There were several rival parties in Carthage itself, and it seems likely that there was jealousy of Hannibal's great successes. Whatever the reason, the help he expected was very long in coming. He stayed on in Italy with his army which had been so victorious. The Romans would not come to another fixed battle with him, but they hovered about his army, continually harassing it. Probably it lost much of its fighting force in this time of waiting. It was not until nine years after Cannæ that Hannibal's brother, Hasdrubal, was sent with an army to his help, and by that time the Romans had so recovered their strength that they met and defeated, on the Metaurus, this army of Hasdrubal's; and it was really this great battle that settled the war. It left Hannibal helpless for any big fighting in Italy. {175} It left the Romans free to make their power firm again in Spain. They were so little troubled by the presence of Hannibal, in his present condition, in Italy, that they again sent a force oversea into Africa. This time their arms were completely successful over the Carthaginians and their African allies. The Carthaginians, in their alarm, recalled Hannibal, to see if his genius could save them. But it was too late. He was defeated in the battle of Zama, in 202 B.C., and therewith came the end of the Second Punic War. Really it was the end of Carthage as a formidable rival to the power of Rome. In the arrangements which followed she was compelled to give up her fleet, to give up all her claims on Spain, and on the islands in the Mediterranean, and to be content with her possessions in Africa itself. Again, Rome had won the last battle. Why she did not meet her doom after Cannæ, we can never know. Had Hannibal pressed forward after that victory the whole course of the great story would probably have been quite different. To what extent the hand of Providence interferes at such moments of the story as these we cannot tell--or to what extent man is allowed to work out his own fortunes without that correcting hand. Undoubtedly there are certain moments when it looks very much as if Providence had actively intervened; and perhaps, in our ignorance, we had better not attempt to say more than that.