Being disturbed with these anxieties, he so conducted himself for five years
in the African war, which commenced shortly after the peace with Rome, and then
through nine years employed in augmenting the Carthaginian empire in Spain,
that it was obvious that he was revolving in his mind a greater war than he
was then engaged in; and that if he had lived longer, the Carthaginians under
Hamilcar would have carried the war into Italy, which, under the command of
Hannibal, they afterwards did. The timely death of Hamilcar and the youth of
Hannibal occasioned its delay. Hasdrubal, intervening between the father and
the son, held the command for about eight years. He was first endeared to Hamilcar,
as they say, on account of his youthful beauty, and then adopted by him, when
advanced in age, as his son-in-law, on account of his eminent abilities; and,
because he was his son-in-law, he obtained the supreme authority, against the
wishes of the nobles, by the influence of the Barcine faction,
which was very powerful with the military and the populace. Prosecuting his
designs rather by stratagem than force, by entertaining the princes, and by
means of the friendship of their leaders, gaining the favour of unknown nations,
he aggrandized the Carthaginian power, more than by arms and battles. Yet peace
proved no greater security to himself. A barbarian, in resentment of his master's
having been put to death by him, publicly murdered him; and, having been seized
by the bystanders, he exhibited the same countenance as if he had escaped; nay,
even when he was lacerated by tortures, he preserved such an expression of face,
that he presented the appearance of one who smiled, his joy getting the better
of his pains. With this Hasdrubal, because he possessed such wonderful skill
in gaining over the nations and adding them to his empire, the Roman people
had renewed the treaty, on the terms, that the river
Iberus should be the boundary of both empires; and that to the Saguntines, who
lay between the territories of the two states, their liberty should be preserved.
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