THRASYMENE.
The two new Consuls that year were Cnœus Servilius and Flaminius,
and they had between them some sixty thousand troops. By so
unexpectedly crossing the Apennines, and marching through the awful
marshes of the overflowed Arno, Hannibal had entirely evaded Cnœus
Servilius, who was left at Ariminum on the Adriatic, but he now found
Flaminius in Etruria, blocking the way to Rome with a large force at a
place called Arretium. Accordingly, Hannibal, while still collecting
horses and resting his troops, held one day a council of war to
consider the situation.
There were present, Mago, General Hanno, Maharbal, Hasdrubal the
pioneer, who had succeeded Monomachus as head of the engineering
department, Silenus the scribe, with writing materials handy, and
last, but by no means least upon this occasion, Sosilus, who had, by
this time, entirely undertaken the duties of head of the intelligence
department of the army, which were duties in which he excelled. He had
recently organised an excellent system of spies on a large scale, and
the scheme was working admirably. Nothing took place in the Roman
camp, or, for that matter, in Rome itself, without his being informed;
and of all occurrences of interest, Sosilus made voluminous notes
under alphabetical headings, with a view both to present utility and
to incorporation in his future history of the war. Chœras returned
from a horse-raiding expedition just as the proceedings were
commencing. He was not entitled by his rank in the army to be present
at a council of war, but Hannibal, who was very partial to him on
account of his ready humour, called him in as he saw him marching,
with a band of captured horses, past the open door of the council
tent. Hannibal was still suffering agonies from the attack of
ophthalmia, which had already cost him one eye. Nevertheless, with his
usual indomitable courage, as he sat at the head of the council table,
with a silk bandage over the diseased eye, he looked as unconcerned
and jovial as possible. No one could, for a moment, have imagined that
he was actually suffering dreadful pain. Such was the man, that he was
even able to jest at his own condition.
“Well, most worthy Sosilus, thou seest in me now a hitherto unknown
species--a one-eyed General--therefore, thou, as head of the
intelligence department, wilt have to be in future not only ‘the ears
of the army,’ but the unlucky General’s missing eye as well. Ah, well,
what the gods have decreed is just, and I doubt not but that with
thine aid my one remaining eye will be good enough to show me the way
to Rome.
“But now to business. What canst thou tell me about the Consul
Flaminius now at Arretium? I wish to have details as to his personal
character and his history, as well as the numbers of his troops at
present; for it is often from knowing the previous career and
characteristics of one’s foe that one knows best how to combat him.”
“Most rightly said, my lord Hannibal,” replied Sosilus, while fumbling
over his very voluminous notes. “I see that thou art of the same mind
as the cunning Ulysses, who, according to Homer, upon a very similar
occasion at the siege of Troy--but here is Flaminius; that matter of
Ulysses can rest till later on, when, if any here present hath an hour
or so to spare, I will with pleasure relate it.”
Unseen as he thought, but in reality observed by the scribe, Chœras
made a grimace at Hannibal expressive of delight at escaping the
history of Ulysses, at which the General smiled sympathetically in
return. But now, in a business-like manner, Sosilus read aloud, as
though from a dictionary:
“Flaminius-Caius, now Consul for the second time, is of plebeian
origin and much hated by the patricians on account of his ever
supporting the plebeian interests. Hath now with him at Arretium,
30,000 troops of Romans and the allies combined, of whom 6,000 are
cavalry. Was tribune ten years ago, and, against the advice and wishes
of the Senate, passed a law, called the Flaminia lex, for the division
of the lands of the conquered Senones, a Gallic tribe in Umbria, among
the poorer Roman citizens. Is founder of the great Circus called the
Circus Flaminius, and likewise builder of the great military road from
Rome to Aquilæa and Ariminum, known as the via Flaminia or Flaminian
way.
“Six years ago, when Consul for the first time, crossed the River
Padus--the first Roman ever to do so--and made war upon the Insubrian
Gauls, who still detest his memory. On that occasion the hostile
Senate declared that the gods had shown prodigies and omens against
his success, and ordered him by letter to return. But he left the
letter unopened until he had first crossed the Po and defeated the
Gauls. On account of that success he is more hated than ever by the
patrician class, who have lately seen more prodigies upon the occasion
of his recent re-election by the people to the Consulate. Their object
is evidently to represent him to the people as an unlucky man, or one
unblessed by the gods.
“Some of the portents that have been seen are as follows:
“An ox in the cattle market ran into a house, rushed upstairs, and
threw itself out of a third storey window.
“A four months’ old baby in the vegetable market, loudly shouted
‘Triumph!’
“A cat gave birth to twenty-four kittens in the Forum.
“Showers of stones fell in various parts of the city.
“The statues of the gods perspired freely.
“A mouse squeaked during the election, which the Senate therefore
sought to cancel.”
This last of the list of portents against the unlucky Flaminius was
too much for the gravity of Chœras, who burst out laughing loudly.
“Lucky for that mouse,” he exclaimed, “that he did not squeak in the
Forum near the mother of the twenty-four catlings; he would soon then
have understood the meaning of portents better than apparently doth
this thick-headed Flaminius.”
There was general merriment at this sally, when Hannibal remarked:
“Yea, thou hast said the right word, Chœras. Thick-headed he
evidently is, that is plainly his character if he can thus resist the
Senate and the patricians with their portents, and calmly go on his
own way despite all their evil omens. Many thanks unto thee, Sosilus,
for thine excellent information. From it, I now judge this Flaminius
to be a headstrong man, and one somewhat over self-reliant. Thus I
think it highly probable that we shall be able to draw him into a
pitched battle without his waiting for the other consular army to come
and join him. At any rate we will try. This is my plan.
“Methinks, if we now start to the southward, ravaging and burning as
we go, and pass him by, he will soon be drawn after us, and in rage at
seeing the blazing and devastated country, will rush headlong to his
doom. For we will select such ground as may be favourable to ourselves
for fighting upon, and then, methinks, most worthy Chœras,” he turned
to the wag, “that the thick-headed general, when pitched against the
one-eyed general, will soon find out to his cost that the mouse did
not squeak for nothing.”
“Ay, it will probably rain bullocks and babies about that period!”
retorted Chœras, “a very good omen for Carthage whenever that
happens!”
At this remark even the unhappy Maharbal grimly smiled. Then the
meeting broke up, Chœras repeating a verse aloud to Sosilus as they
rose to go.
“With bullocks raining over head,
While babies strew the soil;
No matter then how thick his head,
’Twill squash like olive oil.
“There! learned man! I make thee a present of that verse for thy
history of the war, which contains, I fear me, far too much of bald
prose. A verse or two of such singular merit will far increase the
value of thy work. Therefore take it gratis; ’tis a present, I say.”
“With many thanks, I gladly accept the gift,” replied the sage with a
merry twinkle in his eye. “And now I in return will make thee also a
present, oh Chœras, and one which will greatly increase the value of
thy brains, no less a present, indeed, than the relation of that story
about Ulysses that I began just now. It will not take me much more
than an hour and a half to give it thee from end to end, with all the
references.”
“Oh, but I have business with the horses,” exclaimed Chœras, with a
look of horror, and gathering up his sword and buckler, he made for
the door of the tent. But the sage was not to be defrauded of his
revenge this time. He seized the escaping poet by his armour cuirass
at the back of the neck, and held him firmly.
“I too will come and see the horses, and can tell thee the history as
we go; but of one thing be assured. I leave thee not until thou hast
heard it all--ay, until the very last word. Thinkest thou that I am so
mean as to accept a valuable present from thee for nothing? Nay,
indeed, on the contrary. For as Achilles, when disguised as a woman at
the Court of Lycomedes, remarked one day to the fair Deidamia--”
What Achilles said to Deidamia none of the laughing onlookers present
ever knew, for at this moment the struggling Chœras broke out of the
tent, the pedant, who was a small man, still clinging to the back of
his neck with all the tenacity of a weasel clinging to a rabbit. He
was determined to be fairly revenged upon the poet at last, and he had
got his opportunity, and did not intend to relinquish his victim!
Next day the Carthaginian army commenced to march southward through
Etruria, and, just as in Hannibal’s dream, the monster of the
devastation of Italy followed in their wake. Every person they met was
slaughtered, every building put to the flames.
Making a detour, Flaminius and his army were avoided, but the Roman
Consul was soon aware of his adversary’s passage from the thick clouds
of smoke with which the whole countryside was filled. Furious at this,
he, as Hannibal had anticipated, without waiting for any aid to come
to him from Ariminum, hurried blindly in pursuit. And Hannibal,
laughing in his sleeve, quietly lay in wait for him in the mountain
passes by the northern shores of Lake Thrasymene.
Never in the course of history has there been such an example of a
complete surprise of the whole of a large army as at this battle. For
over-night, aided by the configuration of the ground, which was
admirably adapted to his purpose, the Carthaginian general arranged
his various forces in ambush in several places, by the side of the
lake and the pass leading to the valley through which the Roman force
had to march in their fancied pursuit. Behind the hill on one side,
near the entrance to the pass, were hidden all the Balearic slingers
and the light-armed troops. On the other side, facing them, were the
Numidian cavalry and the Gallic infantry; while upon a steep hill,
which almost entirely closed the end of the valley, only leaving,
indeed, a very narrow and precipitous roadway near the lake, stood
Hannibal himself, with the whole of the Spanish and Libyan heavy
infantry.
At early dawn, when a thick mist enveloped everything down to the
water’s edge, Flaminius and his army, like flies into a trap, plunged
recklessly into the pass and the valley, which were so soon to be
whitened with their bones. The Carthaginians on the heights could
plainly hear through the mist the tramp of the 30,000 enemies marching
below them.
In the meantime, concealed by the mist, they gradually, in their
impatience, edged further and further towards the slopes, down which
they but awaited the command to charge. They could plainly--the white
heavy mist having now settled upon the lower ground--see their own
comrades similarly preparing on every surrounding hill-top.
When Hannibal, who was himself waiting in a fever of expectation,
judged by the ear that the head of the Roman columns had reached the
foot of the hill whereon he stood, he gave in a loud tone the order to
charge. According to preconceived arrangement, the cry was instantly
taken up and repeated by every general, captain, prefect, tribune, or
other officer of any and every kind stationed around the amphitheatre
of hills. In a second, the whole army was in motion, and then with a
roar like thunder, from the combined frantic shouting, the clattering
of the rocks and the clanging of the armour, thousands of men poured
down on every side at once to charge the unseen and unsuspecting foe
below. Never, indeed, in the history of the world has there been
planned and executed such a terrible surprise! The Romans had, many of
them, not even time to draw their swords, but were slain where they
stood. In three hours’ time the whole of the Roman army, with the
exception of six thousand men of the van, who, in the mist, managed to
force their way through to a hillock, where they stood bewildered,
were cut down, or driven into the lake. Here, while standing up to
their necks in the water, they were charged by the Carthaginian
cavalry, who despatched them with their spears, the Consul Flaminius
himself being one of the killed.
When at length the mist cleared, and the six thousand Romans who had
taken refuge on the hill saw the awful scene of carnage below, they
retreated to a neighbouring Etruscan village. But Hannibal, thinking
that in his present unhappy condition of mind the more fighting that
Maharbal could get the better it would be for him, sent him the next
day with all the light-armed troops and the Iberians to besiege the
village, which he did so successfully that the whole of the six
thousand surrendered to him on his promising to them their lives.
Altogether, the appalling number of fifteen thousand Romans were
actually slain in this battle, and, including the six thousand who
surrendered to Maharbal, fifteen thousand were taken prisoners, more
than half of whom were wounded. Hannibal, on his side, lost fifteen
hundred men, but they were chiefly Gauls, whom he could best afford to
lose.
Nor was this the end of the Roman disasters, for no sooner had the
news of this terrible defeat reached Rome than it was followed by the
tidings of a battle gained by Maharbal alone. For Cnœus Servilius,
having heard that Hannibal had entered Etruria and was near Flaminius,
started at once with the intention of joining him. But his excellent
intentions had been frustrated completely by the diplomatic move made
by Hannibal in setting fire to all the houses and devastating the
whole country of Etruria before the very eyes of Flaminius. The result
had been, to quote the flippant Chœras, that it had rained, if not
exactly bullocks and babies, at all events blows and butchery at
Thrasymene. Servilius, however, like a good general, anxious to help
his fellow consul, had sent on a body of four thousand cavalry in
advance, thinking that even if he could not himself arrive in time
with the infantry, these horsemen would. They were all gallant troops,
well mounted, and under the command of a certain Caius Centenius. Had
these troops arrived in time for the battle of Lake Thrasymene they
would probably have been slaughtered there and then. But they were
three or four days too late. The delay, however, made but little
difference in the result. For old Sosilus got timely warning from his
spies of their approach, and informed Hannibal upon the very day that
Maharbal took the six thousand prisoners. Again, with the object of
keeping Maharbal at constant hard campaigning work, so as not to give
him time for thinking, Hannibal deputed to him a separate and large
command, which should by rights of seniority more fitly have been
entrusted to Mago or to General Hanno. He sent him off with all the
light-armed troops and a considerable body of Iberian cavalry to seek
for and attack Centenius when found. Maharbal came up with the Romans
in a day or two, and he and his men, both horse and foot, being full
of confidence and valour after Thrasymene, charged at sight.
They charged with such impetuosity, the light-armed footmen by
Maharbal’s directions clinging to the stirrups of the horsemen, that
at the first shock half of the Romans were unhorsed. The footmen had
let go the stirrups just before the shock of the two bodies of cavalry
meeting, but now they bounded upon the dismounted Romans and slew them
to a man, while the horsemen pursued the remainder to a hill, not far
distant, where they defended themselves right valiantly for the night.
But the following morning, charging gallantly up the hill, the young
Numidian leader defeated them utterly. The fury of his charge was so
great that the enemy, intimidated, broke without waiting for him to
come to close quarters, and would have fled, but that they found
confronting them a large party of Balearic slingers and archers, and
some of the cavalry which Maharbal had sent round behind the hill, to
their rear. Finding themselves thus taken between two fires, they
threw down their arms, and although before Maharbal was able to stay
the carnage a good many of the Romans were killed by the slingers and
archers, most of them fell alive into his hands. Thus, with a large
number of prisoners, and with an immense booty of fine horses and
beautiful armour, Maharbal marched back to the headquarters near the
Thrasymene, covered with glory and honour. And after this week of
perpetual fighting and carnage he ceased to be haunted by the spirit
of Eugenia, whose image now soon faded from his mind, although he
never forgot her completely so long as he lived.
Great were the rejoicings in the Carthaginian ranks after these
tremendous successes, but for all that, Hannibal did not feel himself
strong enough to attack Rome for the present.
Dividing the prisoners who were actual Romans among his troops, and
releasing all the prisoners of the allies, telling them that he made
war for Italy herself against the Romans only, he started once more.
Gathering together all the spoils and the captured horses, of which he
had an immense number, and taking his wounded with him, he now
indulged himself in what may be described as a kind of military
promenade. Entirely unopposed, but plundering and killing all the male
inhabitants whom he met, just to indulge in his hatred for the Romans,
he leisurely marched across Central Italy to the province of Umbria,
and passing through Umbria, travelled on slowly to the southward
through Picenum, where he arrived with all his army upon the shores of
the Adriatic. Here he established a fortified camp in the midst of a
most fertile country.
Right glad, indeed, were he and his army to behold the sea once more;
for they had not seen salt water now for many months. Right glad also
were the troops to rest, for they had become wearied of carrying along
all the wealth that they had amassed. Moreover, from the hardships of
the campaign, many of the men were suffering from scurvy, and the
horses were covered with scab. Fortunately, the Carthaginians had
captured among other things great quantities of old wine, and by
continuous bathing of their wounds with this, both horses and men were
soon restored to health and strength.
Meanwhile, the state of despair to which the proud Romans had been
reduced can be better imagined than described. The whole of the
inhabitants of the city of Rome, who had hitherto been ever accustomed
to hear of nought but the victories of their troops, were now reduced
to a condition of abject terror, and it is probable that had Rome but
been attacked it would have fallen.
From this camp in this fertile country, Hannibal was able to send
messengers by sea to Carthage, and on from Carthage to his daughter in
New Carthage, with tidings of his wonderful career of success.
Again he now offered to Maharbal the opportunity not only of returning
to New Carthage to join his beloved Elissa, but of also proceeding
first of all, as his envoy, to carry the good news and a great portion
of the Roman spoils to Carthage itself, thus giving him an opportunity
of revisiting his own native land in Libya. But as he had refused
before, so now did Maharbal sturdily refuse again to leave his
general’s side.
“Nay, nay, Hannibal,” he replied. “I am not one of those who change
their minds. I have sworn to remain with thee, and remain with thee I
will. I shall doubtless, if I be spared, have plenty of time to pass
with Elissa after the war is over. And,” he continued, laughing, “as
for seeing my native country, my native country is the back of a
war-horse.”
“Then wouldst thou probably see plenty of thy native country in
Spain,” replied Hannibal; “for, from all accounts, my brother
Hasdrubal is likely to be hard pushed to it there shortly. For not
only is Cnœus Scipio there, but Publius Scipio, he whom thou didst
wound at the Ticinus, hath proceeded thither also, and doubtless many
of those discontented Iberians, especially the tribes north of the
Ebro, will desert to their standard. Fighting there will be in Iberia,
and plenty of it, as well as here, and thy strong right arm may, for
all I know, be needed some day even to defend the honour of her whom
thou lovest so much in New Carthage. So think of it, lad, before
definitely refusing. ’Twill be thy last chance.”
Maharbal’s bronzed face turned a shade paler, and he started at the
idea of harm happening to Elissa. For a second, and a second only, he
hesitated, then made up his mind once for all.
“Tush!” he said resolutely, “Elissa will be safe enough in New
Carthage. Not all the Scipios in the world could take that city.
Hannibal, my place is, as I have said, here by thy side. I remain with
thee.”
“Thank ye, lad!” said Hannibal warmly; and, moved by so much devotion,
he stretched forth his hand, and warmly clasped that of his faithful
adherent.
“And, now,” he said, “as that is settled, come with me across the
camp, and let us seek Mago, for I must send him in thy stead to
Carthage, and on, after a while, into Spain. Perhaps, after all, it
would be as well if one of the sons of Hamilcar Barca should be seen
just now for a while in Carthage, to tell of his brother’s successes,
and to ask for the reinforcements of men and money that we now sorely
need. Especially, they should send us men, for the waste of life hath
been terrible indeed since we marched out of Saguntum. Yet both thou
and I will miss Mago, lad; and who knows if we shall ever either of us
see him again.”
“Ay, Hannibal, I shall indeed miss Mago, for I love him truly like a
brother. But yonder he is, standing by the guard tent; I will step
across and call him to thee.”
“Nay, let us go together, lad, for I am anxious to take a glance round
the camp, and we can talk to him as we go.”
So together they went, and joined Mago.