w opposed to him, that after this he was still able for
four years to keep the field in the Bruttian country, and that all the
superiority of his opponents could not compel him either to shut
himself up in fortresses or to embark. It is true that he was obliged
to retire farther and farther, not so much in consequence of the
indecisive engagements which took place with the Romans, as because
his Bruttian allies were always becoming more troublesome, and at last
he could only reckon on the towns which his army garrisoned. Thus he
voluntarily abandoned Thurii; Locri was, on the suggestion of Publius
Scipio, recaptured by an expedition from Rhegium (549). As if at last
his projects were to receive a brilliant justification at the hands of
the very Carthaginian authorities who had thwarted him in them, these
now, in their apprehension as to the anticipated landing of the
Romans, revived of their own accord those plans (548, 549), and sent
reinforcements and subsidies to Hannibal in Italy, and to Mago in
Spain, with orders to rekindle the war in Italy so as to achieve some
further respite for the trembling possessors of the Libyan country
houses and the shops of Carthage. An embassy was likewise sent to
Macedonia, to induce Philip to renew the alliance and to land in Italy
(549). But it was too late. Philip had made peace with Rome some
months before; the impending political annihilation of Carthage was
far from agreeable to him, but he took no step openly at least against
Rome. A small Macedonian corps went to Africa, the expenses of which,
according to the assertion of the Romans, were defrayed by Philip from
his own pocket; this may have been the case, but the Romans had at any
rate no proof of it, as the subsequent course of events showed.
No Macedonian landing in Italy was thought of.

Mago in Italy

Mago, the youngest son of Hamilcar, set himself to his task more
earnestly. With the remains of the Spanish army, which he had
conducted in the first instance to Minorca, he landed in 549 at Genoa,
destroyed the city, and summoned the Ligurians and Gauls to arms.
Gold and the novelty of the enterprise led them now, as always, to
come to him in troops; he had formed connections even throughout
Etruria, where political prosecutions never ceased. But the troops
which he had brought with him were too few for a serious enterprise
against Italy proper; and Hannibal likewise was much too weak, and his
influence in Lower