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CHAPTER VI

From the Wars of Rome and Carthage, to the Birth of Christ.

THE Romans, who for more than five hundred years had been constantly victorious, met with an opponent in Hannibal, commander of the Carthaginian forces, whose consummate generalship for a time turned the tide of fortune, and, making Italy the battle-field, he gallantly opposed on their native soil the hardy veterans of Rome. Long and doubtful were these sanguinary contests; but in the end the Carthaginian armies were recalled into Africa, which the Romans had invaded; and he who, at the battle of Cannæ, had struck the Roman legions with terror, was totally defeated at Zama; by which the second Punic war was concluded, in the year 188 B. C. In forty years from that date the fate of Carthage was ultimately decided. The Romans having declared war against it a third time, used all their energies for accomplishing its final destruction. The city was long and fiercely assailed; the genius of the younger Scipio at length triumphed over the desperate valor of the besieged; and Carthage, once mistress of the sea and the most formidable rival of Rome, was reduced to ashes, and for ever blotted from the list of independent nations.

During the contentions between Rome and Carthage, a confederacy was formed by the states of Greece, under the name of the Achæan League, which soon eclipsed , in splendid achievements and power, both Athens and Sparta. Weary of the tyranny of the Macedonians, the Grecian states had entered into this compact for recovering their liberties; but having imprudently given the Romans an opportunity of intermeddling in their affairs, they were eventually reduced to a Roman province, under the name of Achaia. This celebrated league rose into importance about the year 284 B. c., and continued formidable for more than 130 year.

About this period we read of the direful oppressions of the Jews by Antiochus Epiphanes. After their return from the Babylonish captivity, they continued in sub- .