At length, certainly, the greater part of the army and of the fleet

was got ready for the expedition to Africa, and the second consul

Publius Cornelius Scipio was ordered to the Ebro; but he took time,

and when an insurrection broke out on the Po, he allowed the army that

was ready for embarkation to be employed there, and formed new legions

for the Spanish expedition. So although Hannibal encountered on the

Ebro very vehement resistance, it proceeded only from the natives;

and, as under existing circumstances time was still more precious to

him than the blood of his men, he surmounted the opposition after some

months with the loss of a fourth part of his army, and reached the

line of the Pyrenees. That the Spanish allies of Rome would be

sacrificed a second time by that delay might have been as certainly

foreseen, as the delay itself might have been easily avoided; but

probably even the expedition to Italy itself, which in the spring of

536 must not have been anticipated in Rome, would have been averted

by the timely appearance of the Romans in Spain. Hannibal had by no

means the intention of sacrificing his Spanish "kingdom," and throwing

himself like a desperado on Italy. The time which he had spent in

the siege of Saguntum and in the reduction of Catalonia, and the

considerable corps which he left behind for the occupation of the

newly-won territory between the Ebro and the Pyrenees, sufficiently

show that, had a Roman army disputed the possession of Spain with him,

he would not have been content to withdraw from it; and--which was the

main point--had the Romans been able to delay his departure from Spain

for but a few weeks, winter would have closed the passes of the Alps

before Hannibal reached them, and the African expedition would have

departed without hindrance for its destination.

Hannibal in Gaul

Scipio at Massilia

Passage of the Rhone

Arrived at the Pyrenees, Hannibal sent home a portion of his troops;

a measure which he had resolved on from the first with the view of

showing to the soldiers how confident their general was of success,

and of checking the feeling that his enterprise was one of those from

which there is no return home. With an army of 50,000 infantry and

9000 cavalry, entirely veteran soldiers, he crossed the Pyrenees

without difficulty, and then took the coast route by Narbonne and

Nimes through the Celtic territory, which was opened to the army

partly by the connections previously formed, partly by Carthaginian

gold, partly by arms. It was not till it arrived in the end of July

at the Rhone opposite Avignon, that a serious resistance appeared to

await it. The consul Scipio, who on his voyage to Spain had landed at

Massilia (about the end of June), had there been informed that he had

come too late and that Hannibal had crossed not only the Ebro but the

Pyrenees. On receiving these accounts, which appear to have first

opened the eyes of the Romans to the course and the object of

Hannibal, the consul had temporarily given up his expedition to Spain,

and had resolved in connection with the Celtic tribes of that region,

who were under the influence of the Massiliots and thereby under that

of Rome, to receive the Phoenicians on the Rhone, and to obstruct

their passage of the river and their march into Italy. Fortunately

for Hannibal, opposite to the point at which he meant to cross, there

lay at the moment only the general levy of the Celts, while the consul

himself with his army of 22,000 infantry and 2000 horse was still in

Massilia, four days' march farther down the stream. The messengers of

the Gallic levy hastened to inform him. It was the object of Hannibal

to convey his army with its numerous cavalry and elephants across the

rapid stream under the eyes of the enemy, and before the arrival of

Scipio; and he possessed not a single boat. Immediately by his

directions all the boats belonging to the numerous navigators of

the Rhone in the neighbourhood were bought up at any price, and the

deficiency of boats was supplied by rafts made from felled trees;

and in fact the whole numerous army could be conveyed over in one day.

While this was being done, a strong division under Hanno, son of

Bomilcar, proceeded by forced marches up the stream till they reached

a suitable point for crossing, which they found undefended, situated

two short days' march above Avignon. Here they crossed the river on

hastily constructed rafts, with the view of then moving down on the

left bank and taking the Gauls, who were barring the passage of the

main army, in the rear. On the morning of the fifth day after they

had reached the Rhone, and of the third after Hanno's departure, the

smoke-signals of the division that had been detached rose up on the

opposite bank and gave to Hannibal the anxiously awaited summons for

the crossing. Just as the Gauls, seeing that the enemy's fleet of

boats began to move, were hastening to occupy the bank, their camp

behind them suddenly burst into flames. Surprised and divided, they

were unable either to withstand the attack or to resist the passage,

and they dispersed in hasty flight.

Scipio meanwhile held councils of war in Massilia as to the proper

mode of occupying the ferries of the Rhone, and was not induced to

move even by the urgent messages that came from the leaders of the

Celts. He distrusted their accounts, and he contented himself with

detaching a weak Roman cavalry division to reconnoitre on the left

bank of the Rhone. This detachment found the whole enemy's army

already transported to that bank, and occupied in bringing over the

elephants which alone remained on the right bank of the stream; and,

after it had warmly engaged some Carthaginian squadrons in the

district of Avignon, merely for the purpose of enabling it to complete

its reconnaissance--the first encounter of the Romans and Phoenicians

in this war--it hastily returned to report at head-quarters. Scipio

now started in the utmost haste with all his troops for Avignon; but,

when he arrived there, even the Carthaginian cavalry that had been

left behind to cover the passage of the elephants had already taken

its departure three days ago, and nothing remained for the consul but

to return with weary troops and little credit to Massilia, and to

revile the "cowardly flight" of the Punic leader. Thus the Romans had

for the third time through pure negligence abandoned their allies and

an important line of defence; and not only so, but by passing after

this first blunder from mistaken slackness to mistaken haste, and by

still attempting without any prospect of success to do what might have

been done with so much certainty a few days before, they let the real

means of repairing their error pass out of their hands. When once

Hannibal was in the Celtic territory on the Roman side of the Rhone,

he could no longer be prevented from reaching the Alps; but if Scipio

had at the first accounts proceeded with his whole army to Italy--the

Po might have been reached by way of Genoa in seven days--and had

united with his corps the weak divisions in the valley of the Po,

he might have at least prepared a formidable reception for the enemy.

But not only did he lose precious time in the march to Avignon, but,

capable as otherwise he was, he wanted either the political courage

or the military sagacity to change the destination of his corps as the

change of circumstances required. He sent the main body under his

brother Gnaeus to Spain, and returned himself with a few men to Pisae.

Hannibal's Passage of the Alps

Hannibal, who after the passage of the Rhone had in a great assembly

of the army explained to his troops the object of his expedition, and

had brought forward the Celtic chief Magilus himself, who had arrived

from the valley of the Po, to address the army through an interpreter,

meanwhile continued his march to the passes of the Alps without

obstruction. Which of these passes he should choose, could not be

at once determined either by the shortness of the route or by the

disposition of the inhabitants, although he had no time to lose

either in circuitous routes or in combat. He had necessarily to

select a route which should be practicable for his baggage, his

numerous cavalry, and his elephants, and in which an army could

procure sufficient means of subsistence either by friendship or by

force; for, although Hannibal had made preparations to convey

provisions after him on beasts of burden, these could only meet for

a few days the wants of an army which still, notwithstanding its great

losses, amounted to nearly 50,000 men. Leaving out of view the coast

route, which Hannibal abstained from taking not because the Romans

barred it, but because it would have led him away from his

destination, there were only two routes of note leading across the

Alps from Gaul to Italy in ancient times:(3) the pass of the Cottian

Alps (Mont Genevre) leading into the territory of the Taurini (by Susa

or Fenestrelles to Turin), and that of the Graian Alps (the Little St.

Bernard) leading into the territory of the Salassi (to Aosta and

Ivrea). The former route is the shorter; but, after leaving the

valley of the Rhone, it passes by the impracticable and unfruitful

river-valleys of the Drac, the Romanche, and the upper Durance,

through a difficult and poor mountain country, and requires at least

a seven or eight days' mountain march. A military road was first

constructed there by Pompeius, to furnish a shorter communication

between the provinces of Cisalpine and Transalpine Gaul.

The route by the Little St. Bernard is somewhat longer; but after

crossing the first Alpine wall that forms the eastern boundary of

the Rhone valley, it keeps by the valley of the upper Isere, which

stretches from Grenoble by way of Chambery up to the very foot of the

Little St. Bernard or, in other words, of the chain of the higher

Alps, and is the broadest, most fertile and most populous of all the

Alpine valleys. Moreover, the pass of the Little St. Bernard, while

not the lowest of all the natural passes of the Alps, is by far the

easiest; although no artificial road was constructed there, an

Austrian corps with artillery crossed the Alps by that route in 1815.

And lastly this route, which only leads over two mountain ridges, has

been from the earliest times the great military route from the Celtic

to the Italian territory. The Carthaginian army had thus in fact no

choice. It was a fortunate coincidence, but not a motive influencing

the decision of Hannibal, that the Celtic tribes allied with him in

Italy inhabited the country up to the Little St. Bernard, while

the route by Mont Genevre would have brought him at first into the

territory of the Taurini, who were from ancient times at feud with

the Insubres.

So the Carthaginian army marched in the first instance up the Rhone

towards the valley of the upper Isere, not, as might be presumed, by

the nearest route up the left bank of the lower Isere from Valence to

Grenoble, but through the "island" of the Allobroges, the rich, and

even then thickly peopled, low ground, which is enclosed on the north

and west by the Rhone, on the south by the Isere, and on the east

by the Alps. The reason of this movement was, that the nearest route

would have led them through an impracticable and poor mountain-

country, while the "island" was level and extremely fertile, and was

separated by but a single mountain-wall from the valley of the upper

Isere. The march along the Rhone into, and across, the "island"

to the foot of the Alpine wall was accomplished in sixteen days: it

presented little difficulty, and in the "island" itself Hannibal

dexterously availed himself of a feud that had broken out between two

chieftains of the Allobroges to attach to his interests one of the

most important of the chiefs, who not only escorted the Carthaginians

through the whole plain, but also supplied them with provisions, and

furnished the soldiers with arms, clothing, and shoes. But the

expedition narrowly escaped destruction at the crossing of the first

Alpine chain, which rises precipitously like a wall, and over which

only a single available path leads (over the Mont du Chat, near the

hamlet Chevelu). The population of the Allobroges had strongly

occupied the pass. Hannibal learned the state of matters early enough

to avoid a surprise, and encamped at the foot, until after sunset the

Celts dispersed to the houses of the nearest town; he then seized the

pass in the night Thus the summit was gained; but on the extremely

steep path, which leads down from the summit to the lake of Bourget,

the mules and horses slipped and fell. The assaults, which at

suitable points were made by the Celts upon the army in march, were

very annoying, not so much of themselves as by reason of the turmoil

which they occasioned; and when Hannibal with his light troops threw

himself from above on the Allobroges, these were chased doubtless

without difficulty and with heavy loss down the mountain, but the

confusion, in the train especially, was further increased by the noise

of the combat. So, when after much loss he arrived in the plain,

Hannibal immediately attacked the nearest town, to chastise and

terrify the barbarians, and at the same time to repair as far as

possible his loss in sumpter animals and horses. After a day's repose

in the pleasant valley of Chambery the army continued its march up the

Isere, without being detained either by want of supplies or by attacks

so long as the valley continued broad and fertile. It was only when

on the fourth day they entered the territory of the Ceutrones (the

modern Tarantaise) where the valley gradually contracts, that they had

again greater occasion to be on their guard. The Ceutrones received

the army at the boundary of their country (somewhere about Conflans)

with branches and garlands, furnished cattle for slaughter, guides,

and hostages; and the Carthaginians marched through their territory

as through a friendly land. When, however, the troops had reached the

very foot of the Alps, at the point where the path leaves the Isere,

and winds by a narrow and difficult defile along the brook Reclus

up to the summit of the St. Bernard, all at once the militia of the

Ceutrones appeared partly in the rear of the army, partly on the

crests of the rocks enclosing the pass on the right and left, in

the hope of cutting off the train and baggage. But Hannibal, whose

unerring tact had seen in all those advances made by the Ceutrones

nothing but the design of procuring at once immunity for their

territory and a rich spoil, had in expectation of such an attack

sent forward the baggage and cavalry, and covered the march with all

his infantry. By this means he frustrated the design of the enemy,

although he could not prevent them from moving along the mountain

slopes parallel to the march of the infantry, and inflicting very

considerable loss by hurling or rolling down stones. At the "white

stone" (still called -la roche blanche-), a high isolated chalk cliff

standing at the foot of the St. Bernard and commanding the ascent to

it, Hannibal encamped with his infantry, to cover the march of the

horses and sumpter animals laboriously climbing upward throughout

the whole night; and amidst continual and very bloody conflicts he at

length on the following day reached the summit of the pass. There,

on the sheltered table-land which spreads to the extent of two and a

half miles round a little lake, the source of the Doria, he allowed

the army to rest. Despondency had begun to seize the minds of the

soldiers. The paths that were becoming ever more difficult, the

provisions failing, the marching through defiles exposed to the

constant attacks of foes whom they could not reach, the sorely thinned

ranks, the hopeless situation of the stragglers and the wounded, the

object which appeared chimerical to all save the enthusiastic leader

and his immediate staff--all these things began to tell even on the

African and Spanish veterans. But the confidence of the general

remained ever the same; numerous stragglers rejoined the ranks; the

friendly Gauls were near; the watershed was reached, and the view of

the descending path, so gladdening to the mountain-pilgrim, opened up:

after a brief repose they prepared with renewed courage for the last

and most difficult undertaking, --the downward march. In it the army

was not materially annoyed by the enemy; but the advanced season--it

was already the beginning of September--occasioned troubles in the

descent, equal to those which had been occasioned in the ascent by the

attacks of the adjoining tribes. On the steep and slippery mountain-

slope along the Doria, where the recently-fallen snow had concealed

and obliterated the paths, men and animals went astray and slipped,

and were precipitated into the chasms. In fact, towards the end of

the first day's march they reached a portion of the path about 200

paces in length, on which avalanches are constantly descending from

the precipices of the Cramont that overhang it, and where in cold

summers snow lies throughout the year. The infantry passed over;

but the horses and elephants were unable to cross the smooth masses

of ice, on which there lay but a thin covering of freshly-fallen snow,

and the general encamped above the difficult spot with the baggage,

the cavalry, and the elephants. On the following day the horsemen,

by zealous exertion in entrenching, prepared a path for horses and

beasts of burden; but it was not until after a further labour of three

days with constant reliefs, that the half-famished elephants could at

length be conducted over. In this way the whole army was after a

delay of four days once more united; and after a further three days'

march through the valley of the Doria, which was ever widening and

displaying greater fertility, and whose inhabitants the Salassi,

clients of the Insubres, hailed in the Carthaginians their allies

and deliverers, the army arrived about the middle of September in the

plain of Ivrea, where the exhausted troops were quartered in the

villages, that by good nourishment and a fortnight's repose they might

recruit from their unparalleled hardships. Had the Romans placed a

corps, as they might have done, of 30,000 men thoroughly fresh and

ready for action somewhere near Turin, and immediately forced on a

battle, the prospects of Hannibal's great plan would have been very

dubious; fortunately for him, once more, they were not where they

should have been, and they did not disturb the troops of the enemy

in the repose which was so greatly needed.(4)

Results

The object was attained, but at a heavy cost. Of the 50,000

veteran infantry and the 9000 cavalry, which the army had numbered

at the crossing of the Pyrenees, more than half had been sacrificed

in the conflicts, the marches, and the passages of the rivers.

Hannibal now, according to his own statement, numbered not more

than 20,000 infantry--of whom three-fifths were Libyans and two-fifths

Spaniards--and 6000 cavalry, part of them doubtless dismounted: the

comparatively small loss of the latter proclaimed the excellence of

the Numidian cavalry no less than the consideration of the general

in making a sparing use of troops so select. A march of 526 miles or

about 33 moderate days' marching--the continuance and termination of

which were disturbed by no special misfortunes on a great scale that

could not be anticipated, but were, on the other hand, rendered

possible only by incalculable pieces of good fortune and still more

incalculable blunders of the enemy, and which yet not only cost such

sacrifices, but so fatigued and demoralized the army, that it needed

a prolonged rest in order to be again ready for action--is a military

operation of doubtful value, and it may be questioned whether Hannibal

himself regarded it as successful. Only in so speaking we may not

pronounce an absolute censure on the general: we see well the defects

of the plan of operations pursued by him, but we cannot determine

whether he was in a position to foresee them--his route lay through

an unknown land of barbarians--or whether any other plan, such as that

of taking the coast road or of embarking at Cartagena or at Carthage,

would have exposed him to fewer dangers. The cautious and masterly

execution of the plan in its details at any rate deserves our

admiration, and to whatever causes the result may have been due

--whether it was due mainly to the favour of fortune, or mainly to

the skill of the general--the grand idea of Hamilcar, that of taking

up the conflict with Rome in Italy, was now realized. It was his

genius that projected this expedition; and as the task of Stein and

Scharnhorst was more difficult and nobler than that of York and

Blucher, so the unerring tact of historical tradition has always dwelt

on the last link in the great chain of preparatory steps, the passage

of the Alps, with a greater admiration than on the battles of the

Trasimene lake and of the plain of Cannae.

Notes for Chapter IV

1. Our accounts as to these events are not only imperfect but one-

sided, for of course it was the version of the Carthaginian peace

party which was adopted by the Roman annalists. Even, however, in

our fragmentary and confused accounts (the most important are those of

Fabius, in Polyb. iii. 8; Appian. Hisp. 4; and Diodorus, xxv. p. 567)

the relations of the parties appear dearly enough. Of the vulgar

gossip by which its opponents sought to blacken the "revolutionary

combination" (--etaireia ton ponerotaton anthropon--) specimens may

be had in Nepos (Ham. 3), to which it will be difficult perhaps

to find a parallel.

2. The Barca family conclude the most important state treaties, and

the ratification of the governing board is a formality (Pol. iii. 21).

Rome enters her protest before them and before the senate (Pol. iii.

15). The position of the Barca family towards Carthage in many points

resembles that of the Princes of Orange towards the States-General.

3. It was not till the middle ages that the route by Mont Cenis became

a military road. The eastern passes, such as that over the Poenine

Alps or the Great St. Bernard--which, moreover, was only converted

into a military road by Caesar and Augustus--are, of course, in this

case out of the question.

4. The much-discussed questions of topography, connected with this

celebrated expedition, may be regarded as cleared up and substantially

solved by the masterly investigations of Messrs. Wickham and Cramer.

Respecting the chronological questions, which likewise present

difficulties, a few remarks may be exceptionally allowed to have

a place here.

When Hannibal reached the summit of the St. Bernard, "the peaks were

already beginning to be thickly covered with snow" (Pol. iii. 54),

snow lay on the route (Pol. iii. 55), perhaps for the most part snow

not freshly fallen, but proceeding from the fall of avalanches. At

the St. Bernard winter begins about Michaelmas, and the falling of

snow in September; when the Englishmen already mentioned crossed

the mountain at the end of August, they found almost no snow on

their road, but the slopes on both sides were covered with it.

Hannibal thus appears to have arrived at the pass in the beginning

of September; which is quite compatible with the statement that

he arrived there "when the winter was already approaching"

--for --sunaptein ten tes pleiados dusin-- (Pol. iii. 54) does

not mean anything more than this, least of all, the day of the

heliacal setting of the Pleiades (about 26th October); comp.

Ideler, Chronol. i. 241.

If Hannibal reached Italy nine days later, and therefore about the

middle of September, there is room for the events that occurred from

that time up to the battle of the Trebia towards the end of December

(--peri cheimerinas tropas--, Pol. iii. 72), and in particular for

the transporting of the army destined for Africa from Lilybaeum to

Placentia. This hypothesis further suits the statement that the

day of departure was announced at an assembly of the army --upo ten

earinen oran-- (Pol. iii. 34), and therefore towards the end of March,

and that the march lasted five (or, according to App. vii. 4, six)

months. If Hannibal was thus at the St. Bernard in the beginning of

September, he must have reached the Rhone at the beginning of August

--for he spent thirty days in making his way from the Rhone thither

--and in that case it is evident that Scipio, who embarked at

the beginning of summer (Pol. iii. 41) and so at latest by the

commencement of June, must have spent much time on the voyage or

remained for a considerable period in singular inaction at Massilia.

CHAPTER V

The War under Hannibal to the Battle of Cannae

Hannibal and the Italian Celts

The appearance of the Carthaginian army on the Roman side of the Alps

changed all at once the situation of affairs, and disconcerted the

Roman plan of war. Of the two principal armies of the Romans, one had

landed in Spain and was already engaged with the enemy there: it was

no longer possible to recall it. The second, which was destined

for Africa under the command of the consul Tiberius Sempronius, was

fortunately still in Sicily: in this instance Roman delay for once

proved useful. Of the two Carthaginian squadrons destined for Italy

and Sicily, the first was dispersed by a storm, and some of its

vessels were captured by the Syracusans near Messana; the second had

endeavoured in vain to surprise Lilybaeum, and had thereafter been

defeated in a naval engagement off that port. But the continuance of

the enemy's squadrons in the Italian waters was so inconvenient, that

the consul determined, before crossing to Africa, to occupy the small

islands around Sicily, and to drive away the Carthaginian fleet

operating against Italy. The summer passed away in the conquest of

Melita, in the chase after the enemy's squadron, which he expected

to find at the Lipari islands while it had made a descent near Vibo

(Monteleone) and pillaged the Bruttian coast, and, lastly, in gaining

information as to a suitable spot for landing on the coast of Africa;

so that the army and fleet were still at Lilybaeum, when orders

arrived from the senate that they should return with all possible

speed for the defence of their homes.

In this way, while the two great Roman armies, each in itself equal

in numbers to that of Hannibal, remained at a great distance from the

valley of the Po, the Romans were quite unprepared for an attack in

that quarter. No doubt a Roman army was there, in consequence of

an insurrection that had broken out among the Celts even before the

arrival of the Carthaginian army. The founding of the two Roman

strongholds of Placentia and Cremona, each of which received 6000

colonists, and more especially the preparations for the founding of

Mutina in the territory of the Boii, had already in the spring of 536

driven the Boii to revolt before the time concerted with Hannibal;

and the Insubres had immediately joined them. The colonists already

settled in the territory of Mutina, suddenly attacked, took refuge in

the town. The praetor Lucius Manlius, who held the chief command at

Ariminum, hastened with his single legion to relieve the blockaded

colonists; but he was surprised in the woods, and no course was left

to him after sustaining great loss but to establish himself upon a

hill and to submit to a siege there on the part of the Boii, till

a second legion sent from Rome under the praetor Lucius Atilius

succeeded in relieving army and town, and in suppressing for the

moment the Gaulish insurrection. This premature rising of the Boii

on the one hand, by delaying the departure of Scipio for Spain,

essentially promoted the plans of Hannibal; on the other hand, but

for its occurrence he would have found the valley of the Po entirely

unoccupied, except the fortresses. But the Roman corps, whose two

severely thinned legions did not number 20,000 soldiers, had enough

to do to keep the Celts in check, and did not think of occupying the

passes of the Alps. The Romans only learned that the passes were

threatened, when in August the consul Publius Scipio returned without

his army from Massilia to Italy, and perhaps even then they gave

little heed to the matter, because, forsooth, the foolhardy attempt

would be frustrated by the Alps alone. Thus at the decisive hour and

on the decisive spot there was not even a Roman outpost. Hannibal had

full time to rest his army, to capture after a three days' siege the

capital of the Taurini which closed its gates against him, and to

induce or terrify into alliance with him all the Ligurian and Celtic

communities in the upper basin of the Po, before Scipio, who had

taken the command in the Po valley, encountered him.

Scipio in the Valley of the Po

Conflict on the Ticino

The Armies at Placentia

Scipio, who, with an army considerably smaller and very weak in

cavalry, had the difficult task of preventing the advance of the

superior force of the enemy and of repressing the movements of

insurrection which everywhere were spreading among the Celts, had

crossed the Po presumably at Placentia, and marched up the river to

meet the enemy, while Hannibal after the capture of Turin marched

downwards to relieve the Insubres and Boii. In the plain between

the Ticino and the Sesia, not far from Vercelli, the Roman cavalry,

which had advanced with the light infantry to make a reconnaissance

in force, encountered the Punic cavalry sent out for the like purpose,

both led by the generals in person. Scipio accepted battle when

offered, notwithstanding the superiority of the enemy; but his light

infantry, which was placed in front of the cavalry, dispersed before

the charge of the heavy cavalry of the enemy, and while the latter

engaged the masses of the Roman horsemen in front, the light Numidian

cavalry, after having pushed aside the broken ranks of the enemy's

infantry, took the Roman horsemen in flank and rear. This decided

the combat. The loss of the Romans was very considerable. The consul

himself, who made up as a soldier for his deficiencies as a general,

received a dangerous wound, and owed his safety entirely to the

devotion of his son of seventeen, who, courageously dashing into the

ranks of the enemy, compelled his squadron to follow him and rescued

his father. Scipio, enlightened by this combat as to the strength of

the enemy, saw the error which he had committed in posting himself,

with a weaker army, in the plain with his back to the river, and

resolved to return to the right bank of the Po under the eyes of his

antagonist. As the operations became contracted into a narrower space

and his illusions regarding Roman invincibility departed, he recovered

the use of his considerable military talents, which the adventurous

boldness of his youthful opponent's plans had for a moment paralyzed.

While Hannibal was preparing for a pitched battle, Scipio by a rapidly

projected and steadily executed march succeeded in reaching the right

bank of the river which in an evil hour he had abandoned, and broke

down the bridge over the Po behind his army; the Roman detachment of

600 men charged to cover the process of destruction were, however,

intercepted and made prisoners. But as the upper course of the river

was in the hands of Hannibal, he could not be prevented from marching

up the stream, crossing on a bridge of boats, and in a few days

confronting the Roman army on the right bank. The latter had taken

a position in the plain in front of Placentia; but the mutiny of a

Celtic division in the Roman camp, and the Gallic insurrection

breaking out afresh all around, compelled the consul to evacuate the

plain and to post himself on the hills behind the Trebia. This was

accomplished without notable loss, because the Numidian horsemen sent

in pursuit lost their time in plundering, and setting fire to, the

abandoned camp. In this strong position, with his left wing resting

on the Apennines, his right on the Po and the fortress of Placentia,

and covered in front by the Trebia--no inconsiderable stream at that

season--Scipio was unable to save the rich stores of Clastidium

(Casteggio) from which in this position he was cut off by the army of

the enemy; nor was he able to avert the insurrectionary movement on

the part of almost all the Gallic cantons, excepting the Cenomani who

were friendly to Rome; but he completely checked the progress of

Hannibal, and compelled him to pitch his camp opposite to that of

the Romans. Moreover, the position taken up by Scipio, and the

circumstance of the Cenomani threatening the borders of the Insubres,

hindered the main body of the Gallic insurgents from directly joining

the enemy, and gave to the second Roman army, which meanwhile had

arrived at Ariminum from Lilybaeum, the opportunity of reaching

Placentia through the midst of the insurgent country without material

hindrance, and of uniting itself with the army of the Po.

Battle on the Trebia

Scipio had thus solved his difficult task completely and brilliantly.

The Roman army, now close on 40,000 strong, and though not a match for

its antagonist in cavalry, at least equal in infantry, had simply to

remain in its existing position, in order to compel the enemy either

to attempt in the winter season the passage of the river and an attack

upon the camp, or to suspend his advance and to test the fickle temper

of the Gauls by the burden of winter quarters. Clear, however, as

this was, it was no less clear that it was now December, and that

under the course proposed the victory might perhaps be gained by Rome,

but would not be gained by the consul Tiberius Sempronius, who held

the sole command in consequence of Scipio's wound, and whose year of

office expired in a few months. Hannibal knew the man, and neglected

no means of alluring him to fight. The Celtic villages that had

remained faithful to the Romans were cruelly laid waste, and, when

this brought on a conflict between the cavalry, Hannibal allowed his

opponents to boast of the victory. Soon thereafter on a raw rainy

day a general engagement came on, unlocked for by the Romans. From

the earliest hour of the morning the Roman light troops had been

skirmishing with the light cavalry of the enemy; the latter slowly

retreated, and the Romans eagerly pursued it through the deeply

swollen Trebia to follow up the advantage which they had gained.

Suddenly the cavalry halted; the Roman vanguard found itself face to

face with the army of Hannibal drawn up for battle on a field chosen

by himself; it was lost, unless the main body should cross the stream

with all speed to its support. Hungry, weary, and wet, the Romans

came on and hastened to form in order of battle, the cavalry, as

usual, on the wings, the infantry in the centre. The light troops,

who formed the vanguard on both sides, began the combat: but the

Romans had already almost exhausted their missiles against the

cavalry, and immediately gave way. In like manner the cavalry gave

way on the wings, hard pressed by the elephants in front, and

outflanked right and left by the far more numerous Carthaginian horse.

But the Roman infantry proved itself worthy of its name: at the

beginning of the battle it fought with very decided superiority

against the infantry of the enemy, and even when the repulse of the

Roman horse allowed the enemy's cavalry and light-armed troops to turn

their attacks against the Roman infantry, the latter, although ceasing

to advance, obstinately maintained its ground. At this stage a select

Carthaginian band of 1000 infantry, and as many horsemen, under the

leadership of Mago, Hannibal's youngest brother, suddenly emerged from

an ambush in the rear of the Roman army, and fell upon the densely

entangled masses. The wings of the army and the rear ranks of the

Roman centre were broken up and scattered by this attack, while the

first division, 10,000 men strong, in compact array broke through the

Carthaginian line, and made a passage for itself obliquely through the

midst of the enemy, inflicting great loss on the opposing infantry and

more especially on the Gallic insurgents. This brave body, pursued

but feebly, thus reached Placentia. The remaining mass was for the

most part slaughtered by the elephants and light troops of the enemy

in attempting to cross the river: only part of the cavalry and some

divisions of infantry were able, by wading through the river, to gain

the camp whither the Carthaginians did not follow them, and thus they

too reached Placentia.(1) Few battles confer more honour on the Roman

soldier than this on the Trebia, and few at the same time furnish

graver impeachment of the general in command; although the candid

judge will not forget that a commandership in chief expiring on a

definite day was an unmilitary institution, and that figs cannot be

reaped from thistles. The victory came to be costly even to the

victors. Although the loss in the battle fell chiefly on the Celtic

insurgents, yet a multitude of the veteran soldiers of Hannibal died

afterwards from diseases engendered by that raw and wet winter day,

and all the elephants perished except one.

Hannibal Master of Northern Italy

The effect of this first victory of the invading army was, that the

national insurrection now spread and assumed shape without hindrance

throughout the Celtic territory. The remains of the Roman army of

the Po threw themselves into the fortresses of Placentia and Cremona:

completely cut off from home, they were obliged to procure their

supplies by way of the river. The consul Tiberius Sempronius only

escaped, as if by miracle, from being taken prisoner, when with a

weak escort of cavalry he went to Rome on account of the elections.

Hannibal, who would not hazard the health of his troops by further

marches at that inclement season, bivouacked for the winter where he

was; and, as a serious attempt on the larger fortresses would have

led to no result, contented himself with annoying the enemy by attacks

on the river port of Placentia and other minor Roman positions. He

employed himself mainly in organizing the Gallic insurrection: more

than 60,000 foot soldiers and 4000 horsemen from the Celts are said

to have joined his army.

Military and Political Position of Hannibal

No extraordinary exertions were made in Rome for the campaign of 537.

The senate thought, and not unreasonably, that, despite the lost

battle, their position was by no means fraught with serious danger.

Besides the coast garrisons, which were despatched to Sardinia,

Sicily, and Tarentum, and the reinforcements which were sent to Spain,

the two new consuls Gaius Flaminius and Gnaeus Servilius obtained

only as many men as were necessary to restore the four legions to

their full complement; additions were made to the strength of the

cavalry alone. The consuls had to protect the northern frontier, and

stationed themselves accordingly on the two highways which led from

Rome to the north, the western of which at that lime terminated at

Arretium, and the eastern at Ariminum; Gaius Flaminius occupied the

former, Gnaeus Servilius the latter. There they ordered the troops

from the fortresses on the Po to join them, probably by water, and

awaited the commencement of the favourable season, when they proposed

to occupy in the defensive the passes of the Apennines, and then,

taking up the offensive, to descend into the valley of the Po and

effect a junction somewhere near Placentia. But Hannibal by no means

intended to defend the valley of the Po. He knew Rome better perhaps

than the Romans knew it themselves, and was very well aware how

decidedly he was the weaker and continued to be so notwithstanding the

brilliant battle on the Trebia; he knew too that his ultimate object,

the humiliation of Rome, was not to be wrung from the unbending Roman

pride either by terror or by surprise, but could only be gained by

the actual subjugation of the haughty city. It was clearly apparent

that the Italian federation was in political solidity and in military

resources infinitely superior to an adversary, who received only

precarious and irregular support from home, and who in Italy was

dependent for primary aid solely on the vacillating and capricious

nation of the Celts; and that the Phoenician foot soldier was,

notwithstanding all the pains taken by Hannibal, far inferior in

point of tactics to the legionary, had been completely proved by

the defensive movements of Scipio and the brilliant retreat of the

defeated infantry on the Trebia. From this conviction flowed the two

fundamental principles which determined Hannibal's whole method of

operations in Italy--viz., that the war should be carried on, in

somewhat adventurous fashion, with constant changes in the plan and

in the theatre of operations; and that its favourable issue could

only be looked for as the result of political and not of military

successes--of the gradual loosening and final breaking up of the

Italian federation. That mode of carrying on the war was necessary,

because the single element which Hannibal had to throw into the scale

against so many disadvantages--his military genius--only told with

its full weight, when he constantly foiled his opponents by unexpected

combinations; he was undone, if the war became stationary. That aim

was the aim dictated to him by right policy, because, mighty conqueror

though he was in battle, he saw very clearly that on each occasion he

vanquished the generals and not the city, and that after each new

battle the Romans remained just as superior to the Carthaginians as

he was personally superior to the Roman commanders. That Hannibal

even at the height of his fortune never deceived himself on this

point, is worthier of admiration than his most admired battles.

Hannibal Crosses the Apennines

It was these motives, and not the entreaties of the Gauls that he

should spare their country--which would not have influenced him--that

induced Hannibal now to forsake, as it were, his newly acquired basis

of operations against Italy, and to transfer the scene of war to Italy

itself. Before doing so he gave orders that all the prisoners should

be brought before him. He ordered the Romans to be separated and

loaded with chains as slaves--the statement that Hannibal put to death

all the Romans capable of bearing arms, who here and elsewhere fell

into his hands, is beyond doubt at least strongly exaggerated. On the

other hand, all the Italian allies were released without ransom, and

charged to report at home that Hannibal waged war not against Italy,

but against Rome; that he promised to every Italian community the

restoration of its ancient independence and its ancient boundaries;

and that the deliverer was about to follow those whom he had set free,

bringing release and revenge. In fact, when the winter ended, he

started from the valley of the Po to search for a route through

the difficult defiles of the Apennines. Gaius Flaminius, with the

Etruscan army, was still for the moment at Arezzo, intending to move

from that point towards Lucca in order to protect the vale of the Arno

and the passes of the Apennines, so soon as the season should allow.

But Hannibal anticipated him. The passage of the Apennines was

accomplished without much difficulty, at a point as far west as

possible or, in other words, as distant as possible from the enemy;

but the marshy low grounds between the Serchio and the Arno were so

flooded by the melting of the snow and the spring rains, that the army

had to march four days in water, without finding any other dry spot

for resting by night than was supplied by piling the baggage or by

the sumpter animals that had fallen. The troops underwent unutterable

sufferings, particularly the Gallic infantry, which marched behind the

Carthaginians along tracks already rendered impassable: they murmured

loudly and would undoubtedly have dispersed to a man, had not the

Carthaginian cavalry under Mago, which brought up the rear, rendered

flight impossible. The horses, assailed by a distemper in their

hoofs, fell in heaps; various diseases decimated the soldiers;

Hannibal himself lost an eye in consequence of ophthalmia.

Flaminius

But the object was attained. Hannibal encamped at Fiesole, while

Gaius Flaminius was still waiting at Arezzo until the roads should

become passable that he might blockade them. After the Roman

defensive position had thus been turned, the best course for the

consul, who might perhaps have been strong enough to defend the

mountain passes but certainly was unable now to face Hannibal in the

open field, would have been to wait till the second army, which had

now become completely superfluous at Ariminum, should arrive. He

himself, however, judged otherwise. He was a political party leader,

raised to distinction by his efforts to limit the power of the senate;

indignant at the government in consequence of the aristocratic

intrigues concocted against him during his consulship; carried away,

through a doubtless justifiable opposition to their beaten track of

partisanship, into a scornful defiance of tradition and custom;

intoxicated at once by blind love of the common people and equally

bitter hatred of the party of the nobles; and, in addition to all

this, possessed with the fixed idea that he was a military genius.

His campaign against the Insubres of 531, which to unprejudiced

judges only showed that good! soldiers often repair the errors

of bad generals,(2) was regarded by him and by his adherents as an

irrefragable proof that the Romans had only to put Gaius Flaminius at

the head of the army in order to make a speedy end of Hannibal. Talk

of this sort had procured for him his second consulship, and hopes of

this sort had now brought to his camp so great a multitude of unarmed

followers eager for spoil, that their number, according to the

assurance of sober historians, exceeded that of the legionaries.

Hannibal based his plan in part on this circumstance. So far from

attacking him, he marched past him, and caused the country all around

to be pillaged by the Celts who thoroughly understood plundering,

and by his numerous cavalry. The complaints and indignation of the

multitude which had to submit to be plundered under the eyes of the

hero who had promised to enrich them, and the protestation of the

enemy that they did not believe him possessed of either the power

or the resolution to undertake anything before the arrival of his

colleague, could not but induce such a man to display his genius

for strategy, and to give a sharp lesson to his inconsiderate

and haughty foe.

Battle on the Trasimene Lake

No plan was ever more successful. In haste, the consul followed the

line of march of the enemy, who passed by Arezzo and moved slowly

through the rich valley of the Chiana towards Perugia. He overtook

him in the district of Cortona, where Hannibal, accurately informed

of his antagonist's march, had had full time to select his field of

battle--a narrow defile between two steep mountain walls, closed at

its outlet by a high hill, and at its entrance by the Trasimene lake.

With the flower of his infantry he barred the outlet; the light troops

and the cavalry placed themselves in concealment on either side. The

Roman columns advanced without hesitation into the unoccupied pass;

the thick morning mist concealed from them the position of the enemy.

As the head of the Roman line approached the hill, Hannibal gave the

signal for battle; the cavalry, advancing behind the heights, closed

the entrance of the pass, and at the same time the mist rolling away

revealed the Phoenician arms everywhere along the crests on the right

and left. There was no battle; it was a mere rout. Those that

remained outside of the defile were driven by the cavalry into the

lake. The main body was annihilated in the pass itself almost without

resistance, and most of them, including the consul himself, were cut

down in the order of march. The head of the Roman column, formed of

6000 infantry, cut their way through the infantry of the enemy, and

proved once more the irresistible might of the legions; but, cut off

from the rest of the army and without knowledge of its fate, they

marched on at random, were surrounded on the following day, on a

hill which they had occupied, by a corps of Carthaginian cavalry,

and--as the capitulation, which promised them a free retreat, was

rejected by Hannibal--were all treated as prisoners of war. 15,000

Romans had fallen, and as many were captured; in other words, the

army was annihilated. The slight Carthaginian loss--1500 men--again

fell mainly upon the Gauls.(3) And, as if this were not enough,

immediately after the battle on the Trasimene lake, the cavalry of

the army of Ariminum under Gaius Centenius, 4000 strong, which Gnaeus

Servilius had sent forward for the temporary support of his colleague

while he himself advanced by slow marches, was likewise surrounded by

the Phoenician army, and partly slain, partly made prisoners. All

Etruria was lost, and Hannibal might without hindrance march on Rome.

The Romans prepared themselves for the worst; they broke down the

bridges over the Tiber, and nominated Quintus Fabius Maximus dictator

to repair the walls and conduct the defence, for which an army of

reserve was formed. At the same time two new legions were summoned

under arms in the room of those annihilated, and the fleet, which

might become of importance in the event of a siege, was put in order.

Hannibal on the East Coast

Reorganization of the Carthaginian Army

But Hannibal was more farsighted than king Pyrrhus. He did not march

on Rome; nor even against Gnaeus Servilius, an able general, who had

with the help of the fortresses on the northern road preserved his

army hitherto uninjured, and would perhaps have kept his antagonist

at bay. Once more a movement occurred which was quite unexpected.

Hannibal marched past the fortress of Spoletium, which he attempted in

vain to surprise, through Umbria, fearfully devastated the territory

of Picenum which was covered all over with Roman farmhouses, and

halted on the shores of the Adriatic. The men and horses of his

army had not yet recovered from the painful effects of their spring

campaign; here he rested for a considerable time to allow his army to

recruit its strength in a pleasant district and at a fine season of

the year, and to reorganize his Libyan infantry after the Roman mode,

the means for which were furnished to him by the mass of Roman arms

among the spoil. From this point, moreover, he resumed his long-

interrupted communication with his native land, sending his messages

of victory by water to Carthage. At length, when his army was

sufficiently restored and had been adequately exercised in the use

of the new arms, he broke up and marched slowly along the coast into

southern Italy.

War in Lower Italy

Fabius

He had calculated correctly, when he chose this time for remodelling

his infantry. The surprise of his antagonists, who were in constant

expectation of an attack on the capital, allowed him at least four

weeks of undisturbed leisure for the execution of the unprecedentedly

bold experiment of changing completely his military system in the

heart of a hostile country and with an army still comparatively small,

and of attempting to oppose African legions to the invincible legions

of Italy. But his hope that the confederacy would now begin to break

up was not fulfilled. In this respect the Etruscans, who had carried

on their last wars of independence mainly with Gallic mercenaries,

were of less moment; the flower of the confederacy, particularly

in a military point of view, consisted--next to the Latins--of the

Sabellian communities, and with good reason Hannibal had now come into

their neighbourhood. But one town after another closed its gates; not

a single Italian community entered into alliance with the Phoenicians.

This was a great, in fact an all-important, gain for the Romans.

Nevertheless it was felt in the capital that it would be imprudent to

put the fidelity of their allies to such a test, without a Roman army

to keep the field. The dictator Quintus Fabius combined the two

supplementary legions formed in Rome with the army of Ariminum,

and when Hannibal marched past the Roman fortress of Luceria towards

Arpi, the Roman standards appeared on his right flank at Aeca.

Their leader, however, pursued a course different from that of his

predecessors. Quintus Fabius was a man advanced in years, of a

deliberation and firmness, which to not a few seemed procrastination

and obstinacy. Zealous in his reverence for the good old times, for

the political omnipotence of the senate, and for the command of the

burgomasters, he looked to a methodical prosecution of the war as

--next to sacrifices and prayers--the means of saving the state.

A political antagonist of Gaius Flaminius, and summoned to the head of

affairs in virtue of the reaction against his foolish war-demagogism,

Fabius departed for the camp just as firmly resolved to avoid a

pitched battle at any price, as his predecessor had been determined at

any price to fight one; he was without doubt convinced that the first

elements of strategy would forbid Hannibal to advance so long as the

Roman army confronted him intact, and that accordingly it would not be

difficult to weaken by petty conflicts and gradually to starve out the

enemy's army, dependent as it was on foraging for its supplies.

March to Capua and Back to Apulia

War in Apulia

Hannibal, well served by his spies in Rome and in the Roman army,

immediately learned how matters stood, and, as usual, adjusted the

plan of his campaign in accordance with the individual character of

the opposing leader. Passing the Roman army, he marched over the

Apennines into the heart of Italy towards Beneventum, took the open

town of Telesia on the boundary between Samnium and Campania, and

thence turned against Capua, which as the most important of all the

Italian cities dependent on Rome, and the only one standing in some

measure on a footing of equality with it, had for that very reason

felt more severely than any other community the oppression of the

Roman government. He had formed connections there, which led him to

hope that the Campanians might revolt from the Roman alliance; but in

this hope he was disappointed. So, retracing his steps, he took the

road to Apulia. During all this march of the Carthaginian army the

dictator had followed along the heights, and had condemned his

soldiers to the melancholy task of looking on with arms in their

hands, while the Numidian cavalry plundered the faithful allies far

and wide, and the villages over all the plain rose in flames. At

length he opened up to the exasperated Roman army the eagerly-coveted

opportunity of attacking the enemy. When Hannibal had begun his

retreat, Fabius intercepted his route near Casilinum (the modern

Capua), by strongly garrisoning that town on the left bank of the

Volturnus and occupying the heights that crowned the right bank with

his main army, while a division of 4000 men encamped on the road

itself that led along by the river. But Hannibal ordered his light-

armed troops to climb the heights which rose immediately alongside

of the road, and to drive before them a number of oxen with lighted

faggots on their horns, so that it seemed as if the Carthaginian army

were thus marching off during the night by torchlight. The Roman

division, which barred the road, imagining that they were evaded and

that further covering of the road was superfluous, marched by a side

movement to the same heights. Along the road thus left free Hannibal

then retreated with the bulk of his army, without encountering the

enemy; next morning he without difficulty, but with severe loss to

the Romans, disengaged and recalled his light troops. Hannibal then

continued his march unopposed in a north-easterly direction; and

by a widely-circuitous route, after traversing and laying under

contribution the lands of the Hirpinians, Campanians, Samnites,

Paelignians, and Frentanians without resistance, he arrived with rich

booty and a full chest once more in the region of Luceria, just as

the harvest there was about to begin. Nowhere in his extensive march

had he met with active opposition, but nowhere had he found allies.

Clearly perceiving that no course remained for him but to take up

winter quarters in the open field, he began the difficult operation

of collecting the winter supplies requisite for the army, by means of

its own agency, from the fields of the enemy. For this purpose he

had selected the broad and mostly flat district of northern Apulia,

which furnished grain and grass in abundance, and which could be

completely commanded by his excellent cavalry. An entrenched camp

was constructed at Gerunium, twenty-five miles to the north of

Luceria. Two-thirds of the army were daily despatched from it to

bring in the stores, while Hannibal with the remainder took up a

position to protect the camp and the detachments sent out.

Fabius and Minucius

The master of the horse, Marcus Minucius, who held temporary command

in the Roman camp during the absence of the dictator, deemed this a

suitable opportunity for approaching the enemy more closely, and

formed a camp in the territory of the Larinates; where on the one hand

by his mere presence he checked the sending out of detachments and

thereby hindered the provisioning of the enemy's army, and on the

other hand, in a series of successful conflicts in which his troops

encountered isolated Phoenician divisions and even Hannibal himself,

drove the enemy from their advanced positions and compelled them to

concentrate themselves at Gerunium. On the news of these successes,

which of course lost nothing in the telling, the storm broke, forth

in the capital against Quintus Fabius. It was not altogether

unwarranted. Prudent as it was on the part of Rome to abide by the

defensive and to expect success mainly from the cutting off of the

enemy's means of subsistence, there was yet something strange in a

system of defence and of starving out, under which the enemy had laid

waste all central Italy without opposition beneath the eyes of a Roman

army of equal numbers, and had provisioned themselves sufficiently for

the winter by an organized method of foraging on the greatest scale.

Publius Scipio, when he commanded on the Po, had not adopted this view

of a defensive attitude, and the attempt of his successor to imitate

him at Casilinum had failed in such a way as to afford a copious fund

of ridicule to the scoffers of the city. It was wonderful that the

Italian communities had not wavered, when Hannibal so palpably showed

them the superiority of the Phoenicians and the nullity of Roman aid;

but how long could they be expected to bear the burden of a double

war, and to allow themselves to be plundered under the very eyes of

the Roman troops and of their own contingents? Finally, it could not

be alleged that the condition of the Roman army compelled the general

to adopt this mode of warfare. It was composed, as regarded its core,

of the capable legions of Ariminum, and, by their side, of militia

called out, most of whom were likewise accustomed to service; and, far

from being discouraged by the last defeats, it was indignant at the

but little honourable task which its general, "Hannibal's lackey,"

assigned to it, and it demanded with a loud voice to be led against

the enemy. In the assemblies of the people the most violent

invectives were directed against the obstinate old man. His political

opponents, with the former praetor Gaius Terentius Varro at their

head, laid hold of the quarrel--for the understanding of which we must

not forget that the dictator was practically nominated by the senate,

and the office was regarded as the palladium of the conservative

party--and, in concert with the discontented soldiers and the

possessors of the plundered estates, they carried an unconstitutional

and absurd resolution of the people conferring the dictatorship, which

was destined to obviate the evils of a divided command in times of

danger, on Marcus Minucius,(4) who had hitherto been the lieutenant

of Quintus Fabius, in the same way as on Fabius himself. Thus the

Roman army, after its hazardous division into two separate corps had

just been appropriately obviated, was once more divided; and not only

so, but the two sections were placed under leaders who notoriously

followed quite opposite plans of war. Quintus Fabius of course

adhered more than ever to his methodical inaction; Marcus Minucius,

compelled to justify in the field of battle his title of dictator,

made a hasty attack with inadequate forces, and would have been

annihilated had not his colleague averted greater misfortune by the

seasonable interposition of a fresh corps. This last turn of matters

justified in some measure the system of passive resistance. But in

reality Hannibal had completely attained in this campaign all that

arms could attain: not a single material operation had been frustrated

either by his impetuous or by his deliberate opponent; and his

foraging, though not unattended with difficulty, had yet been in the

main so successful that the army passed the winter without complaint

in the camp at Gerunium. It was not the Cunctator that saved Rome,

but the compact structure of its confederacy and, not less perhaps,

the national hatred with which the Phoenician hero was regarded on

the part of Occidentals.

New War-like Preparations in Rome

Paullus and Varro

Despite all its misfortunes, Roman pride stood no less unshaken than

the Roman symmachy. The donations which were offered by king Hiero of

Syracuse and the Greek cities in Italy for the next campaign--the war

affected the latter less severely than the other Italian allies of

Rome, for they sent no contingents to the land army--were declined

with thanks; the chieftains of Illyria were informed that they could

not be allowed to neglect payment of their tribute; and even the

king of Macedonia was once more summoned to surrender Demetrius of

Pharos. The majority of the senate, notwithstanding the semblance

of legitimation which recent events had given to the Fabian system

of delay, had firmly resolved to depart from a mode of war that was

slowly but certainly ruining the state; if the popular dictator had

failed in his more energetic method of warfare, they laid the blame

of the failure, and not without reason, on the fact that they had

adopted a half-measure and had given him too few troops. This error

they determined to avoid and to equip an army, such as Rome had never

sent out before--eight legions, each raised a fifth above the normal

strength, and a corresponding number of allies--enough to crush an

opponent who was not half so strong. Besides this, a legion under

the praetor Lucius Postumius was destined for the valley of the Po,

in order, if possible, to draw off the Celts serving in the army of

Hannibal to their homes. These resolutions were judicious; everything

depended on their coming to an equally judicious decision respecting

the supreme command. The stiff carriage of Quintus Fabius, and

the attacks of the demagogues which it provoked, had rendered the

dictatorship and the senate generally more unpopular than ever:

amongst the people, not without the connivance of their leaders,

the foolish report circulated that the senate was intentionally

prolonging the war. As, therefore, the nomination of a dictator was

not to be thought of, the senate attempted to procure the election of

suitable consuls; but this only had the effect of thoroughly rousing

suspicion and obstinacy. With difficulty the senate carried one of

its candidates, Lucius Aemilius Paullus, who had with judgment

conducted the Illyrian war in 535;(5) an immense majority of the

citizens assigned to him as colleague the candidate of the popular

party, Gaius Terentius Varro, an incapable man, who was known only by

his bitter opposition to the senate and more especially as the main

author of the proposal to elect Marcus Minucius co-dictator, and who

was recommended to the multitude solely by his humble birth and his

coarse effrontery.

Battle at Cannae

While these preparations for the next campaign were being made in

Rome, the war had already recommenced in Apulia. As soon as the

season allowed him to leave his winter quarters, Hannibal, determining

as usual the course of the war and assuming the offensive, set out

from Gerunium in a southerly direction, and marching past Luceria

crossed the Aufidus and took the citadel of Cannae (between Canosa

and Barletta) which commanded the plain of Canusium, and had hitherto

served the Romans as their chief magazine. The Roman army which,

since Fabius had conformably to the constitution resigned his

dictatorship in the middle of autumn, was now commanded by Gnaeus

Servilius and Marcus Regulus, first as consuls then as proconsuls,

had been unable to avert a loss which they could not but feel. On

military as well as on political grounds, it became more than ever

necessary to arrest the progress of Hannibal by a pitched battle.

With definite orders to this effect from the senate, accordingly, the

two new commanders-in-chief, Paullus and Varro, arrived in Apulia in

the beginning of the summer of 538. With the four new legions and a

corresponding contingent of Italians which they brought up, the Roman

army rose to 80,000 infantry, half burgesses, half allies, and 6000

cavalry, of whom one-third were burgesses and two-thirds allies;

whereas Hannibal's army numbered 10,000 cavalry, but only about 40,000

infantry. Hannibal wished nothing so much as a battle, not merely for

the general reasons which we have explained above, but specially

because the wide Apulian plain allowed him to develop the whole

superiority of his cavalry, and because the providing supplies for

his numerous army would soon, in spite of that excellent cavalry, be

rendered very difficult by the proximity of an enemy twice as strong

and resting on a chain of fortresses. The leaders of the Roman forces

also had, as we have said, made up their minds on the general question

of giving battle, and approached the enemy with that view; but the

more sagacious of them saw the position of Hannibal, and were disposed

accordingly to wait in the first instance and simply to station

themselves in the vicinity of the enemy, so as to compel him to retire

and accept battle on a ground less favourable to him. Hannibal

encamped at Cannae on the right bank of the Aufidus. Paullus pitched

his camp on both banks of the stream, so that the main force came to

be stationed on the left bank, but a strong corps took up a position

on the right immediately opposite to the enemy, in order to impede his

supplies and perhaps also to threaten Cannae. Hannibal, to whom it

was all-important to strike a speedy blow, crossed the stream with the

bulk of his troops, and offered battle on the left bank, which Paullus

did not accept. But such military pedantry was disapproved by the

democratic consul--so much had been said about men taking the field

not to stand guard, but to use their swords--and he gave orders

accordingly to attack the enemy, wherever and whenever they found him.

According to the old custom foolishly retained, the decisive voice in

the council of war alternated between the commanders-in-chief day by

day; it was necessary therefore on the following day to submit, and

to let the hero of the pavement have his way. On the left bank,

where the wide plain offered full scope to the superior cavalry of

the enemy, certainly even he would not fight; but he determined to

unite the whole Roman forces on the right bank, and there, taking up

a position between the Carthaginian camp and Cannae and seriously

threatening the latter, to offer battle. A division of 10,000 men

was left behind in the principal Roman camp, charged to capture the

Carthaginian encampment during the conflict and thus to intercept the

retreat of the enemy's army across the river. The bulk of the Roman

army, at early dawn on the and August according to the unconnected,

perhaps in tune according to the correct, calendar, crossed the river

which at this season was shallow and did not materially hamper the

movements of the troops, and took up a position in line near the

smaller Roman camp to the westward of Cannae. The Carthaginian army

followed and likewise crossed the stream, on which rested the right

Roman as well as the left Carthaginian wing. The Roman cavalry was

stationed on the wings: the weaker portion consisting of burgesses,

led by Paullus, on the right next the river; the stronger consisting

of the allies, led by Varro, on the left towards the plain. In the

centre was stationed the infantry in unusually deep files, under the

command of the consul of the previous year Gnaeus Servilius. Opposite

to this centre Hannibal arranged his infantry in the form of a

crescent, so that the Celtic and Iberian troops in their national

armour formed the advanced centre, and the Libyans, armed after the

Roman fashion, formed the drawn-back wings on either side. On the

side next the river the whole heavy cavalry under Hasdrubal was

stationed, on the side towards the plain the light Numidian horse.

After a short skirmish between the light troops the whole line was

soon engaged. Where the light cavalry of the Carthaginians fought

against the heavy cavalry of Varro, the conflict was prolonged,

amidst constant charges of the Numidians, without decisive result.

In the centre, on the other hand, the legions completely overthrew

the Spanish and Gallic troops that first encountered them; eagerly the

victors pressed on and followed up their advantage. But meanwhile, on

the right wing, fortune had turned against the Romans. Hannibal had

merely sought to occupy the left cavalry wing of the enemy, that he

might bring Hasdrubal with the whole regular cavalry to bear against

the weaker right and to overthrow it first. After a brave resistance,

the Roman horse gave way, and those that were not cut down were chased

up the river and scattered in the plain; Paullus, wounded, rode to the

centre to turn or, if not, to share the fate of the legions. These,

in order the better to follow up the victory over the advanced

infantry of the enemy, had changed their front disposition into a

column of attack, which, in the shape of a wedge, penetrated the

enemy's centre. In this position they were warmly assailed on both

sides by the Libyan infantry wheeling inward upon them right and left,

and a portion of them were compelled to halt in order to defend

themselves against the flank attack; by this means their advance was

checked, and the mass of infantry, which was already too closely

crowded, now had no longer room to develop itself at all. Meanwhile

Hasdrubal, after having completed the defeat of the wing of Paullus,

had collected and arranged his cavalry anew and led them behind the

enemy's centre against the wing of Varro. His Italian cavalry,

already sufficiently occupied with the Numidians, was rapidly

scattered before the double attack, and Hasdrubal, leaving the

pursuit of the fugitives to the Numidians, arranged his squadrons

for the third time, to lead them against the rear of the Roman

infantry. This last charge proved decisive. Flight was not possible,

and quarter was not given. Never, perhaps, was an army of such size

annihilated on the field of battle so completely, and with so little

loss to its antagonist, as was the Roman army at Cannae. Hannibal

had lost not quite 6000 men, and two-thirds of that loss fell upon

the Celts, who sustained the first shock of the legions. On the other

hand, of the 76,000 Romans who had taken their places in the line of

battle 70,000 covered the field, amongst whom were the consul Lucius

Paullus, the proconsul Gnaeus Servilius, two-thirds of the staff-

officers, and eighty men of senatorial rank. The consul Gaius Varro

was saved solely by his quick resolution and his good steed, reached

Venusia, and was not ashamed to survive. The garrison also of the

Roman camp, 10,000 strong, were for the most part made prisoners of

war; only a few thousand men, partly of these troops, partly of the

line, escaped to Canusium. Nay, as if in this year an end was to

be made with Rome altogether, before its close the legion sent to

Gaul fell into an ambush, and was, with its general Lucius Postumius

who was nominated as consul for the next year, totally destroyed

by the Gauls.

Consequences of the Battle of Cannae

Prevention of Reinforcements from Spain

This unexampled success appeared at length to mature the great

political combination, for the sake of which Hannibal had come to

Italy. He had, no doubt, based his plan primarily upon his army; but

with accurate knowledge of the power opposed to him he designed that

army to be merely the vanguard, in support of which the powers of the

west and east were gradually to unite their forces, so as to prepare

destruction for the proud city. That support however, which seemed

the most secure, namely the sending of reinforcements from Spain, had

been frustrated by the boldness and firmness of the Roman general sent

thither, Gnaeus Scipio. After Hannibal's passage of the Rhone Scipio

had sailed for Emporiae, and had made himself master first of the

coast between the Pyrenees and the Ebro, and then, after conquering

Hanno, of the interior also (536). In the following year (537) he had

completely defeated the Carthaginian fleet at the mouth of the Ebro,

and after his brother Publius, the brave defender of the valley of

the Po, had joined him with a reinforcement of 8000 men, he had even

crossed the Ebro, and advanced as far as Saguntum. Hasdrubal had

indeed in the succeeding year (538), after obtaining reinforcements

from Africa, made an attempt in accordance with his brother's orders

to conduct an army over the Pyrenees; but the Scipios opposed his

passage of the Ebro, and totally defeated him, nearly at the same

time that Hannibal conquered at Cannae. The powerful tribe of the

Celtiberians and numerous other Spanish tribes had joined the Scipios;

they commanded the sea, the passes of the Pyrenees, and, by means of

the trusty Massiliots, the Gallic coast also. Now therefore support

to Hannibal was less than ever to be looked for from Spain.

Reinforcements from Spain

On the part of Carthage as much had hitherto been done in support

of her general in Italy as could be expected. Phoenician squadrons

threatened the coasts of Italy and of the Roman islands and guarded

Africa from a Roman landing, and there the matter ended. More

substantial assistance was prevented not so much by the uncertainty

as to where Hannibal was to be found and the want of a port of

disembarkation in Italy, as by the fact that for many years the

Spanish army had been accustomed to be self-sustaining, and above

all by the murmurs of the peace party. Hannibal severely felt the

consequences of this unpardonable inaction; in spite of all his saving

of his money and of the soldiers whom he had brought with him, his

chests were gradually emptied, the pay fell into arrear, and the ranks

of his veterans began to thin. But now the news of the victory of

Cannae reduced even the factious opposition at home to silence. The

Carthaginian senate resolved to place at the disposal of the general

considerable assistance in money and men, partly from Africa, partly

from Spain, including 4000 Numidian horse and 40 elephants, and to

prosecute the war with energy in Spain as well as in Italy.

Alliance between Carthage and Macedonia

The long-discussed offensive alliance between Carthage and Macedonia

had been delayed, first by the sudden death of Antigonus, and then by

the indecision of his successor Philip and the unseasonable war waged

by him and his Hellenic allies against the Aetolians (534-537). It

was only now, after the battle of Cannae, that Demetrius of Pharos

found Philip disposed to listen to his proposal to cede to Macedonia

his Illyrian possessions--which it was necessary, no doubt, to wrest

in the first place from the Romans--and it was only now that the court

of Pella came to terms with Carthage. Macedonia undertook to land an

invading army on the east coast of Italy, in return for which she

received an assurance that the Roman possessions in Epirus should

be restored to her.

Alliance between Carthage and Syracuse

In Sicily king Hiero had during the years of peace maintained a policy

of neutrality, so far as he could do so with safety, and he had shown

a disposition to accommodate the Carthaginians during the perilous

crises after the peace with Rome, particularly by sending supplies of

corn. There is no doubt that he saw with the utmost regret a renewed

breach between Carthage and Rome; but he had no power to avert it, and

when it occurred he adhered with well-calculated fidelity to Rome.

But soon afterwards (in the autumn of 538) death removed the old man

after a reign of fifty-four years. The grandson and successor of the

prudent veteran, the young and incapable Hieronymus, entered at once

into negotiations with the Carthaginian diplomatists; and, as they

made no difficulty in consenting to secure to him by treaty, first,

Sicily as far as the old Carthagino-Sicilian frontier, and then, when

he rose in the arrogance of his demands, the possession even of the

whole island, he entered into alliance with Carthage, and ordered

the Syracusan fleet to unite with the Carthaginian which had come

to threaten Syracuse. The position of the Roman fleet at Lilybaeum,

which already had to deal with a second Carthaginian squadron

stationed near the Aegates, became all at once very critical, while at

the same time the force that was in readiness at Rome for embarkation

to Sicily had, in consequence of the defeat at Cannae, to be diverted

to other and more urgent objects.

Capua and Most of the Communities of Lower Italy Pass over to Hannibal

Above all came the decisive fact, that now at length the fabric of the

Roman confederacy began to be unhinged, after it had survived unshaken

the shocks of two severe years of war. There passed over to the side

of Hannibal Arpi in Apulia, and Uzentum in Messapia, two old towns

which had been greatly injured by the Roman colonies of Luceria and

Brundisium; all the towns of the Bruttii--who took the lead--with the

exception of the Petelini and the Consentini who had to be besieged

before yielding; the greater portion of the Lucanians; the Picentes

transplanted into the region of Salernum; the Hirpini; the Samnites

with the exception of the Pentri; lastly and chiefly, Capua the

second city of Italy, which was able to bring into the field 30,000

infantry and 4000 horse, and whose secession determined that of

the neighbouring towns Atella and Caiatia. The aristocratic party,

indeed, attached by many ties to the interest of Rome everywhere,

and more especially in Capua, very earnestly opposed this change of

sides, and the obstinate internal conflicts which arose regarding it

diminished not a little the advantage which Hannibal derived from

these accessions. He found himself obliged, for instance, to have one

of the leaders of the aristocratic party in Capua, Decius Magius, who

even after the entrance of the Phoenicians obstinately contended for

the Roman alliance, seized and conveyed to Carthage; thus furnishing

a demonstration, very inconvenient for himself, of the small value of

the liberty and sovereignty which had just been solemnly assured to

the Campanians by the Carthaginian general. On the other hand, the

south Italian Greeks adhered to the Roman alliance--a result to which

the Roman garrisons no doubt contributed, but which was still more due

to the very decided dislike of the Hellenes towards the Phoenicians

themselves and towards their new Lucanian and Bruttian allies, and

their attachment on the other hand to Rome, which had zealously

embraced every opportunity of manifesting its Hellenism, and had

exhibited towards the Greeks in Italy an unwonted gentleness. Thus

the Campanian Greeks, particularly Neapolis, courageously withstood

the attack of Hannibal in person: in Magna Graecia Rhegium, Thurii,

Metapontum, and Tarentum did the same notwithstanding their very

perilous position. Croton and Locri on the other hand were partly

carried by storm, partly forced to capitulate, by the united

Phoenicians and Bruttians; and the citizens of Croton were conducted

to Locri, while Bruttian colonists occupied that important naval

station. The Latin colonies in southern Italy, such as Brundisium,

Venusia, Paesturn, Cosa, and Cales, of course maintained unshaken

fidelity to Rome. They were the strongholds by which the conquerors

held in check a foreign land, settled on the soil of the surrounding

population, and at feud with their neighbours; they, too, would be the

first to be affected, if Hannibal should keep his word and restore to

every Italian community its ancient boundaries. This was likewise

the case with all central Italy, the earliest seat of the Roman rule,

where Latin manners and language already everywhere preponderated, and

the people felt themselves to be the comrades rather than the subjects

of their rulers. The opponents of Hannibal in the Carthaginian senate

did not fail to appeal to the fact that not one Roman citizen or one

Latin community had cast itself into the arms of Carthage. This

groundwork of the Roman power could only be broken up, like the

Cyclopean walls, stone by stone.

Attitude of the Romans

Such were the consequences of the day of Cannae, in which the flower

of the soldiers and officers of the confederacy, a seventh of the

whole number of Italians capable of bearing arms, perished. It was

a cruel but righteous punishment for the grave political errors with

which not merely some foolish or miserable individuals, but the Roman

people themselves, were justly chargeable. A constitution adapted for

a small country town was no longer suitable for a great power; it was

simply impossible that the question as to the leadership of the armies

of the city in such a war should be left year after year to be decided

by the Pandora's box of the balloting-urn. As a fundamental revision

of the constitution, if practicable at all, could not at least be

undertaken now, the practical superintendence of the war, and in

particular the bestowal and prolongation of the command, should have

been at once left to the only authority which was in a position to

undertake it--the senate--and there should have been reserved for the

comitia the mere formality of confirmation. The brilliant successes

of the Scipios in the difficult arena of Spanish warfare showed what

might in this way be achieved. But political demagogism, which was

already gnawing at the aristocratic foundations of the constitution,

had seized on the management of the Italian war. The absurd

accusation, that the nobles were conspiring with the enemy without,

had made an impression on the "people." The saviours to whom

political superstition looked for deliverance, Gaius Flaminius and

Gaius Varro, both "new men" and friends of the people of the purest

dye, had accordingly been empowered by the multitude itself to execute

the plans of operations which, amidst the approbation of that

multitude, they had unfolded in the Forum; and the results were the

battles on the Trasimene lake and at Cannae. Duty required that the

senate, which now of course understood its task better than when it

recalled half the army of Regulus from Africa, should take into its

hands the management of affairs, and should oppose such mischievous

proceedings; but when the first of those two defeats had for the

moment placed the rudder in its hands, it too had hardly acted in a

manner unbiassed by the interests of party. Little as Quintus Fabius

may be compared with these Roman Cleons, he had yet conducted the war

not as a mere military leader, but had adhered to his rigid attitude

of defence specially as the political opponent of Gaius Flaminius; and

in the treatment of the quarrel with his subordinate, had done what he

could to exasperate at a time when unity was needed. The consequence

was, first, that the most important instrument which the wisdom of

their ancestors had placed in the hands of the senate just for such

cases--the dictatorship--broke down in his hands; and, secondly--at

least indirectly--the battle of Cannae. But the headlong fall of the

Roman power was owing not to the fault of Quintus Fabius or Gaius

Varro, but to the distrust between the government and the governed--to

the variance between the senate and the burgesses. If the deliverance

and revival of the state were still possible, the work had to begin at

home with the re-establishment of unity and of confidence. To have

perceived this and, what is of more importance, to have done it,

and done it with an abstinence from all recriminations however just,

constitutes the glorious and imperishable honour of the Roman senate.

When Varro--alone of all the generals who had command in the battle

--returned to Rome, and the Roman senators met him at the gate and

thanked him that he had not despaired of the salvation of his country,

this was no empty phraseology veiling the disaster under sounding

words, nor was it bitter mockery over a poor wretch; it was the

conclusion of peace between the government and the governed. In

presence of the gravity of the time and the gravity of such an appeal,

the chattering of demagogues was silent; henceforth the only thought

of the Romans was how they might be able jointly to avert the common

peril. Quintus Fabius, whose tenacious courage at this decisive

moment was of more service to the state than all his feats of war,

and the other senators of note took the lead in every movement, and

restored to the citizens confidence in themselves and in the future.

The senate preserved its firm and unbending attitude, while messengers

from all sides hastened to Rome to report the loss of battles, the

secession of allies, the capture of posts and magazines, and to ask

reinforcements for the valley of the Po and for Sicily at a time

when Italy was abandoned and Rome was almost without a garrison.

Assemblages of the multitude at the gates were forbidden; onlookers

and women were sent to their houses; the time of mourning for the

fallen was restricted to thirty days that the service of the gods of

joy, from which those clad in mourning attire were excluded, might

not be too long interrupted--for so great was the number of the

fallen, that there was scarcely a family which had not to lament its

dead. Meanwhile the remnant saved from the field of battle had been

assembled by two able military tribunes, Appius Claudius and Publius

Scipio the younger, at Canusium. The latter managed, by his lofty

spirit and by the brandished swords of his faithful comrades, to

change the views of those genteel young lords who, in indolent despair

of the salvation of their country, were thinking of escape beyond the

sea. The consul Gaius Varro joined them with a handful of men; about

two legions were gradually collected there; the senate gave orders

that they should be reorganized and reduced to serve in disgrace and

without pay. The incapable general was on a suitable pretext recalled

to Rome; the praetor Marcus Claudius Marcellus, experienced in the

Gallic wars, who had been destined to depart for Sicily with the fleet

from Ostia, assumed the chief command. The utmost exertions were made

to organize an army capable of taking the field. The Latins were

summoned to render aid in the common peril. Rome itself set the

example, and called to arms all the men above boyhood, armed the

debtor-serfs and criminals, and even incorporated in the army eight

thousand slaves purchased by the state. As there was a want of arms,

they took the old spoils from the temples, and everywhere set the

workshops and artisans in action. The senate was completed, not as

timid patriots urged, from the Latins, but from the Roman burgesses

who had the best title. Hannibal offered a release of captives at the

expense of the Roman treasury; it was declined, and the Carthaginian

envoy who had arrived with the deputation of captives was not admitted

into the city: nothing should look as if the senate thought of peace.

Not only were the allies to be prevented from believing that Rome was

disposed to enter into negotiations, but even the meanest citizen was

to be made to understand that for him as for all there was no peace,

and that safety lay only in victory.

Notes for Chapter V

1. Polybius's account of the battle on the Trebia is quite clear. If

Placentia lay on the right bank of the Trebia where it falls into the

Po, and if the battle was fought on the left bank, while the Roman

encampment was pitched upon the right--both of which points have been

disputed, but are nevertheless indisputable--the Roman soldiers must

certainly have passed the Trebia in order to gain Placentia as well

as to gain the camp. But those who crossed to the camp must have made

their way through the disorganized portions of their own army and

through the corps of the enemy that had gone round to their rear,

and must then have crossed the river almost in hand-to-hand combat

with the enemy. On the other hand the passage near Placentia was

accomplished after the pursuit had slackened; the corps was several

miles distant from the field of battle, and had arrived within reach

of a Roman fortress; it may even have been the case, although it

cannot be proved, that a bridge led over the Trebia at that point,

and that the -tete de pont- on the other bank was occupied by the

garrison of Placentia. It is evident that the first passage was

just as difficult as the second was easy, and therefore with good

reason Polybius, military judge as he was, merely says of the corps

of 10,000, that in close columns it cut its way to Placentia (iii. 74,

6), without mentioning the passage of the river which in this case

was unattended with difficulty.

The erroneousness of the view of Livy, which transfers the Phoenician

camp to the right, the Roman to the left bank of the Trebia, has

lately been repeatedly pointed out. We may only further mention,

that the site of Clastidium, near the modern Casteggio, has now been

established by inscriptions (Orelli-Henzen, 5117).

2. III. III. The Celts Attacked in Their Own Land

3. The date of the battle, 23rd June according to the uncorrected

calendar, must, according to the rectified calendar, fall somewhere

in April, since Quintus Fabius resigned his dictatorship, after six

months, in the middle of autumn (Lav. xxii. 31, 7; 32, i), and must

therefore have entered upon it about the beginning of May. The

confusion of the calendar (p. 117) in Rome was even at this period

very great.

4. The inscription of the gift devoted by the new dictator on account

of his victory at Gerunium to Hercules Victor-- -Hercolei sacrom M.

Minuci(us) C. f. dictator vovit- --was found in the year 1862 at Rome,

near S. Lorenzo.

5. III. III. Northern Italy

CHAPTER VI

The War under Hannibal from Cannae to Zama

The Crisis

The aim of Hannibal in his expedition to Italy had been to break up

the Italian confederacy: after three campaigns that aim had been

attained, so far as it was at all attainable. It was clear that the

Greek and Latin or Latinized communities of Italy, since they had not

been shaken in their allegiance by the day of Cannae, would not yield

to terror, but only to force; and the desperate courage with which

even in Southern Italy isolated little country towns, such as the

Bruttian Petelia, maintained their forlorn defence against the

Phoenicians, showed very plainly what awaited them among the Marsians

and Latins. If Hannibal had expected to accomplish more in this way

and to be able to lead even the Latins against Rome, these hopes had

proved vain. But it appears as if even in other respects the Italian

coalition had by no means produced the results which Hannibal hoped

for. Capua had at once stipulated that Hannibal should not have the

right to call Campanian citizens compulsorily to arms; the citizens

had not forgotten how Pyrrhus had acted in Tarentum, and they

foolishly imagined that they should be able to withdraw at once from

the Roman and from the Phoenician rule. Samnium and Luceria were no

longer what they had been, when king Pyrrhus had thought of marching

into Rome at the head of the Sabellian youth.

Not only did the chain of Roman fortresses everywhere cut the nerves

and sinews of the land, but the Roman rule, continued for many years,

had rendered the inhabitants unused to arms--they furnished only a

moderate contingent to the Roman armies--had appeased their ancient

hatred, and had gained over a number of individuals everywhere to the

interest of the ruling community. They joined the conqueror of the

Romans, indeed, after the cause of Rome seemed fairly lost, but they

felt that the question was no longer one of liberty; it was simply

the exchange of an Italian for a Phoenician master, and it was not

enthusiasm, but despair that threw the Sabellian communities into

the arms of the victor. Under such circumstances the war in Italy

flagged. Hannibal, who commanded the southern part of the peninsula

as far up as the Volturnus and Garganus, and who could not simply

abandon these lands again as he had abandoned that of the Celts, had

now likewise a frontier to protect, which could not be left uncovered

with impunity; and for the purpose of defending the districts that he

had gained against the fortresses which everywhere defied him and the

armies advancing from the north, and at the same time of resuming the

difficult offensive against central Italy, his forces--an army of

about 40,000 men, without reckoning the Italian contingents--were far

from sufficient.

Marcellus

Above all, he found that other antagonists were opposed to him.

Taught by fearful experience, the Romans adopted a more judicious

system of conducting the war, placed none but experienced officers

at the head of their armies, and left them, at least where it was

necessary, for a longer period in command. These generals neither

looked down on the enemy's movements from the mountains, nor did they

throw themselves on their adversary wherever they found him; but,

keeping the true mean between inaction and precipitation, they took up

their positions in entrenched camps under the walls of fortresses, and

accepted battle where victory would lead to results and defeat would

not be destruction. The soul of this new mode of warfare was Marcus

Claudius Marcellus. With true instinct, after the disastrous day of

Cannae, the senate and people had turned their eyes to this brave and

experienced officer, and entrusted him at once with the actual supreme

command. He had received his training in the troublesome warfare

against Hamilcar in Sicily, and had given brilliant evidence of his

talents as a leader as well as of his personal valour in the last

campaigns against the Celts. Although far above fifty, he still

glowed with all the ardour of the most youthful soldier, and only a

few years before this he had, as general, cut down the mounted general

of the enemy(1)--the first and only Roman consul who achieved that

feat of arms. His life was consecrated to the two divinities, to

whom he erected the splendid double temple at the Capene Gate--to

Honour and to Valour; and, while the merit of rescuing Rome from this

extremity of danger belonged to no single individual, but pertained to

the Roman citizens collectively and pre-eminently to the senate, yet

no single man contributed more towards the success of the common

enterprise than Marcus Marcellus.

Hannibal Proceeds to Campania

From the field of battle Hannibal had turned his steps to Campania, He

knew Rome better than the simpletons, who in ancient and modern times

have fancied that he might have terminated the struggle by a march on

the enemy's capital. Modern warfare, it is true, decides a war on the

field of battle; but in ancient times, when the system of attacking

fortresses was far less developed than the system of defence, the most

complete success in the field was on numberless occasions neutralized

by the resistance of the walls of the capitals. The council and

citizens of Carthage were not at all to be compared to the senate

and people of Rome; the peril of Carthage after the first campaign of

Regulus was infinitely more urgent than that of Rome after the battle

of Cannae; yet Carthage had made a stand and been completely

victorious. With what colour could it be expected that Rome would now

deliver her keys to the victor, or even accept an equitable peace?

Instead therefore of sacrificing practicable and important successes

for the sake of such empty demonstrations, or losing time in the

besieging of the two thousand Roman fugitives enclosed within the

walls of Canusium, Hannibal had immediately proceeded to Capua before

the Romans could throw in a garrison, and by his advance had induced

this second city of Italy after long hesitation to join him. He might

hope that, in possession of Capua, he would be able to seize one of

the Campanian ports, where he might disembark the reinforcements which

his great victories had wrung from the opposition at home.

Renewal of the War in Campania

The War in Apulia

When the Romans learned whither Hannibal had gone, they also left

Apulia, where only a weak division was retained, and collected

their remaining forces on the right bank of the Volturnus. With

the two legions saved from Cannae Marcus Marcellus marched to Teanum

Sidicinum, where he was joined by such troops as were at the moment

disposable from Rome and Ostia, and advanced--while the dictator

Marcus Junius slowly followed with the main army which had been

hastily formed--as far as the Volturnus at Casilinum, with a view if

possible to save Capua. That city he found already in the power of

the enemy; but on the other hand the attempts of the enemy on Neapolis

had been thwarted by the courageous resistance of the citizens, and

the Romans were still in good time to throw a garrison into that

important port. With equal fidelity the two other large coast towns,

Cumae and Nuceria, adhered to Rome. In Nola the struggle between

the popular and senatorial parties as to whether they should attach

themselves to the Carthaginians or to the Romans, was still undecided.

Informed that the former were gaining the superiority, Marcellus

crossed the river at Caiatia, and marching along the heights of

Suessula so as to evade the enemy's army, he reached Nola in

sufficient time to hold it against the foes without and within.

In a sally he even repulsed Hannibal in person with considerable loss;

a success which, as the first defeat sustained by Hannibal, was of far

more importance from its moral effect than from its material results.

In Campania indeed, Nuceria, Acerrae, and, after an obstinate siege

prolonged into the following year (539), Casilinum also, the key

of the Volturnus, were conquered by Hannibal, and the severest

punishments were inflicted on the senates of these towns which had

adhered to Rome. But terror is a bad weapon of proselytism; the

Romans succeeded, with comparatively trifling loss, in surmounting the

perilous moment of their first weakness. The war in Campania came to

a standstill; then winter came on, and Hannibal took up his quarters

in Capua, the luxury of which was by no means fraught with benefit to

his troops who for three years had not been under a roof. In the next

year (539) the war acquired another aspect. The tried general Marcus

Marcellus, Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus who had distinguished himself

in the campaign of the previous year as master of the horse to the

dictator, and the veteran Quintus Fabius Maximus, took--Marcellus as

proconsul, the two others as consuls--the command of the three Roman

armies which were destined to surround Capua and Hannibal; Marcellus

resting on Nola and Suessula, Maximus taking a position on the right

bank of the Volturnus near Cales, and Gracchus on the coast near

Liternum, covering Neapolis and Cumae. The Campanians, who marched

to Hamae three miles from Cumae with a view to surprise the Cumaeans,

were thoroughly defeated by Gracchus; Hannibal, who had appeared

before Cumae to wipe out the stain, was himself worsted in a combat,

and when the pitched battle offered by him was declined, retreated

in ill humour to Capua. While the Romans in Campania thus not only

maintained what they possessed, but also recovered Compulteria and

other smaller places, loud complaints were heard from the eastern

allies of Hannibal. A Roman army under the praetor Marcus Valerius

had taken position at Luceria, partly that it might, in connection

with the Roman fleet, watch the east coast and the movements of the

Macedonians; partly that it might, in connection with the army of

Nola, levy contributions on the revolted Samnites, Lucanians, and

Hirpini. To give relief to these, Hannibal turned first against his

most active opponent, Marcus Marcellus; but the latter achieved under

the walls of Nola no inconsiderable victory over the Phoenician army,

and it was obliged to depart, without having cleared off the stain,

from Campania for Arpi, in order at length to check the progress of

the enemy's army in Apulia. Tiberius Gracchus followed it with his

corps, while the two other Roman armies in Campania made arrangements

to proceed next spring to the attack of Capua.

Hannibal Reduced to the Defensive

His Prospects as to Reinforcements

The clear vision of Hannibal had not been dazzled by his victories.

It became every day more evident that he was not thus gaining his

object Those rapid marches, that adventurous shifting of the war to

and fro, to which Hannibal was mainly indebted for his successes,

were at an end; the enemy had become wiser; further enterprises were

rendered almost impossible by the inevitable necessity of defending

what had been gained. The offensive was not to be thought of; the

defensive was difficult, and threatened every year to become more so.

He could not conceal from himself that the second half of his great

task, the subjugation of the Latins and the conquest of Rome, could

not be accomplished with his own forces and those of his Italian

allies alone. Its accomplishment depended on the council at Carthage,

on the head-quarters at Cartagena, on the courts of Pella and of

Syracuse. If all the energies of Africa, Spain, Sicily, and Macedonia

should now be exerted in common against the common enemy; if Lower

Italy should become the great rendezvous for the armies and fleets of

the west, south, and east; he might hope successfully to finish what

the vanguard under his leadership had so brilliantly begun. The most

natural and easy course would have been to send to him adequate

support from home; and the Carthaginian state, which had remained

almost untouched by the war and had been brought from deep decline so

near to complete victory by a small band of resolute patriots acting

of their own accord and at their own risk, could beyond doubt have

done this. That it would have been possible for a Phoenician fleet

of any desired strength to effect a landing at Locri or Croton,

especially as long as the port of Syracuse remained open to the

Carthaginians and the fleet at Brundisium was kept in check by

Macedonia, is shown by the unopposed disembarkation at Locri of 4000

Africans, whom Bomilcar about this time brought over from Carthage to

Hannibal, and still more by Hannibal's undisturbed embarkation, when

all had been already lost. But after the first impression of the

victory of Cannae had died away, the peace party in Carthage, which

was at all times ready to purchase the downfall of its political

opponents at the expense of its country, and which found faithful

allies in the shortsightedness and indolence of the citizens, refused

the entreaties of the general for more decided support with the half-

simple, half-malicious reply, that he in fact needed no help inasmuch

as he was really victor; and thus contributed not much less than

the Roman senate to save Rome. Hannibal, reared in the camp and a

stranger to the machinery of civic factions, found no popular leader

on whose support he could rely, such as his father had found in

Hasdrubal; and he was obliged to seek abroad the means of saving

his native country--means which itself possessed in rich abundance

at home.

For this purpose he might, at least with more prospect of success,

reckon on the leaders of the Spanish patriot army, on the connections

which he had formed in Syracuse, and on the intervention of Philip.

Everything depended on bringing new forces into the Italian field of

war against Rome from Spain, Syracuse, or Macedonia; and for the

attainment or for the prevention of this object wars were carried

on in Spain, Sicily, and Greece. All of these were but means to an

end, and historians have often erred in accounting them of greater

importance. So far as the Romans were concerned, they were

essentially defensive wars, the proper objects of which were to hold

the passes of the Pyrenees, to detain the Macedonian army in Greece,

to defend Messana and to bar the communication between Italy and

Sicily. Of course this defensive warfare was, wherever it was

possible, waged by offensive methods; and, should circumstances be

favourable, it might develop into the dislodging of the Phoenicians

from Spain and Sicily, and into the dissolution of Hannibal's

alliances with Syracuse and with Philip. The Italian war in itself

fell for the time being into the shade, and resolved itself into

conflicts about fortresses and razzias, which had no decisive effect

on the main issue. Nevertheless, so long as the Phoenicians retained

the offensive at all, Italy always remained the central aim of

operations; and all efforts were directed towards, as all interest

centred in, the doing away, or perpetuating, of Hannibal's isolation

in southern Italy.

The Sending of Reinforcements Temporarily Frustrated

Had it been possible, immediately after the battle of Cannae, to bring

into play all the resources on which Hannibal thought that he might

reckon, he might have been tolerably certain of success. But the

position of Hasdrubal at that time in Spain after the battle on the

Ebro was so critical, that the supplies of money and men, which the

victory of Cannae had roused the Carthaginian citizens to furnish,

were for the most part expended on Spain, without producing much

improvement in the position of affairs there. The Scipios transferred

the theatre of war in the following campaign (539) from the Ebro to

the Guadalquivir; and in Andalusia, in the very centre of the proper

Carthaginian territory, they achieved at Illiturgi and Intibili two

brilliant victories. In Sardinia communications entered into with

the natives led the Carthaginians to hope that they should be able

to master the island, which would have been of importance as an

intermediate station between Spain and Italy. But Titus Manlius

Torquatus, who was sent with a Roman army to Sardinia, completely

destroyed the Carthaginian landing force, and reassured to the Romans

the undisputed possession of the island (539). The legions from

Cannae sent to Sicily held their ground in the north and east of

the island with courage and success against the Carthaginians and

Hieronymus; the latter met his death towards the end of 539 by the

hand of an assassin. Even in the case of Macedonia the ratification

of the alliance was delayed, principally because the Macedonian envoys

sent to Hannibal were captured on their homeward journey by the Roman

vessels of war. Thus the dreaded invasion of the east coast was

temporarily suspended; and the Romans gained time to secure the very

important station of Brundisium first by their fleet and then by the

land army which before the arrival of Gracchus was employed for the

protection of Apulia, and even to make preparations for an invasion of

Macedonia in the event of war being declared. While in Italy the war

thus came to a stand, out of Italy nothing was done on the part of

Carthage to accelerate the movement of new armies or fleets towards

the seat of war. The Romans, again, had everywhere with the greatest

energy put themselves in a state of defence, and in that defensive

attitude had fought for the most part with good results wherever the

genius of Hannibal was absent. Thereupon the short-lived patriotism,

which the victory of Cannae had awakened in Carthage, evaporated; the

not inconsiderable forces which had been organized there were, either

through factious opposition or merely through unskilful attempts

to conciliate the different opinions expressed in the council, so

frittered away that they were nowhere of any real service, and but a

very small portion arrived at the spot where they would have been most

useful. At the close of 539 the reflecting Roman statesman might

assure himself that the urgency of the danger was past, and that the

resistance so heroically begun had but to persevere in its exertions

at all points in order to achieve its object.

War in Sicily

Siege of Syracuse

First of all the war in Sicily came to an end. It had formed no part

of Hannibal's original plan to excite a war on the island; but partly

through accident, chiefly through the boyish vanity of the imprudent

Hieronymus, a land war had broken out there, which--doubtless because

Hannibal had not planned it--the Carthaginian council look up with

especial zeal. After Hieronymus was killed at the close of 539, it

seemed more than doubtful whether the citizens would persevere in

the policy which he had pursued. If any city had reason to adhere

to Rome, that city was Syracuse; for the victory of the Carthaginians

over the Romans could not but give to the former, at any rate, the

sovereignty of all Sicily, and no one could seriously believe that

the promises made by Carthage to the Syracusans would be really kept.

Partly induced by this consideration, partly terrified by the

threatening preparations of the Romans--who made every effort to

bring once more under their complete control that important island,

the bridge between Italy and Africa, and now for the campaign of 540

sent their best general, Marcus Marcellus, to Sicily--the Syracusan

citizens showed a disposition to obtain oblivion of the past by a

timely return to the Roman alliance. But, amidst the dreadful

confusion in the city--which after the death of Hieronymus was

agitated alternately by endeavours to re-establish the ancient freedom

of the people and by the -coups de main- of the numerous pretenders to

the vacant throne, while the captains of the foreign mercenary troops

were the real masters of the place--Hannibal's dexterous emissaries,

Hippocrates and Epicydes, found opportunity to frustrate the projects

of peace. They stirred up the multitude in the name of liberty;

descriptions, exaggerated beyond measure, of the fearful punishment

that the Romans were said to have inflicted on the Leontines, who had

just been re-conquered, awakened doubts even among the better portion

of the citizens whether it was not too late to restore their old

relations with Rome; while the numerous Roman deserters among the

mercenaries, mostly runaway rowers from the fleet, were easily

persuaded that a peace on the part of the citizens with Rome would

be their death-warrant. So the chief magistrates were put to death,

the armistice was broken, and Hippocrates and Epicydes undertook

the government of the city. No course was left to the consul except

to undertake a siege; but the skilful conduct of the defence,

in which the Syracusan engineer Archimedes, celebrated as a learned

mathematician, especially distinguished himself, compelled the Romans

after besieging the city for eight months to convert the siege into

a blockade by sea and land.

Carthaginian Expedition to Sicily

The Carthaginian Troops Destroyed

Conquest of Syracuse

In the meanwhile Carthage, which hitherto had only supported the

Syracusans with her fleets, on receiving news of their renewed rising

in arms against the Romans had despatched a strong land army under

Himilco to Sicily, which landed without interruption at Heraclea Minoa

and immediately occupied the important town of Agrigentum. To effect

a junction with Himilco, the bold and able Hippocrates marched forth

from Syracuse with an army: the position of Marcellus between the

garrison of Syracuse and the two hostile armies began to be critical.

With the help of some reinforcements, however, which arrived from

Italy, he maintained his position in the island and continued the

blockade of Syracuse. On the other hand, the greater portion of the

small inland towns were driven to the armies of the Carthaginians not

so much by the armies of the enemy, as by the fearful severity of the

Roman proceedings in the island, more especially the slaughter of the

citizens of Enna, suspected of a design to revolt, by the Roman

garrison which was stationed there. In 542 the besiegers of Syracuse

during a festival in the city succeeded in scaling a portion of the

extensive outer walls that had been deserted by the guard, and in

penetrating into the suburbs which stretched from the "island" and

the city proper on the shore (Achradina) towards the interior. The

fortress of Euryalus, which, situated at the extreme western end of

the suburbs, protected these and the principal road leading from the

interior to Syracuse, was thus cut off and fell not long afterwards.

When the siege of the city thus began to assume a turn favourable

to the Romans, the two armies under Himilco and Hippocrates advanced

to its relief, and attempted a simultaneous attack on the Roman

positions, combined with an attempt at landing on the part of the

Carthaginian fleet and a sally of the Syracusan garrison; but the

attack was repulsed on all sides, and the two relieving armies were

obliged to content themselves with encamping before the city, in the

low marshy grounds along the Anapus, which in the height of summer and

autumn engender pestilences fatal to those that tarry in them. These

pestilences had often saved the city, oftener even than the valour of

its citizens; in the times of the first Dionysius, two Phoenician

armies in the act of besieging the city had been in this way destroyed

under its very walls. Now fate turned the special defence of the city

into the means of its destruction; while the army of Marcellus

quartered in the suburbs suffered but little, fevers desolated the

Phoenician and Syracusan bivouacs. Hippocrates died; Himilco and

most of the Africans died also; the survivors of the two armies,

mostly native Siceli, dispersed into the neighbouring cities. The

Carthaginians made a further attempt to save the city from the sea

side; but the admiral Bomilcar withdrew, when the Roman fleet offered

him battle. Epicydes himself, who commanded in the city, now

abandoned it as lost, and made his escape to Agrigentum. Syracuse

would gladly have surrendered to the Romans; negotiations had already

begun. But for the second time they were thwarted by the deserters:

in another mutiny of the soldiers the chief magistrates and a number

of respectable citizens were slain, and the government and the defence

of the city were entrusted by the foreign troops to their captains.

Marcellus now entered into a negotiation with one of these, which gave

into his hands one of the two portions of the city that were still

free, the "island"; upon which the citizens voluntarily opened to

him the gates of Achradina also (in the autumn of 542). If mercy

was to be shown in any case, it might, even according to the far

from laudable principles of Roman public law as to the treatment

of perfidious communities, have been extended to this city, which

manifestly had not been at liberty to act for itself, and which had

repeatedly made the most earnest attempts to get rid of the tyranny

of the foreign soldiers. Nevertheless, not only did Marcellus stain

his military honour by permitting a general pillage of the wealthy

mercantile city, in the course of which Archimedes and many other

citizens were put to death, but the Roman senate lent a deaf ear to

the complaints which the Syracusans afterwards presented regarding the

celebrated general, and neither returned to individuals their pillaged

property nor restored to the city its freedom. Syracuse and the towns

that had been previously dependent on it were classed among the

communities tributary to Rome--Tauromenium and Neetum alone obtained

the same privileges as Messana, while the territory of Leontini became

Roman domain and its former proprietors Roman lessees--and no

Syracusan citizen was henceforth allowed to reside in the "island,"

the portion of the city that commanded the harbour.

Guerilla War in Sicily

Agrigentum Occupied by the Romans

Sicily Tranquillized

Sicily thus appeared lost to the Carthaginians; but the genius of

Hannibal exercised even from a distance its influence there. He

despatched to the Carthaginian army, which remained at. Agrigentum

in perplexity and inaction under Hanno and Epicydes, a Libyan cavalry

officer Muttines, who took the command of the Numidian cavalry, and

with his flying squadrons, fanning into an open flame the bitter

hatred which the despotic rule of the Romans had excited over all the

island, commenced a guerilla warfare on the most extensive scale and

with the happiest results; so that he even, when the Carthaginian and

Roman armies met on the river Himera, sustained some conflicts with

Marcellus himself successfully. The relations, however, which

prevailed between Hannibal and the Carthaginian council, were here

repeated on a small scale. The general appointed by the council

pursued with jealous envy the officer sent by Hannibal, and insisted

upon giving battle to the proconsul without Muttines and the

Numidians. The wish of Hanno was carried out, and he was completely

beaten. Muttines was not induced to deviate from his course; he

maintained himself in the interior of the country, occupied several

small towns, and was enabled by the not inconsiderable reinforcements

which joined him from Carthage gradually to extend his operations.

His successes were so brilliant, that at length the commander-in-

chief, who could not otherwise prevent the cavalry officer from

eclipsing him, deprived him summarily of the command of the light

cavalry, and entrusted it to his own son. The Numidian, who had

now for two years preserved the island for his Phoenician masters,

had the measure of his patience exhausted by this treatment. He and

his horsemen who refused to follow the younger Hanno entered into

negotiations with the Roman general Marcus Valerius Laevinus and

delivered to him Agrigentum. Hanno escaped in a boat, and went to

Carthage to report to his superiors the disgraceful high treason of

Hannibal's officer; the Phoenician garrison in the town was put to

death by the Romans, and the citizens were sold into slavery (544).

To secure the island from such surprises as the landing of 540, the

city received a new body of inhabitants selected from Sicilians well

disposed towards Rome; the old glorious Akragas was no more. After

the whole of Sicily was thus subdued, the Romans exerted themselves to

restore some sort of tranquillity and order to the distracted island.

The pack of banditti that haunted the interior were driven together

en masse and conveyed to Italy, that from their head-quarters at

Rhegium they might burn and destroy in the territories of Hannibal's

allies. The government did its utmost to promote the restoration

of agriculture which had been totally neglected in the island.

The Carthaginian council more than once talked of sending a fleet

to Sicily and renewing the war there; but the project went no further.

Philip of Macedonia and His Delay

Macedonia might have exercised an influence over the course of

events more decisive than that of Syracuse. From the Eastern powers

neither furtherance nor hindrance was for the moment to be expected.

Antiochus the Great, the natural ally of Philip, had, after the

decisive victory of the Egyptians at Raphia in 537, to deem himself

fortunate in obtaining peace from the indolent Philopator on the basis

of the -status quo ante-. The rivalry of the Lagidae and the constant

apprehension of a renewed outbreak of the war on the one hand, and

insurrections of pretenders in the interior and enterprises of all

sorts in Asia Minor, Bactria, and the eastern satrapies on the other,

prevented him from joining that great anti-Roman alliance which

Hannibal had in view. The Egyptian court was decidedly on the side

of Rome, with which it renewed alliance in 544; but it was not to be

expected of Ptolemy Philopator, that he would support otherwise than

by corn-ships. Accordingly there was nothing to prevent Greece and

Macedonia from throwing a decisive weight into the great Italian

struggle except their own discord; they might save the Hellenic name,

if they had the self-control to stand by each other for but a few

years against the common foe. Such sentiments doubtless were current

in Greece. The prophetic saying of Agelaus of Naupactus, that he was

afraid that the prize-fights in which the Hellenes now indulged at

home might soon be over; his earnest warning to direct their eyes to

the west, and not to allow a stronger power to impose on all the

parties now contending a peace of equal servitude--such sayings had

essentially contributed to bring about the peace between Philip and

the Aetolians (537), and it was a significant proof of the tendency

of that peace that the Aetolian league immediately nominated Agelaus

as its -strategus-.