The city of Cartagena, which Hasdrubal founded on the modern gulf of that name, and which he furnished with an admirable harbour, was the most glorious monument of his administration. The success of his arms, the nature of his designs, roused the fears both of the Greek colonies on the coast of Catalonia and Valencia, and of several independent nations in the interior. They resolved to call in a third power, which had long regarded with jealousy the growing prosperity of Carthage. Rome eagerly embraced the cause of the discontented states (227 B.C.), probably, indeed, she had secretly fomented that discontent. She sent a deputation to Carthage, which obtained from the senate two important concessions: that the Carthaginians should not push their conquests beyond the Ebro; that they should not disturb the Saguntines and other Greek colonies. Though Hasdrubal promised to observe them, he silently collected troops, resolved to make a final effort for the entire subjugation of Spain before Rome could succour the confederates. In three years, his formidable preparations being completed, he threw off the mask, and marched against Saguntum. On his way, however, he was assassinated by the slave of a man whose master, a native prince, he had put to death.[2] The attachment of this slave to his master’s memory could be equalled only by the unshaken firmness with which he supported the incredible torments inflicted on him by the fierce Hannibal. This famous Carthaginian was in his twenty-fifth year. He was more to be dreaded than all his predecessors united. To military talents and personal valour, perhaps unexampled in any age, he joined astonishing coolness of judgment and inflexibility of purpose. While Hasdrubal was actuated only by selfish considerations, Hannibal recognised, as the great principle of his actions, revenge--revenge against the bitter enemy of his country, and still more against the destroyers of his kindred. There is a moral grandeur in this all-engrossing purpose of Hannibal, which, notwithstanding its fell malignity, unaccountably rivets our admiration.