With Hasdrubal out of the way, young Publius Scipio
easily reconquered Spain and four years later the Romans
were ready for a final attack upon Carthage. Hannibal was
called back. He crossed the African Sea and tried to organise
the defences of his home-city. In the year 202 at the battle
of Zama, the Carthaginians were defeated. Hannibal fled to
Tyre. From there he went to Asia Minor to stir up the Syrians
and the Macedonians against Rome. He accomplished very
little but his activities among these Asiatic powers gave the
Romans an excuse to carry their warfare into the territory of
the east and annex the greater part of the AEgean world.
Driven from one city to another, a fugitive without a home,
Hannibal at last knew that the end of his ambitious dream had
come. His beloved city of Carthage had been ruined by the
war. She had been forced to sign a terrible peace. Her navy
had been sunk. She had been forbidden to make war without
Roman permission. She had been condemned to pay the Romans
millions of dollars for endless years to come. Life offered
no hope of a better future. In the year 190 B.C. Hannibal took
poison and killed himself.
Forty years later, the Romans forced their last war upon
Carthage. Three long years the inhabitants of the old Phoenician
colony held out against the power of the new republic.
Hunger forced them to surrender.
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