scipio. 135 



Roman army from the siege of Capua. But it did 

 not have even that effect. The army before Capua 

 remained where it was, and another army appeared, as 

 if by magic, to defend the city. Rome appeared to 

 be inexhaustible, and so in reality it was. 



Hannibal knew well that Italy could be conquered 

 only by Italians. So great a general could never have 

 supposed that, with a handful of cavalry, he could 

 subdue a country which had a million armed men to 

 bring into the field. He had taken it for granted 

 that if he could gain some success at first he would be 

 joined by the subject cities. But in spite of his great 

 victories, they remained true to Rome. Nothing 

 shows so clearly the immense resources of the Italian 

 Republic as that second Punic war. Hannibal was in 

 their country, but they employed against him only a 

 portion of their troops ; a second army was in Sicily 

 waging war against his Greek allies ; a third army 

 was in Spain, attacking his operations at the base, 

 pulling Carthage out of Europe by the roots. Added 

 to which, it was now the Romans who ruled the sea. 

 When Scipio had taken New Carthage and conquered 

 Spain, he crossed over into Africa, and Hannibal was 

 of necessity recalled. He met, on the field of Zama, 

 a general whose genius was little inferior to his own, 

 and who possessed an infinitely better army. Hannibal 

 lost the day, and the fate of Carthage was decided. 

 It was not the battle which did that : it was the 

 nature and constitution of the State. In itself, the 

 battle of Zama was not a more ruinous defeat than the 

 battle of Cannae. But Carthage was made of different 

 stuff from that of Rome. How could a war between 

 those two people have ended otherwise than as it did ? 

 Rome was an armed nation fighting in Italy for hearth 



