the most part, scattered tribes of barbarians without unity of purpose
or military discipline. Even in his civil wars Cæsar's armies were
veterans, and those of the commonwealth were, comparatively speaking,
recruits. But when the reader of these pages carefully considers
the story of Hannibal's campaign in Italy, what does he find? Two
nations--one Caucasian, young, warlike above all its contemporaries,
with a record behind it of steady aggrandizement and almost unbroken
victory, a nation every citizen of which was a soldier. On the other
side, a race of merchants Semitic in blood, a city whose citizens had
long since ceased to go to war, preferring that their gold should
fight for them by the hands of mercenaries of every race and
clime--hirelings whose ungoverned valour had proved almost as deadly
to their employers and generals as to their enemies. Above all, the
same battle had been joined before when Rome was weaker and Carthage
stronger, and Carthage had already shown her weakness and Rome her
strength.

And now in this renewed war we see a young man, aided only by a little
group of compatriots, welding together army of the most heterogeneous
elements--Spaniards, Gauls, Numidians, Moors, Greeks--men of almost
every race except his own. We see him cutting loose from his base of
supplies, leaving enemies behind him, to force his way through
hostile races, through unknown lands bristling with almost impassable
mountains and frigid with snow and ice. We see him conquering here,
making friends and allies there, and, more wonderful than all, holding
his mongrel horde together through hardships and losses by the force
of his character alone. We see him at last descending into the plains
of Italy. We see him not merely defeating but annihilating army after
army more numerous than his own and composed of better raw material.
We see him, unaided, ranging from end to end of the peninsula, none