Two thousand one hundred years ago[21] a boy was born at Carthage, whose
name and exploits have rendered his country immortal. His character
stands forth with unparalleled lustre even on the bright pages of
ancient story. It is hard to say whether he was greater as a patriot,
statesman, or a general. Invincible in determination, inexhaustible in
resources, fertile in stratagem, patient of fatigue, cautious in
council, bold in action, he possessed also that singleness of purpose,
that unity of object, which more than all is the foundation of great
achievements. Love of his country was his one and ruling principle.
Hatred of its enemies his lasting and indelible passion. To these
objects he devoted throughout life his great capacity: for this he
lived, for this he died. From the time that he swore hatred to the
Romans, while yet a boy, on the altars of Carthage, he never ceased to
watch their designs, to contend with their forces, to resist their
ambition. Alone of all his countrymen he measured the extent of the
danger with which his fatherland was threatened by the progress of their
power. Alone he stood forth with the strength of a giant to combat it.
But for the shameful desertion of his victorious army, by the jealousy
of the rival faction at Carthage, he would have crushed the power of the
legions, and given to Carthage, not Rome, the empire of the world. As it
was, he brought them to the brink of ruin, and achieved triumphs over
their armies greater than all other nations put together. After he was
overthrown, it was comparatively an easy task to conquer the world. For
this he received in life exile, disgrace, and death: for this he has
since obtained immortality. At his name the heart of the patriot has
thrilled through every subsequent age. To illustrate his virtues, genius
and learning have striven in every succeeding country; and the greatest
praise which the world can yet bestow on warriors is to compare them to
Hannibal.
No name, even in the majestic annals of Roman victories, stands forth
with lustre equal to that of the Carthaginian hero. They were made by
their countrymen, but his countrymen were made by him. Scipio, Pompey,
Caesar himself, did not evince equal capacity: they had lesser
difficulties to contend with; they owed more to the support of others,
and did not do so much by the strength of their individual arm, by the
energy of their individual will. The institutions, the laws, the ideas,
the manners, the very language of the Romans, were made for conquest:
they sprang up from the earth a race of armed men. Virtue with them was
derived from "manly valour:" an army was designated by a word which
signified "exercised:"[22] their generals were borne aloft to conquest
on the shields of the legions. Such was the spirit of the soldiers, that
they were fairly compelled to victory by the presence which urged them
on; such the determination of the people, that the armies were pressed
forward to the conquest of the world as by a supernatural power. The
purposes of Providence, mysterious at the time, apparent afterwards,
never were more clearly evinced than in the peculiar impress
communicated to the Roman institutions. But the Carthaginians were a
race, not of warriors, but of colonists. They rose to greatness, not by
their military spirit, but by their commercial prosperity; their
outposts were, not the fortified camp, but the smiling seaport.
Extending as far as the waters of the Mediterranean roll, they spread
inwards from the sea-coast, not outwards from the camp; the navy was the
arm of their strength, not their land forces. Their institutions,
habits, national spirit, and government, were all adapted to the
extension of commerce, to the growth of manufactures, to the spread of a
colonial empire. What, then, must have been the capacity of the man who
could, by his single efforts, alter the character of a whole people;
chain victory at land to the standards of a maritime republic; and bow
down to the earth, on their own territory, that rival power, whose
legions erelong triumphed over the armies of all the military monarchies
of the world?
The auxiliaries formed a considerable part, in point of numbers, of the
Roman forces; but the strength of the legions was to be found in the
Roman citizens. It was that indomitable body of men, ever flowing out,
yet ever full, animated with fiery passions, but directed by consummate
prudence, panting for rapine and conquest, but patient of all the toils
by which they were to be attained, which constituted the strength of the
armies which conquered the world. But the Carthaginians had no body of
citizens capable of forming such a force. They were nothing but a great
and powerful seaport town, with its adjacent villas spreading along the
coast of Africa. The people of Dido had not, like those of Romulus,
established off-shoots in the interior. No three-and-thirty colonies
awaited the commands of the senate of Carthage, as they did of the
consuls in the time of Fabius, to recruit the national armies. Twenty
thousand native citizens was all, at its last extremity at Zama, that
this mighty republic, which had so nearly achieved the conquest of the
Capitol, could fit out to defend their country. The strength of the
Punic armies consisted in what was merely an accessory to the Roman, the
auxiliaries. It was the Numidian horse, the Balearic slingers, the
Spanish infantry, the Gaulish broadswords, which proved so formidable in
the ranks of Hannibal. It was literally, as Livy says, a "colluvies
omnium gentium," which rolled down from the Alps, under his direction,
to overwhelm the Romans on their own hearths. Twenty different
languages, Polybius tells us, were not unfrequently spoken at the same
time in the Carthaginian camp. What, then, must have been the capacity
of the general who could still the jealousies, and overcome the
animosities, and give unity to the operations of a vast army, composed
of so many different tribes and people, and mould them all into so
perfect a form, that, for fifteen years that he remained in Italy after
the first great defeats, the consuls never once ventured to measure
their strength with him in a pitched battle?
If there is any thing more astonishing than another in the history of
the Roman Republic, it is the unconquerable spirit, the persevering
energy, the invincible determination with which, under every calamity,
and often in the very extremity of adverse fortune, they combined to
struggle for the superiority, and at length attained it--not so much by
conquering as by wearing out their adversaries. In no period of their
long and glorious annals was this transcendent quality more strikingly
evinced than in the second Punic War, when, after the battle of Cannae,
Capua, the second city of Italy, yielded to the influence of Hannibal,
and nearly a half of the Roman colonies, worn out by endless exactions
in men and money, refused to send any further succours. The heroic
spirit the Roman senate then evinced, the extraordinary sacrifices they
made, may, without exaggeration, be pronounced without parallel in the
annals of mankind, if we reflect on the length of time during which
these sacrifices were required. But while this invincible spirit
augments our admiration of the Roman character, and makes us feel that
they indeed deserved that mighty dominion which they afterwards
attained, it takes much from the merit of their individual commanders.
It was almost impossible to avoid ultimate success with such armies to
lead, and so heroic a people to sustain the efforts and furnish the
muniments of war. But the case was very different at Carthage. So
vehement was the spirit of party which had seized upon its inhabitants,
in consequence of the great accession of democratic power which had been
conceded, fatally for the state, as Polybius tells us, a short time
before to the people, that Hannibal could rely on no assistance on his
own government. Though he brought the Romans to the very brink of ruin,
and placed final victory within the grasp, as it were, of his country,
yet they would not put out their hand to snatch it. They were more
jealous of him than afraid of their enemies. Though he descended to the
southern extremity of Italy, and drew near to Sicily, in order to obtain
from the African shores the necessary succours to recruit his armies,
wasted by the very number of his victories; and though they had during
great part of the time the superiority at sea--yet he received no
supplies of men or money from home during the fifteen years he carried
on the war in Italy, with the exception of the army which his brother
Hamilcar raised in Spain, and led across the Pyrenees and the Alps to
perish on the Metaurus. What he did, he did by himself, and by his own
unaided efforts. It was the contributions levied on the cities he
conquered, which furnished his supplies; it was the troops who flocked
to his standard from the provinces he wrested from the Romans, which
filled up the chasms in the ranks he led from Saguntum. Not more than
twenty-six thousand men descended with him from the Alps; of forty-eight
thousand who fought at Cannae, thirty thousand were Gaulish auxiliaries.
There is no example recorded in history of a general doing things so
great with means so small, and support from home so inconsiderable.
Every great commander of whom we read in military annals, possessed in a
considerable degree the art of securing the affections and inspiring the
confidence of his soldiers. Alexander the Great, Caesar, Charles XII.,
Napoleon, exercised this ascendancy in the highest degree. The anecdotes
preserved in the pages of Plutarch, and which every schoolboy knows by
heart, prove this beyond a doubt of the heroes of the ancient world; the
annals of the last century and our own times demonstrate that their
mantle had descended to the Swedish and French heroes. The secret of
this marvellous power is always to be found in one mental quality. It is
magnanimity which entrances the soldier's heart. The rudest breasts are
accessible to emotion, from the display of generosity, self-denial, and
loftiness of purpose in their commanders. When Alexander in the deserts
of Arabia, on his return from India, poured the untasted water on the
sand, he assuaged the thirst of a whole army; when Caesar addressed the
Tenth Legion in mutiny by the title of "Quirites," the very word, which
told them they were no longer the comrades of their general, subdued
every heart; when Charles XII., on his officers declaring themselves
unable to undergo the fatigue of further watching, desired them to
retire to rest, for he would go the rounds himself, he silenced every
murmur in his army; when Napoleon yielded up his carriages to the
wounded in the Russian retreat, or drew aside his suite to salute,
uncovered, the Austrian wounded conveyed from Austerlitz, and said,
"Honour to the brave in misfortune!" he struck a chord which vibrated in
every heart of his vast array. No general, ancient or modern, possessed
this key to the generous affections in a higher degree than Hannibal;
and none ever stood so much, or so long, in need of its aid. In truth,
it was the secret of his success; the magic power which so long held
together his multifarious array. We have few anecdotes indicating this
ascendancy; for the historians of the Romans, or their subjects the
Greeks, were in no hurry to collect traits to illustrate the character
of their enemy. But decisive evidence of its existence, and almost
supernatural power, is to be found in the fact, that without the aid of
reinforcements, and scarce any remittances, from Carthage, he maintained
the war in the heart of Italy with mercenary troops collected from every
country of the earth, against the native soldiers of the bravest and
most warlike people on the earth. We read of no mutinies or disobedience
of orders among his followers. It were hard to say whether the fiery
Numidian, the proud and desultory Spaniard, the brave but inconstant
Gaul, or the covetous Balearic, was most docile to his direction, or
obedient to his will. Great indeed must have been the ascendency
acquired by one man over such various and opposite races of men, usually
the prey of such jealousies and divisions; and whom the most powerful
coalition in general finds so much difficulty in retaining in
subjection.
Of Hannibal's political wisdom and far-seeing sagacity, ancient history
is full. Alone of all his contemporaries, he clearly, and from his very
infancy, perceived the extent of the danger which threatened his country
from the insatiable ambition and growing power of the Romans; alone he
pointed out the only mode in which it could be successfully combated. He
was at once the Burke, the Pitt, and the Wellington of his country.
Beyond all doubt, if his advice had been followed, and his enterprises
duly supported, Carthage would have been victorious in the second Punic
War. It was because his countrymen were not animated with his heroic
spirit, nor inspired with his prophetic foresight, that they failed.
They were looking after gain, or actuated by selfish ambition, while he
was straining every nerve to avert danger. When he swore hatred to the
Roman on the altar at nine years of age, he imbibed a principle which
the judgment of his maturer years told him was the only means of saving
his country. To the prosecution of this object he devoted his life. From
his first entrance into public duty till his last hour, when he
swallowed poison to avoid being delivered up to the Romans, he never
ceased to combat their ambition with all the powers of his gigantic
intellect. If history had preserved no other proof of his profound
political discernment, it would be sufficiently established by the
memorable words he addressed to the senate of Carthage on the probable
fate of Rome:--"Nulla magna civitas diu quiescere potest. Si fores
hostem non habet, domi invenit; ut praevalida corpora ab externis causis
tutae videntur, sed suis ipsa viribus conficiuntur. Tantum nimirum ex
publicis malis sentimus quantum ad res privatas attinet, nec in eis
quidquam acrius quam pecuniae damnum stimulat." If anyone doubts the
truth and profound wisdom of these remarks, let him reflect on the exact
demonstration of these truths which was afforded two thousand years
after, in the British empire. "Si monumentum quaeris, circumspice."
He constantly affirmed that it was in Italy alone that Rome was
vulnerable, and that by striking hard and often there, she might be
conquered. He did not despair of effecting the deliverance of the world
by a conflict on their own shores, even after the battle of Zama had to
all appearance decisively settled the conflict in favour of the Capitol,
and nothing remained to combat the legions but the unwarlike soldiers of
the Eastern monarch. His own campaigns demonstrate that he was right:
the Gauls and the Carthaginians in different ages brought the Romans to
the brink of ruin; but it was by victories on the Tiber that Brennus and
Hannibal penetrated to their gates. Nor is it difficult to see to what
cause this comparative weakness at home of so great a military power was
owing. Rome was not merely a powerful state, but the head of a great
military confederacy; the resources which, partly by force, partly by
inclination, and the natural appetite of mankind for victory and
plunder, were ranged on her side, were in great part derived from
foreign states. When she carried the war into foreign states, this
formidable mass of auxiliaries doubled the strength of her legions; when
she was assailed at home, one half of them were lost, or appeared in the
ranks of her enemies. The same cause appeared at a subsequent period in
the campaigns of Napoleon: his armies were innumerable, his force
irresistible, as long as he headed the forced confederacy of western
Europe, and he invaded Russia with five hundred thousand men; but when
the disaster of Moscow, and the resurrection of Germany, brought the
Russians into France, the boasted strength of the empire disappeared,
its allies passed over to the other side, and the mighty conqueror was
reduced to a painful defensive with fifty thousand men on the plains of
Champagne.
The Roman historians affirm that these great military virtues were
balanced by corresponding vices. Every scholar knows the inimitable
description of his character drawn by Livy. "Has tantas viri virtutes
ingentia vitia aequabant:--inhumana crudelitas; perfidia plusquam Punica;
nihil veri, nihil sancti; nullus deoram metus, nullum jusjurandum, nulla
religio." This, however, was his character as drawn by his enemies; and
by enemies who had suffered so much from his ability, that they were
incapable of forming a correct judgment on the subject. But the truth of
modern history has dispelled the illusion, and gathered facts sufficient
even from their prejudiced sources to demonstrate that the moral virtues
of Hannibal equalled his intellectual capacity. Certain it is, by their
own admission, that his generosity on several important occasions
afforded a example which the Romans would have done well to imitate, but
which they shewed themselves incapable of following. It was the
judicious clemency which he showed to the allies, which at length won
over so many of the Italian states to his side; and if this is to be
ascribed to policy, what are we to say to the chivalrous courtesy which
prompted him to send back the dead body of his inveterate enemy
Marcellus, surprised and slain by his Numidian horsemen, to obtain the
honours of sepulture from his countrymen? The Romans complained of his
cruelty; but men feel cruelty keenly when it is exercised on themselves;
and there are no instances recorded of his exceeding the established and
universal customs, ruthless as they were, of ancient warfare. Certain it
is, that nothing he ever did equalled the savage and cold-blooded
atrocity with which they tortured and massacred the citizens of Capua
and Syracuse, when they were again subdued by their arms. Hannibal's
disposition appears to have been gay and cheerful; there are many
instances recorded of his indulgence, in presence of danger, in a gaiety
of temper more akin to that of Henry IV. than the usual stern
determination of ancient warriors. On one memorable occasion, when his
army was in danger, and the spirit of his troops unusually depressed, he
indulged in mirth and jests to such an extent in his tent, that he set
his whole officers in a roar of laughter; and these joyful sounds, heard
by the soldiers without, restored confidence to the army, from the
belief that no anxious thoughts clouded the brows of their chiefs.
Hannibal, it is known, preserved a diary, and wrote a history of his
campaigns, which was extant at a very late period in the ancient world.
What an inestimable treasure would the journal of the private thoughts
of such a man have been! Modern times have no more irreparable loss to
mourn.
The just pride and elegant flattery of the French historians has often
led them to compare Napoleon's passage of the Great St Bernard to
Hannibal's passage of the Pennine Alps: but without detracting from the
well-earned fame of the French general, it may safely be affirmed that
his achievement will bear no sort of comparison with that of the
Carthaginian hero. When Napoleon began the ascent of the Alps from
Martigny, on the shores of the Rhone, above the lake of Geneva, he found
the passage of the mountains cleared by the incessant transit of two
thousand years. The road, impracticable for carriages, was very good for
horsemen and foot passengers, and was daily traversed by great numbers
of both in every season of the year. Comfortable villages, on the ascent
and the descent, afforded easy accommodation to the wearied soldiers
both by night and by day; the ample stores of the monks at the summit,
and the provident foresight of the French generals, had provided a meal
to every man and horse that passed. No hostile troops opposed their
passage: the guns were drawn up in sledges made of hollowed firs; and in
four days from the time that they began the ascent from the banks of the
Rhone, the French troops, without losing a man, stood on the Doria
Baltea, the increasing waters of which flowed towards the Po, amidst the
gardens and vineyards, and under the sun of Italy. But the case was very
different, when Hannibal crossed from the shores of the Durance to the
banks of the Po. The mountain sides, not yet cleared by centuries of
laborious industry, presented a continual forest, furrowed at every
hollow by headlong Alpine torrents; bridges there were none to cross
these perpetually recurring obstacles; provisions, scanty at all times
in those elevated solitudes, were then nowhere to be found, having been
hid by the affrighted inhabitants on the approach of the invaders; and a
powerful army of mountaineers occupied the entrance of the defiles,
defended with desperate valour the gates of their country, and, when
dispersed by the superior discipline and arms of Hannibal's soldiers,
still beset the ridges above their line of march, and harassed his
troops by continual hostility. When the woody region was passed, and the
vanguard emerged into the open mountain pastures, which lead to the
verge of perpetual snow, fresh difficulties awaited them. The turf, from
the gliding down of newly fallen snow on those steep declivities, was so
slippery, that it was often scarcely possible for the men to keep their
feet; the beasts of burden lost their footing at every step, and rolled
down in great numbers into the abysses beneath; the elephants became
restive amidst privations and a climate to which they were totally
unaccustomed; and the strength of the soldiers, worn out with incessant
marching and fighting, began to sink before the continued toil of the
ascent. Horrors, formidable to all, but in an especial manner terrible
to African soldiers, awaited them at the summit. It was now the end of
October; winter in all its severity had already set in on those lofty
solitudes; the mountain sides, silent and melancholy even at the height
of summer, when enamelled with flowers and dotted with flocks, presented
then an unbroken sheet of snow; the blue lakes which are interspersed
over the level valley at their feet, were frozen over, and
undistinguishable from the rest of the dreary expanse, and a boundless
mass of snowy peaks arose on all sides, presenting apparently an
impassable barrier to their further progress.
But it was then that the greatness of Hannibal shone forth in all its
lustre. "That great general," says Arnold, "who felt that he now stood
victorious on the ramparts of Italy, and that the torrent which rolled
before him was carrying its waters to the rich plains of Cisalpine Gaul,
endeavoured to kindle his soldiers with his own spirit of hope. He
called them together; he pointed out the valley beneath, to which the
descent seemed the work of a moment. 'That valley,' he said, 'is Italy;
it leads us to the country of our friends the Gauls, and yonder is our
way to Rome!' His eyes were eagerly fixed on that point of the horizon,
and as he gazed, the distance between seemed to vanish, till he could
almost fancy that he was crossing the Tiber and assailing the
Capitol[23]." Such were the difficulties of the passage and the descent
on the other side, that Hannibal lost thirty-three thousand men from the
time he left the Pyrenees till he entered the plains of Northern Italy;
and he arrived on the Po with only twelve thousand Africans, eight
thousand Spanish infantry, and six thousand horse. Napoleon's army which
fought at Marengo was only twenty-nine thousand, but he had lost no men
in the passage of the Alps, and only a few in the difficult passage
across the precipices of Mont Albaredo, opposite the fort of Bard, in
the valley of the Doria Baltea. It is ridiculous, after this, to compare
the passages of the Alps by Napoleon to their crossing by Hannibal. The
French emperor has many other titles, too well founded, to warrant a
comparison with the Carthaginian hero, to render it necessary to recur
to one which is obviously chimerical.
It is a question which has divided the learned since the revival of
letters, by what pass Hannibal crossed the Alps. The general opinion of
those who have studied the subject, inclines to the opinion that he
crossed by the Little St Bernard; and to this opinion Arnold inclines.
He admits, however, with his usual candour, that, "in some respects,
also, Mont Cenis suits the description of the march better than any
other pass[24]." After having visited and traversed on foot both passes,
the author of this paper has no hesitation in expressing his decided
conviction, that he passed by Mont Cenis. His reasons for this opinion
are these:--1. It is mentioned by Polybius, that Hannibal reached the
summit of the Alps on the _ninth_ day after he had left the plains of
Dauphine. This period coincides well with what might have then been
required to ascend, as the country was, on the neighbourhood of Grenoble
or Echelles; while the ascent to the summit of the Little St Bernard,
would not require more than half the time. 2. The narrow defile of St
Jean de Maurienne, which leads from the plain of Montmelian to the foot
of Mont Cenis, corresponds much more closely with the description, given
both in Livy[25] and Polybius[26], of that in which the first serious
engagement took place between Hannibal and the Mountaineers, two days
after they had left the plains of Dauphine, than the comparatively open
valley which leads to the foot of the Little St Bernard. 3. From the
summit of the Little St Bernard you can see nothing of Italy, nor any
thing approaching to it; a confused sea of mountains alone meets the eye
on every side. Whereas, from the southern front of the summit of Mont
Cenis, _not only the plains of Piedmont are distinctly visible_ at the
opening of the lower end of the valley of Susa, which lies at your feet,
_but the Appenines beyond them can be seen_. To settle this important
point, the author made a sketch of both on the spot, on the 24th
October, the very time of Hannibal's passage, which is still in his
possession. How precisely does this coincide with the emphatic words of
Hannibal, as recorded by Polybius, showing to them the plains around the
Po, ([Greek: "ta peri ton Padon pedia,"]) and, reminding them of the
good disposition of the Gauls who dwelt there, he further showed them
the situation of Rome itself.[27] The Appenines, beyond the plain of
Piedmont, seen from Mont Cenis, might correctly be taken as the
direction, at least, where Rome lay. 4. The steep and rocky declivity by
which the _old_ road formerly descended to the valley of Susa, and where
the travellers descended in sledges, till Napoleon's magnificent
_chaussee_ was formed, which makes great circuit to the westward,
corresponds perfectly to the famous places mentioned both by Livy and
Polybius, where the path had been torn away by a recent avalanche, and
the fabulous story of the vinegar was placed. This place in Mont Cenis
is immediately below the summit of the pass, and may now be seen
furrowed by a roaring torrent, amidst dark ledges of rock; the
corresponding chasm on the southern side of the Little St Bernard is
_below_ the reach of avalanches.[28] 5. On the summit of Mont Cenis is
still to be seen a "_white_ rock" called the "Roche Blanche," which
answers to the [Greek: "leuchopetron,"] mentioned by Polybius, on the
summit of the Alps which Hannibal crossed, whereas there is nothing like
it on the Little St Bernard, at least of such magnitude as to have
formed a place of night refuge to Hannibal. 6. What is perhaps most
important of all, it is expressly mentioned by Polybius, that "_in one
day's time_ the chasm in the mountain sides was repaired, so that there
was room for the horses and beasts of burden to descend. They were
immediately conducted down, _and having gained_ the plains, were sent
away to pasture in places where no snow had fallen. * * * * * Hannibal
then descended last, with all the army, and thus, on the _third day_,
gained the plains[29]." This description of the distances tallies
perfectly with the passage by Mont Cenis, for it is only half a day's
journey to descend from the summit of that pass to Susa, at the head of
the wide and open valley of the same name, where ample pasturage is to
be found; and short day's journey more brings the traveller to the plain
of Piedmont. But it is utterly irreconcilable with the idea that the
Carthaginians passed by the Little St Bernard; for from its summit to
the plains of Ivrea is four days' hard marching for an army, through the
narrow valley of Aosta, destitute for the most part of forage. 7. This
valley of Aosta is very rocky and narrow, and affords many positions
where a handful of men can arrest an army; in one of which, that of
Bard, a small Austrian garrison stopped Napoleon for twenty-four hours;
yet Polybius and Livy concur in stating, that after he descended the
mountains, the Carthaginians experienced no molestation on their way to
the Insubrians, their allies, on the banks of the Po. This is
inexplicable if they were struggling for three days through the narrow
and rocky defiles of the valley of Aosta, but perfectly intelligible if
they were traversing in half a day the broad and open valley of Susa,
offering no facilities to the attacks of the mountaineers.
But if Napoleon's passage of the St Bernard can never be compared to
that of Hannibal over Mont Cenis, it is impossible to deny that there is
a marked and striking similarity, in some respects, between the career
of the two heroes. Both rose to eminence, for the first time, by the
lustre of their Italian campaigns; the most brilliant strokes of both
were delivered almost on the same ground, immediately after having
surmounted the Alps; both headed the forces of the democratic party in
the country whose warriors they led, and were aided by it in those which
they conquered; both had a thorough aversion for that party in their
hearts; both continued, by their single genius, for nineteen years in
hostility against a host of enemies; both were overthrown at last, in a
single battle, on a distant shore, far from the scene of their former
triumphs; both were driven into exile by the hatred or apprehensions of
their enemies; both, after having reached the summit of glory, died
alone and unbefriended in a distant land; both have left names immortal
in the rolls of fame. It is no wonder that such striking similarities
should have forcibly struck the imaginations of men in every land. It is
remarkable that many of the greatest patriots who ever existed have died
in exile, after having rendered inestimable services to their country,
by which they were persecuted or betrayed. Themistocles, Hannibal,
Scipio Africanus, Belisarius, Napoleon, belong to this bright band. It
is not difficult to see that the cause of it is to be found in their
very greatness itself. They were too powerful to be tolerated by their
countrymen: they were too formidable to be endured by their enemies.
It is hard to say whether Hannibal's military capacity appeared most
strongly in strategy, that is, the general direction of a campaign, or
in tactics, that is, the management of troops on the field of battle. In
both he was unrivalled in ancient times. His wonderful ability in
strategy, and in preparing his multifarious forces for the grand
enterprise for which they were destined, appears from the very outset of
his military career. Devoted to the destruction of Rome from his youth
upwards, and steady in the determination to over-throw that inveterate
enemy to his country, he had yet the difficult and apparently hopeless
task of accomplishing this by land warfare, when Carthage had no native
born army in the slightest degree commensurate to its execution. To form
such an army was his first object, and this he accomplished by his
successes in Spain, before the second Punic War began. In the interval
between the first and the second of those dire contests, he was
assiduously employed in conquering, organizing, and disciplining the
forces by which his great object was to be effected; and such was his
capacity, that, notwithstanding the untoward issue of the first Punic
War, the Carthaginians gradually regained the ascendant in the
Peninsula, while his manners were so winning, that erelong he attracted
all its military strength to his standard. The Roman influence was
limited to the narrow and broken territory which lies between the Ebro
and the Pyrenees, and forms the modern province of Catalonia, while all
the rest of the Peninsula obeyed the orders of Hannibal. It was in Spain
that he formed that great military force which so soon after shook to
its foundation the solid fabric of Roman power; he there erected the
platform on which his engines of assault were placed. When he began his
triumphant march from Saguntum to attempt the conquest of Rome, after
surmounting both the Pyrenees and the Alps, he was at the head of a
splendid army of ninety thousand foot, and twelve thousand horse, with
forty elephants; the most powerful array, if the quality and discipline
of the troops is taken into account, which Europe had yet seen. Of this
great force, not more than a fourth part were Carthaginian soldiers; so
mightily had the military force of Hannibal increased with the
prosperous issue of his Peninsular campaigns.
Had the Carthaginian general succeeded in reaching the banks of the
Tiber with the half even of this force, the fate of Rome was sealed, and
the glories of the Capitol were extinguished for ever. But he had
innumerable difficulties to contend with--physical, warlike, and
moral--before he reached the Italian plains. His march from the Ebro to
the Po was a continued combat. The mountain tribes of Catalonia,
celebrated in every age for their obstinate and persisting hostility,
were then firm in the Roman interest. The mountain strength of the
Pyrenees; the rapid currents of the Rhone; the cruel warfare, and yet
more dangerous peace of the Gauls; the desperate valour of the
inhabitants of the Alps; the inclemency of the weather on their snowy
summits, all required to be overcome, and they thinned his ranks more
than all the swords of the legions. Instead of ninety thousand foot, and
twelve thousand horse, with which he broke up from Saguntum, he brought
only twenty thousand infantry, and six thousand horse to the fields of
Piedmont. No less than seventy-six thousand men had been lost or left to
preserve the communications, since they left the Valencian plains. So
slender was the force with which this great commander commenced, on its
own territory, the conflict with a power which ere three years had
elapsed, carried on the war with fourteen legions, numbering an hundred
and seventy thousand combatants, between the auxiliaries and Roman
soldiers. It is in the magnitude of this disproportion, and the
extremely small amount of the reinforcement which he received from home
during the next fifteen years that the war lasted, that the decisive
proof of the marvellous capacity of the Carthaginian general is to be
found. It is a similar disproportion which has marked the campaigns of
Napoleon in Italy in 1796, and in France in 1814, with immortality.
The first necessity was to augment his numbers, and fill up the wide
chasm in his ranks, by fresh enrolments in the territory in which he had
entered. The warlike habits and predatory dispositions of the Cisalpine
Gauls afforded the means of obtaining this necessary succour. The
victory over the Roman horse on the Ticino, when the superiority of the
Numidian cavalry was first decisively displayed, had an immediate effect
in bringing a crowd of Gaulish recruits to his standard. The
Carthaginian general was careful in his first engagement to hazard only
his cavalry, in which arm he was certain of his superiority. The battle
of the Trebia which followed, and which first broke the strength of the
legions, excited an unbounded ferment in Lombardy, and brought the
Gaulish youths in crowds, to follow the career of plunder and revenge
under his victorious standards. Recruits speedily were not awanting; the
only difficulty was to select from the crowds which presented themselves
for enrolment. It was like the resurrection of Prussia in 1813, against
the tyrannic domination of the French emperor. Winter was spent in
organizing these rude auxiliaries, and reducing them to something like
military discipline; and so effective was their co-operation, and so
numerous the reinforcements which their zeal brought to his standard,
that in the following spring he crossed the Apennines, and traversed the
marshes of Volterra, at the head of nearly fifty thousand men, of whom
above one half were Gaulish recruits. And when the Consul Flaminius
attempted to stop him on the margin of the Thrasymene Lake, where the
stream still called "_Sanguinetto_" murmurs among the old oaks, the
children of the soil, the total defeat of his army with the loss of
thirty thousand men, lost the Romans the whole north of Italy, and
carried consternation to the gates of the Capitol.
After so great a victory within a few days' march of the Tiber, and no
considerable army intervening to arrest the advance of the conqueror, it
may seem extraordinary that Hannibal did not advance straight to the
capital, and terminate the war by its destruction: still more
inexplicable does it at first sight appear, that, instead of doing so,
he should have turned to the left, and passing Rome, moved into the
south of Italy; thus losing in a great measure his communication with
Lombardy, which had hitherto proved so invaluable a nursery for his
army. But it was in these very movements, more perhaps than in any
others of his life, that the wisdom and judgment of this great general's
conduct were conspicuous. The chief difficulty he had now to contend
with in Italy was the reduction of its fortified towns. The innumerable
wars which had so long prevailed in the southern parts of the Peninsula,
between the Etruscans, the Romans, and the Samnites, had studded the
declivities of the Apennines with castles and fortified burghs, the
walls of which in great part still remain, and constitute not the least
of the many interesting objects which Italy presents to the traveller.
Towards the reduction of those cities, the tumultuary array of the
Gauls, numerous and efficient as they were in the field, could not
afford any assistance. Engines for assault or the reduction of walls
they had none; funds for the maintenance of a protracted methodical
warfare were not to be looked for, in their savage and half-cultivated
plains. The communication with Spain by the circuitous route of the
Pyrenees and Alps, had been found, by dear-bought experience, to be
difficult in the extreme. It could only be opened again, by an army
nearly as powerful as that which had first penetrated through it, under
the guidance of his energetic will. It was in the south of the
Peninsula, amidst its opulent cities and long-established civilization,
that the resources for a war of sieges could alone be looked for. It was
there, too, that the most direct, the shortest, and in fact the only
secure channel of communication with Carthage could be opened: to a
Punic as to a British army, the true base of operations is the sea, the
worst possible base for that of any other military power. Beyond all
question, it was to the judicious choice of the south of Italy as his
stronghold, and the combined skill and policy by which he contrived to
detach a large part of its rich republics, with their harbours and
places of strength, from the Roman alliance, that the subsequent
protraction of the war for fifteen years is to be ascribed.
Such, however, was the terror of the Roman arms, and the influence
acquired by the combined steadiness and severity of their rule, that
this irruption into the south of Italy was not at first attended with
the desired effect. In vain he had, in all preceding engagements sent
back all the prisoners from the allies without any ransom, and treated
them in the most generous manner; in vain, in all preceding marches, he
had cautiously abstained from pillaging or laying waste their lands.
Still the Roman influence was predominant. Not one state in alliance had
revolted: not one Roman colony had failed in its duty to the parent
state. The Gauls alone, who now formed half his army, had repaired in
crowds to his standard since he had descended from the Alps. A long
season of inactivity followed, during which the Romans were too prudent
to hazard a conflict with Hannibal in the field, and he was too weak in
siege artillery to attempt the reduction of any of their fortified
cities. But the time was not lost by that indefatigable commander, and
the following passage from Arnold will both show how it was employed,
and serve as a fair specimen of the style of that powerful and lamented
writer:--
"Never was Hannibal's genius more displayed than during this
long period of inactivity. More than half of his army consisted
of Gauls, of all barbarians the most impatient and uncertain in
their humour, whose fidelity, it was said, could only be
secured by an ever open hand; no man was their friend any
longer than he could gorge them with pay or plunder. Those of
his soldiers who were not Gauls, were either Spaniards or
Africans; the Spaniards were the newly conquered subjects of
Carthage, strangers to her race and language, and accustomed to
divide their lives between actual battle and the most listless
bodily indolence; so that when one of their tribes first saw
the habits of a Roman camp, and observed the centurions walking
up and down before the praetorium for exercise, the Spaniards
thought them mad, and ran up to guide them to their tents,
thinking that he who was not fighting could do nothing but lie
at his ease and enjoy himself. Even the Africans were
foreigners to Carthage; they were subjects harshly governed,
and had been engaged within the last twenty years in a war of
extermination with their masters. Yet the long inactivity of
winter quarters, trying to the discipline of the best national
armies, was borne patiently by Hannibal's soldiers; there was
neither desertion nor mutiny amongst them; even the fickleness
of the Gauls seemed spell-bound; they remained steadily in
their camp in Apulia, neither going home to their own country,
nor over to the enemy. On the contrary, it seems that fresh
bands of Gauls must have joined the Carthaginian army after the
battle of Thrasymenus, and the retreat of the Roman army from
Ariminum. For the Gauls and the Spaniards and the Africans were
overpowered by the ascendancy of Hannibal's character; under
his guidance they felt themselves invincible; with such a
general the yoke of Carthage might seem to the Africans and
Spaniards the natural dominion of superior beings; in such a
champion the Gauls beheld the appointed instrument of their
country's gods to lead them once more to assault the
Capitol."--Vol. iii. 131-132.
It was the battle of Cannae which first shook the fidelity of the Roman
allies, and by opening to the Carthaginians the gates of Capua, gave
them the command of a city in the south of Italy, second only to Rome
herself in wealth and consideration. Of this great and memorable battle,
when upwards of eighty thousand Romans fell, and their power was, to all
appearance, irrecoverably broken, Arnold give the following interesting
account:--
"The skirmishing of the light-armed troops preluded as usual to
the battle; the Balearian slingers slung their stones like hail
into the ranks of the Roman line, and severely wounded the
consul AEmilius himself. Then the Spanish and Gaulish horse
charged the Romans front to front, and maintained a standing
fight with them, many leaping off their horses and fighting on
foot, till the Romans, outnumbered and badly armed, without
cuirasses, with light and brittle spears, and with shields made
only of ox-hide, were totally routed and driven off the field.
Hasdrubal, who commanded the Gauls and Spaniards, followed up
his work effectually; he chased the Romans along the river,
till he had almost destroyed them, and then, riding off to the
right, he came up to aid the Numidians, who, after their
manner, had been skirmishing indecisively with the cavalry of
the Italian allies. These, on seeing the Gauls and Spaniards
advancing, broke away and fled; the Numidians, most effective
in pursuing a flying enemy, chased them with unweariable speed,
and slaughtered them unsparingly; while Hasdrubal, to complete
his signal services on this day, charged fiercely upon the rear
of the Roman infantry.
"He found its huge masses already weltering in helpless
confusion, crowded upon one another, totally disorganized, and
fighting each man as he best could, but struggling on against
all hope, by mere indomitable courage. For the Roman columns on
the right and left, finding the Gaulish and Spanish foot
advancing in a convex line or wedge, pressed forwards to assail
what seemed the flanks of the enemy's column; so that, being
already drawn up with too narrow a front by their original
formation, they now became compressed still more by their own
movements, the right and left converging towards the centre,
till the whole army became one dense column, which forced its
way onwards by the weight of its charge, and drove back the
Gauls and Spaniards into the rear of their own line. Meanwhile,
its victorious advance had carried it, like the English column
at Fontenoy, into the midst of Hannibal's army; it had passed
between the African infantry on its right and left, and now,
whilst its head was struggling against the Gauls and Spaniards,
its long flanks were fiercely assailed by the Africans, who,
facing about to the right and left, charged it home, and threw
it into utter disorder. In this state, when they were forced
together into one unwieldy crowd, and already falling by
thousands, whilst the Gauls and Spaniards, now advancing in
their turn, were barring further progress in front, and whilst
the Africans were tearing their mass to pieces on both flanks,
Hasdrubal, with his victorious Gaulish and Spanish horsemen,
broke with thundering fury upon their rear. Then followed a
butchery such as has no recorded equal, except the slaughter of
the Persians in their camp, when the Greeks forced it after
the battle of Plataea. Unable to fight or fly, with no quarter
asked or given, the Romans and Italians fell before the swords
of their enemies, till, when the sun set upon the field, there
were left, out of that vast multitude, no more than three
thousand men alive and unwounded, and these fled in straggling
parties, under cover of the darkness, and found a refuge in the
neighbouring towns. The consul AEmilius, the proconsul Cn.
Servilius, the late master of the horse M. Minucius, two
quaestors, twenty-one military tribunes, eighty senators, and
eighty thousand men, lay dead on the field of battle. The
consul Varro, with seventy horsemen, had escaped from the rout
of the allied cavalry on the right. The loss of the victors was
only six thousand men."--ARNOLD, iii. 140-143.
The dreadful battle of Cannae bears a close resemblance in many important
particulars to two of the most important which have been fought in
modern times--those of Agincourt and Aspern. The close agglomeration of
legionary soldiers in the Roman centre, the tempest of stones which fell
on their ranks from the slings of the Balearic marksmen, and the laying
bare of the huge unwieldy mass by the defeat of the cavalry on their
flanks was precisely the counterpart of what occurred in the army of
Philippe of Valois in the first of these memorable fields, when the
French men-at-arms, thirty-two deep, were thrown into confusion by the
incessant discharges of the English archers, their flanks laid open by
the repulse of the vehement charge of their horse by Henry V., and their
dense columns slaughtered where they stood, unable alike to fight or to
fly, by the general advance of the English billmen. Still closer,
perhaps, is the resemblance to the defeat of the French centre under
Lannes, which penetrated in a solid column into the centre of the
Austrian army at Aspern. Its weight, and the gallantry of the leading
files, brought the huge mass even to the reserves of the Archduke; but
that gallant prince at length stopped their advance by six regiments of
Hungarian grenadiers; the German artillery and musketry tore their
flanks by an incessant discharge on either side; and at length the
formidable column was forced back like an immense wild beast bleeding at
every pore, but still combating and unsubdued, to the banks of the
Danube. The repulse of the formidable English column, fourteen thousand
strong, which defeated in succession every regiment in the French army
except the last reserve of two regiments of guards at Fontenoy, and the
still more momentous defeat of the last attack of the Imperial Guard at
Waterloo, also bear a striking and interesting resemblance to the rout
of the Roman centre after it had penetrated the Carthaginian line at the
battle of Cannae. In truth, the attack in column, formidable beyond
measure if not met by valour and combated with skill, is exposed to the
most serious dangers if the line in its front is strong and resolute
enough to withstand the impulse, till its flanks are overlapped and
enveloped by a cross fire from the enemies' lines, converging inwards,
as Colborne and Maitland did at Waterloo on the flank of the Old Guard;
and thence it is that the French attack in column, so often victorious
over the other troops in Europe, has never succeeded against the close
and destructive fire of the English infantry; guided by the admirable
dispositions with which Wellington first repelled that formidable onset.
Arnold, whose account of Hannibal's campaigns in Italy is by much the
best which has been given in modern times to the world, and more
scientific and discriminating than either of the immortal narratives of
the ancient historians, has clearly brought out two important truths
from their examination. The first is, that it was Hannibal's superiority
in cavalry, and, above all, the incomparable skill and hardihood of his
Numidian horse, which gave him what erelong proved an undisputed
superiority in the field; the second, that it was the strength of the
towns in the Roman alliance in the south of Italy, and the want of siege
artillery on the side of the Carthaginian general, which proved their
salvation. So undisputed did the superiority of the invading army
become, that, after the battle of Cannae, it was a fixed principle with
the Roman generals, during the thirteen subsequent campaigns that
ensued in Italy, never on any occasion, or with any superority of force
whatever, to hazard a general battle. Such was their terror of the
African horse, that the sight of a few Numidian uniforms in the fields
was sufficient to make a whole consular army stand to its arms. So
paralysed was the strength of Rome by the slaughter of Cannae, that Capua
soon after revolted and became the headquarters of Hannibal's army; and,
out of the thirty Roman colonies, no less than twelve sent in answer to
the requisitions of the consuls, that they had not a man or a penny more
to send, and that Rome must depend on its own resources. Never, not even
when the disasters of Thrasymene and Cannae were first heard, was such
consternation apparent in Rome, as when that mournful resolution was
communicated in the Forum.
In truth, such was the prostration of the strength of Rome by these
terrible defeats, that the republic was gone but for the jealousy of the
Carthaginian government, which hindered them from sending any efficient
succours to Hannibal, and the unconquerable spirit of the Roman
aristocracy, which rose with every disaster which ensued, and led them
to make efforts in behalf of their country which appear almost
superhuman, and never have been equalled by any subsequent people on
earth. Republican as he is in his ideas, Arnold, with his usual candour
as to facts, admits, in the strongest manner, those prodigious efforts
made by the patricians of Rome on this memorable occasion; and that the
issue of the contest, and with it the fate of the civilized world,
depended on their exertions. Out of 270,000 men, of whom the citizens of
Rome consisted before the war, no less than seventy thousand were in
arms in its fourth year. No such proportion, has ever since been heard
of in the world. One in a hundred of the whole population is the utmost
which experience has shown a state is capable of bearing, for any length
of time, in her regular army. "As Hannibal," says he, "utterly eclipses
Carthage, so, on the contrary, Fabius, Marcellus, Claudius Nero, even
Scipio himself, are as nothing when compared to the spirit, and wisdom,
and power of Rome. The senate, which voted its thanks to its political
enemy Varro, 'because he had not despaired of the commonwealth,' and
which disdained either to solicit, or to reprove, or to threaten, or in
any way to notice the twelve colonies which had refused to send their
accustomed supplies of men for the army, is far more to be honoured than
the conqueror of Zama. Never was the wisdom of God's providence more
manifest than in the issue of the struggle between Rome and Carthage. It
was clearly for the good of mankind that Hannibal should be 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 an 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."[30]
Such was Hannibal; a man capable by his single capacity of arresting and
all but overturning a nation, destined by Providence for such mighty
achievements, such lasting services to the human race. His combat with
Rome was not that of a general with a general, of an army with an army;
it was like the subsequent contest between Napoleon and England, the
contest of a man with a nation; and in both cases, the nation, after
being reduced to the most grievous straits, proved victorious over the
man. But Hannibal was not supported as the French emperor was during the
great part of his splendid career; no nation with forty millions of
souls laid its youth at his feet; no obsequious senate voted him two
millions of men in fifteen years; he did not march with the military
strength of the half of Europe at his back. Alone, unaided,
unbefriended, with the Roman legions in front, and the jealous
Carthaginian senate in rear, without succour, reinforcements, or
assistance from home, he maintained the contest for fifteen years in
Italy, against the might, the energy, and the patriotism of Rome. Such
was the terror inspired by his name and exploits, that it rendered even
the fierce plebeians of Rome, usually so jealous of patrician
interference with their rights, obsequious even in the comitia to their
commands. "Go back," said Fabius, when the first centuries had returned
consuls of their own choice, whom he knew to be unfit for the command,
"and bid them recollect that the consuls must head the armies, and that
Hannibal is in Italy." The people succumbed, the votes were taken anew,
and the consuls whom he desired were returned.
After the battle of Cannae had rendered hopeless any further contest in
the field, the war in Italy degenerated into a mere succession of
attempts to gain possession of fortified towns. Hannibal's total want of
siege artillery left him no resource for this but stratagem or internal
assistance, and in gaining both his great capacity was eminently
conspicuous. Capua, Beneventum, Tarentum, and a great many others, were
successively wrested or won from the Romans; and it at one period seemed
exceedingly doubtful whether, in this war of posts and stratagems, the
Carthaginian would not prevail over them, as he had done in the field.
This war, and from the influence of the same necessity in both cases,
much resembled the wars of the League and Henry IV. in France; and the
military conduct of Hannibal bore alternately a striking resemblance to
the skill and resources of the chivalrous king of Navarre, and the bold
daring of the emperor Napoleon. The gallant irruption, in particular, of
the Carthaginian general, by which he relieved Capua when closely
besieged by the Roman forces, bears, as Arnold has observed, the most
remarkable resemblance to the similar march of Napoleon from Silesia to
relieve Dresden, when beset by the Allied armies under the command of
Schwartzenberg in 1813. Nor did the admirable skill of the consul
Nero--who took advantage of his interior line of communication, and
brought a decisive superiority of force from the frontiers of Apulia to
bear on the army which Hamilcar had led across the Pyrenees and the
Alps, to aid his brother in the south of Italy, and thus decide the war
in Italy--bear a less striking analogy to Napoleon's cross marches from
Rivoli to the neighbourhood of Mantua in 1796, to the able movement of
the Archduke Charles on the Bavarian plains to the banks of the Maine,
which proved the salvation of Germany in 1796, or to the gallant
irruption of Napoleon, first into the midst of Blucher's scattered
columns on the plains of Champagne, and then against the heads of
Schwartzenberg's weighty columns at the bridge of Montereau in 1814,
during his immortal campaign in France.
Eight years have now elapsed since we had the gratification of
reviewing, on its publication, the first volume of Arnold's Rome; and we
then foretold the celebrity which that admirable writer was qualified to
attain.[31] The publication since that period of two additional volumes
has amply verified that prediction; and augmented the bitterness of the
regret which, in common with all his countrymen, we felt at his untimely
death. It is clear that he was qualified beyond any modern writer who
has yet undertaken the glorious task, to write a history of the Rise and
Progress of the Roman Republic. What a work would eight volumes such as
that before us on Hannibal have formed, in conjunction with Gibbon's
immortal Decline and Fall! His ardent love of truth, his warm aspiration
after the happiness of the human race, his profound and yet liberal
religious feeling, as much gave him the spirit requisite for such an
undertaking, as his extensive scholarship, his graphic power, his
geographical eye, and brilliant talents for description, fitted him for
carrying it into execution. It is one of the most melancholy events of
our times, which has reft one of the brightest jewels from the literary
crown of England, that such a man should have been cut off at the zenith
of his power, and the opening of his fame. Arnold was a liberal writer;
but what then? We love and respect an honest opponent. He was candid,
ingenuous, and truth-loving; and if a historian is such, it matters not
what his political opinions are, for he cannot avoid stating facts that
support the conservative side. His errors, as we deem them, in politics,
arose from the usual causes which mislead men on human affairs,
generosity of heart and inexperience of mankind. He could not conceive,
with an imagination warmed by the heroes of antiquity, what a race of
selfish pigmies the generality of men really are. No man of such an
elevated cast can do so, till he is painfully taught it by experience.
Arnold died of a disease of the heart, which physicians have named by
the expressive words "_angina pectoris_." They were right: it was
anxiety of the heart which brought him to an untimely grave. He died of
disappointed hope, of chilled religious aspirations, of mortified
political expectations of social felicity. Who can estimate the
influence, on so sensitive and enthusiastic a disposition, of the
heart-rending anguish which his correspondence proves he felt at the
failure of his long-cherished hopes and visions of bliss in the Reform
Bill, and all the long catalogue of political and social evils, now
apparent to all, it has brought in its train?