remarks very justly, that the Romans kept silent at the progress of the Carthaginians, because they were greatly afraid of offending them now that the Gauls had stirred. Had Hamilcar been alive, he would perhaps have taken a share in that war. It is strange that once during this period a Carthaginian fleet makes its appearance off the coast of Etruria. Hannibal carried on the war in Spain only as a preparatory one: his real object was the war in Italy, which he now tried to kindle. The Carthaginians stood in the same position to him, as the Romans did to Cæsar; commanding as he did an army entirely devoted to him, in a country subjected by him, he was not to be controlled by the senate. Carthage, according to the natural march of development in republics, was then already on the decline: the chief power had passed from the senate to the popular assembly. Now, although the people might have idolized Hannibal, yet the senate was hardly friendly towards him; and notwithstanding the general hatred against the Romans, the majority at that time were not perhaps of opinion, that a war would bring relief, and they could not see in what way Rome was to be attacked. The higher classes were also afraid of Hannibal at the head of a victorious army. The siege of Saguntum is placed by Livy in the year 534; yet he sees himself that it took place in 533. Polybius blames Hannibal for having tried to kindle the war by all kinds of artifices, and for this he has been reproached with having been too much the partisan of the Romans; but even as he is to be acquitted of this charge, so must Hannibal of his. Polybius would have had him at once demand Sardinia; but that he could not do. Had Hannibal been a king, he would perhaps have done it; but as it was, he was obliged to draw the Carthaginians into the war by degrees, whether they liked it or not. With this view, he intrigued in Saguntum, and got up a quarrel between the Saguntines and the Turdetanians, (but very likely we ought to read, instead of Turdetanians, _Edetanians_, who were inhabitants of Valencia, as the former lived too far off). Saguntum may not have been a purely Iberian town: it is said that colonists from Ardea had settled there, in which case it would be Tyrrhenian; and this is not unlikely, although afterwards perhaps the Iberian population outnumbered them. The derivation from Zacynthus has probably originated only from its name. Some years before, there had been troubles there; (several of these Spanish towns were republics; one must not fancy that their inhabitants were barbarians like the Celts;) and the Romans had come forward as mediators, and the victorious party had wreaked its vengeance upon the conquered. Hannibal took advantage of this, and stirred up the latter: at the same time, he complained at Carthage that the Saguntines, relying upon Rome, had been guilty of acts of violence against Carthaginian subjects. This is certainly craftiness; but he