But the successes of Hannibal and the disasters of Rome, had not yet ended. In the year 216, another battle was determined upon, and Hannibal met the enemy at Cannæ, near the present city of Naples. Here, again, the Romans were defeated with dreadful slaughter. Not less than forty thousand of their soldiers were slain. To this day, the relics of the fight are ploughed up from the ground, and the spot where the battle took place, is called the “field of blood.” If the red stain has long since vanished from the soil, time cannot wash out the bloody record from the memory of man. Beside this fearful carnage, ten thousand Roman soldiers were taken prisoners. The Carthaginian loss was small. We can only account for such events as these, by the supposition that Hannibal, whose army was scarcely half as large as that of the Romans, was a man greatly superior in capacity even to the able and practised generals of Rome, who were sent against him. Nothing in modern times has been witnessed, to compare with his achievements, except those of Napoleon, operating in the same countries, and also contending against disciplined troops and generals long practised in the military art. The whole of lower Italy was now in the possession of Hannibal. He had entered the country by the north, and, having passed Rome, was in the southern portion of the peninsula. It would seem that he was now near the consummation of his wishes, and that the imperial city must fall before him; but such was not the event. A defensive system was still observed, and the city being too formidable for attack, Hannibal was obliged to look around for aid. He applied to Philip of Macedon and the Syracusans, but the Romans contrived to keep both occupied at home. Hasdrubal, the brother of Hannibal, had charge of the Carthaginian forces in Spain, where he conducted the war with ability. In a great battle, he defeated the Romans; and two generals, by the name of Scipio, fell. Another Scipio was sent thither, and he soon recovered in Spain what the Romans had lost there. Hasdrubal now left that country to join his brother, and, crossing the Alps without opposition, reached Italy. Before he could effect the junction he desired, he was met by the Roman forces, his army cut to pieces and he himself slain. Hannibal was now obliged to act on the defensive. Yet he continued to sustain himself here for a series of years without calling upon Carthage for supplies.