A source-book of ancient history - The Search For Mecca

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382 The First and Second Punic Wars
they held out with a determination that passes beUef.
Every contrivance which skill or force could sustain did
they put in use against each other, as before; every imaginable
privation was submitted to; surprises and pitched
battles were alike tried; and finally they left the combat
a drawn one . . . like men still unbroken and unconquered.
. . . The two nations engaged were like well-bred
game-cocks which fight to their last gasp. You may see
them often, when too weak to use their wings, yet full of
pluck to the end, and striking again and again. Finally
chance brings them the opportunity of once more grappling,
and they hold on till one or the other of them drops
dead.
241 B.C. (At last the Romans destroyed the Carthaginian fleet,
Hamilcar
Spain.°
Polybius ii. i.
whereupon Hamilcar, from his post on Mount Eryx, came
to terms of peace with the enemy. Immediately a war
broke out between Carthage and her unpaid mercenaries.
By crushing the mutineers, Hamilcar brought this mercenary
war, or "Libyan war," to an end.)
As soon as they had brought the Libyan War to a conclu-
sion, the Carthaginians collected an army and despatched
^^ under the command of Hamilcar to Iberia (Spain).
This
general took over the command of the troops, and with his
son Hannibal, then nine years old, crossing by the Pillars of
Hercules, set about recovering the Carthaginian possessions
in Iberia. He spent nine years there, and after
reducing many Iberian tribes by war or diplomacy to Carthaginian
rule, he died in a manner worthy of his great
achievements; for he lost his life in a battle against the
most warlike and most powerful tribes.
In this last fight
he showed a brilliant and even reckless personal daring.