HANNIBAL IN SWITZERLAND
A few days later Will and I got to talking about the ancient passages
of the Alps. Hannibal’s was the first. We got out a copy of Polybius
and read the simple narrative of that almost incredible expedition.
Polybius, who was present at the destruction of Carthage, had probably
a fairly accurate knowledge of his subject; but to this day it has not
been absolutely decided where the great Carthaginian crossed the Alps.
One man believes he went by the Little Mont Cenis; a Frenchman argued
that he descended into Italy by the Col de la Seigne; but the most
convincing argument, that put forward by William John Law, fixes the
route as from Roquemaure, where he crossed the Rhône, up to Vienne by
Bourgoin, the Mont du Chat, Constans, Bourg Saint-Maurice, thence over
the Little Saint-Bernard to Aoste into Italy.
We read some of the passages describing the difficulties of the
route, attempted so late in the season. This is what Polybius says:--
“Hannibal, having arrived upon the Rhône, straightway set about
affecting the passage where the river ran in a single stream, being
encamped at a distance of nearly four days’ journey from the sea....
“By this time a crowd of the barbarians was collected on the opposite
shore for the purpose of preventing the passage of the Carthaginians.
Looking well at these, and considering from existent circumstances
that it would neither be possible to force a passage in the face of so
numerous an enemy nor to keep his position without expecting the enemy
upon him from all sides, Hannibal, as the third night was coming on,
sent off a division of the army under command of Hanno, son of the
King Bomilcar, joining to them natives of the country as guides.
“After marching up the river for a distance of two hundred stadia and
coming to a place where it is divided into two branches around an
island, they halted there; and, having got timber from a neighboring
forest, they soon fitted out a number of rafts, sufficient for their
purpose, partly by framing the timbers together, partly by tying them.
On these they were safely ferried over....
“As the fifth night came on, the division which had already crossed
the river pushed forward about the morning watch, against the
barbarians, who were opposite to the Carthaginian army. Hannibal now,
having his soldiers all ready, was intent on the work of crossing,
having filled the barges with the light-shielded cavalry; and the
canoes with the lightest of the infantry....
“The barbarians, seeing the purpose of their enemies, rushed out from
their entrenchments in a disorderly and confused manner, persuaded
that they could readily prevent the landing of the Carthaginians. But
Hannibal, as soon as he perceived that his own troops were already
coming down on the farther side, for they gave signal of their
approach by smoke, as had been agreed upon, at once ordered all to
embark, and for the managers of the ferry-boats to make all possible
headway against the current.
“This being speedily done, and the men in the boats working with keen
rivalry and shouting and striving against the force of the current,
... the barbarians in front raised their war-song and their
challenges. The scene was one of terror and of incitement to the
conflict.
“At this moment the Carthaginians, who had first crossed to that side
of the river, suddenly and unexpectedly appeared among the tents of
the barbarians, which had been left vacant. Some set fire to the
encampment; while the majority rushed upon those that were guarding
the passage of the river. In view of an event so utterly unexpected
the barbarians ran, some to protect their tents, others to resist the
assailants, and fought with them. Hannibal, now that everything had
succeeded in accordance with his plan, straightway drew up those that
had first got across, encouraged them, and engaged in battle with the
barbarians. The Gauls, from their lack of order and the strangeness of
all that had taken place, soon turned and betook themselves to
headlong flight.
“The Carthaginian general having conquered both the passage and his
enemies, immediately attended to the transport of those that still
remained on the other shore....
“The transport of the elephants was effected in the following
manner:--Having constructed a number of rafts, they strongly joined
together two of these, so as to fit closely one with the other, and
planted both firmly in the shore at the place of embarcation, the two
together being about fifty feet wide. Then, joining other rafts
together in the same way, they attached these to the former at the
outer end, carrying the fabric of the bridge forward in the line of
passage; and, that the whole structure might not be carried down the
river, the side that was against the stream they secured by cables
from the land, fastened to some trees which grew on the brink. When
they had thrown out this bridge to the length of two plethra [sixty
meters] altogether, they added at the end two rafts constructed more
perfectly than the others and the largest of all. These were bound
with great strength to each other; but to the rest in such a way that
the fastenings could be easily severed. To these they fixed a number
of towing-lines with which the barges were to prevent their being
carried down the river, and hold them by force against the stream, to
take over the elephants upon them and land them upon the other side.
“After this, they dug up and brought a quantity of earth to all the
rafts, and spread it till it was level with, and looked just like, the
road that led over the dry land to the crossing-place. The elephants
were used always to obey the Indians as far as the edge of the water,
but never as yet had ventured to go into the water. They brought them,
therefore, along this bank of earth, putting two females first; and
the beasts obeyed them. As soon as they had got them on to the
farthest rafts, they cut away the fastenings by which these were
fitted to the rest, and, pulling on the two lines with the barges,
they soon carried away the beasts and the rafts which bore them from
the earthy pier. At this the animals, quite confounded, turned about
and rushed in every direction; but, surrounded on every side by the
stream, they shrank from it, and were compelled to stay where they
were; and, in this way, the two rafts being brought back repeatedly,
most of the elephants were brought over upon them. But some, through
fright, leaped into the river half-way across; and it happened that
all the Indians belonging to these were lost, but the elephants were
saved, for, with the power and size of their probosces, raising them
out of the water and breathing through them and spouting up all that
got into them, they held out, making their way for the most part erect
below the water....”
Polybius goes on to tell how Hannibal, having got his forces across,
marched up into the mountains by the valley of the Rhône and then
began the ascent of the Alps. The Allobroges seized the heights.
Polybius says:--
“The Carthaginian general, aware that the barbarians had preoccupied
the posts of vantage, encamped his army in front of the heights and
waited there; then he sent forward some of the Gauls who were acting
as guides, in order that they might spy into the designs of the enemy
and their whole plan.
“When these men had executed all that was arranged, the general,
learning that the enemy steadily kept to their post and watched the
passes through the day, but that they went to their repose at night in
a neighboring town; acting conformably to that state of things,
contrived this scheme:--he put his force in motion and led them
forward openly and, when he had come near to the difficult places, he
pitched his camp not far from the enemy; but, when night came on, he
ordered fires to be kindled, and left the greater part of his troops,
and, having lightly armed the most efficient men, he made his way
through the defiles in the night and took possession of the positions
previously held by the enemy; the barbarians having retired to the
town as they were in the habit of doing.
“This had all been done before day came on, and, when the barbarians
saw what had happened, they at first abstained from any attack; but
later, when they observed the crowd of beasts of burden and the
cavalry winding out from the defile with much difficulty and in a
long-drawn column, they were encouraged to close in upon the line of
march. As the barbarians made their attacks in many places, a great
loss ensued to the Carthaginians, chiefly among the horses and beasts
of burden, yet not so much from the enemy as from the nature of the
ground; for, as the pass was not only narrow and rugged, but also
precipitous, at every moment and at every shock numbers of the
pack-animals fell with their loads over the cliffs. The shock was
caused chiefly by the wounded horses, for some of them, in the panic
made by their wounds, dashed against the baggage-animals, others with
a rush forward knocked over everything that came in their way in this
difficult passage, and completed the immense confusion.
“Hannibal, observing this, and reflecting that, even though the troops
should escape, the loss of their baggage would certainly be attended
with the ruin of the army, advanced to their aid with the detachment
that had occupied the heights during the night. As he made his assault
from higher ground, he destroyed many of the enemy; but not without
suffering equally in return, for the disorder of the march was much
increased by the conflict and clamor of these fresh troops. But, when
the greater part of the Allobroges had perished in the conflict, and
the rest had been compelled to flee for shelter to their homes, then,
only, did the remainder of the beasts of burden and the cavalry
succeed with great toil and difficulty in emerging from the pass.”
Hannibal seized the town and procured a vast quantity of horses and
beasts of burden and captives, as well as corn and cattle, sufficient
to maintain his army for several days, and he inspired great fear in
all the neighbouring tribes.
When the army began to advance again, the tribesmen came to meet him
with green branches and wreaths, as a sign of amity, and they brought
with them a plentiful supply of sheep and goats for food. Hannibal,
though inclined to be suspicious, still took them for guides and
followed them into a still more difficult region. He had good reason
for his suspicions, for, as they were passing through a narrow defile
where there was very bad footing and steep precipices, they made a
sudden attack upon his troops. The pack-animals and the cavalry were
in the van; heavy-armed troops guarded the rear, and attack from that
quarter was easily resisted; but the natives, as usual, climbed up the
precipices above them and rolled down boulders and flung stones which
made fearful havoc.
Hannibal was compelled by this action of the enemy to spend the night
near what Polybius calls to _leukópetron_, The White Rock. Now, not
far from Bourg-Saint-Maurice, where we had passed so recently, stands
a high rock of gypsum, and it is called to this day La Roche Blanche.
Here, in all probability, Hannibal kept guard while during the night
the horses and pack-animals with enormous difficulty filed out of the
valley. Polybius says:--
“On the following day, the enemy having retired, Hannibal joined
forces with the cavalry and led forward to the summit of the Alpine
pass, no longer meeting with any organized body of the barbarians, but
here and there more or less harassed by them, losing a few
pack-animals from the rear or from the van when the natives seized an
opportunity to dash at them. The elephants rendered Hannibal the
greatest service, for, in whatever part of the line they appeared, the
enemy dared not approach, being astounded at the strange look of the
beasts.”
By this time it was late in the season and the snow was deep on the
mountains; and the soldiers, worn out by their terrible toils and the
hardships to which they were subjected, were completely disheartened.
Like Napoleon and all the great leaders of men, however, Hannibal knew
how to play on their emotions and he cheered them by telling them that
just below lay Italy and just beyond lay Rome, their ancient enemy.
But the descent was even more difficult than the way up. The snow had
fallen and rendered the path over the névé extremely slippery; it was
impossible to proceed. So they had to encamp on the mountain ridge,
and, in order to widen the road, he engaged his whole force in
building up the precipice.
“Thus,” says the historian, “in one day he completed a passage
suitable for horses and baggage-animals, so that, carrying these
through at once, and pitching his camp about parts which had as yet
escaped the snow, he forwarded the army to the pastures. He brought
out the Numidians in successive squads to help in building the road,
and it took three days of great difficulty and suffering to get the
elephants through. They had come to be in a wretched state by reason
of hunger, for the higher points of the Alps, and the parts which
reach up to the heights, are utterly without trees and bare, because
of the snow remaining constantly summer and winter; but, as the parts
along the middle of the mountain-side produced both trees and bushes,
they are quite habitable.”
[Illustration: “THE SNOW WAS DEEP ON THE MOUNTAINS.”]
At last, however, after about two weeks in the mountains, they reached
the plain of the Po. Livy tells us that Hannibal himself confessed to
having lost, from the time he crossed the Rhône, thirty-six thousand
men and innumerable horses and other cattle. How many he brought with
him into Italy is not known. An exaggerated estimate makes it a
hundred thousand infantry and twenty-five thousand cavalry; but it
was, perhaps, a third of that number.
The Roman poet, Silius Italicus, who lived in Vergil’s house, but not
in his immortality, died just a hundred years after Christ. His
verse-history, “Punica,” has come down to us complete. He too gives a
description of Hannibal’s wonderful journey:--
“Lone Winter dwells upon those summits drear
And guards his mansion round the endless year.
Mustering from far around his grisly form
Black rains and hailstone-showers and clouds of storm.
Here in their wrathful kingdom whirlwinds roam
And fierce blasts struggle in their Alpine home.
The upward sight a swimming darkness shrouds
And the high crags recede into the clouds....
O’er jagged heights and icy fragments rude
Thus climb they mid the mountain solitude;
And from the rocky summits, haggard, show
Their half-wild visage, clotted thick with snow.
Continual drizzlings of the drifting air
Scar their rough cheeks and stiffen in their hair.
Now poured from craggy dens, a headlong force,
The Alpine hordes hang threatening on their course;
Track the known thickets, beat the mountain-snow,
Bound o’er the steeps and, hovering, hem the foe.
Here changed the scene; the snows were crimsoned o’er;
The hard ice trickled to the tepid gore.
With pawing hoof the courser delved the ground
And rigid frost his clinging fetlock bound:
Nor yet his slippery fall the peril ends;
The fracturing ice the bony socket rends.
Twelve times they measured the long light of day
And night’s bleak gloom and urged thro’ wounds their way;
Till on the topmost ridge their camp was flung
High o’er the steepy crags, in airy distance hung.”
“What do you think of that for poetry?” I asked Ruth, and she replied
that she did not wonder it was not given to school-boys to study.
“Whose is the translation?” she asked.
“Sir Charles Abraham Elton. But is it fair to melt up a golden, or
even a brazen wine-cup and then recast it in an entirely different
form and call it a piece of Roman antiquity? That is what these stiff
and formal so-called heroic pentameters do with the flowing hexameters
of the original.”
* * * * *
“I should like to go to the Saint-Bernard,” I remarked.
“It can be easily arranged,” said my nephew and, as usual, in answer
to my wishes came the realization. Instead of describing my own not
especially eventful visit to the hospice,--though I could write a
rhapsody about the noble dogs, one of whom had only a short time
before made a notable rescue of a young American who had wandered off
by himself, got lost and nearly perished,--I will give Rogers’s vivid
poetic picture. The poet, in his deliberate blank verse, thus pays his
respects to the monks:--
“Night was again descending, when my mule,
That all day long had climbed among the clouds,
Higher and higher still, as by a stair
Let down from heaven itself, transporting me,
Stopt, to the joy of both, at that low door,
That door which ever, as self-opened, moves
To them that knock, and nightly sends abroad
Ministering Spirits. Lying on the watch,
Two dogs of grave demeanor welcomed me,
All meekness, gentleness, though large of limb;
And a lay-brother of the Hospital,
Who, as we toiled below, had heard by fits
The distant echoes gaining on his ear,
Came and held fast my stirrup in his hand
While I alighted. Long could I have stood,
With a religious awe contemplating
That House, the highest in the Ancient World,
And destined to perform from age to age
The noble service, welcoming as guests
All of all nations and of every faith;
A temple sacred to Humanity!
It was a pile of simplest masonry,
With narrow windows and vast buttresses,
Built to endure the shocks of time and chance;
Yet showing many a rent, as well it might,
Warred on for ever by the elements,
And in an evil day, nor long ago,
By violent men--when on the mountain-top
The French and Austrian banners met in conflict.
On the same rock beside it stood the church,
Reft of its cross, not of its sanctity; ...
And just below it in that dreary dale,
If dale it might be called, so near to heaven,
A little lake, where never fish leaped up,
Lay like a spot of ink amid the snow;
A star, the only one in that small sky,
On its dead surface glimmering. ’Twas a place
Resembling nothing I had left behind,
As if all worldly ties were now dissolved;--
And, to incline the mind still more to thought,
To thought and sadness, on the Eastern shore
Under a beetling cliff stood half in gloom
A lonely chapel destined for the dead,
For such as having wandered from their way,
Had perished miserably. Side by side,
Within they lie, a mournful company,
All in their shrouds, no earth to cover them;
Their features full of life yet motionless
In the broad day, nor soon to suffer change,
Though the barred windows, barred against the wolf,
Are always open!--But the North blew cold;
And bidden to a spare but cheerful meal,
I sate among the holy Brotherhood
At their long board. The fare indeed was such
As is prescribed on days of abstinence,
But might have pleased a nicer taste than mine;
And through the floor came up, an ancient crone
Serving unseen below; while from the roof
(The roof, the floor, the walls of native fir)
A lamp hung flickering, such as loves to fling
Its partial light on Apostolic heads,
And sheds a grace on all. Theirs Time as yet
Has changed not. Some were almost in the prime;
Nor was a brow o’ercast. Seen as they sate
Ranged round their ample hearth-stone in an hour
Of rest they were as gay, as far from guile,
As children; answering, and at once, to all
The gentler impulses, to pleasure, mirth;
Mingling at intervals with rational talk
Music; and gathering news from them that came,
As of some other world. But when the storm
Rose and the snow rolled on in ocean-waves,
When on his face the experienced traveler fell,
Sheltering his lips and nostrils with his hands,
Then all was changed; and sallying with their pack
Into that blank of Nature, they became
Unearthly beings. ‘Anselm, higher up,
Just where it drifts, a dog howls loud and long,
And now, as guided by a voice from Heaven,
Digs with his feet. That noble vehemence
Whose can it be but his who never erred?
A man lies underneath! Let us to work!
But who descends Mont Velan? ’Tis La Croix.
Away, away! If not, alas, too late.
Homeward he drags an old man and a boy,
Faltering and falling and but half-awaked,
Asking to sleep again.’ Such their discourse.
Oft has a venerable roof received me;
Saint-Bruno’s once--where, when the winds were hushed,
Nor from the cataract the voice came up,
You might have heard the mole work underground,
So great the stillness there; none seen throughout,
Save when from rock to rock a hermit crossed
By some rude bridge--or one at midnight tolled
To matins, and white habits, issuing forth,
Glided along those aisles interminable,
All, all observant of the sacred law
Of Silence. Nor in this sequestered spot,
Once called ‘Sweet Waters,’ now ‘The Shady Vale,’
To me unknown; that house so rich of old,
So courteous, and by two that passed that way,
Amply requited with immortal verse,
The Poet’s payment.--But, among them all,
None can with this compare, the dangerous seat
Of generous, active Virtue. What tho’ Frost
Reign everlastingly and ice and snow
Thaw not, but gather--there is that within
Which, where it comes, makes Summer; and in thought
Oft am I sitting on the bench beneath
Their garden-plot, where all that vegetates
Is but some scanty lettuce, to observe
Those from the South ascending, every step
As tho’ it were their last,--and instantly
Restored, renewed, advancing as with songs,
Soon as they see, turning a lofty crag,
That plain, that modest structure, promising
Bread to the hungry, to the weary rest.”
[Illustration: THE HOSPICE OF THE GREAT ST. BERNARD.]