easily be conceived, with apprehension; it was no
imaginary danger that the Carthaginian fleet might land in Italy and
a second war under Hannibal might spring up there, while the Roman
legions fighting in Asia Minor. We can scarcely, therefore, censure
the Romans for sending an embassy to Carthage (in 559) which was
presumably charged to demand the surrender of Hannibal. The spiteful
Carthaginian oligarchs, who sent letter after letter to Rome to
denounce to the national foe the hero who had overthrown them as
having entered into secret communications with the powers unfriendly
to Rome, were contemptible, but their information was probably
correct; and, true as it was that that embassy involved a humiliating
confession of the dread with which the simple shofete of Carthage
inspired so powerful a people, and natural and honourable as it was
that the proud conqueror of Zama should take exception in the senate
to so humiliating a step, still that confession was nothing but the
simple truth, and Hannibal was of a genius so extraordinary, that none
but sentimental politicians in Rome could tolerate him longer at the
head of the Carthaginian state. The marked recognition thus accorded
to him by the Roman government scarcely took himself by surprise.
As it was Hannibal and not Carthage that had carried on the last war,
so it was he who had to bear the fate of the vanquished. The
Carthaginians could do nothing but submit and be thankful that
Hannibal, sparing them the greater disgrace by his speedy and prudent
flight to the east, left to his ancestral city merely the lesser
disgrace of having banished its greatest citizen for ever from his
native land, confiscated his property, and razed his house. The
profound saying that those are the favourites of the gods, on whom
they lavish infinite joys and infinite sorrows, thus verified itself
in full measure in the case of Hannibal.

Continued Irritation in Rome towards Carthage

A graver responsibility than that arising out of their proceedings
against Hannibal attaches to the Roman government for their
persistence in suspecting and tormenting the city after his removal.
Parties indeed fermented there as before; but, after the withdrawal
of the extraordinary man who had wellnigh changed the destinies of the
world, the patriot party was not of much more importance in Carthage
than in Aetolia or Achaia. The most rational of the various ideas
which then agitated the unhappy ci