14 SOLDIERS AND SAILORS of Alexander, the twelve-syllable metre of which gave rise to the name Alex- amirincs. The German poem of Rudolf of Ems was based on the Latin epic of Walter of Chatillon, about 1 200, which became henceforward the prevailing form of the story. In contrast with it is the thirteenth century Old English epic of Alexander (in vol. i. of Weber's "Metrical Romances," 1810), based on the Callisthenes version. The story appears also in the East, worked up in con- junction with myths of other nationalities, especially the Persian. It appears in Firdusi, and among later writers, in Nizami. From the Persians both the sub- stance of the story and its form in poetical treatment have extended to Turks and other Mohammedans, who have interpreted Alexander as the Dsulkarnein (' two horned ') of the Koran, and to the Hindus, which last had preserved no inde- pendent traditions of Alexander. HANNIBAL BY WALTER WHYTE (247-183 B.C.) HANNIBAL (the grace of Baal, the Hanniel of Scripture) was the son of the great Carthaginian general Hamilcar Barca, and was born in 247 B.C. It is said that in his ninth year his father led him to an altar and bade him swear eter- nal enmity to Rome. From the age of nine to eighteen he was trained in war and diplomacy under Hamil- car in Spain ; and from his eigh- . teenth to his twenty-fifth year he was the chief agent in carrying out the plans by which his brother-in- law, Hasdrubal, extended and con- solidated the Carthaginian dominion in the Peninsula. On the death of Hasdrubal, in 221 B.C., the soldiers with one voice chose Hannibal, then in his twenty-sixth year, as their general. Forthwith he crossed the Tagus, and in two years reduced all Spain up to the Ebro, with the exception of the Greek colony of Saguntum. That town, which claimed the protection of Rome, fell in 218 B.C., and the Second Punic War, or, as the Romans justly called it, "the War of Hannibal," began. Garrisoning Libya with Spaniards, and Spain with Libyans (a precaution against treachery), Hanni
