HANNIBAL.

At the ratification of the treaty which terminated the first Punic war, Hamilcar Barcas, a valiant Carthaginian general, who had long opposed with various fortune the armies of Rome, in Spain, Italy and Sicily, returned to his native country, deeply impressed with the consequences of the rapidly increasing power of the rival Republic. With a view therefore to keep alive a constant opposition to its encroachments, to testify to his countrymen his conviction that there would never be a lasting peace between the two states, and to provide that, at least for the next generation, there should always be a member of his own family to act upon his sentiments, he resolved that his son, a youth of nine years of age, should bind himself in the most positive manner to retain until death his father's enmity to the Romans. This engagement received all the weight which religious ceremonies could give: at a solemn festival, in the temple of the Gods, and at the foot of the statue of Jupiter Ammon, surrounded by the priests and chief magistrates of the state, and a numerous assemblage of the citizens of Carthage, Amilcar dictated to his son Hannibal that impressive vow which formed the master principle of the most formidable antagonist Rome ever had.

This singular event was chosen by George III as one of the subjects for West's pencil, at the commencement of that patronage, which, alike honorable to the monarch, and the artist, terminated only with the mental demise of the former; it is among the most esteemed of the painter's works the price paid for it was 400 guineas.

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There is a large Print in Mezzotinto by Valentine Green after this Picture.

Size 6 feet by 10 feet.

17.