Hannibal resolved to fly. The place of refuge which he chose was the island of Crete. He found that he could not long remain here. He had, however, brought with him a large amount of treasure, and when about leaving Crete again, he was uneasy about this treasure, as he had some reason to fear that the Cretans were intending to seize it. He must contrive, then, some stratagem to enable him to get this gold away. The plan he adopted was this:
He filled a number of earthen jars with lead, covering the tops of them with gold and silver. These he carried, with great appearance of caution and solicitude, to the Temple of Diana, a very sacred edifice, and deposited them there, under very special guardianship of the Cretans, to whom, as he said, he intrusted all his treasures. They received their false deposit with many promises to keep it safely, and then Hannibal went away with his real gold cast in the center of hollow statues of brass, which he carried with him, without suspicion, as objects of art of very little value.
Hannibal fled from kingdom to kingdom, and from province to province, until life became a miserable burden. The determined hostility of the Roman senate followed him every where, harassing him with continual anxiety and fear, and destroying all hope of comfort and peace. His mind was a prey to bitter recollections of the past, and still more dreadful forebodings for the future. He had spent all the morning of his life in inflicting the most terrible injuries on the objects of his implacable animosity and hate, although they had never injured him, and now, in the evening of his days, it became his destiny to feel the pressure of the same terror and suffering inflicted upon him. The hostility which he had to fear was equally merciless with that which he had exercised; perhaps it was made still more intense by being mingled with what they who felt it probably considered a just resentment and revenge.
When at length Hannibal found that the Romans were hemming him in more and more closely, and that the danger increased of his falling at last into their power, he had a potion of poison prepared, and kept it always in readiness, determined to die by his own hand rather than to submit to be given up to his enemies. The time for taking the poison at last arrived. The wretched fugitive was then in Bithynia, a kingdom of Asia Minor. The King of Bithynia sheltered him for a time, but at length agreed to give him up to the Romans. Hannibal learning this, prepared for flight. But he found, on attempting his escape, that all the modes of exit from the palace which he occupied, even the secret ones which he had expressly contrived to aid his flight, were taken possession of and guarded. Escape was, therefore, no longer possible, and Hannibal went to his apartment and sent for the poison. He was now an old man, nearly seventy years of age, and he was worn down and exhausted by his protracted anxieties and sufferings. He was glad to die. He drank the poison, and in a few hours ceased to breathe.
CHAPTER XII. THE DESTRUCTION OF CARTHAGE.
B.C. 146-145
Destruction.-The third Punic war.-Chronological table of the Punic wars.-Character of the Punic wars.-Intervals between them.-Animosities and dissensions.-Numidia.-Numidian horsemen.-Masinissa.-Parties at Rome and Carthage.-Their differences.-Masinissa prepares for war.-Hasdrubal.-Carthage declares war.-Parallel between Hannibal and Hasdrubal.-Battle with Masinissa.-Defeat of the Carthaginians.-The younger Scipio.-A spectator of the battle.-Negotiations for peace.-Scipio made umpire.-Hasdrubal surrenders.-Terms imposed by Masinissa.-Carthaginian embassy to Rome.-Their mission fruitless.-Another embassy.-The Romans declare war.-Negotiations for peace.-The Romans demand hostages.-Cruelty of the hostage system.-Return of the embassadors.-Consternation in Carthage.-Its deplorable condition.-Selecting the hostages.-The hour of parting.-The parting scene.-Grief and despair.-Advance of the Roman army.-Surrender of Utica.-Demands of the Romans.-The Carthaginians comply.-The Romans demand all the munitions of war.-Their great number.-Brutal demands of the Romans.-Carthage to be destroyed.-Desperation of the people.-Preparations for defense.-Hasdrubal.-Destruction of the Roman fleet.-Horrors of the siege.-Heroic valor of the Carthaginians.-Battering engines.-Attempt to destroy them.-The city stormed.-A desperate struggle.-The people retreat to the citadel.-The city fired.-Hasdrubal's wife.-Hasdrubal surrenders.-The citadel fired.-Resentment and despair of Hasdrubal's wife.-Carthage destroyed.-Its present condition.-War and commerce.-Antagonistic principles.-Hannibal's greatness as a military hero.
The consequences of Hannibal's reckless ambition, and of his wholly unjustifiable aggression on Roman rights to gratify it, did not end with his own personal ruin. The flame which he had kindled continued to burn until at last it accomplished the entire and irretrievable destruction of Carthage. This was effected in a third and final war between the Carthaginians and the Romans, which is known in history as the third Punic war. With a narrative of the events of this war, ending, as it did, in the total destruction of the city, we shall close this history of Hannibal.
It will be recollected that the war which Hannibal himself waged against Rome was the second in the series, the contest in which Regulus figured so prominently having been the first. The one whose history is now to be given is the third. The reader will distinctly understand the chronological relations of these contests by the following table:
TABLE.
+---+-------------------+-------+
| Date | | |
| B.C. | Events. | Punic Wars. |
+---+-------------------+-------+
| | | |
| 264 | War commenced in Sicily } | |
| | } | |
| 262 | Naval battles in the Mediterranean } | I. |
| | } | |
| 249 | Regulus sent prisoner to Rome } | 24 years. |
| | } | |
| 241 | Peace concluded } | |
| | | |
| | | |
| | Peace for 24 years. | |
| | | |
| | | |
| 217 | Hannibal attacks Saguntum } | |
| | } | |
| 218 | Crosses the Alps } | II. |
| | } | |
| 216 | Battle of Cannæ } | 17 years. |
| | } | |
| 205 | Is conquered by Scipio } | |
| | } | |
| 200 | Peace concluded } | |
| | | |
| | | |
| | Peace for 52 years | |
| | | |
| | | |
| 148 | War declared } | III. |
| | } | |
| 145 | Carthage destroyed } | 3 years. |
+---+-------------------+-------+
These three Punic wars extended, as the table shows, over a period of more than a hundred years. Each successive contest in the series was shorter, but more violent and desperate than its predecessor, while the intervals of peace were longer. Thus the first Punic war continued for twenty-four years, the second about seventeen, and the third only three or four. The interval, too, between the first and second was twenty-four years, while between the second and third there was a sort of peace for about fifty years. These differences were caused, indeed, in some degree, by the accidental circumstances on which the successive ruptures depended, but they were not entirely owing to that cause. The longer these belligerent relations between the two countries continued, and the more they both experienced the awful effects and consequences of their quarrels, the less disposed they were to renew such dreadful struggles, and yet, when they did renew them they engaged in them with redoubled energy of determination and fresh intensity of hate. Thus the wars followed each other at greater intervals, but the conflicts, when they came, though shorter in duration, were more and more desperate and merciless in character.