of it, entirely upon the envy and jealousy of Hanno. One Hannibal, a man more tractable, and more agreeable to Hamilcar, was sent in his room. Union was restored, and the happy effects which attended it were quickly visible. Hamilcar now pushed on the war with his usual vigilance and activity, and soon convinced the generals of the rebels how greatly he was their master in the art of war. He harrassed them perpetually, and, like a skilful gamester,[216] (as Polybius terms him) drew them artfully every day into his snares, and obliged them to raise the siege of Carthage. At last he cooped up Spendius with his army in so disadvantageous a place, that he reduced them to such an extremity of famine as to devour one another, and compelled them to surrender at discretion, though they were upwards of forty thousand effective men.... The army of Hamilcar, which was much inferior to that of Spendius in number, was composed partly of mercenaries and deserters, partly of the city militia, both horse and foot (troops which the enemies to the militia-bill would have called raw and undisciplined, and treated as useless) of which the major part of his army consisted.[217] The rebel army was composed chiefly of brave and experienced veterans, trained up by Hamilcar himself in Sicily during the late war with the Romans, whose courage was heightened by despair. It is worthy of our observation therefore, that these very men who, under the conduct of Hamilcar, had been a terror to the Romans, and given them so many blows in Sicily towards the latter end of the first Punick war, should yet be so little able to cope with an army so much inferior in number, and composed in a great measure of city militia only, when commanded by the same general. Polybius,[218] who esteems Hamilcar by far the greatest captain of that age, observes, that though the rebels were by no means inferior to the Carthaginian troops in resolution and bravery, yet they were frequently beaten by Hamilcar by mere dint of generalship. Upon this occasion he cannot help remarking the vast superiority which judicious skill and ability of generalship has over long military practice,[219] where this so essentially necessary skill and judgement is wanting. It might have been thought unpardonable in me, if I had omitted this just remark of Polybius, since it has been so lately verified by his Prussian majesty in those masterly strokes of generalship, which are the present admiration of Europe. Hamilcar, after the destruction of Spendius and his army, immediately blocked up Mathos, with the remaining corps of the rebels, in the city of Tunes. Hannibal, with the forces under his command, took post on that side of the city which looked towards Carthage. Hamilcar prepared to make his attack on the side which was directly opposite; but the conduct of Hannibal, when left to himself, was the direct contrast to that of Hamilcar, and proves undeniably, that