Flaminius' army was enclosed in a basin, and in the thick fog could get
no idea from which direction the enemy was coming. The soldiers seemed
to have sprung right out of the earth, and to be attacking on every
quarter. All that the Romans could do was to fight, and fight they did
with desperation. But there was no one to lead them, for their generals,
like themselves, were bewildered, and Flaminius speedily met with the
fate his folly deserved. Fifteen thousand Romans fell that day in the
fierce battle, during which even an earthquake passed unheeded.
Multitudes were pushed back into the lake and were dragged down to the
bottom by the weight of their armour. Some fled to the hills and
surrendered on the promise of their lives being spared, and a few
thousands found their way back to Rome.
The victory being won, Hannibal charged the soldiers to seek for the
body of Flaminius, so that he might give it honourable burial, by which
nations in ancient times set special store. But, search as they might,
they could not find it, nor was it ever known what became of him. Very
differently did the Roman general Nero behave eleven years later on the
banks of the Metaurus, when Hannibal's brother Hasdrubal, seeing that
the day was lost, rode straight into the ranks of the enemy. When he
fell, Nero, with savagery worthy of his namesake the emperor, cut off
the head of the Carthaginian and threw it into Hannibal's camp.
[Illustration: Fifteen thousand Romans fell that day.]
There was silence in Rome when bands of wounded and weary soldiers came
flying to the gates, bearing the news of this fresh disaster. Fifteen
thousand men slain, fifteen thousand men taken prisoners! Hardly a
family in Rome that was not stricken, and who could tell when the
banners of the Carthaginians might not be seen on the crests of the
hills? But as the troubles of life show the stuff of which men are made,
Romans were never so great as when their cause seemed hopeless. The city
was at once put in a state of defence, every boy and old man that could
bear arms was sent to the walls, the bridges over the Tiber were
destroyed, and the senate, putting aside the consuls, elected a
dictator, who for six months had absolute power over the whole state.
The man who in this hour of sorest need was chosen to save the city was
Quintus Fabius, whose policy of 'waiting' has become a proverb even to
this day. He was already old, and was never a brilliant general, but,
like most Romans, possessed great common-sense.
Alone among the senate he saw that there was no hope of conquering
Hannibal in a pitched battle. Rome had not then--and, except for Cæsar,
never has had--a single general with a genius equal to his; but there
was one way, and one only, by which he might be vanquished, and that was
to leave him where he was, in the midst of a hostile country, till his
troops grew weary of expecting a battle which never was fought, and his
Gallic allies became tired of inaction and deserted him.
Such was the plan of warfare which Fabius proposed, but his own
countrymen put many obstacles in the way of its success. Many times he
was called a coward for declining a battle which would certainly have
been a defeat; but he let such idle cries pass him by, and hung on
Hannibal's rear, keeping his soldiers, many of whom were raw and
untrained, under his own eye. In vain Hannibal drew up his men in order
of battle and tried by every kind of insult to induce Fabius to fight.
The old general was not to be provoked, and the enemy at length
understood this and retired to his camp.
* * * * *
Immediately after the battle of Thrasymene, Hannibal, knowing quite well
that he was not strong enough to attack Rome, had taken up his
headquarters on the shores of the Adriatic, so as to be at hand if
Philip of Macedon made a descent upon Italy, or Carthage sent the
reinforcements her general had so frequently asked for. But it was as
useless to trust to the promises of the one as to the patriotism of the
other, and having laid waste the country nearly as far south as
Tarentum, he suddenly crossed the Apennines to the plain on the western
sea, where he hoped to gain over some of the cities to his cause. In
this again he was doomed to disappointment, for the rich Campanian
towns, notably Capua, richest of all, held aloof till they knew for
certain who would be conqueror.
In all Hannibal's campaigns nothing is more surprising than the way he
managed to elude his enemies, who were always close to him and always on
the look-out for him; yet he went wherever he wished.
* * * * *
Seeing that he could not hope for support in Campania, Hannibal
determined to carry off the stores and booty he had collected into a
safe place east of the Apennines, in order that his troops might be
well-fed during the winter. This Fabius learned through a spy, and,
knowing that there was only one pass through the mountains, sent a body
of four thousand men to occupy a position in ambush from which they
might fall upon the Carthaginians as they entered the gorge, while he
himself encamped with a large force on a hill near at hand.
We can imagine the old dictator's satisfaction when he had completed his
arrangements for crushing the Carthaginians, and felt that _this_ time
he would put to silence the grumblings of the people in Rome.
Fabius passed the day in preparing his plan of the attack which was to
take place on the morrow, perhaps now and then allowing his secret
thoughts to linger a little on the triumph awaiting him at Rome. But
that very night Hannibal ordered one of his generals to fell some trees
and split them into faggots, which were to be piled close to where two
thousand oxen were tethered outside the camp. The men wondered a little
what was going to happen, but did as they were bid, and then, by
Hannibal's directions, had supper and lay down to sleep. Very early in
the morning they were awakened by Hannibal himself, who bade them follow
him out of the camp and tie the faggots on to the horns of the oxen.
This was soon done, and then the faggots were kindled by a burning
torch, and the oxen were driven up a low ridge which stretched before
the pass.
'Help the drivers get them on to the ridge,' he said to his light
troops, 'and then pass them, shouting and making all the noise you
can.'
The march was conducted silently for some distance, but no sooner did
the soldiers break out into shrieks and yells than the oxen grew
frightened and wildly rushed hither and thither. The Romans in the
defile below heard the shouts and saw the bobbing lights, but could not
tell what they meant. Leaving their post, the whole four thousand
climbed the ridge, where they found the Carthaginians. But it was still
too dark for the Romans to see what these strange lights really were, so
they drew up on the ridge to wait till daybreak, by which time Hannibal
and most of his army were safe through the pass, when he sent back some
of his Spanish troops to help the force he had left behind him. The
troops speedily defeated the entire army of Fabius, who had now come up,
and then, joining Hannibal, pushed on to Apulia.
[Illustration: The whole four thousand climbed the ridge.]
A howl of rage rang through Rome at the news that they had once more
been outwitted, and all Fabius' wise generalship was forgotten in this
fresh defeat. Yet, had they stopped to think, the fault did not lie with
the dictator, whose plans had been well laid, but with the commander of
the troops in the pass, who, instead of sending out scouts to find out
the cause of the disturbance on the ridge, moved his whole body of men,
leaving the defile unguarded. Perhaps Hannibal, in arranging the
surprise, had known something of the commander and what to expect of
him; or he may merely have counted--as he had often done before--on the
effects of curiosity. But time after time he traded on the weakness of
man, and always succeeded.
* * * * *
It was in June 216 B.C. that Hannibal gained his last great battle in
Italy. He had remained for many months near the river Ofanto, which runs
into the Adriatic, but in the beginning of summer he threw himself into
the town of Cannæ, used by the Romans as a storehouse for that part of
Italy.
A Roman army of ninety thousand men amply supplied was coming swiftly to
meet him along the splendid roads, and he had only fifty thousand to
cope with them, the greater number being Gauls, and not to be depended
on. Of the original troops that he had brought from Spain, many were
dead, but he was able to muster ten thousand cavalry, mostly consisting
of the Numidian horse, and in this respect he was superior to the
Romans. There was also to be reckoned to his advantage the fact that the
two consuls, Varro and Paulus, hated each other bitterly, and that
neither of them had any instinct of command, though Paulus was a capable
soldier and a brave man.
There was a custom among the Romans, dating back from ancient days, that
when the two consuls were serving on the same campaign, each should
command on alternate days. It seems strange that such a very practical
nation should have made such a foolish law, but so it was; and on this
occasion it once more led, as it was bound to do, to an utter defeat.
Hannibal played his usual game of sending Numidians across the river to
insult and tease his enemy, till at length Varro exclaimed in wrath that
the next day the command would be his, and that he would give the
Carthaginians battle and teach them something of the majesty of Rome.
In vain the wiser Paulus, who had followed the counsels of Fabius,
reasoned and protested. Varro would listen to nothing, and orders were
given to the army to be ready on the morrow for the attack.
The day before the battle Hannibal spent 'in putting the bodies of his
troops into a fit state to fight,' as the historian tells us--that is,
he made them rest and sleep, and prepare plenty of food for their
breakfast. Early next morning the Romans began to cross the river, which
took several hours, thus leaving their strong camp on the southern bank
with only a small force to defend it, and took up their position in the
plains, where Hannibal's cavalry had ample room to manoeuvre. And, to
make matters worse, the consul formed his men into such close columns
that they could not avoid being hampered by each other's movements.
* * * * *
The two armies when facing each other in order of battle must have
presented a curious contrast. The Roman legions and their allies,
amounting in all to seventy-six thousand men, wore helmets and cuirasses
and carried swords and short throwing-spears. In front, the Carthaginian
troops looked a mere motley crowd, so various were the dress and weapons
of the different nations. It is true that the black-skinned Libyans
might at first sight have been taken for deserters from the Roman camp,
as they, like their enemies, were clad in the same armour and bore the
same arms, the spoils of many a victory; and the young men of the
legions trembled with rage as they beheld the glittering line, and
thought of what it betokened. But the Gauls were almost naked, and their
swords, unlike those of the Romans, could only cut, and were useless for
thrusting, while the Spanish troops were clothed in a uniform of short
linen tunics striped with purple. In the van, or front of the army, were
the small remainder of the contingent from the Balearic Isles, with
their slings and bows.
In spite of the faults committed by Varro in placing his troops,
Hannibal's lines were once broken by the heavy-armed Roman soldiers,
while the cavalry on the wing by the river were fighting in such deadly
earnest that they leaped from their horses and closed man to man. But at
Cannæ, as at Trebia, the honours of the day fell to the Numidians and to
the Spanish and Gallic horse commanded by Hasdrubal. The Romans had been
again routed by an army weaker by thirty thousand men than their own;
the consul Paulus, and Servilius and Atilius, consuls of the year
before, were all dead: only Varro saved his life by a disgraceful
flight.
* * * * *
Still Hannibal did not march to Rome, as the senate expected. Though the
battle of Cannæ decided the wavering minds of those who had been waiting
to see on which side lay the victory; though the southern half of Italy
and many cities of Campania were now anxious to throw in their lot with
him; though Philip of Macedon promised once more to send ships and men
to his support, and thousands of Gauls swarmed into his camp, the army
on which he could actually rely was too small to besiege the city with
any chance of success. He did, indeed, send ambassadors to Rome, with
powers to treat for the ransoming of some Roman prisoners, but as before
in the case of the Gauls, the envoys were not even given a hearing by
the senate.
Till he got reinforcements from Carthage, Hannibal felt he must remain
where he was; but surely she would delay no longer when she knew that
the moment for which Hannibal was waiting had come, and his allies were
ready. So he sent his brother Mago to tell the story of his triumphs and
his needs to the Carthaginian senate, never doubting that a few weeks
would see the tall-prowed ships sailing up the coast of the Tyrrhene
sea, where he now had his headquarters. He did not reckon on the
jealousy of his success which filled the breasts of the rulers of his
country, a jealousy which even self-interest was unable to overcome.
From the first he had borne their burden alone, and owing to the
treachery and baseness of his own nation in the end it proved too heavy
for his shoulders.
* * * * *
Soon Hannibal began to understand that he would get help from no one,
and from Carthage least of all, and the knowledge was very bitter. The
Romans had gathered together a fresh army of eighty or ninety thousand
men, and had armed a large number of their slaves, offering them
freedom. Any check, however slight, to the Carthaginian army was the
cause of joy and thankfulness in Rome, for, as Livy says, 'not to be
conquered by Hannibal then was more difficult than to vanquish him
afterwards.'
In spite of Thrasymene and Cannæ things were now changed, and it was
Hannibal who was on the defensive. The Romans had learned their lesson,
and the legions always lying at the heels of Hannibal's army were
commanded by experienced generals, who adopted the policy of Fabius and
were careful never to risk a battle.
Thus three years passed away, and Carthage, absorbed in the difficult
task of keeping Spain, from which she drew so much of her wealth, in her
hands, sent thither all the troops she could muster to meet the Romans,
who were gradually gaining ground in the peninsula.
In Italy the war was shifting to the south, and about 213 B.C. Hannibal
was besieged in the town of Tarentum by a Roman fleet which had blocked
the entrance to the gulf on which the city was situated. The alarm in
Tarentum was great; escape seemed impossible; but Hannibal ordered
boards to be placed in the night across a little spit of land that lay
between the gulf and the open sea. When darkness fell, the boards were
greased, and ox-hides stretched tightly over them. Then one by one the
imprisoned Tarentine fleet was dragged along the boards and launched on
the other side, and when all the ships were afloat, they formed in a
line and attacked the Roman vessels, which were soon sunk or destroyed.
It was deeds such as these which showed the power Hannibal still
possessed, and kept alive the Roman dread of him; yet he himself knew
that the triumph of Rome was only a work of time, and that the kingdom
of Carthage was slipping from her.
In Sicily, which had once been hers, and even now contained many towns
which were her allies, a strong Roman party had arisen. Syracuse in the
south was besieged by Appius Claudius by land and by Marcellus by sea,
and its defence is one of the most famous in history. The Greek
engineer, Archimedes, invented all sorts of strange devices new to the
ancient world. He made narrow slits in the walls, and behind them he
placed archers who could shoot through with deadly aim, while they
themselves were untouched. He taught the smiths in the city how to make
grappling irons, which were shot forth from the ramparts and seized the
prows of the ships. By pressing a lever the vessels were slowly raised
till they stood nearly upright, when the grapplers were opened, and the
ships fell back with a splash that generally upset the crew into the
sea, or were filled with water and sunk to the bottom. Of course you
must remember that these were not great vessels with four masts like our
old East Indiamen, but were long, high boats, worked by banks of oars,
the shortest row being, of course, the lowest, nearest the water.
After a while the Romans got so frightened, not knowing what Archimedes
might do next, that they thought every end of loose rope that was lying
about hid some machine for their destruction. For a long while the
engineer kept the enemy at bay, but in the end the power of Rome
conquered; the beautiful marble palaces were ruined, and the paintings
and statues which had been the glory of Syracuse were carried to Rome.
* * * * *
Just at this time news from Spain became more and more gloomy for the
Carthaginians. The young Scipio, who had saved his father's life nine
years before at the battle of the Ticinus, was, at the age of
twenty-six, made commander-in-chief in the peninsula. Though never a
great soldier, Scipio was a good statesman, and had the gift of winning
men to his side. Multitudes of natives flocked to his standard, and many
important places fell into his hands; and in his hour of victory he was
merciful, and caused his captives as little suffering as possible. In
the words of the people themselves, 'he had conquered by kindness.'
Seeing that for the time, at any rate, all was lost in Spain, Hasdrubal
set out with an army to join his brother Hannibal. In Auvergne, in the
centre of Gaul, where he spent the winter, large numbers of Gallic
tribes joined him, and in the spring he crossed the Alps by the same
pass as Hannibal. But the difficulties of nine years earlier were now
absent, for the mountaineers understood at last that no evil to them was
intended, and let the Carthaginian army climb the defile without
attempting to hurt them. Traces of Hannibal's roads remained everywhere,
and thus the troops, consisting perhaps of sixty thousand men, marched
easily along and descended into the plains of the Po. But it was all
useless; before Hasdrubal could join Hannibal, who was still in Apulia,
the consul Nero, encamped near by at the head of a considerable force,
made prisoners some messengers sent by the general to his brother.
Instantly taking steps to have the roads to the north watched by armies,
Nero set off at night with a picked detachment to meet the consul Livius
on the coast of the Adriatic, south of the river Metaurus. Night and day
his men marched, eating as they went food brought them by the peasants.
In less than ten days they had gone two hundred miles, and entered the
camp of Livius by night, so that the Carthaginian general might know
nothing of their arrival. Next morning Nero insisted, against the
opinion of the other generals, that battle should be given immediately,
as he must return and meet Hannibal at once. In vain they protested that
his troops were too tired to fight; he shut his ears, the signal was
sounded, and the army drawn up.
* * * * *
The Carthaginians had already taken their places at the time that the
Romans began to form, when Hasdrubal, riding down his lines to make sure
that everything was done according to his orders, noticed that among the
enemy's array clad in shining armour were a band with rusty shields, and
a bevy of horses which looked lean and ill-groomed. Glancing from the
horses to their riders, he saw that their skins were brown with the sun
of the south and their faces weary. No more was needed to tell him that
reinforcements had come, and that it would be madness to risk a fight.
He could do nothing during the day, but as soon as the night came he
silently broke up his camp and started for the river Metaurus, hoping to
put it between him and the Romans; but it was too late.
Had the Carthaginian army only consisted of old and well-seasoned troops
all might have gone well with it; but the large body of Gauls were
totally untrained, and in their disappointment at not being allowed to
give battle, seized on all the drink in the camp, and fell along the
roadside quite unable to move. Before Hasdrubal could get his vanguard
across the Romans were close upon him, and there was nothing left for
him to do but to post his men as strongly as he could.
For hours they fought, and none could tell with whom the victory would
lie: then a charge by Nero decided it. When the day was hopelessly lost,
Hasdrubal, who had always been in the fiercest of the struggle, cheering
and rallying his men, rode straight at the enemy, and died fighting.
Thus ended the battle of the Metaurus, the first pitched battle the
Romans had ever gained over the Carthaginian army.
The next night Nero set off again for Apulia, bearing with him the head
of Hasdrubal, which, as we have said, he caused to be flung into
Hannibal's tent, staining for ever the laurels he had won.
* * * * *
With the triumph of Nero, and his reception in the Rome which he had
delivered, dates the last act of the second Punic war. At the news of
his brother's defeat, which was a great blow to him, Hannibal retreated
into the most southern province of Italy. His troops, whose love and
loyalty never wavered, were largely composed of foreign levies, and had
not the steadiness and training of his old Libyans and Spaniards. Never
for one moment did he think of abandoning his post till his country
called him, yet his quick eye could not fail to read the signs of the
times. The Roman senate was no longer absorbed by the thought of war.
Relieved by Nero's victory from the crushing dread which for so long had
weighed it down, it was taking measures to encourage agriculture and to
rebuild villages, to help the poor who had been ruined during these
years of strife, to _blot out_, he felt, the traces of the victories he
had won. And he had to watch it all and to know himself powerless,
though he still defied Rome for three years longer, and knew that she
still feared _him_.
* * * * *
It was in the year 204 B.C. that Scipio entreated the senate to allow
him to carry the war into Africa, which he had already visited, and
where he had already made many important allies, among them the famous
Numidian Massinissa, whom he promised to make king over his tribe.
Fabius, now ninety, declared it was folly to take an army to Africa
while Hannibal remained in Italy, and a large party agreed with him. The
people, however, who had absolute trust in the young general, insisted
that he should have his way; and after a long and fierce debate, the
senate with almost inconceivable foolishness consented that Scipio
should sail for Carthage, as he so much desired it, but that he must do
so at the head of no more than thirty thousand or forty thousand men.
That so practical and sensible a nation should not have remembered the
lesson of the defeat of Regulus, and have known the dangers which must
be run by a small army in a foreign land, is truly surprising, and had
Massinissa, with his priceless Numidian horse, not joined the Romans,
Scipio's army would more than once have been almost certainly cut to
pieces.
* * * * *
When it became known that Scipio had landed and was besieging the old
town of Utica, the rich and pleasure-loving citizens of Carthage were
filled with despair. But this did not last long, for one of the leading
men of the city, called Hanno, collected a small force, while Hasdrubal
Gisco and Syphax the Numidian raised another, and between them both
Scipio was forced to retreat. If only Hannibal had been there----But
Hannibal was still in Italy, and no tidings of the struggle had reached
him.
Winter had now set in, and though it was only the mild winter of North
Africa, Scipio entrenched himself securely on rising ground, and
Hasdrubal Gisco with Syphax made their camps close by. The
Carthaginians, who had several times been defeated, now wished to make
peace, and Syphax, whom the Roman general was most anxious to gain over
to his side, was the messenger chosen. While discussing the terms,
Scipio suddenly learned that the Carthaginian and Numidian huts were
built solely of wood and reeds, covered with hastily woven
mats--materials which they had gathered from the woods and streams close
by.