conquered; his triumph would have stopped the progress of the world; for
great men can only act permanently by forming great nations; and no one
man, even though it were Hannibal himself, can in one generation effect
such a work. But where the nation has been merely enkindled for a while
by a great man's spirit, the light passes away with him who communicated
it; and the nation, when he is gone, is like a dead body to which magic
power had for a moment given unnatural life: when the charm has ceased,
the body is cold and stiff as before. He who grieves over the battle of
Zama should carry on his thoughts to a period thirty years later, when
Hannibal must in the course of nature have been dead, and consider how
the isolated Phoenician city of Carthage was fitted to receive and to
consolidate the civilization of Greece, or by its laws and institutions
to bind together barbarians of every race and language into an organized
empire, and prepare them for becoming, when that empire was dissolved,
the free members of the commonwealth of Christian Europe."[61]
[Footnote 61: Arnold.]
It was in the spring of 207 B.C. that Hasdrubal, after skilfully
disentangling himself from the Roman forces in Spain, and after a march
conducted with great judgment and little loss through the interior of
Gaul and the passes of the Alps, appeared in the country that now is the
north of Lombardy, at the head of troops which he had partly brought out
of Spain and partly levied among the Gauls and Ligurians on his way. At
this time Hannibal, with his unconquered and seemingly unconquerable
army, had been eight years in Italy, executing with strenuous ferocity
the vow of hatred to Rome which had been sworn by him while yet a child
at the bidding of his father, Hamilcar, who, as he boasted, had trained
up his three sons, Hannibal, Hasdrubal, and Mago, like three lion's
whelps, to prey upon the Romans. But Hannibal's latter campaigns had not
been signalized by any such great victories as marked the first years of
his invasion of Italy. The stern spirit of Roman resolution, ever
highest in disaster and danger, had neither bent nor despaired beneath
the merciless blows which "the dire African" dealt her in rapid
succession at Trebia, at Thrasymene, and at Cannae. Her population was
thinned by repeated slaughter in the field; poverty and actual scarcity
ground down the survivors, through the fearful ravages which Hannibal's
cavalry spread through their cornfields, their pasture lands, and their
vineyards; many of her allies went over to the invader's side, and new
clouds of foreign war threatened her from Macedonia and Gaul. But Rome
receded not. Rich and poor among her citizens vied with each other in
devotion to their country. The wealthy placed their stores, and all
placed their lives, at the State's disposal. And though Hannibal could
not be driven out of Italy, though every year brought its sufferings and
sacrifices, Rome felt that her constancy had not been exerted in vain.
If she was weakened by the continued strife, so was Hannibal also; and
it was clear that the unaided resources of his army were unequal to the
task of her destruction. The single deerhound could not pull down the
quarry which he had so furiously assailed. Rome not only stood fiercely
at bay, but had pressed back and gored her antagonist, that still,
however, watched her in act to spring. She was weary, and bleeding at
every pore; and there seemed to be little hope of her escape if the
other hound of old Hamilcar's race should come up in time to aid his
brother in the death grapple.
Hasdrubal had commanded the Carthaginian armies in Spain for some time
with varying but generally unfavorable fortune. He had not the full
authority over the Punic forces in that country which his brother and
his father had previously exercised. The faction at Carthage, which was
at feud with his family, succeeded in fettering and interfering with his
power; and other generals were from time to time sent into Spain, whose
errors and misconduct caused the reverses that Hasdrubal met with. This
is expressly attested by the Greek historian Polybius, who was the
intimate friend of the younger Africanus, and drew his information
respecting the Second Punic War from the best possible authorities. Livy
gives a long narrative of campaigns between the Roman commanders in
Spain and Hasdrubal, which is so palpably deformed by fictions and
exaggerations as to be hardly deserving of attention. It is clear that
in the year B.C. 208, at least, Hasdrubal outmanoeuvred Publius Scipio,
who held the command of the Roman forces in Spain, and whose object was
to prevent him from passing the Pyrenees and marching upon Italy. Scipio
expected that Hasdrubal would attempt the nearest route along the coast
of the Mediterranean, and he therefore carefully fortified and guarded
the passes of the eastern Pyrenees. But Hasdrubal passed these mountains
near their western extremity; and then, with a considerable force of
Spanish infantry, with a small number of African troops, with some
elephants and much treasure, he marched, not directly toward the coast
of the Mediterranean, but in a northeastern line toward the centre of
Gaul. He halted for the winter in the territory of the Arverni, the
modern Auvergne, and conciliated or purchased the goodwill of the Gauls
in that region so far that he not only found friendly winter quarters
among them, but great numbers of them enlisted under him, and, on the
approach of spring, marched with him to invade Italy.
By thus entering Gaul at the southwest, and avoiding its southern
maritime districts, Hasdrubal kept the Romans in complete ignorance of
his precise operations and movements in that country; all that they knew
was that Hasdrubal had baffled Scipio's attempts to detain him in Spain;
that he had crossed the Pyrenees with soldiers, elephants, and money,
and that he was raising fresh forces among the Gauls. The spring was
sure to bring him into Italy, and then would come the real tempest of
the war, when from the north and from the south the two Carthaginian
armies, each under a son of the Thunderbolt[62], were to gather together
around the seven hills of Rome.
[Footnote 62: Hamilcar was surnamed Barca, which means the Thunderbolt.
Sultan Bajazet had the similar surname of Yilderim.]
In this emergency the Romans looked among themselves earnestly and
anxiously for leaders fit to meet the perils of the coming campaign.
The senate recommended the people to elect, as one of their consuls,
Caius Claudius Nero, a patrician of one of the families of the great
Claudian house. Nero had served during the preceding years of the war
both against Hannibal in Italy and against Hasdrubal in Spain; but it is
remarkable that the histories which we possess record no successes as
having been achieved by him either before or after his great campaign of
the Metaurus. It proves much for the sagacity of the leading men of the
senate that they recognized in Nero the energy and spirit which were
required at this crisis, and it is equally creditable to the patriotism
of the people that they followed the advice of the senate by electing a
general who had no showy exploits to recommend him to their choice.
It was a matter of greater difficulty to find a second consul; the laws
required that one consul should be a plebeian; and the plebeian nobility
had been fearfully thinned by the events of the war. While the senators
anxiously deliberated among themselves what fit colleague for Nero could
be nominated at the coming comitia, and sorrowfully recalled the names
of Marcellus, Gracchus, and other plebeian generals who were no more,
one taciturn and moody old man sat in sullen apathy among the conscript
fathers. This was Marcus Livius, who had been consul in the year before
the beginning of this war, and had then gained a victory over the
Illyrians. After his consulship he had been impeached before the people
on a charge of peculation and unfair division of the spoils among his
soldiers; the verdict was unjustly given against him, and the sense of
this wrong, and of the indignity thus put upon him, had rankled
unceasingly in the bosom of Livius, so that for eight years after his
trial he had lived in seclusion in his country seat, taking no part in
any affairs of State. Latterly the censors had compelled him to come to
Rome and resume his place in the senate, where he used to sit gloomily
apart, giving only a silent vote. At last an unjust accusation against
one of his near kinsmen made him break silence, and he harangued the
house in words of weight and sense, which drew attention to him and
taught the senators that a strong spirit dwelt beneath that unimposing
exterior.
Now, while they were debating on what noble of a plebeian house was fit
to assume the perilous honors of the consulate, some of the elder of
them looked on Marcus Livius, and remembered that in the very last
triumph which had been celebrated in the streets of Rome, this grim old
man had sat in the car of victory, and that he had offered the last
thanksgiving sacrifice for the success of the Roman arms which had bled
before Capitoline Jove. There had been no triumphs since Hannibal came
into Italy. The Illyrian campaign of Livius was the last that had been
so honored; perhaps it might be destined for him now to renew the
long-interrupted series. The senators resolved that Livius should be put
in nomination as consul with Nero; the people were willing to elect him:
the only opposition came from himself. He taunted them with their
inconsistency in honoring the man whom they had convicted of a base
crime. "If I am innocent," said he, "why did you place such a stain on
me? If I am guilty, why am I more fit for a second consulship than I was
for my first one?" The other senators remonstrated with him, urging the
example of the great Camillus, who, after an unjust condemnation on a
similar charge, both served and saved his country. At last Livius ceased
to object; and Caius Claudius Nero and Marcus Livius were chosen consuls
of Rome.
A quarrel had long existed between the two consuls, and the senators
strove to effect a reconciliation between them before the campaign. Here
again Livius for a long time obstinately resisted the wish of his
fellow-senators. He said it was best for the State that he and Nero
should continue to hate one another. Each would do his duty better when
he knew that he was watched by an enemy in the person of his own
colleague. At last the entreaties of the senate prevailed, and Livius
consented to forego the feud, and to cooperate with Nero in preparing
for the coming struggle.
As soon as the winter snows were thawed, Hasdrubal commenced his march
from Auvergne to the Alps. He experienced none of the difficulties which
his brother had met with from the mountain tribes. Hannibal's army had
been the first body of regular troops that had ever traversed their
regions; and, as wild animals assail a traveller, the natives rose
against it instinctively, in imagined defence of their own habitations,
which they supposed to be the objects of Carthaginian ambition. But the
fame of the war, with which Italy had now been convulsed for twelve
years, had penetrated into the Alpine passes, and the mountaineers now
understood that a mighty city southward of the Alps was to be attacked
by the troops whom they saw marching among them. They now not only
opposed no resistance to the passage of Hasdrubal, but many of them, out
of love of enterprise and plunder, or allured by the high pay that he
offered, took service with him; and thus he advanced upon Italy with an
army that gathered strength at every league. It is said, also, that some
of the most important engineering works which Hannibal had constructed
were found by Hasdrubal still in existence, and materially favored the
speed of his advance. He thus emerged into Italy from the Alpine valleys
much sooner than had been anticipated. Many warriors of the Ligurian
tribes joined him; and, crossing the River Po, he marched down its
southern bank to the city of Placentia, which he wished to secure as a
base for his future operations. Placentia resisted him as bravely as it
had resisted Hannibal twelve years before, and for some time Hasdrubal
was occupied with a fruitless siege before its walls.
Six armies were levied for the defence of Italy when the long-dreaded
approach of Hasdrubal was announced. Seventy thousand Romans served in
the fifteen legions of which, with an equal number of Italian allies,
those armies and the garrisons were composed. Upward of thirty thousand
more Romans were serving in Sicily, Sardinia, and Spain. The whole
number of Roman citizens of an age fit for military duty scarcely
exceeded a hundred and thirty thousand. The census taken before the
commencement of the war had shown a total of two hundred and seventy
thousand, which had been diminished by more than half during twelve
years. These numbers are fearfully emphatic of the extremity to which
Rome was reduced, and of her gigantic efforts in that great agony of her
fate. Not merely men, but money and military stores, were drained to the
utmost, and if the armies of that year should be swept off by a
repetition of the slaughters of Thrasymene and Cannae all felt that Rome
would cease to exist.
Even if the campaign were to be marked by no decisive success on either
side her ruin seemed certain. In South Italy, Hannibal had either
detached Rome's allies from her or had impoverished them by the ravages
of his army. If Hasdrubal could have done the same in Upper Italy; if
Etruria, Umbria, and Northern Latium had either revolted or been laid
waste, Rome must have sunk beneath sheer starvation, for the hostile or
desolated territory would have yielded no supplies of corn for her
population, and money to purchase it from abroad there was none. Instant
victory was a matter of life or death. Three of her six armies were
ordered to the North, but the first of these was required to overawe the
disaffected Etruscan. The second army of the North was pushed forward,
under Porcius, the praetor, to meet and keep in check the advanced
troops of Hasdrubal; while the third, the grand army of the North, which
was to be under the immediate command of the consul Livius, who had the
chief command in all North Italy, advanced more slowly in its support.
There were similarly three armies in the South, under the orders of the
other consul, Claudius Nero.
The lot had decided that Livius was to be opposed to Hasdrubal, and that
Nero should face Hannibal. And "when all was ordered as themselves
thought best, the two consuls went forth from the city, each his several
way. The people of Rome were now quite otherwise affected than they had
been when L. Æmilius Paulus and C. Terentius Varro were sent against
Hannibal. They did no longer take upon them to direct their generals, or
bid them despatch and win the victory betimes, but rather they stood in
fear lest all diligence, wisdom, and valor should prove too little; for
since few years had passed wherein some one of their generals had not
been slain, and since it was manifest that, if either of these present
consuls were defeated or put to the worst, the two Carthaginians would
forthwith join, and make short work with the other, it seemed a greater
happiness than could be expected that each of them should return home
victor, and come off with honor from such mighty opposition as he was
like to find. With extreme difficulty had Rome held up her head ever
since the battle of Cannae; though it were so, that Hannibal alone, with
little help from Carthage, had continued the war in Italy. But there was
now arrived another son of Hamilcar, and one that in his present
expedition had seemed a man of more sufficiency than Hannibal himself;
for whereas, in that long and dangerous march through barbarous nations,
over great rivers and mountains that were thought unpassable, Hannibal
had lost a great part of his army, this Hasdrubal, in the same places,
had multiplied his numbers, and gathering the people that he found in
the way, descended from the Alps like a rolling snowball, far greater
than he came over the Pyrenees at his first setting out of Spain. These
considerations and the like, of which fear presented many unto them,
caused the people of Rome to wait upon their consuls out of the town,
like a pensive train of mourners, thinking upon Marcellus and Crispinus,
upon whom, in the like sort, they had given attendance the last year,
but saw neither of them return alive from a less dangerous war.
Particularly old Q. Fabius gave his accustomed advice to M. Livius, that
he should abstain from giving or taking battle until he well understood
the enemy's condition. But the consul made him a froward answer, and
said that he would fight the very first day, for that he thought it long
till he should either recover his honor by victory, or, by seeing the
overthrow of his own unjust citizens, satisfy himself with the joy of a
great though not an honest revenge. But his meaning was better than his
words."
Hannibal at this period occupied with his veteran but much-reduced
forces the extreme south of Italy. It had not been expected either by
friend or foe that Hasdrubal would effect his passage of the Alps so
early in the year as actually occurred. And even when Hannibal learned
that his brother was in Italy, and had advanced as far as Placentia, he
was obliged to pause for further intelligence before he himself
commenced active operations, as he could not tell whether his brother
might not be invited into Etruria, to aid the party there that was
disaffected to Rome, or whether he would march down by the Adriatic Sea.
Hannibal led his troops out of their winter quarters in Bruttium, and
marched northward as far as Canusium. Nero had his head-quarters near
Venusia, with an army which he had increased to forty thousand foot and
two thousand five hundred horse, by incorporating under his own command
some of the legions which had been intended to act under other generals
in the South. There was another Roman army, twenty thousand strong,
south of Hannibal at Tarentum. The strength of that city secured this
Roman force from any attack by Hannibal, and it was a serious matter to
march northward and leave it in his rear, free to act against all his
depots and allies in the friendly part of Italy, which for the two or
three last campaigns had served him for a base of his operations.
Moreover, Nero's army was so strong that Hannibal could not concentrate
troops enough to assume the offensive against it without weakening his
garrisons and relinquishing, at least for a time, his grasp upon the
southern provinces. To do this before he was certainly informed of his
brother's operations would have been a useless sacrifice, as Nero could
retreat before him upon the other Roman armies near the capital, and
Hannibal knew by experience that a mere advance of his army upon the
walls of Rome would have no effect on the fortunes of the war. In the
hope, probably, of inducing Nero to follow him and of gaining an
opportunity of outmanoeuvring the Roman consul and attacking him on his
march, Hannibal moved into Lucania, and then back into Apulia; he again
marched down into Bruttium, and strengthened his army by a levy of
recruits in that district. Nero followed him, but gave him no chance of
assailing him at a disadvantage. Some partial encounters seem to have
taken place; but the consul could not prevent Hannibal's junction with
his Bruttian levies, nor could Hannibal gain an opportunity of
surprising and crushing the consul.[63] Hannibal returned to his former
headquarters at Canusium, and halted there in expectation of further
tidings of his brother's movements. Nero also resumed his former
position in observation of the Carthaginian army.
[Footnote 63: The annalists whom Livy copied spoke of Nero's gaining
repeated victories over Hannibal, and killing and taking his men by tens
of thousands. The falsehood of all this is self-evident. If Nero could
thus always beat Hannibal, the Romans would not have been in such an
agony of dread about Hasdrubal as all writers describe. Indeed, we have
the express testimony of Polybius that the statements which we read in
Livy of Marcellus, Nero, and others gaining victories over Hannibal in
Italy must be all fabrications of Roman vanity. Polybius states that
Hannibal was never defeated before the battle of Zama; and in another
passage he mentions that after the defeats which Hannibal inflicted on
the Romans in the early years of the war, they no longer dared face his
army in a pitched battle on a fair field, and yet they resolutely
maintained the war. He rightly explains this by referring to the
superiority of Hannibal's cavalry, the arm which gained him all his
victories. By keeping within fortified lines, or close to the sides of
the mountains when Hannibal approached them, the Romans rendered his
cavalry ineffective; and a glance at the geography of Italy will show
how an army can traverse the greater part of that country without
venturing far from the high grounds.]