in state-craft but also to his personal integrity. And yet the stubborn perseverance and self-sacrificing patriotism of the Romans was even more worthy of admiration and more fruitful of consequences, than the amazing energy of this greatest general of ancient times. By this time, too, the bond which united the Latin league of middle Italy had attained a firmness beyond the power of Hannibal’s armies or diplomatic arts to unknit. The national spirit of the race set bounds which his genius could not overpass. At the beginning of the campaign the weakness of the Carthaginian naval forces had decided Rome to attempt to transfer the theatre of war to Africa and remain on the defensive on the Ebro. By crossing the Alps--a possibility which had never entered into Roman calculations--Hannibal made Italy the scene of the decisive struggle. After a victorious cavalry engagement not far from the Ticinus he enticed the Roman army posted at Placentia to cross the Trebia and then defeated it; only the smaller half of it made its way back to the fortress. He eluded the consul Sempronius, who was posted at Ariminum, crossed the Apennines into Etruria and destroyed the army of Flaminius in the narrow defiles on the shores of Lake Trasimene. Fabius Cunctator (the Dilatory) now persistently avoided joining issue with him, but when Hannibal marched through the provinces of middle Italy, pillaging as he went, the Romans ventured once more upon a pitched battle. At Cannæ, in Apulia, he found himself face to face with a force of eighty thousand men, and by a master-stroke succeeded in not merely defeating but positively annihilating the Roman troops in the open field with a force of only half their number (216 B.C.). It was the signal for the desertion of most of the allies (exclusive of the Latin colonies). Capua, Samnium, Lucania, Bruttium, and Apulia took the lead, and presently the whole of south and middle Italy went over to Hannibal, including even Tarentum. Syracuse revolted, and thus Sicily seemed lost; and Philip of Macedonia declared war against Rome (215 B.C.). But the policy of Rome was equal to the emergency. She contrived to win the Greek states of the second and third rank over to her interests. The Ætolians and Illyrians, Pergamus and Rhodes, kept Philip employed and prevented him from rendering Hannibal active assistance. Rome’s fleet ruled the sea and successfully hindered any coalition between the hostile powers, and thus the Carthaginians could neither save Syracuse, nor send adequate reinforcements to Hannibal, nor effect a junction with Philip’s fleet. Doughty commanders like Marcellus, the conqueror of Syracuse, contrived to exhaust his troops by frequent attacks.