Asdrubal, the brother of Hamilcar, succeeded, at the death of the latter, to the command of the Carthaginian army in Spain; at his death, Hannibal, now twenty-one years old, was made general of the whole army, as well by the acclamations of the soldiers, as the decree of the Carthaginian senate. He immediately marched against various barbarous tribes in Spain, yet unsubdued, and quickly reduced them to submission. During the first Punic war, Carthage had lost her finest colonies—the island of Sicily, as well as the Lipari isles—all of which had fallen into the hands of Rome. She had now recovered from the losses of that war, and Hannibal determined to revenge the injuries Rome had inflicted upon his country. Accordingly, he laid siege to Saguntum, in Spain, a large city subject to Rome, and situated on the Mediterranean, near the present town of Valencia. Faithful to their alliance, and expecting succors from Rome, the people made the most determined resistance for eight months. They were at last reduced to such fearful extremity for food, that they killed their infant children and fed upon their blood and flesh. Filled with a horrid despair, they finally erected an immense pile of wood, and setting it on fire, the men first hurled their women, slaves and treasures into the blaze, and then plunged into it themselves. Hannibal now entered the city, but, instead of finding rich spoils, he only witnessed a heap of ashes. The solitude of that scene might have touched even a warrior’s heart. The present town of Murviedo, the site of the ancient Saguntum and the witness of these horrid scenes, still abounds in remains of Roman architecture. The second Punic war was begun by these proceedings against Saguntum. Hannibal, who had determined upon the invasion of Italy, spent the winter in making his preparations. Leaving a large force in Africa, and also in Spain, to defend these points, he set out, in the spring of the year 218, with eighty thousand foot and twelve thousand horse, to fulfil his project. His course lay along the Mediterranean; the whole distance to Rome being about one thousand miles by the land route which he contemplated. When he had traversed Spain, he came to the Pyrenees, a range of mountains separating that country from Gaul, now France. Here he was attacked by wild tribes of brave barbarians, but he easily drove them back. He crossed the Pyrenees, traversed Gaul, and came at last to the Alps, which threw up their frowning battlements, interposing a formidable obstacle between him and the object of his expedition. No warrior had then crossed these snowy peaks with such an army; and none but a man of that degree of resolution and self-relience which will not be baffled, would have hazarded the fearful enterprise. Napoleon accomplished the task, two thousand years afterwards, but with infinitely greater facilities.