[219 B. C.]
Hannibal was on the summit of the Alps about the end of October; the
first winter snows had already fallen; but two hundred years before the
Christian era, when all Germany was one vast forest, the climate of the
Alps was far colder than at present, and the snow lay on the passes
all through the year. Thus the soldiers were in dreary quarters; they
remained two days on the summit, resting from their fatigues, and giving
opportunity to many of the stragglers, and of the horses and cattle, to
rejoin them by following their track; but they were cold and worn and
disheartened; and mountains still rose before them, through which, as
they knew too well, even their descent might be perilous and painful.
But their great general, who felt that he now stood victorious on the
ramparts of Italy, and that the torrent which rolled before him was
carrying its waters to the rich plains of Cisalpine Gaul, endeavored to
kindle his soldiers with his own spirit of hope. He called them together;
he pointed out the valley beneath, to which the descent seemed the work
of a moment. “That valley,” he said, “is Italy; it leads us to the
country of our friends, the Gauls, and yonder is our way to Rome.” His
eyes were eagerly fixed on that point of the horizon; and as he gazed,
the distance between seemed to vanish, till he could almost fancy that he
was crossing the Tiber, and assailing the Capitol.
After the two days’ rest the descent began. Hannibal experienced no more
open hostility from the barbarians, only some petty attempts here and
there to plunder; a fact strange in itself, but doubly so, if he was
really descending the valley of the Doria Baltea, through the country of
the Salassians, the most untamable robbers of all the Alpine barbarians.
It is possible that the influence of the Insubrians may partly have
restrained the mountaineers; and partly, also, they may have been
deterred by the ill success of all former attacks, and may by this time
have regarded the strange army and its monstrous beasts with something
of superstitious terror. But the natural difficulties of the ground on
the descent were greater than ever. The snow covered the track so that
the men often lost it, and fell down the steep below; at last they came
to a place where an avalanche had carried it away altogether for about
three hundred yards, leaving the mountain side a mere wreck of scattered
rocks and snow. To go round was impossible; for the depth of the snow on
the heights above rendered it hopeless to scale them; nothing, therefore,
was left but to repair the road. A summit of some extent was found, and
cleared of the snow; and here the army were obliged to encamp, whilst
the work went on. There was no want of hands; and every man was laboring
for his life; the road therefore was restored, and supported with solid
substructions below; and in a single day it was made practicable for
the cavalry and baggage cattle, which were immediately sent forward,
and reached the lower valley in safety, where they were turned out to
pasture. A harder labor was required to make a passage for the elephants;
the way for them must be wide and solid, and the work could not be
accomplished in less than three days. The poor animals suffered severely
in the interval from hunger; for no forage was to be found in that
wilderness of snow, nor any trees whose leaves might supply the place
of other herbage. At last they too were able to proceed with safety;
Hannibal overtook his cavalry and baggage, and in three days more the
whole army had got clear of the Alpine valleys, and entered the country
of their friends, the Insubrians, on the wide plain of northern Italy.
Hannibal was arrived in Italy, but with a force so weakened by its losses
in men and horses, and by the exhausted state of the survivors, that he
might seem to have accomplished his great march in vain. According to his
own statement, which there is no reason to doubt, he brought out of the
Alpine valleys no more than 12,000 African and 8,000 Spanish infantry,
with 6,000 cavalry, so that his march from the Pyrenees to the plains of
northern Italy must have cost him 33,000 men; an enormous loss, which
proves how severely the army must have suffered from the privations of
the march and the severity of the Alpine climate; for not half of these
33,000 men can have fallen in battle.
* * * * *
Once again the subject shall be Hannibal, and Arnold shall be the
artist. This time Hannibal suffers his final defeat at the hands
of Scipio.