what had been gained. The offensive was not to be thought of; the
defensive was difficult, and threatened every year to become more so.
He could not conceal from himself that the second half of his great
task, the subjugation of the Latins and the conquest of Rome, could
not be accomplished with his own forces and those of his Italian
allies alone. Its accomplishment depended on the council at Carthage,
on the head-quarters at Cartagena, on the courts of Pella and of
Syracuse. If all the energies of Africa, Spain, Sicily, and Macedonia
should now be exerted in common against the common enemy; if Lower
Italy should become the great rendezvous for the armies and fleets of
the west, south, and east; he might hope successfully to finish what
the vanguard under his leadership had so brilliantly begun. The most
natural and easy course would have been to send to him adequate
support from home; and the Carthaginian state, which had remained
almost untouched by the war and had been brought from deep decline so
near to complete victory by a small band of resolute patriots acting
of their own accord and at their own risk, could beyond doubt have
done this. That it would have been possible for a Phoenician fleet
of any desired strength to effect a landing at Locri or Croton,
especially as long as the port of Syracuse remained open to the
Carthaginians and the fleet at Brundisium was kept in check by
Macedonia, is shown by the unopposed disembarkation at Locri of 4000
Africans, whom Bomilcar about this time brought over from Carthage to
Hannibal, and still more by Hannibal's undisturbed embarkation, when
all had been already lost. But after the first impression of the
victory of Cannae had died away, the peace party in Carthage, which
was at all times ready to purchase the downfall of its political
opponents at the expense of its country, and which found faithful
allies in the shortsightedness and indolence of the citizens, refused
the entreaties of the general for more decided support with the half-
simple, half-malicious reply, that he in fact needed no help inasmuch
as he was really victor; and thus contributed not much less than
the Roman senate to save Rome. Hannibal, reared in the camp and a
stranger to the machinery of civic factions, found no popular leader
on whose support he could rely, such as his father had found in
Hasdrubal; and he was obliged to seek abroad the means of saving
his native country--means which its