and he is remembered as the originator of the policy of delay in war,
as our dictionaries tell us, because his plan was to worry his enemy,
rather than risk a pitched battle with him. On this account the Romans
called him _Cunctator_, which meant delayer, or one who is slow
though safe, not rash. He was called also _Ovicula_, or the lamb,
on account of his mild temper, and _Verrucosus_, because he had a
wart on his upper lip (_Verruca_, a wart).

The second Punic war was not so much a struggle between Carthage and
Rome, as a war entered into by Hannibal and carried on by him against
the Roman republic in spite of the opposition of his own people; and
this fact makes the strength of his character appear in the strongest
light. Just at the close of the first war, the Carthaginians had
established in Spain a city which took the name of New Carthage--that
is, New New City,--and had extended their dominion over much of that
country, as well as over most of the territory on the south shore of
the Mediterranean Sea. Hannibal laid siege to the independent city of
Saguntum, on the northeast of New Carthage, and, after several months
of desperate resistance, took it, thus throwing down the gauntlet to
Rome and completing the dominion of Carthage in that region (B.C. 218).
Rome sent ambassadors to Carthage, to ask reparation and the surrender
of Hannibal: but "War!" was the only response, and for seventeen years
a struggle of the most determined sort was carried on by Hannibal and
the Roman armies.

After wintering at New Carthage, Hannibal started for Italy with a
great army. He crossed the Pyrenees, went up the valley of the Rhone,
and then up the valley of the Isère, and most probably crossed the Alps
by the Little St. Bernard pass. It was an enterprise of the greatest
magnitude to take an army of this size through a hostile country, over