Hannibal turned his gaze toward the distant mountains, as if he could behold the innumerable barbarian tribes who lived behind them scratching the earth, or pasturing their flocks. "Hamilcar fell," he said sadly, "just as he was beginning to see his dreams realized in a great army with which to enter anew into strife with Rome, with riches of his own to carry on the war without need of assistance from the African merchants. Hasdrubal, the handsome husband of my sister, frittered away eight years on succeeding to his authority. He was a good governor, but a timid commander. Perhaps it was Baal, our savage god, who guided the arm of his assassin that he might be succeeded by another capable of exterminating the eternal enemy of Carthage. That one shall be I! Listen well, Greek! You are the only one who shares my thought. The moment for fighting the final battle has come. Soon shall Rome know that there exists a Hannibal who defies her by taking possession of Saguntum."
"You have scant power for that, African. Saguntum is strong, and I, who come from New Carthage, have seen there nothing but the elephants, the fragments of the army which your father brought, and the Numidian cavalry which your friends have sent from Africa."
"You forget the Iberians and the Celtiberians, the whole Peninsula, which will rise bodily and flock to the taking of Saguntum. The country is poor, and the city is overstocked with riches. I have noted it well. There is enough in it to pay an army for entire years, and even the Lusitanian tribes from the coast of the Great Sea will come attracted by the hope of loot and urged on by the hatred of rude natives for a city, opulent and civilized, where dwell their exploiters. It will be no great task for Hannibal to take possession of a republic of farmers and merchants."
"And after you become master, what then?"
The African answered nothing, but shrugged his shoulders with an enigmatic smile.
"You are silent, Hannibal. But after you are master of Saguntum you will have gained nothing. Rome will hurl her thunder at you for violating her treaties, and the Carthaginian Senate will curse you; it will set a price upon your head; it will order your soldiers to disobey you; and you will die crucified, or you will wander about the world like a fugitive slave."