OPENING OF THE SECOND PUNIC WAR.
B.C. 217
Fall of Hanno's party.--Power of Hannibal.--Desperate valor of the
Saguntines.--Hannibal's disposition of the spoils.--Hannibal chosen
one of the suffetes.--Nature of the office.--Great excitement at
Rome.--Fearful anticipations.--New embassy to Carthage.--Warm
debates.--Fruitless negotiations.--The embassadors return.--Reply of
the Volscians.--Council of Gauls.--Tumultuous scene.--Repulse of the
embassadors.--Hannibal's kindness to his soldiers.--He matures his
designs.--Hannibal's plan for the government of Spain in his
absence.--Hannibal's brother Hasdrubal.--He is left in charge of
Spain.--Preparations of the Romans.--Their plan for the war.--The
Roman fleet.--Drawing lots.--Religious ceremonies.--Hannibal's
march.--The Pyrenees.--Discontent in Hannibal's army.--Hannibal's
address.--The discontented sent home.--Hannibal's sagacity.--The
Pyrenees passed.
When the tide once turns in any nation in favor of war, it generally
rushes on with great impetuosity and force, and bears all before it.
It was so in Carthage in this instance. The party of Hanno were thrown
entirely into the minority and silenced, and the friends and partisans
of Hannibal carried not only the government, but the whole community
with them, and every body was eager for war. This was owing, in part,
to the natural contagiousness of the martial spirit, which, when felt
by one, catches easily, by sympathy, in the heart of another. It is a
fire which, when once it begins to burn, spreads in every direction,
and consumes all that comes in its way.
Besides, when Hannibal gained possession of Saguntum, he found immense
treasures there, which he employed, not to increase his own private
fortune, but to strengthen and confirm his civil and military power.
The Saguntines did every thing they could to prevent these treasures
from falling into his hands. They fought desperately to the last,
refused all terms of surrender, and they became so insanely desperate
in the end, that, according to the narrative of Livy, when they found
that the walls and towers of the city were falling in, and that all
hope of further defense was gone, they built an enormous fire in the
public streets, and heaped upon it all the treasures which they had
time to collect that fire could destroy, and then that many of the
principal inhabitants leaped into the flames themselves, in order that
their hated conquerors might lose their prisoners as well as their
spoils.
Notwithstanding this, however, Hannibal obtained a vast amount of gold
and silver, both in the form of money and of plate, and also much
valuable merchandise, which the Saguntine merchants had accumulated in
their palaces and warehouses. He used all this property to strengthen
his own political and military position. He paid his soldiers all the
arrears due to them in full. He divided among them a large additional
amount as their share of the spoil. He sent rich trophies home to
Carthage, and presents, consisting of sums of money, and jewelry, and
gems, to his friends there, and to those whom he wished to make his
friends. The result of this munificence, and of the renown which his
victories in Spain had procured for him, was to raise him to the
highest pinnacle of influence and honor. The Carthaginians chose him
one of the _suffetes_.
The suffetes were the supreme executive officers of the Carthaginian
commonwealth. The government was, as has been remarked before, a sort
of aristocratic republic, and republics are always very cautious about
intrusting power, even executive power, to any one man. As Rome had
_two_ consuls, reigning jointly, and France, after her first
revolution, a Directory of _five_, so the Carthaginians chose annually
two _suffetes_, as they were called at Carthage, though the Roman
writers call them indiscriminately suffetes, consuls, and kings.
Hannibal was now advanced to this dignity; so that, in conjunction
with his colleague, he held the supreme civil authority at Carthage,
besides being invested with the command of the vast and victorious
army in Spain.
When news of these events--the siege and destruction of Saguntum, the
rejection of the demands of the Roman embassadors, and the vigorous
preparations making by the Carthaginians for war--reached Rome, the
whole city was thrown into consternation. The senate and the people
held tumultuous and disorderly assemblies, in which the events which
had occurred, and the course of proceeding which it was incumbent on
the Romans to take, were discussed with much excitement and clamor.
The Romans were, in fact, afraid of the Carthaginians. The campaigns
of Hannibal in Spain had impressed the people with a strong sense of
the remorseless and terrible energy of his character; they at once
concluded that his plans would be formed for marching into Italy, and
they even anticipated the danger of his bringing the war up to the
very gates of the city, so as to threaten _them_ with the destruction
which he had brought upon Saguntum. The event showed how justly they
appreciated his character.
Since the conclusion of the first Punic war, there had been peace
between the Romans and Carthaginians for about a quarter of a century.
During all this time both nations had been advancing in wealth and
power, but the Carthaginians had made much more rapid progress than
the Romans. The Romans had, indeed, been very successful at the onset
in the former war, but in the end the Carthaginians had proved
themselves their equal. They seemed, therefore, to dread now a fresh
encounter with these powerful foes, led on, as they were now to be, by
such a commander as Hannibal.
They determined, therefore, to send a second embassy to Carthage, with
a view of making one more effort to preserve peace before actually
commencing hostilities. They accordingly elected five men from among
the most influential citizens of the state--men of venerable age and
of great public consideration--and commissioned them to proceed to
Carthage and ask once more whether it was the deliberate and final
decision of the Carthaginian senate to avow and sustain the action of
Hannibal. This solemn embassage set sail. They arrived at Carthage.
They appeared before the senate. They argued their cause, but it was,
of course, to deaf and unwilling ears. The Carthaginian orators
replied to them, each side attempting to throw the blame of the
violation of the treaty on the other. It was a solemn hour, for the
peace of the world, the lives of hundreds of thousands of men, and the
continued happiness or the desolation and ruin of vast regions of
country, depended on the issue of the debate. Unhappily, the breach
was only widened by the discussion. "Very well," said the Roman
commissioners, at last, "we offer you peace or war, which do you
choose?" "Whichever you please," replied the Carthaginians; "decide
for yourselves." "War, then," said the Romans, "since it must be so."
The conference was broken up, and the embassadors returned to Rome.
They returned, however, by the way of Spain. Their object in doing
this was to negotiate with the various kingdoms and tribes in Spain
and in France, through which Hannibal would have to march in invading
Italy, and endeavor to induce them to take sides with the Romans. They
were too late, however, for Hannibal had contrived to extend and
establish his influence in all that region too strongly to be shaken;
so that, on one pretext or another, the Roman proposals were all
rejected. There was one powerful tribe, for example, called the
Volscians. The embassadors, in the presence of the great council of
the Volscians, made known to them the probability of war, and invited
them to ally themselves with the Romans. The Volscians rejected the
proposition with a sort of scorn. "We see," said they, "from the fate
of Saguntum, what is to be expected to result from an alliance with
the Romans. After leaving that city defenseless and alone in its
struggle against such terrible danger, it is in vain to ask other
nations to trust to your protection. If you wish for new allies, it
will be best for you to go where the story of Saguntum is not known."
This answer of the Volscians was applauded by the other nations of
Spain, as far as it was known, and the Roman embassadors, despairing
of success in that country, went on into Gaul, which is the name by
which the country now called France is known in ancient history.
On reaching a certain place which was a central point of influence and
power in Gaul, the Roman commissioners convened a great martial
council there. The spectacle presented by this assembly was very
imposing, for the warlike counselors came to the meeting armed
completely and in the most formidable manner, as if they were coming
to a battle instead of a consultation and debate. The venerable
embassadors laid the subject before them. They descanted largely on
the power and greatness of the Romans, and on the certainty that they
should conquer in the approaching contest, and they invited the Gauls
to espouse their cause, and to rise in arms and intercept Hannibal's
passage through their country, if he should attempt to effect one.
The assembly could hardly be induced to hear the embassadors through;
and, as soon as they had finished their address, the whole council
broke forth into cries of dissent and displeasure, and even into
shouts of derision. Order was at length restored, and the officers,
whose duty it was to express the sentiments of the assembly, gave for
their reply that the Gauls had never received any thing but violence
and injuries from Rome, or any thing but kindness and goodwill from
Carthage; and that they had no idea of being guilty of the folly of
bringing the impending storm of Hannibal's hostility upon their own
heads, merely for the sake of averting it from their ancient and
implacable foes. Thus the embassadors were every where repulsed. They
found no friendly disposition toward the Roman power till they had
crossed the Rhone.
Hannibal began now to form his plans, in a very deliberate and
cautious manner, for a march into Italy. He knew well that this was an
expedition of such magnitude and duration as to require beforehand the
most careful and well-considered arrangements, both for the forces
which were to go, and for the states and communities which were to
remain. The winter was coming on. His first measure was to dismiss a
large portion of his forces, that they might visit their homes. He
told them that he was intending some great designs for the ensuing
spring, which might take them to a great distance, and keep them for a
long time absent from Spain, and he would, accordingly, give them the
intervening time to visit their families and their homes, and to
arrange their affairs. This act of kind consideration and confidence
renewed the attachment of the soldiers to their commander, and they
returned to his camp in the spring not only with new strength and
vigor, but with redoubled attachment to the service in which they were
engaged.
Hannibal, after sending home his soldiers, retired himself to New
Carthage, which, as will be seen by the map, is further west than
Saguntum, where he went into winter quarters, and devoted himself to
the maturing of his designs. Besides the necessary preparations for
his own march, he had to provide for the government of the countries
that he should leave. He devised various and ingenious plans to
prevent the danger of insurrections and rebellions while he was gone.
One was, to organize an army for Spain out of soldiers drawn from
_Africa_, while the troops which were to be employed to garrison
Carthage, and to sustain the government there, were taken from Spain.
By thus changing the troops of the two countries, each country was
controlled by a foreign soldiery, who were more likely to be faithful
in their obedience to their commanders, and less in danger of
sympathizing with the populations which they were respectively
employed to control, than if each had been retained in its own native
land.
Hannibal knew very well that the various states and provinces of
Spain, which had refused to ally themselves with the Romans and
abandon him, had been led to do this through the influence of his
presents or the fear of his power, and that if, after he had
penetrated into Italy, he should meet with reverses, so as to diminish
very much their hope of deriving benefit from his favor or their fear
of his power, there would be great danger of defections and revolts.
As an additional security against this, he adopted the following
ingenious plan. He enlisted a body of troops from among all the
nations of Spain that were in alliance with him, selecting the young
men who were enlisted as much as possible from families of
consideration and influence, and this body of troops, when organized
and officered, he sent into Carthage, giving the nations and tribes
from which they were drawn to understand that he considered them not
only as soldiers serving in his armies, but as _hostages_, which he
should hold as security for the fidelity and obedience of the
countries from which they had come. The number of these soldiers was
four thousand.
Hannibal had a brother, whose name, as it happened, was the same as
that of his brother-in-law, Hasdrubal. It was to him that he committed
the government of Spain during his absence. The soldiers provided for
him were, as has been already stated, mainly drawn from Africa. In
addition to the foot soldiers, he provided him with a small body of
horse. He left with him, also, fourteen elephants. And as he thought
it not improbable that the Romans might, in some contingency during
his absence, make a descent upon the Spanish coast from the sea, he
built and equipped for him a small fleet of about sixty vessels, fifty
of which were of the first class. In modern times, the magnitude and
efficiency of a ship is estimated by the number of guns she will
carry; then, it was the number of banks of oars. Fifty of Hasdrubal's
ships were _quinqueremes_, as they were called, that is, they had five
banks of oars.
The Romans, on the other hand, did not neglect their own preparations.
Though reluctant to enter upon the war, they still prepared to engage
in it with their characteristic energy and ardor, when they found that
it could not be averted. They resolved on raising two powerful armies,
one for each of the consuls. The plan was, with one of these to
advance to meet Hannibal, and with the other to proceed to Sicily, and
from Sicily to the African coast, with a view of threatening the
Carthaginian capital. This plan, if successful, would compel the
Carthaginians to recall a part or the whole of Hannibal's army from
the intended invasion of Italy to defend their own African homes.
The force raised by the Romans amounted to about seventy thousand men.
About a third of these were Roman soldiers, and the remainder were
drawn from various nations dwelling in Italy and in the islands of the
Mediterranean Sea which were in alliance with the Romans. Of these
troops six thousand were cavalry. Of course, as the Romans intended
to cross into Africa, they needed a fleet. They built and equipped
one, which consisted of two hundred and twenty ships of the largest
class, that is, quinqueremes, besides a number of smaller and lighter
vessels for services requiring speed. There were vessels in use in
those times larger than the quinqueremes. Mention is occasionally made
of those which had six and even seven banks of oars. But these were
only employed as the flag-ships of commanders, and for other purposes
of ceremony and parade, as they were too unwieldy for efficient
service in action.
Lots were then drawn in a very solemn manner, according to the Roman
custom on such occasions, to decide on the assignment of these two
armies to the respective consuls. The one destined to meet Hannibal on
his way from Spain, fell to a consul named Cornelius Scipio. The name
of the other was Sempronius. It devolved on him, consequently, to take
charge of the expedition destined to Sicily and Africa. When all the
arrangements were thus made, the question was finally put, in a very
solemn and formal manner, to the Roman people for their final vote and
decision. "Do the Roman people decide and decree that war shall be
declared against the Carthaginians?" The decision was in the
affirmative. The war was then proclaimed with the usual imposing
ceremonies. Sacrifices and religious celebrations followed, to
propitiate the favor of the gods, and to inspire the soldiers with
that kind of courage and confidence which the superstitious, however
wicked, feel when they can imagine themselves under the protection of
heaven. These shows and spectacles being over, all things were ready.
In the mean time Hannibal was moving on, as the spring advanced,
toward the banks of the Iberus, that frontier stream, the crossing of
which made him an invader of what was, in some sense, Roman territory.
He boldly passed the stream, and moved forward along the coast of the
Mediterranean, gradually approaching the Pyrenees, which form the
boundary between France and Spain. His soldiers hitherto did not know
what his plans were. It is very little the custom _now_ for military
and naval commanders to communicate to their men much information
about their designs, and it was still less the custom then; and
besides, in those days, the common soldiers had no access to those
means of information by which news of every sort is now so
universally diffused. Thus, though all the officers of the army, and
well-informed citizens, both in Rome and Carthage, anticipated and
understood Hannibal's designs, his own soldiers, ignorant and
degraded, knew nothing except that they were to go on some distant and
dangerous service. They, very likely, had no idea whatever of Italy or
of Rome, or of the magnitude of the possessions, or of the power held
by the vast empire which they were going to invade.
When, however, after traveling day after day they came to the foot of
the Pyrenees, and found that they were really going to pass that
mighty chain of mountains, and for this purpose were actually entering
its wild and gloomy defiles, the courage of some of them failed, and
they began to murmur. The discontent and alarm were, in fact, so
great, that one corps, consisting of about three thousand men, left
the camp in a body, and moved back toward their homes. On inquiry,
Hannibal found that there were ten thousand more who were in a similar
state of feeling. His whole force consisted of over one hundred
thousand. And now what does the reader imagine that Hannibal would do
in such an emergency? Would he return in pursuit of these deserters,
to recapture and destroy them as a terror to the rest? or would he let
them go, and attempt by words of conciliation and encouragement to
confirm and save those that yet remained? He did neither. He called
together the ten thousand discontented troops that were still in his
camp, and told them that, since they were afraid to accompany his
army, or unwilling to do so, they might return. He wanted none in his
service who had not the courage and the fortitude to go on wherever he
might lead. He would not have the faint-hearted and the timid in his
army. They would only be a burden to load down and impede the courage
and energy of the rest. So saying, he gave orders for them to return,
and with the rest of the army, whose resolution and ardor were
redoubled by this occurrence, he moved on through the passes of the
mountains.
This act of Hannibal, in permitting his discontented soldiers to
return, had all the effect of a deed of generosity in its influence
upon the minds of the soldiers who went on. We must not, however,
imagine that it was prompted by a spirit of generosity at all. It was
policy. A seeming generosity was, in this case, exactly what was
wanted to answer his ends. Hannibal was mercilessly cruel in all
cases where he imagined that severity was demanded. It requires great
sagacity sometimes in a commander to know when he must punish, and
when it is wisest to overlook and forgive. Hannibal, like Alexander
and Napoleon, possessed this sagacity in a very high degree; and it
was, doubtless, the exercise of that principle alone which prompted
his action on this occasion.
Thus Hannibal passed the Pyrenees. The next difficulty that he
anticipated was in crossing the River Rhone.