ng the counter-efforts of the Romans, a peace was
arranged in the winter of 548-9 between the Greek powers. Aetolia had
converted an over-powerful ally into a dangerous enemy; but the Roman
senate, which just at that time was summoning all the resources of the
exhausted state for the decisive expedition to Africa, did not deem it
a fitting moment to resent the breach of the alliance. The war with
Philip could not, after the withdrawal of the Aetolians, have been
carried on by the Romans without considerable exertions of their own;
and it appeared to them more convenient to terminate it also by a
peace, whereby the state of things before the war was substantially
restored and Rome in particular retained all her possessions on the
coast of Epirus except the worthless territory of the Atintanes.
Under the circumstances Philip had to deem himself fortunate in
obtaining such terms; but the fact proclaimed--what could not indeed
be longer concealed--that all the unspeakable misery which ten years
of a warfare waged with revolting inhumanity had brought upon Greece
had been endured in vain, and that the grand and just combination,
which Hannibal had projected and all Greece had for a moment joined,
was shattered irretrievably.

Spanish War

In Spain, where the spirit of Hamilcar and Hannibal was powerful, the
struggle was more earnest. Its progress was marked by the singular
vicissitudes incidental to the peculiar nature of the country and the
habits of the people. The farmers and shepherds, who inhabited the
beautiful valley of the Ebro and the luxuriantly fertile Andalusia as
well as the rough intervening highland region traversed by numerous
wooded mountain ranges, could easily be assembled in arms as a general
levy; but it was difficult to lead them against the enemy or even to
keep them together at all. The towns could just as little be combined
for steady and united action, obstinately as in each case they bade
defiance to the oppressor behind their walls. They all appear to have
made little distinction between the Romans and the Carthaginians;
whether the troublesome guests who had established themselves in the
valley of the Ebro, or those who had established themselves on the
Guadalquivir, possessed a larger or smaller portion of the peninsula,
was probably to the natives very much a matter of indifference; and
for that reason the tenacity of partisanship so characteristic of
Spain was but little prominent in t