Hannibal needed come from home, Carthage, or from his other allies in Sicily and Macedonia. The people of Carthage were not like those of Rome. They were sluggish and a big party there was jealous of Hannibal and would do nothing to support him. Marcellus, the general who took the field after Cannae, was a fine soldier who believed with Fabius that the way to defeat Hannibal was to wear him down. In Marcellus Hannibal found an enemy he must respect. When Marcellus was killed at last and brought into the Carthaginian camp Hannibal stood for a long time silent, looking at his dead enemy’s face. Then he ordered the body to be clothed in splendid funeral garments and burned with all the honours of war. He had the ashes placed in a silver urn and sent to Marcellus’s son. He had in the same way buried Aemilius with all honourable ceremony. Time was on the Roman side. Yet for eleven years Hannibal, with a small army, kept the whole might of Rome at bay. He was driven further south, that was all. His great hope was that though the Carthaginians would not stir, his brothers Hasdrubal and Mago would send him help from Spain. In Spain after his own departure the Romans had reconquered most of the country, but four years after Cannae Publius Scipio (defeated on the Ticinus) and his brother Cneus were both defeated and killed, and during the next few years Hasdrubal won nearly the whole of Spain. In 208 he was able to move north. He crossed the Pyrenees; spent the winter in Gaul; and in the spring, as soon as the snows melted, crossed the Alps by an easier pass than that taken by his great brother. Before any one expected him he was in Italy. The danger, if he could join Hannibal, was extreme. So serious was it indeed that Fabius, now a very old man, went to the two consuls, Livius and Claudius Nero, and begged them to act together. They hated one another. Fabius had learned how dangerous such quarrels might be to the State, and what harm his own advice had done between Varro and Aemilius Paulus; he now used all his great influence to get the consuls to put an end to personal strife. They agreed and joined their armies. Together they were much stronger than Hasdrubal. On the river Metaurus he was defeated (207). There Hasdrubal himself, fighting like a lion, was killed with ten thousand of his men. Unhappily the victorious Nero showed in his treatment of his dead enemy a spirit very different from that of Hannibal. He threw the bloody head of Hasdrubal in front of Hannibal’s lines. It was the first news he had of the fate of his brother. He had lost not only a man dearer to him than any on earth but, with him, his last hope of success. He knew that all was over; the fortune of Carthage was at an end. For a moment he hid his face in his mantle. What deep bitterness and pain held his heart in that moment none may guess.