Hamilcar was succeeded by his son-in-law Hasdrubal, who, after an administration of nine years, was murdered by an Iberian whose chieftain he had caused to be put to death. This personal attachment to their princes prevailed among the Iberians: no one durst leave the death of his chief unavenged,--nay, if possible, he was not to survive him. Hasdrubal had with him for his education young Hannibal, who soon became the favourite of the army. The oath of Hannibal rests on his own authority; the circumstances of it, however, are told in different ways. He is said to have been nine years old when his father went over to Spain (516 according to Cato), and this seems to be historical: if so, he was born about 507, which would make him twenty-seven years old when he marched to Italy. This is the very age, at which several generals have shown themselves greatest. Frederic the Great was twenty-eight years old when he conquered Silesia; Napoleon twenty-seven, or twenty-eight, when he undertook the Italian campaign. The whole conduct of Hannibal during this war bears the character of a very young man; and he was by no means an old one when he died, being nearer his fiftieth than his sixtieth year. Very likely, he was born just before Hamilcar went to Sicily. His brothers were Hasdrubal and Mago. Whether Hasdrubal was his elder, is doubtful; Mago was considerably younger. The opinions of the ancients as to Hannibal’s personal character might very easily have been divided. In the Roman writers, he appears throughout only as a terrific being. Livy’s delineation of him is in some parts quite excellent,--no one could gainsay his extraordinary qualities as a general: yet when Livy says that these were darkened by _vitia_ of equal magnitude, he is in direct opposition to Polybius. The latter expressly disputes the fact of Hannibal’s cruelty, and says that whenever anything of the kind did happen, it was through the fault of some subordinate commander, especially of another Hannibal. He also flatly contradicts the statements about his bad faith (_plus quam Punica fides_). Atrocities may have been committed,--there are stories of these in Appian which are borrowed from Fabius,--nor will I doubt in the least that the war was conducted with cruelty on the side of the Carthaginians; but so it was likewise by the Romans. This is the general character of the ancient wars, which we are far from representing to ourselves as so horrible as they really were. Sometimes also there are cases in which a general cannot help himself.[16] Of the bad faith of Hannibal, not an instance can be brought forward; on the contrary, as far as we have any positive evidence, he must have kept his word; otherwise he would have been taxed with it, especially in capitulations, and then indeed people would not have capitulated to him. The Romans are awful liars when they want to lay the blame upon their enemies. Such stories as the murder of the senate of Nuceria,