Failing to draw the legions from Capua as he had hoped, Hannibal now retired from before Rome, and, retreating into the southern part of Italy, abandoned Capua to its fate. It soon fell, and paid the penalty that Rome never failed to inflict upon an unfaithful ally. The chief men in the city were put to death, and a large part of the inhabitants sold as slaves. Capua had aspired to the first place among the cities of Italy: scarcely more than the name of the ambitious capital now remained.
Hasdrubal attempts to carry Aid to his Brother.--During all the years Hannibal was waging war in Italy, his brother Hasdrubal was carrying on a desperate struggle with the Roman armies in Spain. At length he determined to leave the conduct of the war in that country to others, and go to the relief of his brother, who was sadly in need of aid. Like Pyrrhus, Hannibal had been brought to realize that even constant victories won at the cost of soldiers that could not be replaced, meant final defeat.
Hasdrubal followed the same route that had been taken by his brother Hannibal, and in the year 207 B.C. descended from the Alps upon the plains of Northern Italy. Thence he advanced southward, while Hannibal moved northward from Bruttium to meet him. Rome made a last great effort to prevent the junction of the armies of the two brothers. At the river Metaurus, Hasdrubal's march was withstood by a large Roman army. Here his forces were cut to pieces, and he himself was slain (207 B.C.). His head was severed from his body and sent to Hannibal. Upon recognizing the features of his brother, Hannibal exclaimed sadly, "Carthage, I see thy fate."
WAR IN AFRICA: BATTLE OF ZAMA.--The defeat and death of Hasdrubal gave a different aspect to the war. Hannibal now drew back into the rocky peninsula of Bruttium, the southernmost point of Italy. There he faced the Romans like a lion at bay. No one dared attack him. It was resolved to carry the war into Africa, in hopes that the Carthaginians would be forced to call their great commander out of Italy to the defence of Carthage. Publius Cornelius Scipio, who after the departure of Hasdrubal from Spain had quickly brought the peninsula under the power of Rome, led the army of invasion. He had not been long in Africa before the Carthaginian Senate sent for Hannibal to conduct the war. At Zama, not far from Carthage, the hostile armies came face to face. Fortune had deserted Hannibal; he was fighting [Footnote: Son of the consul mentioned on page 259.] against fate. He here met his first and final defeat. His army, in which were many of the veterans that had served through all the Italian campaigns, was almost annihilated (202 B.C.). Scipio was accorded a splendid triumph at Rome, and given the surname Africanus in honor of his achievements. [Footnote: Some time after the close of the Second Punic War, the Romans, persuading themselves that Hannibal was preparing Carthage for another war, demanded his surrender of the Carthaginians. He fled to Syria, and thence to Asia Minor, where, to avoid falling into the hands of his implacable foes, he committed suicide by means of poison (183 B.C.).]