sixteen years against Rome, in Italy, though Rome was aided by
Carthaginian copperheads. But, though a young general, Hannibal was an
old soldier when he led his army from the Ebro to the Trebia, as the
avenging agent of his country's gods. His military as well as his moral
training began in childhood; and when his father, Hamilcar Barcas,[B]
was killed, Hannibal, though but eighteen, was of established reputation
in the Carthaginian service. Eight years later he took the place which
his father and brother-in-law had held, called to it by the voice of the
army. During those eight years he had been constantly employed, and he
brought to the command an amount and variety of experience such as it
has seldom been the lot of even old generals to acquire. Years brought
no decay to his faculties, and we have the word of his successful foe,
that at Zama, when he was forty-five, he showed as much skill as he had
displayed at Cannæ, when he was but thirty-one. Long afterward, when an
exile in the East, his powers of mind shine as brightly as they did when
he crossed the Pyrenees and the Alps to fulfil his oath. Scipio, too,
though in a far less degree than Hannibal, was an old soldier. He had
been often employed, and was present at Cannæ, before he obtained that
proconsular command in Spain which was the worthy foundation of his
fortunes. The four years that he served in that country, and his
subsequent services in Africa, qualified him to meet Hannibal, whose
junior he was by thirteen years. That he was Hannibal's superior,
because he defeated him at Zama, with the aid of Masinissa, no more
follows than that Wellington was Napoleon's superior, because, with the
aid of Blücher, he defeated him at Waterloo. It would not be more
difficult to account for the loss of the African field than it is to
account for the loss of the Flemish field, by the superior genius. The
elder Africanus is the most exceptional character in all history, and it
is impossible to place him. He seems never to have been young, and we
cannot associate the idea of age with him, even when he is dying at