and fruitless battles, we shall have no reason, I think, to doubt the correctness of the verdict which condemns him as the rashest of conquerors, and the cruellest of all who have laid claim to the much misapplied title of hero.

VIII.

HANNIBAL,

HIS BATTLES OF THE TICINUS, TREBBIA, THRASYMENE, AND CANNæ. HIS CAMPAIGNS, CONDUCT, AND CHARACTER.

Ir cannot fail, at first sight, to strike even the most unobservant reader of ancient history with something of wonder, that we know so little distinctly, and, if I may so express myself, individually, of this man, the greatest captain, beyond all question, of antiquity; perhaps-his means and the then state of military science considered-the greatest of all ages.

The causes of this general ignorance are manifold; but the most important are the entire absence of any Carthaginian narrative of the circumstances of the Punic wars; and the ignorance or favoritism of the Greek and Roman writers on the subject-Polybius having been a personal friend of Scipio and Lœlius; and Livy, writing so long after the occurrence of the facts which he describes, that it was not much easier for him, than it is for us, to arrive at the real truths of what he received as history, or its materials; the legends, namely, of the illustrious Roman houses, and the funeral orations of consulars and senators, which, for the most part, contained as many falsehoods as they counted lines.

It is more remarkable, however, that, until the Colossus Niebuhr came upon the stage, no modern historian was clear-sighted

enough to discern, tnrough the thick mists which prejudice, blind error, or intentional falsehood, have accumulated over the ages of Roman republicanism, even a glimpse of the transcendant genius, unrivalled military foresight and resource, unwearied perseverance, and indomitable patriotism, of this great captain, this great politician, and, in spite of some defects, which were those of his age rather than his own, this great man.

Niebuhr, it is true, lived not to bring down the history of that wondrous nation, on whose early ages he first poured the light of intelligence, to the days of the hero, whom I shall endeavor. briefly to set before my readers in his true light; but from one passage in his third volume it is clear that, had he lived to write of the second Punic war, he would have done justice to the incomparable greatness and genius of this much-belied and unappreciated leader. In that passage he speaks of "Scipio as towering above his nation, as much as Hannibal above all nations," and to any person who has carefully studied the career of the great Carthaginian, in the graphic pages of Arnold's magnificent history-alas! like Niebuhr's, left incomplete, by the untimely death of the author-it will be evident that in this phrase there is nothing of hyperbole.

Professing, myself, to adduce no new fact, scarce even theory, concerning this remarkable soldier, it strikes me that a short digest of his campaigns, divested of the dry details which render historical studies displeasing to the superficial reader, and combined with some comparisons of his deeds with those of other greatest soldiers, may prove neither unpalatable nor unuseful to the perusers of ephemeral literature; while it may tend to clear the memory of a much misrepresented hero, from the prejudiced opinions naturally instilled into us by our school readings of Horace's immortal odes, and "Livy's pictured page."

Hannibal was, it would seem, born a general-his father, Hamilcar, was the greatest of his nation and his day; to him