Page:General History of Europe 1921.djvu/194

134 General History of Europe 210. Defeat of Hannibal by Scipio (202 B.C.). For a time Hannibal struggled on in southern Italy. Meanwhile the Ro- mans, taught by the defeat of their consuls, had given the command of their forces in Spain to Scipio, one of the ablest of their younger leaders and a trained soldier. He drove, the Carthaginians entirely out of Spain, thus cutting off their chief supply both of money and of troops. In Scipio the Romans had at last found a general with the masterful qualities which make a great military leader. He demanded of the Senate that he be sent to Africa to invade the dominions of Carthage as Hannibal had invaded those of Rome. By 203 B.C. Scipio had twice defeated the Carthaginian forces in Africa, and Carthage was forced to call Hannibal home. He had spent fifteen years on the soil of Italy, and the great struggle between the almost exhausted rivals was now to be decided in Africa. At Zama, inland from Carthage, the final battle of the war took place. The great Carthaginian was at last met by an equally great Roman, and Scipio won the battle. 211. Treaty ending the War (201 B.C.) ; the Fate of Hanni- bal. The victory over Carthage made Rome the leading power in the whole ancient world. In the treaty which followed the battle of Zama the Romans forced Carthage to pay a crushing indemnity of ten thousand talents (over $11,000,000) in fifty years and to surrender all her warships except ten triremes. But, what was worse, she lost her independence as a nation, and according to the treaty she could not make war anywhere with- out the consent of the Romans. Hannibal escaped after he lost the battle at Zama. He was one of the greatest and most gifted leaders in all history a lion- hearted man, so strong of purpose that only a great nation like Rome could have crushed him. Rome still feared Hannibal and compelled the Carthaginians to expel him. As a man of fifty he went into exile in the East, where we shall find him stirring up the successors of Alexander to combine against Rome ( 214). 212. Third Punic War ; Destruction of Carthage ( 146 B. c.). Cato, a famous old-fashioned senator, was so convinced that