In this war the marine of the two nations performed an important part. The Romans strained every nerve to remain masters of the sea; their fleets, stationed at Ostia, Brundusium, and Lilybæum, kept incessantly the most active watch upon the coasts of Italy; they even made cruises to the neighbourhood of Carthage and as far as Greece.[530] The difficulty of the direct communications induced the Carthaginians to send their troops by way of Spain and the Alps, where their armies recruited on the road, rather than dispatch them to the southern coast of Italy. Hannibal received but feeble reinforcements;[531] Livy mentions two only: the first of 4,000 Numidians and 40 elephants; and the second, brought by Bomilcar to the coast of the Ionian Gulf, near Locri.[532] All the other convoys appear to have been intercepted, and one of the most considerable, laden with stores and troops, was destroyed on the coast of Sicily.[533]
We cannot but admire the constancy of the Romans in face of enemies who threatened them on all sides. During the same period they repressed the Cisalpine Gauls and the Etruscans, combated the King of Macedonia, the ally of Hannibal, sustained a fierce war in Spain, and resisted in Sicily the attacks of the Syracusans, who, after the death of Hiero, had declared against the Republic. It took three years to reduce Syracuse, defended by Archimedes. Rome kept on foot, as long as the Second Punic war lasted, from sixteen to twenty-four legions,[534] recruited only in the town and in Latium.[535] These twenty-three legions represented an effective force of about 100,000 men, a number which will not appear exaggerated if we compare it with the census of 534, which gave 270,213 men, and only comprised persons in a condition to bear arms.
In the thirteenth year of the war the chances seemed in favour of the Republic. P. Cornelius Scipio, the son of the consul defeated at Trebia, had just expelled the Carthaginians from Spain. The people, recognising his genius, had conferred upon him, six years before, the powers of proconsul, though he was only twenty-four years of age. On his return to Rome, Scipio, elected consul (549), passed into Sicily, and from thence to Africa, where, after a campaign of two years, he defeated Hannibal in the plains of Zama, and compelled the rival of Rome to sue for peace (552). The Senate accorded to the conqueror the greatest honour which a Republic can confer upon one of her citizens--she left it to him to dictate terms to the vanquished. Carthage was compelled to give up her ships and her elephants, to pay 10,000 talents (58,000,000 francs [£2,320,000]), and, finally, to enter into the humiliating engagement not to make war in future without the authorisation of Rome.