Being disturbed with these anxieties, he so conducted himself for five years in the African war, which commenced shortly after the peace with Rome, and then through nine years employed in augmenting the Carthaginian empire in Spain, that it was obvious that he was revolving in his mind a greater war than he was then engaged in; and that if he had lived longer, the Carthaginians under Hamilcar would have carried the war into Italy, which, under the command of Hannibal, they afterwards did. The timely death of Hamilcar and the youth of Hannibal occasioned its delay.