its mighty armies, its fleets, elephants and riches; and that the
Carthaginians were even superior to other nations, by their courage
and greatness of soul, as, notwithstanding their being deprived of
arms and ships, they had sustained for three whole years, all the
hardships and calamities of a long siege; seeing, I say, this city
entirely ruined, historians relate that he could not refuse his tears
to the unhappy fate of Carthage. He reflected that cities, nations,
and empires are liable to revolutions, no less than particular men;
that the like sad fate had befallen Troy, once so powerful; and in
later times, the Assyrians, Medes, and Persians, whose dominions were
once of so great an extent; and lastly, the Macedonians, whose empire
had been so glorious throughout the world." Full of these mournful
ideas, he repeated the following verse of Homer:

"The day shall come, that great avenging day,
Which Troy's proud glories in the dust shall lay,
When Priam's powers, and Priam's self shall fall,
And one prodigious ruin swallow all--"

thereby denouncing the future destiny of Rome, as he himself confessed
to Polybius, who desired Scipio to explain himself on that occasion.

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THE SKETCH-BOOK

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