The question who was the greatest general that ever lived has been a fruitful source of discussion, and Alexander, Cæsar, and Napoleon have each found numerous and ardent supporters. Without decrying the signal abilities of these chiefs, it must nevertheless be remembered that each commanded a homogeneous army and had behind him a compact nation the most warlike and powerful of his time. The adversaries also of the Greek and the Roman were in the one instance an effete power already falling to pieces by its own internal weakness, and in the other, for the most part, scattered tribes of barbarians without unity of purpose or military discipline. Even in his civil wars Cæsar's armies were veterans, and those of the commonwealth were, comparatively speaking, recruits. But when the reader of these pages carefully considers the story of Hannibal's campaign in Italy, what does he find? Two nations--one Caucasian, young, warlike above all its contemporaries, with a record behind it of steady aggrandizement and almost unbroken victory, a nation every citizen of which was a soldier. On the other side, a race of merchants Semitic in blood, a city whose citizens had long since ceased to go to war, preferring that their gold should fight for them by the hands of mercenaries of every race and clime--hirelings whose ungoverned valour had proved almost as deadly to their employers and generals as to their enemies. Above all, the same battle had been joined before when Rome was weaker and Carthage stronger, and Carthage had already shown her weakness and Rome her strength.