Page:Outlines of European History.djvu/312

 26o Outlines of European History passes on the Italian slopes of the Alps and taking possession of the valley of the Po. This unexpected march through south- ern France, over the Alps and into Italy, at once threw Rome on the defensive. The army, which they had hurriedly gotten together to meet Hannibal beyond the Alps, had been cleverly evaded by that general, and the Roman force went on into Spain. Then this young commander of twenty-eight, showing himself a master of military science (like Napoleon, who at about the same age w^on his first Italian victories in this very region), at once advanced with his Spanish veterans and many Gauls and defeated one Roman army after another. Hannibal's Pushing far southward into the old territory of the Greek ear y vie ones ^-^-gg q£ i^^Xy, Hannibal succeeded in detaching many of the southern cities from their alliance with Rome, and finally all Sicily went over to his cause. But the nucleus of the states in central Italy, which Rome had gathered about her and linked to herself by bonds of citizenship, could not be detached. They Stability stood fast. Meantime Carthage was unable to send reenforce- ments to its army in Italy, for the Romans commanded the sea with their fleet. After the first defeats the Senate was more care- ful in picking its commanders, and these new men were more successful. Among them it was now especially Fabius, who made himself famous by a policy of defensive waiting and avoiding battle with the clever Hannibal, foreseeing that the Carthaginian forces, if not reenforced from home, must slowly melt away. Hannibal Hannibal sent to Macedonia urging alliance and seeking aid, donian aid ; ^nd there was a futile effort to respond. Had the descendants of the Macedonian rulers who divided Alexander's empire in the East now discerned the character of this battle of giants which was going on in Italy, the}^ might have changed the history of the world. For this struggle of the Romans with Hannibal was the decisive turning point in the history of the ancient world. Roman victory in this contest meant the supremacy of Rome not only in the western Mediterranean but in the whole the East fails to intervene