t coast of Spain,
Zacynthus or Saguntum (Murviedro, not far from Valencia), and Emporiae
(Ampurias); and when they acquainted the Carthaginian general
Hasdrubal that they had done so, they at the same time warned him
not to push his conquests over the Ebro, with which he promised
compliance. This was not done by any means to prevent an invasion
of Italy by the land-route--no treaty could fetter the general who
undertook such an enterprise--but partly to set a limit to the
material power of the Spanish Carthaginians which began to be
dangerous, partly to secure the free communities between the Ebro
and the Pyrenees whom Rome thus took under her protection, a basis
of operations in case of its being necessary to land and make war in
Spain. In reference to the impending war with Carthage, which the
senate did not fail to see was inevitable, they hardly apprehended any
greater inconvenience from the events that had occurred in Spain than
that they might be compelled to send some legions thither, and that
the enemy would be somewhat better provided with money and soldiers
than, without Spain, he would have been; they were at any rate firmly
resolved, as the plan of the campaign of 536 shows and as indeed could
not but be the case, to begin and terminate the next war in Africa,
--a course which would at the same time decide the fate of Spain.
Further grounds for delay were suggested during the first years by the
instalments from Carthage, which a declaration of war would have cut
off, and then by the death of Hamilcar, which probably induced friends
and foes to think that his projects must have died with him. Lastly,
during the latter years when the senate certainly began, to apprehend
that it was not prudent long to delay the renewal of the war, there
was the very intelligible wish to dispose of the Gauls in the
valley of the Po in the first instance, for these, threatened with
extirpation, might be expected to avail themselves of any serious war
undertaken by Rome to allure the Transalpine tribes once more to
Italy, and to renew those Celtic migrations which were still fraught
with very great peril. That it was not regard either for the
Carthaginian peace party or for existing treaties which withheld the
Romans from action, is self-evident; moreover, if they desired war,
the Spanish feuds furnished at any moment a ready pretext. The
conduct of Rome in this view is by no means unintelligible; but as
little can it be den