Hannibal seems always to be the master.

Trebia, Thrasymene and Cannae, year after year, threaten complete destruction to the State.

Then comes the great Scipio; and no doubt, if we must mark an era of Roman greatness, it would be that of the battle of Zama and the submission of Carthage, 201 years before Christ.

But with Scipio there springs up the idea of personal ambition; and in the Macedonian and Greek wars that follow, though the arm of Rome is becoming stronger every day, and her shoulders broader, there is already the glamour of her decline in virtue.

Her dealings with Antiochus, with Pyrrhus, and with the Achaeans, though successful, were hardly glorious.