Hannibal was the great Carthaginian hero.

He earned his fame by the energy and implacableness of his hate.

The work of his life was to keep a vast empire in a state of continual anxiety and terror for fifty years, so that his claim to greatness and glory rests on the determination, the perseverance, and the success with which he fulfilled his function of being, while he lived, the terror of the world.
[Sidenote: Julius Caesar.] The Roman hero was Caesar.

He was born just one hundred years before the Christian era.

His renown does not depend, like that of Alexander, on foreign conquests, nor, like that of Hannibal, on the terrible energy of his aggressions upon foreign foes, but upon his protracted and dreadful contests with, and ultimate triumphs over, his rivals and competitors at home.