The Gauls penetrated to the centre of Tuscany, and at Fesulæ defeated a Roman army; but, intimidated by the unexpected arrival of the consul L. Æmilius coming from Rimini, they retired, when, meeting the other consul, Caius Atilius, who, returning from Sardinia, had landed at Pisa, they were enclosed between two armies, and were annihilated. In the following year, the Gaulish tribes, successively driven back to the other side of the Po, were defeated again on the banks of the Adda; the coalition of the Cisalpine peoples was dissolved, without leading to the complete submission of the country. The colonies of Cremona and Placentia contributed, nevertheless, to hold it in check.
While the north of Italy seemed sufficient to absorb the attention of the Romans, great events were passing in Spain.
V. Carthage, humiliated, had lost the empire of the sea, with Sicily and Sardinia. Rome, on the contrary, had strengthened herself by her conquests in the Mediterranean, in Illyria, and in the Cisalpine. Suddenly the scene changes: the dangers which threatened the African town disappear, Carthage rises from her abasement, and Rome, which had lately been able to count 800,000 men in condition to carry arms, will soon tremble for her own existence. A change so unforeseen is brought about by the mere appearance in the ranks of the Carthaginian army of a man of genius, Hannibal.
His father, Hamilcar, chief of the powerful faction of the Barcas, had saved Carthage by suppressing the insurrection of the mercenaries. Charged afterwards with the war in Spain, he had vanquished the most warlike peoples of that country, and formed in silence a formidable array. Having discovered early the merit of a young man named Hasdrubal, he took him into his favour with the intention of making him his successor. In taking him for his son-in-law, he entrusted to him the education of Hannibal, on whom rested his dearest hopes. Hamilcar having been slain in 526, Hasdrubal had taken his place at the head of the army.
The progress of the Carthaginians in Spain, and the state of their forces in that country, had alarmed the Senate, which, in 526, obliged the government of Carthage to subscribe to a new treaty, prohibiting the Punic army from passing the Ebro, and attacking the allies of the Republic.[509] This last article referred to the Saguntines, who had already had some disputes with the Carthaginians. The Romans affected not to consider them as aborigines, and founded their plea on a legend which represented this people as a colony from Ardea, contemporary with the Trojan war.[510] By a similar conduct Rome created allies in Spain to watch her old adversaries, and this time, as in the case of the Mamertines, she showed an interested sympathy in favour of a weak nation exposed to frequent collisions with the Carthaginians. Hasdrubal had received the order to carry into execution the new treaty; but he was assassinated by a Gaul, in 534, and the army, without waiting for orders from Carthage, chose by acclamation for its chief Hannibal, then twenty-nine years of age. In spite of the rival factions, this choice was ratified, and perhaps any hesitation on the part of the council in Carthage would only have led to the revolt of the troops. The party of the Barcas carried the question against the government, and confirmed the power of the young general. Adored by the soldiers, who saw in him their own pupil, Hannibal exercised over them an absolute authority, and believed that with their old band he could venture upon anything.