THE SECOND PUNIC WAR.
219.
When the Romans heard that Hannibal had passed the Pyrenees, they had
two armies on foot, one under Publius Cornelius Scipio, which was to go
to Spain, and the other under Tiberius Sempronius Longus, to attack
Africa. They changed their plan, and kept Sempronius to defend Italy,
while Scipio went by sea to Marsala, a Greek colony in Gaul, to try to
stop Hannibal at the Rhone; but he was too late, and therefore, sending
on most of his army to Spain, he came back himself with his choicest
troops. With these he tried to stop the enemy from crossing the river
Ticinus, but he was defeated and so badly wounded that his life was only
saved by the bravery of his son, who led him out of the battle.
[Illustration: MEETING OF HANNIBAL AND SCIPIO AT ZAMA.]
Before he was able to join the army again, Sempronius had fought
another battle with Hannibal on the banks of the Trebia and suffered a
terrible defeat. But winter now came on, and the Carthaginians found it
very hard to bear in the marshes of the Arno. Hannibal himself was so
ill that he only owed his life to the last of his elephants, which
carried him safely through when he was almost blind, and in the end he
lost an eye. In the spring he went on ravaging the country in hopes to
make the two new consuls, Flaminius and Servilius, fight with him, but
they were too cautious, until at last Flaminius attacked him in a heavy
fog on the shore of Lake Trasimenus. It is said that an earthquake shook
the ground, and that the eager warriors never perceived it; but again
the Romans lost, Flaminius was killed, and there was a dreadful
slaughter, for Hannibal had sworn to give no quarter to a Roman. The
only thing that was hopeful for Rome was that neither Gauls, Etruscans,
nor Italians showed any desire to rise in favor of Hannibal; and though
he was now very near Rome, he durst not besiege it without the help of
the people around to bring him supplies, so he only marched southwards,
hoping to gain the support of the Greek colonies. A dictator was
appointed, Quintus Fabius Maximus, who saw that, by strengthening all
the garrisons in the towns and cutting off all provisions, he should
wear the enemy out at last. As he always put off a battle, he was called
Cunctator, or the Delayer; but at last he had the Carthaginians enclosed
as in a trap in the valley of the river Vulturnus, and hoped to cut them
off, posting men in ambush to fall on them on their morning's march.
Hannibal guessed that this must be the plan; and at night he had the
cattle in the camp collected, fastened torches to their horns, and drove
them up the hills. The Romans, fancying themselves surrounded by the
enemy, came out of their hiding-places to fall back on the camp, and
Hannibal and his army safely escaped. This mischance made the Romans
weary of the Delayer's policy, and when the year was out, and two
consuls came in, though one of them, Lucius Æmilius Paulus, would have
gone on in the same cautious plan of starving Hannibal out without a
battle, the other, Caius Terentius Varro, who commanded on alternate
days with him, was determined on a battle. Hannibal so contrived that it
was fought on the plain of Cannæ, where there was plenty of space to use
his Moorish horse. It was Varro's day of command, and he dashed at the
centre of the enemy; Hannibal opened a space for him, then closed in on
both sides with his terrible horse, and made a regular slaughter of the
Romans. The last time that the consul Æmilius was seen was by a tribune
named Lentulus, who found him sitting on a stone faint and bleeding, and
would have given him his own horse to escape, but Æmilius answered that
he had no mind to have to accuse his comrade of rashness, and had rather
die. A troop of enemies coming up, Lentulus rode off, and looking back,
saw his consul fall, pierced with darts. So many Romans had been killed,
that Hannibal sent to Carthage a basket containing 10,000 of the gold
rings worn by the knights.
[Illustration: ARCHIMEDES.]
Hannibal was only five days' march beyond Rome, and his officers wanted
him to turn back and attack it in the first shock of the defeat, but he
could not expect to succeed without more aid from home, and he wanted to
win over the Greek cities of the south; so he wintered in Campania,
waiting for the fresh troops he expected from Africa or from Spain,
where his brother Mago was preparing an army. But the Carthaginians did
not care about Hannibal's campaigns in Italy, and sent no help; and
Publius Cornelius Scipio and his brother, with a Roman army in Spain,
were watching Mago and preventing him from marching, until at last he
gave them battle and defeated and killed them both. But he was not
allowed to go to Italy to his brother, who, in the meantime, found his
army so unstrung and ill-disciplined in the delightful but languid
Campania, that the Romans declared the luxuries of Capua were their best
allies. He stayed in the south, however, trying to gain the alliance of
the king of Macedon, and stirring up Syracuse to revolt. Marcellus, who
was consul for the third time, was sent to reduce the city, which made a
famous defence, for it contained Archimedes, the greatest mathematician
of his time, who devised wonderful machines for crushing the besiegers
in unexpected ways; but at last Marcellus found a weak part of the walls
and surprised the citizens. He had given orders that Archimedes should
be saved, but a soldier broke into the philosopher's room without
knowing him, and found him so intent on his study that he had never
heard the storming of the city. The man brandished his sword. "Only
wait," muttered Archimedes, "till I have found out my problem;" but the
man, not understanding him, killed him.
Hannibal remained in Italy, maintaining himself there with wonderful
skill, though with none of the hopes with which he had set out. His
brother Hasdrubal did succeed in leaving Spain with an army to help him,
but was met on the river Metaurus by Tiberius Claudius Nero, beaten, and
slain. His head was cut off by Nero's order, and thrown into Hannibal's
camp to give tidings of his fate.
Young Scipio, meantime, had been sent to Spain, where he gained great
advantages, winning the friendship of the Iberians, and gaining town
after town till Mago had little left but Gades and the extreme south.
Scipio was one of the noblest of the Romans, brave, pious, and what was
more unusual, of such sweet and winning temper, that it was said of him
that wherever he went he might have been a king.
On returning to Rome, he showed the Senate that the best way to get
Hannibal out of Italy was to attack Africa. Cautious old Fabius doubted,
but Scipio was sent to Sicily, where he made an alliance with
Massinissa, the Moorish king in Africa; and, obtaining leave to carry
out his plan, he was sent thither, and so alarmed Carthage, that
Hannibal was recalled to defend his own country, where he had not been
since he was a child. A great battle took place at Zama between him and
Hannibal, in which Scipio was the conqueror, and the loss of Carthage
was so terrible that the Romans were ready to have marched in on her and
made her their subject, but Scipio persuaded them to be forbearing.
Carthage was to pay an immense tribute, and swear never to make war on
any ally of Rome. And thus ended the Second Punic War, in the year 201.
[Illustration]