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