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A. R. B. C. forty years they had remained quiet*. The youth, who had grown up in that time, thought no more of past losses, and began to threaten Rome. The Romans, in order to attack with security such turbulent neighbours, first made sure of the Carthaginians. 224 A treaty was concluded with Asdrubal, who engaged not to pass beyond the Ebro. The war between the Romans and Gauls was carried on with fury on both fides: the Transalpines joined the Cisalpines: all were beaten. Concolitanus, one of the Gaulish kings, was taken in battle: Aneroestus, another king, killed himself. The Romans, victorious, passed the Po, for the first time, resolved to strip the Gauls of the lands adjacent to that river, of which they had been in possession for so many ages. Victory followed them every where: Milan was taken; almost the whole country was subjected. At this time Asdrubal died; and Hannibal, though but five and twenty years of age, was chosen in his place. From that moment war was foreseen. The new governor undertook openly to subdue Spain, without any regard to treaties. Rome then heard the complaints of Saguntum her ally. Roman ambassadors go to Carthage. The Carthaginians,now recovered, were no longer in the humour to yield. Sicily snatched out of their hands, Sardinia unjustly taken from them, and the augmentation of their tribute had galled them deeply. So that the faction which was for abandoning Han

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nibal, found itself weak; but that general A. R. B. C. looked to every thing. Some secret embassies had assured him of the Gauls of Italy, who, being no longer in a condition. to attempt any thing by their own force, embraced this opportunity of retrieving themselves. Hannibal crosses the Ebro, the Pyrenees, the whole Transalpine Gaul, the Alps, and falls, as it were in a moment, upon Italy.

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The Gauls do not fail to strengthen his army, and make a last effort for their liberty. Four battles lost threaten the fall of Rome. Sicily sides with the conquerer. Hieronymus, king of Syracuse, 538 declares against the Romans: almost all Italy abandons them; and the last resourse of the republic seems to be cut off in Spain. with the two Scipios. In such extremities Rome owed its preservation to three great. men. The constancy of Fabius Maximus, who, despising popular clamours, made war in his retreat, was a bulwark to his country. Marcellus, who raised the siege of Nola, and took Syracuse, inspired the troops with 540 new vigour by those actions. But Rome, though she admired these two great men, thought she saw somewhat still greater in the young Scipio. The wonderful success of his counsels, confirmed the opinion they entertained, that he was of divine race, and that he conversed with the gods. At the 543 age of twenty-four, he undertakes to go 544 into Spain, where his father and uncle had just before lost their lives: he attacks New Carthage, as if he had acted by inspiration, and his soldiers carry it at the first assault.

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A. R. BC. All that see him are won over to the Roman people: the Carthaginians give up Spain to him: on his arrival in Africa, the kings submit to him: Carthage trembles in her turn, and sees her armies defeated. Hannibal, sixteen years victorious, is in vain called home, and cannot defend his coun202 try: Scipio gives law to it; the name of Africanus is his reward. The Roman people having humbled the Gauls and Africans, see nothing more to fear, and henceforth make war without risk.

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In the middle of the first Punic war, Theodotus, governor of Bactria, withdrew a thousand cities from Antiochus, surnamed Theus, son of Antiochus Soter king of Syria. Almost all the East followed this example. The Parthians revolted under the conduct of Arsaces, chief of the house of the Arsacidæ, and founder of an empire, which extended by degrees over all the Upper Asia.

The kings of Syria and Egypt, incensed against each other, meditated nothing but mutual destruction, either by force or by fraud. Damascus and its territory, which was called Celo-Syria, and which was frontier to both kingdoms, was the subject of their quarrels, and the affairs of Asia were entirely separated from those of Europe.

During all these times philosophy flourished in Greece. The sects of the Italic and Ionic Philosophers stored it with great men, amongst whom crept in a number of extravagants, honoured nevertheless, by inquisitive Greece, with the name of Philo

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sophers. In the time of Cyrus and Cam- A. R. B. C. byses, Pythagoras commenced the Italic sect in Great Greece, in the neighbourhood of Naples. Much about the same time Thales the Milesian formed the Ionic sect. From thence sprung those great philosophers, Heraclitus, Democritus, Empedocles, Parmenides; Anaxagoras, who, a little before the Peloponnesian war, demonstrated that the world was framed by an eternal spirit; Socrates, who, a little after brought back philosophy to the study of good morals, and was the parent of moral philosophy; Plato, his disciple, head of the academy; Aristotle, the disciple of Plato, preceptor to Alexander, and chief of the Peripatetics; under Alexander's successors, Zeno, called the Cittian, from a town in the isle of Cyprus, where he was born, chief of the Stoics; and Epicurus the Athenian, head of the philosophers named after himif, indeed, we can style those men philosophers, who openly denied a providence, and who, ignorant of moral duty, defined virtue by pleasure. We may reckon among the greatest philosophers Hippocrates, the father of physic, who shone amidst the rest in those happy days of Greece. The Romans had at the same time another kind of philosophy, which by no means consisted in disputations, and discourses; but in frugality, in poverty, in the labours of a rural life, and in those of war, placing their glory in that of their country, and of the Roman name: which at length rendered them masters of Italy and Carthage.

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IX. Epoch.

Scipio, or the Conquest of
Carthage.

IN the 552d year from the foundation of Rome, about 250 years after the foundation, of the Persian monarchy, and 202 before Jesus Christ, Carthage was subjected to the Romans. Hannibal, however, continued to raise them up enemies underhand, whereever he could: but he only drew all his own friends, both old and new, into the ruin of his country and of himself. By the victories of the consul Flaminius, Philip king of Macedon, an ally of the Carthaginians, was brought low, the other kings of Macedon reduced to extremities, and Greece was freed from their yoke. The Romans attempted to procure the death of Hannibal, whom they found still formidable, after his overthrow. That great captain, forced to flee from his country, stirred up the East against them, and drew their arms into Asia. Through his powerful persuasions, Antiochus, surnamed the Great, king of Syria, became jealous of their power, and made war upon them: but in carrying it on, he did not follow the counsels of Hannibal, who had engaged him in it. Beaten by sea and land, he received the commands imposed on him by the consul Lucius Scipio, brother of Scipio Africanus, and was confined to Mount Taurus. Hannibal having fed for refuge to Prusias king of Bithynia, escaped the Romans by poison. They are

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