him to the perilous and almost ruinous march through Gaul and across
the Alps. It is certain, however, that his fleet on the coast of Spain
was not strong enough to contend with that of Rome. Had it been, he
might still have followed the road he actually did, for reasons that
weighed with him; but had he gone by the sea, he would not have lost
thirty-three thousand out of the sixty thousand veteran soldiers with
whom he started.

While Hannibal was making this dangerous march, the Romans were
sending to Spain, under the two elder Scipios, one part of their
fleet, carrying a consular army. This made the voyage without serious
loss, and the army established itself successfully north of the Ebro,
on Hannibal's line of communications. At the same time another
squadron, with an army commanded by the other consul, was sent to
Sicily. The two together numbered two hundred and twenty ships. On its
station each met and defeated a Carthaginian squadron with an ease
which may be inferred from the slight mention made of the actions, and
which indicates the actual superiority of the Roman fleet.

After the second year the war assumed the following shape: Hannibal,
having entered Italy by the north, after a series of successes had
passed southward around Rome and fixed himself in southern Italy,
living off the country,--a condition which tended to alienate the
people, and was especially precarious when in contact with the mighty
political and military system of control which Rome had there
established. It was therefore from the first urgently necessary that
he should establish, between himself and some reliable base, that
stream of supplies and reinforcements which in terms of modern war is
called "communications." There were three friendly regions which
might, each or all, serve as such a base,--Carthage itself,