CHAPTER V.

COLORED GENERALS AND SOLDIERS.

MOSES.

MOSES was a General of Egypt. He was the most distinguished character of ancient times. Josephus says that after Moses was nourished and brought up in the king's palace, he was appointed General of the Egyptian army, and made war against the Ethiopians and conquered them. This battle was fought about 1497 years B. C. Tharbis was the daughter of the Ethiopian king; she happened to see Moses as he led the army near the walls of the city, fighting with great courage. She admired the subtilty of his undertaking, and believing him to be the author of the Egyptians' success, fell deeply in love with him, and upon consideration of the subject sent to him the most faithful of her servants to discourse with him upon their marriage. Moses thereupon accepted the offer on condition that she would procure the delivering up of the city to him. Moses married the king's daughter for the love and affection she had for him, and he obtained the city by her wisdom and artifice. This city had strong walls on every side, and was encircled by the river Nile and Astrapus. This city was first called Saba, a royal city of Ethiopia. Cambyses, after he had taken it, named it Meroe, after his own sister. Rollin and Strabo.]

Moses was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and mighty in words and in deeds. (Acts vii. 21, 22.)

HANNO.

HANNO, an African, the father of Hamilcar, was a general of Carthage. He flourished when the Carthaginians were in their greatest prosperity. Some place his time 140 years before the founding of Rome, which would be about 800 years before the era of the whites. This commander-in-chief was sent out with a fleet and army by order of the Carthaginian Senate, to make treaties and settle colonies on the coast of Africa. [Encyclopedia Perthensis. Rollin, Voss, & Hist. Gr. 1. 4.]

HAMILCAR.

HAMILCAR, an African, was the father of Hannibal. The fleet at that time consisted of two thousand ships of war, and upwards of three thousand small vessels of burden. The land forces amounted to no less than three hundred thousand men. These immense forces sailed from Carthage under the command of the celebrated Hamilcar, and were landed at Palermo, (in Latin, Panormus.) This fleet was burnt in the war by the stratagems of Gelon, an able warrior, who was sent to assist Theron the General of Hymera, a city not far from Palermo. The preparations for this war had occupied three

years.

gen

Three years after, they appointed Hamilcar their eral a second time; and on his pleading his great age for declining the command in this war, they gave him for his lieutenant, Imilcon the son of Hanno, of the same family. The preparations for this war, were equal to the great design, which the Carthaginians had formed. The fleet and army were soon ready, and sailed from Carthage for Sicily. This army consisted of 300,000 men, according to Eporus; but according to Timæus, of six hundred and twenty thousand. The General having died, after the reduction of several cities, Imilcon ended the war by a treaty with Dionysius. [Rollin.]

IMILCON.

IMILCON, an African, a general of Carthage. The following year, Imilcon, being appointed one of the rulers of Carthage, returned to Sicily with a greater army than before. He landed at Palermo, took several cities; and recovered Motya by force of arms. His fleet under the command of Mago, sailed along the coast,-above two hundred ships laden with the spoils of the enemy, and five hundred barques, entered in good order the great harbor of Syracuse. The army according to some authors, consisted of 300,000 foot, and 3,000 horse. In addition to this army, new troops were raised, and placed under the command of Mago, whose father had been lately killed. He was very young, but of great abilities and reputation. He soon arrived in Sicily, and gave Dionysius battle. In this battle, Leptinus, brother of Dionysius and upwards of 14,000 Syracusans were left dead upon the field. By this victory, the Carthaginians obtained an honorable peace, which left them in possession of all they had in Sicily, with the addition even of some strong holds; besides a thousand talents to defray the expenses of the war. Yet Mago, on his return to Carthage was impeached, and died soon after of grief.

HANNIBAL.

HANNIBAL, the Great, an African, a general of Carthage, 218 B. C. Carthage having been at peace 23 years, he led the Carthaginian army and laid siege to Saguntum, a city of Spain, in alliance with the Romans. The Carthaginians, passing through the straits with their fleet, and Hannibal, after taking that place, conceived the bold design of carrying the war into Italy. In the accomplishment of that design, he passed the Pyrenees and finally the Alps, with incredible difficulty, having, when he arrived in Italy, 20,000 foot and 6000 horse. The Romans fell before him. In several pitched battles he utterly routed them, and at Cannæ he made an immense slaughter, 40,000 Romans being left dead on the field. Had he pushed his advantages, and gone immediately to Rome, the fate of the re

public would no doubt have been sealed.

But he hesita

ted, and this gave time to the Romans to concentrate their forces, and they in their turn became victorious, by carrying the war into Africa.

SCIPIO AFRICANUS.

SCIPIO AFRICANUS, an Ethiopian, the Roman general, attacked Hannibal's forces, who had come out against Rome, and gave him battle, about 146 years B. C.; and finally prevailed by carrying the war into Africa. The last punic war terminated with the overthrow of Carthage.

Hannibal to Scipio Africanus at their interview preceding the battle of Zama.

Since fate has so ordained it, that I, who began the war, and who have been so often on the point of ending it by a complete conquest, should now come of my own motion to ask a peace; I am glad that it is of you, Scipio, I have the fortune to ask it. Nor will this be among the least of your glories, that Hannibal, victorious over so many Roman generals, submitted at last to you.

I could wish, that our fathers and we had confined our ambition within the limits which nature seems to have prescribed to it; the shores of Africa, and the shores of Italy. The gods did not give us that mind. On both sides we have been so eager after foreign possessions, as to put our own to the hazard of war. Rome and Carthage have had, each in her turn, the enemy at her gates. But since errors past may be more easily blamed than corrected, let it now be the work of both you and me to put an end, if possible, to the obstinate contention. For my own part, my years, and the experience I have had of the instability of fortune, incline me to leave nothing to her determination which reason can decide. But much I fear, Scipio, that your youth, your want of the like experience, your uninterrupted success, may render you averse from the thoughts of peace. He whom fortune has never failed, rarely reflects upon her inconstancy. Yet, without recurring to former examples, my own may perhaps suffice to teach you moderation. I am that same Hannibal, who,

after my victory at Cannæ, became master of the greatest part of your country, and deliberated with myself what fate I should decree to Italy and Rome. And now, see the change! Here, in Africa, I am come to treat with a Roman, for my own preservation, and my country's. Such are the sports of fortune. Is she then to be trusted because she smiles? An advantageous peace is preferable to the hope of victory. The one is in your own power, the other at the pleasure of the gods. Should you prove victorious, it would add little to your own glory, or the glory of your country; if vanquished, you lose in one hour all the honor and reputation you have been so many years acquiring. But what is my aim in all this?—that you should content yourself with our cession of Spain, Sicily, Sardinia and all the islands between Italy and Africa. A peace on these conditions will, in my opinion, not only secure the future tranquillity of Carthage, but be sufficiently glorious to you, and for the Roman name. And do not tell me that some of our citizens dealt fraudulently with you in the late treaty it is I, Hannibal, that now ask a peace: I ask it, because I think it expedient for my country; and, thinking it expedient, I will inviolably maintain it.

Scipio's Answer.

I knew very well, Hannibal, that it was the hope of your return which embolded the Carthaginians to break the truce with us, and to lay aside all thoughts of a peace, when it was just upon the point of being concluded; and your present proposal is a proof of it. You retrench from their concessions every thing but what we are, and have been long possessed of. But as it is your care that your fellow citizens should have the obligations to you of being eased from a great part of their burden, so it ought to be mine that they draw no advantage from their perfidiousness. Nobody is more sensible than I am of the weakness of man and the power of fortune, and that whatever we enterprise is subject to a thousand chances. If, before the Romans passed into Africa, you had of your own accord quitted Italy, and made the offers you now make, I believe they would not have been rejected. But as you have been forced out of Italy, and we are masters here of the open country, the situation of things is much altered. And