from Scipio. Had Scipio dared to follow him, he would have been just as
well pleased; for he was sure to have beaten him, and Scipio would have
been lost, if defeated. He marched as far as Vienne, a place which was
the capital of the Allobroges, which Livy does not mention; that it is
Vienne, has also been shown by Melville. Here a civil war was going
on. Hannibal took the part of one of the pretenders to the throne, led
him on to victory, and got great supplies from him. The Allobroges had
at that time the country between the Rhone, the Saone, the Isère, and
the west of Savoy. Near Vienne, he left the Rhone, and turned towards
Yenne and Chambéry, where Melville has discovered an old Roman road
from Chambéry by the great Carthusian monastery: it was used during
the whole of the middle ages, and was abandoned only as late as in the
seventeenth century. From Chambéry, he came into the Tarantaise, and
followed the Isère up to its source. To the Alpine tribes which dwelt
in the small valleys, Hannibal’s expedition was a real calamity; it
was like a swarm of locusts which eat up all that they had. Hannibal
did everything he could to make them friends; yet they all of them
withstood him. They did not indeed venture upon open resistance; but
they had recourse to cunning, which is the characteristic of weak
nations. They brought provisions, and even hostages; and then fell
upon the Carthaginians as they were marching through the defiles. But
Hannibal had never trusted them, as on the whole he never let himself
be deceived: his plan had been to send his baggage in advance, to
follow cautiously, and strongly to cover his rear; and thus he managed
to beat them off. Yet the Carthaginians suffered a dreadful loss.
Melville has shown, that the onward march, although very toilsome, and
through unfriendly tribes, was by no means over fields of ice and snow,
but across a thickly-peopled, beautiful country: the road winds between
the hills through rich and well cultivated mountain valleys, through
woods of walnut trees, and corn fields. But when from thence it mounts
up higher into the Alps, it becomes exceedingly narrow and difficult,
being in most places nothing but a path for beasts of burthen, by
which not more than two can barely pass each other; and it runs along
the brink of deep mountain steeps, over most of which torrents rush:
it is only within the present century that a carriage road has been
made. Fifteen days were spent by Hannibal on his march through these
mountains; yet for the greater part of that time, his way led through
those fine valleys, full of cultivation and wealth, the inhabitants of
which one must not deem to have been more savage than the Tyrolese were
in the fifteenth century.[20] Thus he came as far as the Little St.
Bernard. Had he reached it a month sooner, in August or the beginning
of September, no snow would yet have fallen, and he might every where
have found fodder for his cattle. The chief difficulty was the carrying
of provisions for thirty or forty thousand men, eight thousand horses,
and certainly as many as four thousand mules and pack-horses, which
were laden with the bread; for, if the snow fell, it was impossible to
get fresh grass for the beasts. A great part of the baggage had been
taken by the mountaineers. Until he came to the heights of the Little
St. Bernard, Hannibal had not much suffered from the cold; want of food
and the enmity of the neighbouring tribes were his worst hardships:
but now, when he reached the top of the mountain, he was overtaken by
a fall of snow, which made the roads quite impassable. Only think,
what a dead stop this must have been for Africans! The greatness of
the snowdrifts, by which many deep clefts in the rocks were covered
over, soon gave rise to accidents; the feet of the horses slipped,
and the animals tumbled down the steeps; fodder was scarce, and many
elephants died of cold. The army also suffered from hunger, like the
French on their retreat from Russia; in those few days, thousands met
with their death. The story of Livy, that Hannibal softened the rocks
by fire, and split them by means of vinegar, and thus made a way for
himself, is a fable. This is only sometimes possible, when there are
cliffs of limestone; but to imagine it in the case of a whole army, and
with a mountain like the Alps, is one of those things of which one
cannot understand how a man of sense can write them down. Particularly
dangerous was the descent: with a great deal of trouble they reached a
spot, of which Livy speaks just as incomprehensibly as Polybius does
clearly. The roads, in fact, were in some places carried round the
mountains, so that on one side there was often an abrupt precipice; now
it not unseldom happens that torrents undermine a way like this from
beneath, and it falls in; or that avalanches bury it. This had happened
here. A bit of the road had fallen in a year before, and it had not yet
been mended, as Polybius tells us in the most natural manner. Livy,
who takes it for granted that Hannibal had altogether made the road
for the first time, says that he had now been stopped all at once by a
precipice; and that on this he had ordered trees to be felled, and had
had them piled up below against the steep, so as to go down by them as
on ladders. But according to Polybius, the landslip went down a stadium
and a half, that is to say, a thousand feet in depth, to the bed of
the river Dora at the mouth of the valley of Aosta. Hannibal tried to
go by a new way, having heard perhaps that some huntsmen of the Alps
had already struck out several other tracks. It did not answer; and
so he had to encamp for three days and three nights in the midst of
the snow, that at the spot where the road was broken down, he might
make with timber a new one broad enough for the beasts of burthen to
pass. This is the place where indeed the distress of the army was
overpowering, and it suffered such immense loss, especially in beasts.
This difficulty being overcome, they came by and by to the valley of
Aosta, where the Salassians dwelt, a cultivated and rather civilized
country. The story of Hannibal’s having shown to his army, from the top
of the mountain, the blooming land of Italy, is likewise an impossible
one, and a rhetorical flourish: from the summit of St. Bernard, one
sees nothing but mountains.
Hannibal was now in the valley of Aosta. A great part of his elephants
were dead, and his army now consisted of no more than twenty thousand
foot (twelve thousand Africans, and eight thousand Spaniards), and six
thousand horse, most of them Numidians. It is wonderful how strong the
horses here showed themselves to have been; the Numidians must have
treated them with great care.
The whole management of the war on the side of the Romans, is a
remarkable counterpart of that want of design, and that sluggishness,
which in the wars of the revolution so often let the victory fall
into the hands of the French. When the Romans heard that Hannibal was
going to cross the Alps, they most certainly must have thought him a
madman: this supposition alone can account for the slackness of their
movements. Scipio, who had advanced as far as Avignon, ought, as he
had a fleet, to have been in Lombardy, long before Hannibal reached
the St. Bernard. He very likely thought, that there would still be
always plenty of time whenever he came; and thus, when he arrived at
the Po, Hannibal was already descending the Alps. The reports also of
the losses of the Carthaginians, one may fancy to oneself from that
logic of absurdity of which we have heard so many examples during
the revolution. His condition was now indeed a very bad one for an
ordinary general; yet Hannibal, without stopping, hastened on with
his army in which typhus fever must necessarily have raged, and which
must have looked like a horde of gipsies. Scipio had only two legions,
a corresponding number of allies, and a few horse. The Romans were
in many respects the slaves of established usage, from which they
frequently did not know how to free themselves in an emergency. Thus
from ancient times downward, such an army was looked upon as quite
large enough, and therefore they did not send more. Part of the Gauls
were already in open rebellion; the Boians, the summer before, had
beaten a Roman legion, and kept the survivors shut up in Modena,--they
dwelt from Parma and Placentia to the frontier of the Romagna,--and
by treachery they seized three Romans of rank who had been sent as
triumvirs to found Placentia, that they might exchange them for their
own hostages. They sent ambassadors to meet Hannibal at the Rhone, and
invited him to their country. The Insubrian Gauls beyond the Po were
likewise ripe for rebellion; but they did not yet venture upon any
open movement. Hannibal marched against the Taurinians, and conquered
Turin; and whilst he was engaged there, Scipio had arrived at Genoa,
and had crossed the Apennines and the Po, to take up his position in
the country of the Insubrians. Here Hannibal turned round to face
him. They encountered, for the first time, at the Ticinus, probably
in the neighbourhood of Pavia, and to the dismay of the Romans,
Hannibal had still a very large army. A cavalry skirmish took place:
the Romans were defeated by the Spaniards and the Numidians; Scipio
himself was wounded, and only with great difficulty got out of the
affray, as some have it, by his son, who was afterwards so famous as
P. Cornelius Scipio Africanus. This result of a fight which in itself
was insignificant, convinced the Romans how much they had been mistaken
as to the condition of Hannibal’s army, and that they should have to
keep on the defensive. Scipio abandoned the northern bank of the Po. He
had thrown a bridge of rafts over the river, and in the consternation
it was broken up too soon: part of the troops, which were to cover the
bridge on the left bank, were taken prisoners by the Carthaginians.
The consul Sempronius had effected a landing at Malta, conquered some
places on the Italian coast, and taken some booty; he now returned, and
went to join Scipio. Here the discipline of the Romans truly shows
itself. They knew that nothing is more fatiguing for the soldier, than
to march in columns on the road, and they therefore avoided it as much
as they could. But now they did a thing which only seems possible
under circumstances of extraordinary enthusiasm. The army was not kept
together, to march to the place of its destination; but every one was
to take his oath on such and such a day to make his appearance at a
given place, severe punishment being denounced against the breach of
the oath. Sempronius mustered his troops at Puteoli,[21] and there
dismissed them with orders to meet him again near Ariminum. From
thence they marched to the Trebia, and joined Scipio. What we cannot
now understand, is how the consuls could have united; Sempronius must
have marched through Liguria by Genoa.[22] Here the two consuls take
the command by turns. The accounts of the fight on the Trebia are not
even now quite correct. Vaudoncourt has not turned to account his
position as a chief officer on the staff: his notions with regard to
this battle are quite incomprehensible. As the Romans ford the Trebia
in order to engage, and one wing, which is cut off, falls back upon
Placentia without recrossing the river, we must necessarily presume
that Hannibal was on the right, on the eastern bank of the river,
and had crossed the Po below Placentia. It is quite in the style of
Hannibal’s tactics to go round the enemy and cut off his retreat, as
he was certain of his superiority; just as Napoleon in 1800 passed
the Po between Pavia and Piacenza, and placed himself between the
bungling, stupid general Melas and his base, so as to bring him to
battle at Marengo, and Melas was obliged to conclude the convention.
The Romans therefore passed the Po near Piacenza, and Hannibal below
this town. This is manifest from the whole position; Major-General
Von Schütz of Magdeburg, who is a distinguished tactician, assures us
that it could not have been otherwise. This explains also why the Roman
camp was removed. The Romans, after they had crossed, had the Trebia
behind them (on the west), which made their position a hazardous one,
as in case of defeat they would have been driven into the river: for
this reason, they placed the Trebia between themselves and Hannibal,
as a protection; and they pitched their camp in a strong ground at the
foot of the Apennines, where they were nearer to Sempronius. Their
object, which was to effect a junction with the army of Sempronius,
they had attained, as we have already mentioned; but they were cut off
from Rome, and pushed towards Piedmont. If Providence has once decreed
that a campaign must come to a hapless end, all kinds of untoward
circumstances will crowd upon each other. The wound of Scipio was slow
in healing, and he was not able to appear at the head of the army; and
thus the Romans were paralysed, whilst Hannibal for two months and a
half, ever since his march over the St. Bernard, had made use of his
time to strengthen his position, and to restore his army, especially
as to horses. He also took from the Romans their magazines, so that
they became very hard pressed. Sempronius, when the two armies had
joined, looked upon this state of things as highly disgraceful, and
insisted upon giving battle; he said that one ought to fight as soon
as possible, and not let the Carthaginians seem formidable: Scipio,
on the other hand, was cautious, and would not give his consent to
this. Hannibal, who knew all that was passing, was very much bent on
bringing them to an engagement; for so long as they lay where they
were, he could not go into winter-quarters; and he also wished to get
the Romans out of the way, that the Gauls might thus be encouraged to
declare themselves. He was about two (German) miles south of Piacenza,
on the right bank of the Trebia, and the Romans on the other side:
he now enticed them on by small skirmishes, in which he let them
gain seeming advantages. The river Trebia, in the year 1799, became
noted for the battle which Macdonald lost against Suwarow: on that
occasion, I gathered exact information concerning it. The locality is
very remarkable, and quite tallies with the description of Polybius.
It is a mountain torrent with many arms, very broad, and straggling
through thickets and heaps of gravel: there are many islets in it in
summer; in winter, when the snow melts, or after heavy rain, these are
quite flooded over. It is not deep, so that it can always be forded:
the banks are overgrown some way up with shrubs. In these, Hannibal
placed troops in ambush, and Sempronius thought that he was afraid;
but it was Hannibal’s plan to get the Romans to cross the river. It
was about Christmas tide, and so he did not wish his soldiers to wade
through the river, which was cold as ice: that he wanted the Romans
to do. They fell into the snare. Hannibal, on the other hand, had
large fires lighted in his camp the evening before, (brandy there was
none at that time, except in Egypt, where certainly they knew how to
distil, as the whole process is depicted on the walls at Thebes); he
also made the men take a good meal of warm food, and rub themselves
before the fire with oil; thus they became quite warm and brisk. There
was a sharp snow-storm,--the cold is in Lombardy not less severe than
in Germany,--the Romans had now the madness to wade during the night
through the river, which was so swollen by the snow, that they were
up to the chin in water: they got quite benumbed, and they had the
pelting storm right in their faces. The fight was a fierce one, as
indeed there were thirty thousand Romans against twenty thousand of the
enemy; but the Carthaginian cavalry quickly routed that of the Romans,
and the Roman infantry also was too tired out to effect any thing.
They did what they could; but they were fighting as militia against
veterans, besides which they had the elements against them, and when
they had passed the river, the men in ambush arose and fell upon their
flank. The loss was very great: some were driven into the river, and
perished; the left wing--about ten thousand men--escaped to Placentia.
The snow-storm was so fearful, and the troops were likewise so much
in want of rest, that Hannibal was unable to pursue the enemy, though
otherwise he always made the very most of his victories. The Romans
therefore, one and all, threw themselves into Placentia, where they
had their magazines, and there they remained some time. At first, the
consul deceived the senate by false reports; but the truth was soon
known. Hannibal took up his quarters on both banks of the Po, and lived
in plenty on the stores of the Romans; he wished his troops to have
their full rest, and did not care for Placentia. The Insubrians also
now declared for him. The Romans, on the other hand, embarked on the
Po, and went to Ariminum, where the new consul Flaminius brought them
reinforcements.
According to Livy Hannibal tried that very winter to break through the
Apennines into Etruria. This is possible, but hardly likely; Polybius
does not mention it: it may have been a movement of no consequence,
perhaps a reconnoitring. Livy’s description, however, of the locality,
and of the struggle which Hannibal had to sustain with the elements,
is, as I myself know from experience, a very happy one.
The unlucky honour of the consulship devolved, the next year, on C.
Flaminius, a man, whose name has come down to us with disgrace, though,
as far as we can judge from his actions, unjustly. He had, when a
tribune, carried through the assignment of the _Ager Gallicus Picenus_,
for which the nobles never forgave him; he now, as consul, supported
a tribunician law which also gave high offence, and was a remarkable
instance of the hypocrisy of the nobility. The aristocracy always rail
against trade, business, and so forth, and talk of noble feeling and
high-mindedness; and yet, they will not let an advantage slip out of
their hands. The new law decreed, that no senator, and no one, whose
father had a seat in the senate, should own a sea-going ship of more
than a certain tonnage, nor for any other purpose than to convey corn
from his estates to Rome; and it therefore debarred the nobility from
making money by traffic, and restricted them to what they got from
their landed property. Commerce, shipping, and such things, were to
be left to the trading class which had now risen, the _equites_, and
the senators were not to interfere with them. Nothing indeed could
have been more in the spirit of the Venetian aristocracy in the best
times, than such a law; but the grasping nobility of Rome felt so much
aggrieved by its operation, that Flaminius was spoken of as a turbulent
fellow. Flaminius may have been a rash and hot-headed man; yet I am
convinced that he was any thing but a revolutionist. In the same
spirit, he was also now decried for having made too much haste, because
he had set out for Ariminum, without waiting for the Feriæ Latinæ! Such
an accusation is quite unbearable; for it is plain that Hannibal had
not waited for the end of the Latin holidays. Flaminius in fact still
came too late.
The prospects of the Romans were very gloomy, the enemy being in Italy
with a superior force. And when they raised new legions, a great
disadvantage now shewed itself; for the veterans were lost, and the
Roman system of tactics was the very worst when the troops were not
well trained, (hence the defeat at Cannæ,) as, on the other hand, it
was the best with practised soldiers: they ought now to have formed in
phalanx only, so as to keep their ground by means of masses. Hannibal
had three roads before him, two of them through Tuscany, and one along
the Adriatic to Rimini; there lay the army of Sempronius, reinforced
by the fresh draughts which the new consul had brought with him. In
Tuscany, the Romans must have expected no attack whatever, nor does
any army seem to have been stationed there, unless perhaps an Etrurian
levy at most; for Hannibal met with no resistance at all when he had
resolved to go through the marshes. One of the roads was through the
Apennines, by Prato to Florence; the other, from Bologna by Pietramala
and Barberino, where the Apennines are broadest and wildest. The latter
of these must at that time have been impassable, having perhaps been
left to grow wild as a protection against the Gauls; it also passed too
close by the Apennines,[23] and Flaminius might have arrived before its
difficulties were overcome. He therefore chose the other road. With
regard to this, much dispute has unaccountably arisen, and even the
judicious and excellent Strabo is mistaken in thinking of the marshes
near Parma: in Tuscany, no one now has a doubt about it. The road in
question led by Lucca and Pisa. It is a very pleasant one now; but
formerly the outlet of the Arno was a shallow gulf running up into
the land as far as Sendi,[24] and this had been filled up from time
immemorial, and had become a marsh like the Pontine, only it was not
quite so unhealthy. Even now, on the northern side, one still sees a
succession of lakes, six German miles long; the marshes drained by
canals may everywhere be traced. This extends as far as Pisa, which
lies somewhat higher, and is connected with the fruitful country of
Lucca. Here, by Lucca where in spring all is a vast lake, we must
presume the march of Hannibal to have been. He had learned that it
was not a morass, but that it could be passed, although the whole way
was under water: the Romans, however, did not expect any inroad from
thence. Hannibal very likely went first to Modena, in order to deceive
the Romans, and then turned off to the right. The difficulties of the
march may have been somewhat exaggerated; but on the whole, there is
a correct notion at bottom. Hannibal lost very many men and horses,
and all his remaining elephants but one: he himself lost an eye. After
three days and a half, he got out near Fiesole, and marched behind
Florence into the upper valley of the Arno, which even as early as that
time was drained; and he allowed his soldiers, among whom there were
now already many Gauls, to console themselves for the toils which they
had gone through.[25] The Romans under Flaminius were encamped near
Arezzo. He believed that Hannibal would now burst upon Ariminum, and
so he wished to go across the Romagna to the assistance of the Romans
there. But Hannibal now suddenly appeared in the heart of Etruria, on
which Flaminius broke up in all haste, that he might get the start of
him in reaching the road to Rome. Hannibal advanced to Chiusi, wasting
the country on his way; Flaminius followed with his utmost speed. Among
the hypocritical reproaches made against him was also this, that he
had not stopped his march when a standard stuck fast in the ground,--a
superstition which, to use the remark of Polybius, is beyond all
conception. Hannibal went on from the upper valley of the Arno below
Cortona, having the lake of Perugia (Trasimenus) on his left, still on
the road to Rome. He had got ahead of Flaminius by some days’ marches;
the latter with hurried speed pressed on from Cortona. Hannibal could
now already discern the goal, and he wished for a decisive battle. When
the Romans reached the pass on the south side, they found it beset.
On that very morning, there was an impenetrable fog, so that they
saw neither the hills nor the lake: the troops in front kept pushing
on, in order to find room. When these were already attacked at the
defile, the men behind, as they were marching in a long column, did
not perceive any thing of it; and now the rear itself was charged by
the troops which had been posted on the hills. Then the Carthaginians
wheeled to the right, until they outflanked the Romans, and thus drove
them towards the lake; and these, in order to force their way, again
and again assailed the intrenchments of the defile, without effecting
anything. The battle had a great resemblance to the unfortunate affair
of Auerstedt, where continual assaults were likewise made in vain, and
one division sacrificed after another. At last, about six thousand men
made an assault upon the hills, broke through, and thus made their
escape: the rest were either driven into the lake, or taken prisoners.
In _Dutens Manuel du Voyageur_, and other books, it is stated that
the names of two spots of that neighbourhood, _la Ossaja_ and _Ponte
di Sanguinetto_, referred to the battle on the Trasimene lake; yet at
the latter place a battle cannot possibly have been fought, and _la
Ossaja_ was as late as in the sixteenth century called _Orsaria_, that
is, bear’s-garden, because the lords of Perugia kept there the bears
and wild beasts for their sports.
Just as Shakspeare connects awful natural phenomena with frightful
moral ones, and as Thucydides in the Peloponnesian war always mentions
such phenomena, thus also during the war of Hannibal the earth was
convulsed with throes. The year of the battle at the Trasimenus was,
as Pliny says, richer in earthquakes than had ever been known in
the memory of man: fifty-seven of them were observed. We shall not
discuss whether these were all on different days, or whether it was
always the same one on different points. Many places lay in ruins, as
Cannæ in Apulia; others lost their walls. But we cannot believe what
Livy relates, that during the battle such a dreadful earthquake had
happened, that the walls of many Italian towns fell down, and yet that
the contending armies were not aware of it. It is possible that the
thick fog was connected with this earthquake. Fogs are, however, very
frequent there at that time of the year: I have myself seen a very
thick one in the same neighbourhood, which very strongly reminded me
of the battle at the Trasimene lake. Flaminius himself fell bravely
fighting. Although his guilt is infinitely small when compared with
the charges which have been laid upon him, yet, according to my views
of the battle, he is not quite to be acquitted of carelessness; but in
great events which are to change the destinies of the world, a fatality
rules, which blinds the eyes even of the very shrewdest.
After this battle, Hannibal exchanged, even as he had already begun to
do so after that of the Trebia, the arms of his Libyans for those of
the Romans, a proof how, even in the midst of war, he still trained
his troops. The practice of the _pilum_ was not so easy to learn: in
fact, to use the Roman arms with success, he was obliged to adopt
their drill in all its parts. To the Spaniards he left their original
mode of fighting. As early as after the battle of the Trebia, he had
made a difference between his prisoners. He had treated the Italians
with kindness, having often given them presents, taken care of their
wounded, and then sent them home, probably under a promise of serving
no longer against him; he now did the same on a larger scale, and
announced himself to the inhabitants of Italy as their deliverer from
the Roman yoke. A man like Hannibal was far from intending, with the
troops which he had brought with him, and the Cisalpine Gauls who had
joined him, to sweep down like a torrent upon Italy, and without fresh
forces to scale the walls of Rome: he must have founded all his hopes
on rousing the south of Italy, by the remembrance of the old struggles
with Rome, to cast off the Roman rule, and unite with him, and thus to
shake down Rome in the course of a few years. Pyrrhus had the power, to
run down Rome; Hannibal had first to create one for himself. He must
have started immediately after the battle, as in Umbria he fell in with
a reinforcement of four thousand men, which the consul Servilius sent
to Flaminius, and which consisted chiefly of cavalry: it was surrounded
by Hannibal, and almost entirely destroyed. Such is the account of
Polybius, which has every appearance of truth; Livy, on the contrary,
says that Centenius had formed an army by order of the senate, when
tidings had been heard of the defeat at the Trasimene lake, a thing
which is not likely, as the news could not yet have reached Rome.