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sons, whom he himself, it is said, was fond of calling the "lion's brood." As Hannibal, the eldest, was only nineteen at the time of his father's death, and thus too young to assume command, Hamilcar was succeeded by his son-in-law, Hasdrubal.
434. Hannibal's Vow; he Attacks Saguntum. Upon the death of Hasdrubal, which occurred 221 b.c., Hannibal, now twenty-six years of age, was by the unanimous voice of the army called to be its leader. When a child of nine years he had ben led by his father to the altar, and there, with his hands upon the sacrifice, the little boy had sworn eternal hatred to the Roman race, He was driven on to his gigantic undertakings and to his hard fate not only by the restless fires of his warlike genius but, as he himself declared, by the sacred obligations of a vow that could not be broken.
In two years Hannibal extended the Carthaginian power to the Ebro. Saguntum, a native city upon the cast coast of Spain, alone remained unsubdued. The Romans, who were jealously watching affairs in the peninsula, had entered into an alliance with this city, and taken it, with some Greek cities at the foot of the Pyrenees, under their protection. Hannibal laid siege to the place in the spring of 219 b.c. The Roman Senate sent messengers to him forbidding him to make war upon a city that was an ally of the Roman people; but Hannibal, disregarding their remonstrances, continued the siege, and after an investment of eight months gained possession of the town.
The Romans now sent commissioners to Carthage to demand of the senate that they give up Hannibal to them, and by so doing repudiate the act of their general. The Carthaginians hesitated. Then Quintus Fabius, chief of the embassy, gathering up his toga, said: "I carry here peace and war; choose men of Carthage, which ye will have." "Give us whichever ye will," was the reply. "War, then," said Fabius, dropping his toga.