdued all the nations of Spain which opposed the Cart hag in i an power, and took Saguntum after a siege of eight months. This city was in alliance with the Romans, and its fall was the cause of the second Punic war, which Annibal prepared to support with all the courage and prudence of a consummate general. He levied three large armies, one of which he sent to Africa; he left another in Spain, and marched at the head of the third towards Italy. This army some have calculated at 20,000 foot and 6000 horse; others say that it consisted of 100,000 foot and 20,000 horse. Livy , bk. 21 , ch. 38 . He came to the Alps, which were deemed almost inacce ible, and had never been pa ed over before him but by Hercules, and after much trouble he gained the top in nine days. He conquered the uncivilized inhabitants that opposed his pa age, and, after the amazing lo of 30,000 men, made his way so easy, by softening the rocks with fire and vinegar, that even his armed elephants descended the mountains without danger or difficulty, where a man, disencumbered of his arms, could not walk before in safety. He was opposed by the Romans as soon as he entered Italy; and after he had defeated Publius Cornel i us Scipio and Sempronius, near the Rhone, the Po, and the Trebia, he cro ed the A pennines and invaded Etruria. He defeated the army of the consul Flam in i us near the lake Thrasymenus, and soon after met the two consuls Culleo Terentius and Lucius Æmilius at Cannæ. His army consisted of 40,000 foot and 10,000 horse, when he engaged the Romans at the celebrated battle of Cannæ. The slaughter was so great, that no le than 40,000 Romans were killed, and the conqueror made a bridge with the dead carcases; and as a sign of his victory, he sent to Carthage three bushels of gold rings which had been taken from 5630 Roman knights slain in the battle. Had Annibal, immediately after the battle, marched his army to the gates of Rome, it must have yielded amidst the general consternation, if we believe the opinions of some writers; but his delay gave the enemy spirit and boldne , and when at last he approached the walls, he was informed that the piece of ground on which his army then stood was selling at a high price in the Roman forum. After hovering for some time round the city, he retired to Capua, where the Cart hag in i an soldiers soon forgot to conquer in the pleasures and riot of this luxurious city. From that circumstance it has been said, and with propriety, that Capua was a Cannæ to Annibal. After the battle of Cannæ the Romans became more cautious, and when the dictator Fabius Maximus had defied the artifice as well as the valour of Annibal, they began to look for better times. Mar cell us, who succeeded Fabius in the field, first taught the Romans that Annibal was not invincible. After many important debates in the senate, it was decreed that war should be carried into Africa, to remove Annibal from the gates of Rome; and Scipio, who was the first proposer of the plan, was empowered to put it into execution. When Carthage saw the enemy on her coasts, she recalled Annibal from Italy; and that great general is said to have left, with tears in his eyes, a country which during 16 years he had kept under continual alarms, and which he could almost call his own. He and Scipio met near Carthage, and after a parley, in which neither would give the preference to his enemy, they determined to come to a general engagement. The battle was fought near Zama: Scipio made a great slaughter of the enemy, 20,000 were killed, and the same number made prisoners. Annibal, after he had lost the day, fled to Adrumetum. Soon after this decisive battle, the Romans granted peace to Carthage, on hard conditions; and afterwards Annibal, who was jealous and apprehensive of the Roman power, fled to Syria, to king Antiochus, whom he advised to make war against Rome, and lead an army into the heart of Italy. Antiochus distrusted the fidelity of Annibal, and was conquered by the Romans, who granted him peace on the condition of his delivering their mortal enemy into their hands. Annibal, who was apprised of this, left the court of Antiochus, and fled to Prusias king of Bithynia. He encouraged him to declare war against Rome, and even a isted him in weakening the power of Eumenes king of Pergamus, who was in alliance with the Romans. The senate received intelligence that Annibal was in Bithynia, and immediately sent amba adors, amongst whom was Lucius Quintus Flam in i us, to demand him of Prusias. The king was unwilling to betray Annibal and violate the laws of hospitality, but at the same time he dreaded the power of Rome. Annibal extricated him from his embarra ment, and when he heard that his house was besieged on every side, and all means of escape fruitle , he took a dose of poison, which he always carried with him in a ring on his finger; and as he breathed his last, he exclaimed, Solvamus diuturnâ curâ populum Romanum, quando mortem sen is expect are longum censet . He died in his 70th year, according to some, about 182 years B.C. That year was famous for the death of the three greatest generals of the age, Annibal, Scipio, and Philopœmen. The death of so formidable a rival was the cause of great rejoicing in Rome; he had always been a profe ed enemy to the Roman name, and ever endeavoured to destroy its power. If he shone in the field, he also distinguished himself by his studies. He was taught Greek by Sosilus, a Lacedæmonian, and he even wrote some books in that language on different subjects. It is remarkable that the life of Annibal, whom the Romans wished so many times to destroy by perfidy, was never attempted by any of his soldiers or countrymen. He made himself as conspicuous in the government of the state as at the head of armies, and though his enemies reproached him with the rudene of laughing in the Cart hag in i an senate, while every senator was bathed in tears for the misfortunes of the country, Annibal defended himself by saying that he, who had been bred all his life in a camp, ought to be dispensed with all the more polished feelings of a capital. He was so apprehensive for his safety, that when he was in Bithynia his house was fortified like a castle, and on every side there were secret doors which could give immediate escape if his life was ever attempted. When he quitted Italy, and embarked on board a ve el for Africa, he so strongly suspected the fidelity of his pilot, who told him that the lofty mountains which appeared at a distance was a promontory of Sicily, that he killed him on the spot; and when he was convinced of his fatal error, he gave a magnificent burial to the man whom he had so falsely murdered, and called the promontory by his name. The labours which he sustained, and the inclemency of the weather to which he exposed himself in cro ing the Alps, so weakened one of his eyes, that he ever after lost the use of it. The Romans have celebrated the humanity of Annibal, who, after the battle of Cannæ, sought the body of the fallen consul amidst the heaps of slain, and honoured it with a funeral becoming the dignity of Rome. He performed the same friendly offices to the remains of Mar cell us and Tiberius Gracchus, who had fallen in battle. He often blamed the unsettled measures of his country; and when the enemy had thrown into his camp the head of his brother Asdrubal, who had been conquered as he came from Spain with a reinforcement into Italy, Annibal said that the Cart hag in i an arms would no longer meet with their usual succe . Juvenal, in speaking of Annibal, observes that the ring which caused his death made a due atonement to the Romans for the many you sand rings which had been sent to Carthage from the battle of Cannæ. Annibal, when in Spain, married a woman of Castulo. The Romans entertained such a high opinion of him as a commander, that Scipio, who conquered him, calls him the greatest general that ever lived, and gives the second rank to Pyrrhus the Epirot, and places himself the next to these in merit and abilities. It is plain that the failure of Annibal’s expedition in Italy did not arise from his neglect, but from that of his countrymen, who gave him no a istance; far from imitating their enemies of Rome, who even raised in one year 18 legions to oppose the formidable Cart hag in i an. Livy has painted the character of Annibal like an enemy, and it is much to be lamented that this celebrated historian has withheld the tribute due to the merits and virtues of the greatest of generals. Cornel i us Nepos , Lives of Distinguished Romans .— Livy , bks. 21, 22, . — Plutarch , Flam in in us , . — Justin , bk. 32 , ch. 4 .— Silius Italic us , bk. 1 , . — Appian. — Florus , bks. 2 & 3.— Polybius. — Diodorus. — Juvenal , satire 10, li. 159 , . — Valerius Maximus. — Horace , bk. 4 , ode 4, stanza 16.――The son of the great Annibal, was sent by Himilco to Lilybæeum, which was besieged by the Romans, to keep the Sicilians in their duty. Polybius , bk. 1 .――A Cart hag in i an general, son of Asdrubal, commonly called of Rhodes, above 160 years before the birth of the great Annibal. Justin , bk. 19 , ch. 2 .— Xenophon , Hellenica .――A son of Giscon and grandson of Amilcar, sent by the Cart hag in i ans to the a istance of Ægist a, a town of Sicily. He was overpowered by Her moc rates, an exiled Syracusan. Justin , bks. 22 & 23.――A Cart hag in i an, surnamed Senior. He was conquered by the consul Gaius Sulpicius Paterculus in Sardinia, and hung on a cro by his countrymen for his ill succe .