Soon came the great crisis of their history, the long wars of Rome and Carthage. On one side was the genius of war, empire, law, and art, on the other the genius of commerce, industry, and wealth. The subjects of Carthage were scattered over the Mediterranean, the power of Rome was compact. Carthage fought with regular mercenaries, Rome with her disciplined citizens. Carthage had consummate generals, but Rome had matchless soldiers. Long the scale trembled. Not once nor twice was Rome stricken down to the dust. Punic fleets swept the seas. African horsemen scoured the plains. Barbarian hordes were gathered up by the wealth of Carthage, and marshalled by the genius of her great captain.
For her fought the greatest military genius of the ancient world, perhaps of all time. Hannibal, himself a child of the camp, training a veteran army in the wars of Spain, led his victorious troops across Gaul, crossed the Alps, poured down upon Italy, struck down army after army, and at last, by one crowning victory, scattered the last military force of Rome. Beset by an invincible army in the heart of Italy, her strongholds stormed, without generals or armies, without money or allies, without cavalry or ships, it seemed that the last hour of Rome was come. Now, if ever, she needed that faith in her destiny, the solid strength of her slow growth, and the energy of her entire people. They did not fail her. In her worst need her people held firm, her senate never lost heart, armies grew out of the very remnants and slaves within her walls. Inch by inch the invader was driven back, watched and besieged in turn. The genius of Rome revived in Scipio. He it was who, with an eagle's sight, saw the weakness of her enemy, swooped, with an eagle's flight, upon Carthage herself, and at last, before her walls, overthrew Hannibal, and with him the hopes and power of his country and his race guided tours turkey.
Horatius defending
It is in these first centuries that we see the source of the greatness of Rome. Then was founded her true strength. What tales of heroism, dignity, and endurance have they not left us ! There are no types of public virtue grander than these. Brutus condemning his traitor sons to death; Horatius defending the bridge against an army; Cincinnatus taken from the plough to rule the state, re-turning from ruling the state again to the plough; the Decii, father and son, solemnly devoting themselves to death to propitiate the gods of Rome; Regulus the prisoner going to his home only to exhort his people not to yield, and returning calmly to his prison; Cornelia offering up her children to death and shame for the cause of the people; great generals content to live like simple yeomen; old and young ever ready to march to certain death; hearts proof against eloquence, gold, or pleasure; noble matrons training their children to duty; senates ever confident in their country; generals returning from conquered nations in poverty; the leader of triumphant armies becoming the equal of the humblest citizens.
Carthage once overcome, the conquest of the world followed rapidly. Spain and the islands of the Mediterranean Sea were the prizes of the war. Lower Gaul, Greece, and Macedon were also within fifty years incorporated in Rome. She pushed further. The whole empire of Alexander fell into her hands, and at length, after seven hundred years of conquest, she remained the mistress of the civilised world. But, long before this, she herself had become the prey of convulsions. The marvellous empire, so rapidly expanded, had deeply corrupted the power which had won it. Her old heroes were no more. Her virtues failed her, and her vast dominions had long become the prize of bloody and selfish factions. The ancient republic, whose freemen had once met to consult in the Forum, broke up in the new position for which her system was utterly unfit.
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