d the magistrates; so that, money
being wanting to pay the annual tribute due to the Romans, the
Carthaginians were going to levy it upon the people in general. Hannibal,
entering into a large detail of the public revenues, ordered an exact
estimate of them to be laid before him; inquired in what manner they had
been applied; the employments and ordinary expenses of the state; and
having discovered, by this inquiry, that the public funds had been in a
great measure embezzled by the fraud of the officers who had the
management of them, he declared and promised, in a full assembly of the
people, that, without laying any new taxes upon private men, the republic
should hereafter be enabled to pay the tribute to the Romans; and he was
as good as his word. The farmers of the revenues, whose plunder and rapine
he had publicly detected, having accustomed themselves hitherto to fatten
upon the spoils of their country, exclaimed(815) vehemently against these
regulations, as if their own property had been forced out of their hands,
and not the sums they had plundered from the public.

_The Retreat and Death of Hannibal._(_816_)--This double reformation of
abuses raised great clamours against Hannibal. His enemies were writing
incessantly to the chief men, or their friends, at Rome, to inform them,
that he was carrying on a secret intelligence with Antiochus king of
Syria; that he frequently received couriers from him; and that this prince
had privately despatched agents to Hannibal, to concert with him the
measures for carrying on the war he was meditating: that as some animals
are so extremely fierce, that it is impossible ever to tame them; in like
manner this man was of so turbulent and implacable a spirit, that he could
not brook ease, and therefore would, sooner or later, break out again.
These informations were listened to at Rome; and as the transactions of
the preceding war had been begun and carried on almost solely by Hannibal,
they appeared more probable. However, Scipio strongly opposed the violent
measures which the senate were going to take on their receiving this
intelligence, by representing it as derogatory to the dignity of the Roman
people, to countenance the hatred and accusations of Hannibal's enemies;
to support, with their authority, their unjust passions; and obstinately
to persecute him even in the very heart of his country; as though the
Romans had not humbled him sufficiently, in driving him out of the fie