THE SECOND PUNIC WAR.
Livy begins his account of the war of Hannibal with the remark, which several others had made before him, that it was the greatest war which had ever been waged by the greatest and most powerful states, when in the height of their greatest vigour. Yet now that two thousand years are passed, we can no longer say the same. The seven years’ war, especially the campaign of 1757, exhibits a greater accumulation of achievements than any part of the war of Hannibal; nor is it inferior in the greatness of the generals. But thus much we may say, that no war in the whole of ancient history is to be compared to this. Nor is there, on the whole, any general to be placed above Hannibal, and of the ancients none can stand at his side. Whilst in the firstPunic war, only one great general makes his appearance upon the stage, we see in this, besides Hannibal, Scipio likewise, who, as a general, is indeed not fully his equal, but has claims notwithstanding to be ranked among the very first; and after him, Fabius and Marcellus, who in any war would have gained a high renown, and could have only been eclipsed by men of such extraordinary greatness; and besides these, many other stars of the second magnitude.
The war of Hannibal has been described by several of the ancients. It formed the substance of the works of Fabius and Cincius: in those of the latter it was treated exclusively. He wrote it, as far as he himself lived to see it, very explicitly, merely prefixing an introduction on the earlier history. Fabius had a more extensive plan; he took in both wars. Of Fabius we may say with certainty, that his account to a great extent forms the groundwork of that of Appian: Dionysius left him at the beginning of the first Punic war, and he is there without any guide. I am able to show, that statements of a marked character in Appian and in Zonaras are taken from Fabius; for Dio Cassius also acknowledged that he could find no better source. Very nearly about the same time, Chæreas and Sosilus wrote: of both of these Polybius speaks with censure; he denounces them as fabulists, although Sosilus had staid in the camp with Hannibal. It is strange that Livy did not think of making any use of Hannibal’s short memoirs, and of a letter of Scipio to Philip of Macedon in which he recounted his achievements. Polybius has made use of an authentic document of Hannibal, on a brass tablet in the temple of Juno in Lacinia,[14]in which the numbers especially were given with great accuracy. As far as Polybius goes, we have nothing left to desire: the third book is the masterpiece of what has been preserved to us of his history; unfortunately we have but the firstyears of his. He too certainly had before him the excellent work of L. Cincius, who described this war as an eye-witness. There was also an account of it in Latin, about the middle of the seventh century, by L. Cœlius Antipater, probably a Greek freedman. He wrote with rhetorical pretension, and I think that many things in Livy are to be traced to him, particularly where the latter goes off into the romantic. For Cœlius had wished to write history for effect, and it may not have been without justice, that Cicero speaks slightingly of him.
In Livy’s work we may clearly distinguish the different sources. In the beginning, the description of the siege of Saguntum is taken beyond a doubt from Cœlius Antipater; other parts follow most closely in the footsteps of Polybius; elsewhere he has either made use of theAnnales Pontificum, or of those annalists who had embodied them in their histories. The whole of the third decade is written with evident fondness for the subject; yet he is wanting in the knowledge of facts, in experience of real life, and in the power of taking a general view: he never gets away from theumbraculaof the school. Wherever he deviates from Polybius, he is altogether unworthy of belief; and however beautifully his history of the war is written, it is still quite plain that he was unable to bring before his mind one single event, as it really happened: his account of the battle of Cannæ, for instance, is untrue and impossible; whilst, on the other hand, that of Polybius is so excellent, that one may get a most distinct idea of the locality, and even draw a map from his statements, and the better one knows the nature of the spot, the clearer becomes his description. The work of General Vaudoncourt, published some years ago at Milan under the title ofCampagnes d’Annibal, which, merely because its author is such an able man, has been praised by every body, is an utterly worthless production. The maps are good for nothing, and the plans are drawn from fancy; he did not understand how to read an author critically, he hadno knowledge of Greek, and he has not given anything new: there is only one point of ancient tactics about which I have learned anything from him. He is especially mistaken in the notion which he has formed of the battle array of the Carthaginians; he believes them to have been drawn up in phalanx, which they were not. They were just as moveable as the Romans, and the sword alone was the weapon which they relied on: lances they very likely had none, but javelins in abundance. Ulric Becker’s treatise on the history of the war of Hannibal (in Dahlmann’s “Researches in the Field of History”),[15]although not a mature work, is really valuable, and should not be overlooked.
Hamilcar was succeeded by his son-in-law Hasdrubal, who, after an administration of nine years, was murdered by an Iberian whose chieftain he had caused to be put to death. This personal attachment to their princes prevailed among the Iberians: no one durst leave the death of his chief unavenged,—nay, if possible, he was not to survive him. Hasdrubal had with him for his education young Hannibal, who soon became the favourite of the army. The oath of Hannibal rests on his own authority; the circumstances of it, however, are told in different ways. He is said to have been nine years old when his father went over to Spain (516 according to Cato), and this seems to be historical: if so, he was born about 507, which would make him twenty-seven years old when he marched to Italy. This is the very age, at which several generals have shown themselves greatest. Frederic the Great was twenty-eight years old when he conquered Silesia; Napoleon twenty-seven, or twenty-eight, when he undertook the Italian campaign. The whole conduct of Hannibal during this war bears the character of a very young man; and he was by no means an old one when he died, being nearer his fiftieth than his sixtieth year. Very likely, he wasborn just before Hamilcar went to Sicily. His brothers were Hasdrubal and Mago. Whether Hasdrubal was his elder, is doubtful; Mago was considerably younger.
The opinions of the ancients as to Hannibal’s personal character might very easily have been divided. In the Roman writers, he appears throughout only as a terrific being. Livy’s delineation of him is in some parts quite excellent,—no one could gainsay his extraordinary qualities as a general: yet when Livy says that these were darkened byvitiaof equal magnitude, he is in direct opposition to Polybius. The latter expressly disputes the fact of Hannibal’s cruelty, and says that whenever anything of the kind did happen, it was through the fault of some subordinate commander, especially of another Hannibal. He also flatly contradicts the statements about his bad faith (plus quam Punica fides). Atrocities may have been committed,—there are stories of these in Appian which are borrowed from Fabius,—nor will I doubt in the least that the war was conducted with cruelty on the side of the Carthaginians; but so it was likewise by the Romans. This is the general character of the ancient wars, which we are far from representing to ourselves as so horrible as they really were. Sometimes also there are cases in which a general cannot help himself.[16]Of the bad faith of Hannibal, not an instance can be brought forward; on the contrary, as far as we have any positive evidence, he must have kept his word; otherwise he would have been taxed with it, especially in capitulations, and then indeed people would not have capitulated to him. The Romans are awful liars when they want to lay the blame upon their enemies. Such stories as the murder of the senate of Nuceria, and the extermination of that of Acerræ,[17]are unauthenticated. In peace, he is quitea different man from Scipio. The latter forgot himself after his victory; he did not find himself at home in the free constitution of his native city, and as a peaceful citizen he never was of any use to the commonwealth; the example which he set of contempt for an impeachment was perhaps highly perilous and baneful. It was great in him, that he did not make an ill use of the popular enthusiasm in his behalf: but he was conscious of his own greatness; he displayed from the very first, when he stood for the ædileship and the consulship, an overbearing pride; he wished to raise himself with impunity above the laws wherever he could harmlessly do it. With the influence which he had, he might have become the source of the greatest blessings to the state; but this was not the case. Not a law, not a beneficial measure is to be traced to him. The neglect of the Roman constitution after the Punic wars, was a principal cause of the decay of the republic: with regard to this, it was in his power to have done much good. Hannibal, on the contrary, comes forth after the Punic war as a public benefactor likewise, as a reformer of the law, of the administration and finances of his country. Scipio and Hannibal were both of them well acquainted with Greek literature. Hannibal had Greeks for his companions, and though indeed they were not the most distinguished men of their day, this shows that in his leisure hours he enjoyed a literary conversation.[18]There was something irresistible about him, which he seems to have inherited from his father. For sixteen years, he commanded an army which at last, like that of Gustavus Adolphus, had not a man of the old soldiers left; but consisted only of a herd of abandoned adventurers. Though he was placed in the most difficult circumstances, no Gaul ever attempted anything against him; the ruthless, reckless Numidians neverdared to raise a hand against him. He demanded of the Italians the most gigantic efforts; he wore them out, was not able to protect them; and still he so fascinated them also, that they never wavered in their fidelity. A man, like him, who achieved such things as the settlement and subjugation of Spain, the march across the Alps, the victories over the Romans, the shaking of Italy to its centre, we may call the first and greatest of his age,—indeed we might almost call him the first and greatest in all history. How little in comparison has Alexander done! He had no difficulties whatever to overcome. As for Scipio, he entered the lists against his rival under the most favourable circumstances: if he had not conquered, Hannibal must have been more than man. But Hannibal worked for the sole purpose of delivering his country; and when he returned thither, it was his only object to restore it. Even when banished, he did not seek for protection anywhere; but wherever he was, he commanded, he stood forth as a superior, and never bowed before any one, nor ever sinned against truth. Such a man I admire and love, almost without any qualification. That he let Decius Magius go from Capua, was not policy: it was a greatness of mind of which very few only would have been capable. Scipio could have done it.
The third general of this war, Q. Fabius Maximus, had gained some reputation already in the former obscure contest: the surname of Maximus, however, is inherited from his grandfather, or great-grandfather, Q. Fabius Rullianus in the days of the Samnite wars, who received it when he separated the four city tribes from the country ones. He acted in what seemed to him the fittest way, and was net afraid of doing what might be mistaken in him for cowardice.Unus homo nobis cunctando restituit rem, says Ennius. He was a very good general; he had coolness, circumspection, and quickness of eye: but he has been much overrated notwithstanding. Daun has been compared to him, andthere were many who thought that this was doing too much honour to the Austrian commander; but Daun was by no means inferior to him as a general. The only important achievement of Fabius is the recovering of Tarentum; yet, after all, what was it? What is certainly true, is his opposition to Scipio. All the speeches of Hanno and others in Livy, are perhaps rhetorical trifles from Cœlius Antipater; but this opposition bears the impress of history. One sees distinctly that he was of an envious mind. He could not bear the great rising star; he would rather have had Hannibal unconquered, than that Scipio should gain a glory which outvied his own. He did not rejoice at the freshness of the new generation; he wished Hannibal to be worn out by the power of time alone.
The fourth character of this war is M. Claudius Marcellus, a dashing, able general, the opposite to Fabius in his daring, distinguished as a commander, and at the same time a brave soldier.
We also divide this war into periods. To the introduction belongs all that happened previously in Spain from the taking of Saguntum to the march over the Alps 534. The first period of the war itself contains the first three years, and a part of 537, during which was the irresistible progress of Hannibal. The second extends from 537 to the taking of Capua 541, when his star was already on the wane, while the Romans once more gained ground, and their prospects became brighter. The third is from 541 to 545, when Hannibal set his hopes on Spain, and on being reinforced by his brother Hasdrubal. He maintains himself in Apulia, Bruttium, and Lucania, until Hasdrubal’s defeat on the Metaurus. The fourth period is from 545 to 550, when Hannibal was obliged to evacuate Italy. The last, from his arrival in Africa to the end of the war.
The years 535 to 546, or 547, are those of the wars of the Romans in Spain, which were waged with various success until the taking of New Carthage. The timefrom 548 to the end, may be called the African war of Scipio. The Sicilian war and the conquest of Sardinia, from 535 to 540, come in like episodes. In 540, the Macedonian war begins, which lasts until 547.
Hannibal had taken upon himself the command after Hasdrubal’s death, and he forthwith displayed increased activity. The Romans, probably after the outbreak of the Cisalpine war, had made a treaty with Hasdrubal, not with the Carthaginian state, by which both parties with regard to Spain fixed upon the Ebro as the boundary between their respective possessions. Owing to the great gap which here occurs in our history, we cannot make out at what time the Romans settled in those parts; yet at the beginning of the second Punic war, they were masters of Tarraco and of the coast of Catalonia. Livy adds, that the Saguntines were to be left as a free state between both. Polybius, notwithstanding his general excellence, is sometimes mistaken in details. He had first edited his work down to the war of Perseus, a second edition went as far as the taking of Corinth; yet it may clearly be shown that he did not revise the first books in the second edition, and it is plain that he had not at that time the least knowledge of the geography of Spain: very likely he fancied, as Livy evidently did, that Saguntum lay east of the Ebro. Moreover, he knows nothing of the fact that Saguntum was to remain independent, and yet he had all the documents before him. Were it not so, there would then indeed have been a breach of faith on the side of Hannibal. Perhaps the Romans did not mean at any rate to abandon the people of Saguntum, with whom they were in alliance; and yet it may not have been expressedly stipulated, that an attack on Saguntum would be a violation of the peace. Now it is generally thought from the treaty between Rome and Carthage, that the Carthaginians had then under their rule the whole of Spain as far as the sources of the Ebro; but this is byno means the case. Under Hamilcar, they seem to have acquired the whole of Andalusia, and the greater part of Valencia; but beyond the Sierra Morena, they in all likelihood only first spread under Hasdrubal: their sway never extended further than New Castile and Estremadura; Lusitania, Old Castile, and Leon, never belonged to them. The farthest point to which Hannibal reached in the campaign against the Vaccæans, described by Polybius, was Salamanca, where, however, he did not found any lasting dominion: the tribes in the interior, and the Celtiberians, seem never to have acknowledged the supremacy of Carthage. The other peoples were under its protectorate: they retained their own form of government, and though not bound to serve, were ready to enlist under the banners of the Carthaginians, who gave good pay. Polybius himself remarks very justly, that the Romans kept silent at the progress of the Carthaginians, because they were greatly afraid of offending them now that the Gauls had stirred. Had Hamilcar been alive, he would perhaps have taken a share in that war. It is strange that once during this period a Carthaginian fleet makes its appearance off the coast of Etruria.
Hannibal carried on the war in Spain only as a preparatory one: his real object was the war in Italy, which he now tried to kindle. The Carthaginians stood in the same position to him, as the Romans did to Cæsar; commanding as he did an army entirely devoted to him, in a country subjected by him, he was not to be controlled by the senate. Carthage, according to the natural march of development in republics, was then already on the decline: the chief power had passed from the senate to the popular assembly. Now, although the people might have idolized Hannibal, yet the senate was hardly friendly towards him; and notwithstanding the general hatred against the Romans, the majority at that time were not perhaps of opinion, that a war would bring relief,and they could not see in what way Rome was to be attacked. The higher classes were also afraid of Hannibal at the head of a victorious army.
The siege of Saguntum is placed by Livy in the year 534; yet he sees himself that it took place in 533. Polybius blames Hannibal for having tried to kindle the war by all kinds of artifices, and for this he has been reproached with having been too much the partisan of the Romans; but even as he is to be acquitted of this charge, so must Hannibal of his. Polybius would have had him at once demand Sardinia; but that he could not do. Had Hannibal been a king, he would perhaps have done it; but as it was, he was obliged to draw the Carthaginians into the war by degrees, whether they liked it or not. With this view, he intrigued in Saguntum, and got up a quarrel between the Saguntines and the Turdetanians, (but very likely we ought to read, instead of Turdetanians,Edetanians, who were inhabitants of Valencia, as the former lived too far off). Saguntum may not have been a purely Iberian town: it is said that colonists from Ardea had settled there, in which case it would be Tyrrhenian; and this is not unlikely, although afterwards perhaps the Iberian population outnumbered them. The derivation from Zacynthus has probably originated only from its name. Some years before, there had been troubles there; (several of these Spanish towns were republics; one must not fancy that their inhabitants were barbarians like the Celts;) and the Romans had come forward as mediators, and the victorious party had wreaked its vengeance upon the conquered. Hannibal took advantage of this, and stirred up the latter: at the same time, he complained at Carthage that the Saguntines, relying upon Rome, had been guilty of acts of violence against Carthaginian subjects. This is certainly craftiness; but he could hardly have behaved otherwise if he wanted to kindle the war. The Romans were exceedingly afraid of a Carthaginian war: the manner in which the city hadrisen again, could not but make an impression upon them. They did not know how it was to be carried on. They could only remove it to Africa by means of a fleet, of which the cost was enormous, not to speak of the many disasters which they had already had to suffer from it. To Spain also they had to transport the war by sea; and in that country, they had no base for their operations, and only insignificant allies. There, on the other hand, Carthage had at her disposal the whole of a subjugated population, and all the troops which were wanted in readiness; whilst Rome had to fight her battles with her own men, and these she had to bring over at an immense expense. The Romans therefore let Hannibal widen his rule, without themselves undertaking anything; nay, even when he began the siege of Saguntum, they merely negociated, and took no measures for sending assistance thither; so that Hannibal besieged the town for eight months, whilst they were engaged in the Illyrian war. The full description in Livy of the siege of Saguntum is certainly from Cœlius Antipater: according to him, the inhabitants themselves destroyed their town from despair; this is a repetition of what is told of so many Spanish towns. Another account is given by Polybius, which is really historical. Hannibal besieged the town, which lay one mile from the sea-coast, on the last ridges of the mountains which, rising from thence, separate Arragon from Castile. At the end of eight months, it was taken, but by no means destroyed: on the contrary, Hannibal found in the booty the means for fresh undertakings, and for rich presents to Carthage; and thus he was able to strengthen and encourage his own army. This is a complete refutation of Livy’s story, which also betrays itself by its empty prolixity. Hannibal himself had been wounded at this siege. So little is it to be placed in the year 534, that Hannibal afterwards put his army into winter-quarters, where he completed his preparations for his great expedition. The Romans had sent an embassy to him inbehalf of their injured allies, but he referred them to Carthage: there they made their complaints, and demanded the giving up of Hannibal, and of the commissaries (σύνεδροι) who were with him, which throws some light on the state of things at Carthage, which is otherwise so obscure. The Carthaginians, instead of going into the complaint, tried to prove to the Romans that Hannibal had done no wrong; that Carthage could not be restricted by its treaties with Rome with regard to its acquisitions in Spain. Polybius justly remarks, that they argued beside the point, without entering into the question which was really before them. The Roman ambassadors now made asinusof their toga, and declared to the Carthaginians, that they might choose between peace and war; the Carthaginians answered that they would follow the choice of the Romans; and when these cried out “war,” a loud shout of joy was raised.
One would now have thought that the Romans had already made great preparations; yet this was not the case. They had at that time only a small fleet, which moreover we afterwards hear of but seldom, and even then, little is said about it. The consuls, since the Ides of March, were P. Cornelius Scipio and Ti. Sempronius Longus. The Romans had the intention of sending the consul Scipio with two legions and ten thousand allies to Spain, and Sempronius with the same number of troops to Africa. The Carthaginians had no fleet of any importance; this was the first fault committed by them in this war. It may be that the rich who were in the government made niggardly retrenchments, that they might cut down the expenses of the war as much as possible. The plan of the Romans was not badly devised; only it is plain that they were quite mistaken in their estimate of their antagonist. Had Scipio arrived in Spain, before Hannibal had passed the Ebro, his army would have been driven by Hannibal into the sea, or annihilated within the first weeks, and the invasionof Italy would have become far more easy. And yet, if Hannibal had not carried on the war with such very great speed, the season of the year might have come on, in which he could no longer have crossed the Alps. The Romans show themselves unskilful at the beginning of every great war; their troops were not thoroughly trained, they had no standing army like Hannibal, nor did it even occur to them that they ought to place the very best of their generals in command. Hannibal took the wisest precautions: he sent the chief men of the conquered tribes over to Carthage, or kept them with him; and he despatched besides some picked Spanish troops for the defence of Africa, and a body of Libyans trained by himself, who were to garrison Carthage. Into Spain, on the other hand, he drew over a great many Libyans.
The Roman consul Sempronius went with a hundred and sixty quinqueremes to Africa, and already dreamed of a siege of Carthage; but before he reached it, events of quite a different kind had come to pass. Hannibal, who had rested himself during the winter, now crossed the Ebro with ninety thousand infantry and twelve thousand horse (according to Polybius, who took it from the tablet of Hannibal,—a number which the writer certainly meant to be correct; yet one ought perhaps to suppose it to be a slip of the pen, so as to read seventy thousand instead of ninety). The tribes beyond the Ebro were allies of the Romans, though not subject to them, and were therefore hostile to the Carthaginians: they made a stout resistance; but Hannibal quickly hastened on and took their strongholds, at the cost, however, of many men’s lives. He in all likelihood set out in May, as from Polybius it is pretty certain that he reached Italy in the middle of October. There is no doubt but that, if he could have started a month sooner, his expedition would have been far from being as dangerous as it was; yet the obstacles which had given rise to this delay, must have been insurmountable. He wasleagued with those Gauls in Lombardy, who four years before had been subjected and cruelly treated by the Romans: they had promised him to put the whole of their force at his disposal. The Romans, however, had now seen through his plan. A year before, they had begun to build Placentia and Cremona; colonists were sent thither in great haste, and the fortifications completed before the beginning of the campaign; so that neither Hannibal nor the Gauls were able to take these places. Polybius rebukes the writers of his day, who spoke of Hannibal’s undertaking as of a thing that had never happened before, but had sprung from a desire of doing some thing which was unheard of, and never could be carried through without the co-operation of unearthly powers. The story that a demon had showed Hannibal the way, is in Livy changed into a dream of surpassing beauty, as if a being more than human were directing Hannibal not to look backward, but only forward; but the writers of those times gave it as an actual part of their narrative.
Hannibal crossed the Pyrenees with fifty thousand infantry and nine thousand horse, numbers which Polybius has likewise evidently taken from the monumental tablet of Hannibal. The passage was effected near Figueras and Rosas towards Roussillon, where it is easiest. He had previously sent envoys to the Gallic tribes from the Pyrenees to the Rhone, to ask them for a free passage through their countries, and had tried to move them to peace by presents of money; so that he reached the Rhone without meeting with any hostility worth mentioning. After the passage over the Pyrenees, signs of a dangerous mutiny began to show themselves; three thousand Carpetanians returned home, and Hannibal also of his own accord sent back other Spaniards whom he suspected. His army seems to have suffered from desertion besides: otherwise it could not have lessened so much as Polybius states. He advancedwith the utmost speed. From Carthagena to the Po, Polybius reckons two hundred German miles, which is indeed somewhat exaggerated; but, even then, what difficulties were to be overcome! Until Hannibal came to Cisalpine Gaul, he had to pass through nothing but tribes to whom his march was as a curse. Having gone through the beautiful province of Lower Languedoc, he came to the Rhone in the neighbourhood of Pont St. Esprit. As for the inhabitants of Languedoc, they had been obliged to send their women and children into the Cevennes; but things were now quite different. The Gauls of the Dauphiné, Provence, and those parts, had the rapid river in front of them, and could therefore more readily venture upon resistance; perhaps they had heard moreover that a Roman army was already in Catalonia, nay, even, on the Gallic coast. However much they at other times had scorned the Romans, they now looked to them with eager confidence. P. Scipio had on his voyage to Spain put in at Marseilles, as he had learned that Hannibal, whom he supposed still at the Ebro, was already near the Rhone. He could not but have found it hazardous to take the field against an army of such superior numbers; but in conjunction with the Gauls on the left bank of the Rhone, he could have hindered the enemy’s passage over the river. Hannibal, even without this, had already immense difficulties in his way: the building of a bridge of boats was no easy task. He therefore bought from the people who lived along the bank on which he was, every kind of boat that he could get, and he had canoes made of trees; then he ordered a division to make a night-march higher up the river, so as to cross over on rafts at a spot which was some way off, and threaten the Gauls in the rear. This plan succeeded; yet one cannot understand how the Gauls were not up to it. When the detachment had made its appearance, Hannibal embarked all his forces in the boats, and crossed the streamwhilst this division attacked the Gauls. Thus, after inflicting great loss upon the Gauls, he landed on the other side: he got the elephants over with a great deal of trouble. His victory over Nature, which seemed here herself to have set bounds to his advance, made a decisive impression on the neighbouring tribes. Had he delayed eight days longer, Scipio would have barred his way, and hindered him from crossing. He had only thirty-eight thousand infantry, and eight thousand cavalry left; the latter were most of them Numidians, and on the whole were only good for foraging and skirmishing, but not for regular fighting: he had still nearly all his elephants. He now sent some Numidians on to the road to Marseilles, and these fell in with some of the Roman horse: on both sides they were astonished at the meeting. Scipio, who had but just heard of Hannibal’s passing over the Pyrenees, could not have thought that he had already crossed the Rhone. An insignificant skirmish took place, in which the Romans had the advantage. Hannibal, however, did not mind the Roman general, but continued his march.
Here we begin to have most discrepant accounts of Hannibal’s expedition. Had he gone in the direction which Livy makes him take,—up the valley of the Durance by Briançon, Mont Genèvre, and Susa, and coming out near Turin,—he could not have done a better service to the Romans; Scipio would have fallen upon his rear, and on the other side, from the mountains, the Gauls would have laid wait for him, with barricades of felled trees, and the like. There was even among the ancients already some uncertainty as to the road by which Hannibal crossed the Alps; Polybius says nothing about it, because in his time it may have been a thing generally known. Some thought that he had gone over the Little, others, over the Great St. Bernard; others again were even for the Simplon: in times of old, there was no road over Mont Cenis. In these days, opinions are also divided. And yet, after General Melville’s masterlyresearches, edited by the younger De Luc,[19]which are based on a more accurate survey of the places themselves, there can be no more doubt on the subject: that Letronne, who truly deserves to be spoken of with respect, does not see this, is passing strange. No other road can be meant, but that over the little St. Bernard. In the beginning of October, Hannibal was on the last mountains. The little St. Bernard has no glaciers at all, nor is it much higher than the Brenner; in summer it is even a green Alp, and though indeed for a pretty long time it is covered with snow, this always melts away; at the very top, the soil is still so fertile that rye grows there: on the great St. Bernard, on the contrary, there is everlasting snow. On the mountain over which Hannibal went, was a frequented road, and there he found new-fallen snow. Particularly decisive, however, is the following circumstance: before Hannibal reached the top of the mountain, he had a sharp fight with the Alpine tribes, on which, as Polybius says, he stationed himself with his reserve near a white rock. Now, there is in the whole of that part of the country only one rock of gypsum, which lies near the old road in the Tarantaise; the inhabitants still call itla roche blanche: De Luc remarks that whoever has once passed that way, must needs remember the cliff for ever. The Alps in Polybius mean the whole mountain range from Savoy and Aosta; there are several ridges of them, running one behind the other, to be crossed.
Hannibal had to go higher up the Rhone, that he might get further away from Scipio. Had Scipio dared to follow him, he would have been just as well pleased; for he was sure to have beaten him, and Scipio would have been lost, if defeated. He marched as far as Vienne, a place which was the capital of the Allobroges, which Livy does not mention; that it is Vienne, has also been shown by Melville. Here a civil war was goingon. Hannibal took the part of one of the pretenders to the throne, led him on to victory, and got great supplies from him. The Allobroges had at that time the country between the Rhone, the Saone, the Isère, and the west of Savoy. Near Vienne, he left the Rhone, and turned towards Yenne and Chambéry, where Melville has discovered an old Roman road from Chambéry by the great Carthusian monastery: it was used during the whole of the middle ages, and was abandoned only as late as in the seventeenth century. From Chambéry, he came into the Tarantaise, and followed the Isère up to its source. To the Alpine tribes which dwelt in the small valleys, Hannibal’s expedition was a real calamity; it was like a swarm of locusts which eat up all that they had. Hannibal did everything he could to make them friends; yet they all of them withstood him. They did not indeed venture upon open resistance; but they had recourse to cunning, which is the characteristic of weak nations. They brought provisions, and even hostages; and then fell upon the Carthaginians as they were marching through the defiles. But Hannibal had never trusted them, as on the whole he never let himself be deceived: his plan had been to send his baggage in advance, to follow cautiously, and strongly to cover his rear; and thus he managed to beat them off. Yet the Carthaginians suffered a dreadful loss. Melville has shown, that the onward march, although very toilsome, and through unfriendly tribes, was by no means over fields of ice and snow, but across a thickly-peopled, beautiful country: the road winds between the hills through rich and well cultivated mountain valleys, through woods of walnut trees, and corn fields. But when from thence it mounts up higher into the Alps, it becomes exceedingly narrow and difficult, being in most places nothing but a path for beasts of burthen, by which not more than two can barely pass each other; and it runs along the brink of deep mountain steeps, over most of which torrents rush: it is only within the present century that a carriageroad has been made. Fifteen days were spent by Hannibal on his march through these mountains; yet for the greater part of that time, his way led through those fine valleys, full of cultivation and wealth, the inhabitants of which one must not deem to have been more savage than the Tyrolese were in the fifteenth century.[20]Thus he came as far as the Little St. Bernard. Had he reached it a month sooner, in August or the beginning of September, no snow would yet have fallen, and he might every where have found fodder for his cattle. The chief difficulty was the carrying of provisions for thirty or forty thousand men, eight thousand horses, and certainly as many as four thousand mules and pack-horses, which were laden with the bread; for, if the snow fell, it was impossible to get fresh grass for the beasts. A great part of the baggage had been taken by the mountaineers. Until he came to the heights of the Little St. Bernard, Hannibal had not much suffered from the cold; want of food and the enmity of the neighbouring tribes were his worst hardships: but now, when he reached the top of the mountain, he was overtaken by a fall of snow, which made the roads quite impassable. Only think, what a dead stop this must have been for Africans! The greatness of the snowdrifts, by which many deep clefts in the rocks were covered over, soon gave rise to accidents; the feet of the horses slipped, and the animals tumbled down the steeps; fodder was scarce, and many elephants died of cold. The army also suffered from hunger, like the French on their retreat from Russia; in those few days, thousands met with their death. The story of Livy, that Hannibal softened the rocks by fire, and split them by means of vinegar, and thus made a way for himself, is a fable. This is only sometimes possible, when there are cliffs of limestone; but to imagine it in the case of a whole army, and witha mountain like the Alps, is one of those things of which one cannot understand how a man of sense can write them down. Particularly dangerous was the descent: with a great deal of trouble they reached a spot, of which Livy speaks just as incomprehensibly as Polybius does clearly. The roads, in fact, were in some places carried round the mountains, so that on one side there was often an abrupt precipice; now it not unseldom happens that torrents undermine a way like this from beneath, and it falls in; or that avalanches bury it. This had happened here. A bit of the road had fallen in a year before, and it had not yet been mended, as Polybius tells us in the most natural manner. Livy, who takes it for granted that Hannibal had altogether made the road for the first time, says that he had now been stopped all at once by a precipice; and that on this he had ordered trees to be felled, and had had them piled up below against the steep, so as to go down by them as on ladders. But according to Polybius, the landslip went down a stadium and a half, that is to say, a thousand feet in depth, to the bed of the river Dora at the mouth of the valley of Aosta. Hannibal tried to go by a new way, having heard perhaps that some huntsmen of the Alps had already struck out several other tracks. It did not answer; and so he had to encamp for three days and three nights in the midst of the snow, that at the spot where the road was broken down, he might make with timber a new one broad enough for the beasts of burthen to pass. This is the place where indeed the distress of the army was overpowering, and it suffered such immense loss, especially in beasts. This difficulty being overcome, they came by and by to the valley of Aosta, where the Salassians dwelt, a cultivated and rather civilized country. The story of Hannibal’s having shown to his army, from the top of the mountain, the blooming land of Italy, is likewise an impossible one, and a rhetorical flourish: fromthe summit of St. Bernard, one sees nothing but mountains.
Hannibal was now in the valley of Aosta. A great part of his elephants were dead, and his army now consisted of no more than twenty thousand foot (twelve thousand Africans, and eight thousand Spaniards), and six thousand horse, most of them Numidians. It is wonderful how strong the horses here showed themselves to have been; the Numidians must have treated them with great care.
The whole management of the war on the side of the Romans, is a remarkable counterpart of that want of design, and that sluggishness, which in the wars of the revolution so often let the victory fall into the hands of the French. When the Romans heard that Hannibal was going to cross the Alps, they most certainly must have thought him a madman: this supposition alone can account for the slackness of their movements. Scipio, who had advanced as far as Avignon, ought, as he had a fleet, to have been in Lombardy, long before Hannibal reached the St. Bernard. He very likely thought, that there would still be always plenty of time whenever he came; and thus, when he arrived at the Po, Hannibal was already descending the Alps. The reports also of the losses of the Carthaginians, one may fancy to oneself from that logic of absurdity of which we have heard so many examples during the revolution. His condition was now indeed a very bad one for an ordinary general; yet Hannibal, without stopping, hastened on with his army in which typhus fever must necessarily have raged, and which must have looked like a horde of gipsies. Scipio had only two legions, a corresponding number of allies, and a few horse. The Romans were in many respects the slaves of established usage, from which they frequently did not know how to free themselves in an emergency. Thus from ancient times downward, such an army was looked upon as quitelarge enough, and therefore they did not send more. Part of the Gauls were already in open rebellion; the Boians, the summer before, had beaten a Roman legion, and kept the survivors shut up in Modena,—they dwelt from Parma and Placentia to the frontier of the Romagna,—and by treachery they seized three Romans of rank who had been sent as triumvirs to found Placentia, that they might exchange them for their own hostages. They sent ambassadors to meet Hannibal at the Rhone, and invited him to their country. The Insubrian Gauls beyond the Po were likewise ripe for rebellion; but they did not yet venture upon any open movement. Hannibal marched against the Taurinians, and conquered Turin; and whilst he was engaged there, Scipio had arrived at Genoa, and had crossed the Apennines and the Po, to take up his position in the country of the Insubrians. Here Hannibal turned round to face him. They encountered, for the first time, at the Ticinus, probably in the neighbourhood of Pavia, and to the dismay of the Romans, Hannibal had still a very large army. A cavalry skirmish took place: the Romans were defeated by the Spaniards and the Numidians; Scipio himself was wounded, and only with great difficulty got out of the affray, as some have it, by his son, who was afterwards so famous as P. Cornelius Scipio Africanus. This result of a fight which in itself was insignificant, convinced the Romans how much they had been mistaken as to the condition of Hannibal’s army, and that they should have to keep on the defensive. Scipio abandoned the northern bank of the Po. He had thrown a bridge of rafts over the river, and in the consternation it was broken up too soon: part of the troops, which were to cover the bridge on the left bank, were taken prisoners by the Carthaginians.
The consul Sempronius had effected a landing at Malta, conquered some places on the Italian coast, and taken some booty; he now returned, and went to join Scipio. Here the discipline of the Romans truly showsitself. They knew that nothing is more fatiguing for the soldier, than to march in columns on the road, and they therefore avoided it as much as they could. But now they did a thing which only seems possible under circumstances of extraordinary enthusiasm. The army was not kept together, to march to the place of its destination; but every one was to take his oath on such and such a day to make his appearance at a given place, severe punishment being denounced against the breach of the oath. Sempronius mustered his troops at Puteoli,[21]and there dismissed them with orders to meet him again near Ariminum. From thence they marched to the Trebia, and joined Scipio. What we cannot now understand, is how the consuls could have united; Sempronius must have marched through Liguria by Genoa.[22]Here the two consuls take the command by turns. The accounts of the fight on the Trebia are not even now quite correct. Vaudoncourt has not turned to account his position as a chief officer on the staff: his notions with regard to this battle are quite incomprehensible. As the Romans ford the Trebia in order to engage, and one wing, which is cut off, falls back upon Placentia without recrossing the river, we must necessarily presume that Hannibal was on the right, on the eastern bank of the river, and had crossed the Po below Placentia. It is quite in the style of Hannibal’s tactics to go round the enemy and cut off his retreat, as he was certain of his superiority; just as Napoleon in 1800 passed the Po between Pavia and Piacenza, and placed himself between the bungling, stupid general Melas and his base, so as to bring him to battle at Marengo, and Melas was obliged to conclude the convention. The Romans therefore passed the Po near Piacenza, and Hannibal below thistown. This is manifest from the whole position; Major-General Von Schütz of Magdeburg, who is a distinguished tactician, assures us that it could not have been otherwise. This explains also why the Roman camp was removed. The Romans, after they had crossed, had the Trebia behind them (on the west), which made their position a hazardous one, as in case of defeat they would have been driven into the river: for this reason, they placed the Trebia between themselves and Hannibal, as a protection; and they pitched their camp in a strong ground at the foot of the Apennines, where they were nearer to Sempronius. Their object, which was to effect a junction with the army of Sempronius, they had attained, as we have already mentioned; but they were cut off from Rome, and pushed towards Piedmont. If Providence has once decreed that a campaign must come to a hapless end, all kinds of untoward circumstances will crowd upon each other. The wound of Scipio was slow in healing, and he was not able to appear at the head of the army; and thus the Romans were paralysed, whilst Hannibal for two months and a half, ever since his march over the St. Bernard, had made use of his time to strengthen his position, and to restore his army, especially as to horses. He also took from the Romans their magazines, so that they became very hard pressed. Sempronius, when the two armies had joined, looked upon this state of things as highly disgraceful, and insisted upon giving battle; he said that one ought to fight as soon as possible, and not let the Carthaginians seem formidable: Scipio, on the other hand, was cautious, and would not give his consent to this. Hannibal, who knew all that was passing, was very much bent on bringing them to an engagement; for so long as they lay where they were, he could not go into winter-quarters; and he also wished to get the Romans out of the way, that the Gauls might thus be encouraged to declare themselves. He was about two (German) miles south of Piacenza, on the right bank of the Trebia, andthe Romans on the other side: he now enticed them on by small skirmishes, in which he let them gain seeming advantages. The river Trebia, in the year 1799, became noted for the battle which Macdonald lost against Suwarow: on that occasion, I gathered exact information concerning it. The locality is very remarkable, and quite tallies with the description of Polybius. It is a mountain torrent with many arms, very broad, and straggling through thickets and heaps of gravel: there are many islets in it in summer; in winter, when the snow melts, or after heavy rain, these are quite flooded over. It is not deep, so that it can always be forded: the banks are overgrown some way up with shrubs. In these, Hannibal placed troops in ambush, and Sempronius thought that he was afraid; but it was Hannibal’s plan to get the Romans to cross the river. It was about Christmas tide, and so he did not wish his soldiers to wade through the river, which was cold as ice: that he wanted the Romans to do. They fell into the snare. Hannibal, on the other hand, had large fires lighted in his camp the evening before, (brandy there was none at that time, except in Egypt, where certainly they knew how to distil, as the whole process is depicted on the walls at Thebes); he also made the men take a good meal of warm food, and rub themselves before the fire with oil; thus they became quite warm and brisk. There was a sharp snow-storm,—the cold is in Lombardy not less severe than in Germany,—the Romans had now the madness to wade during the night through the river, which was so swollen by the snow, that they were up to the chin in water: they got quite benumbed, and they had the pelting storm right in their faces. The fight was a fierce one, as indeed there were thirty thousand Romans against twenty thousand of the enemy; but the Carthaginian cavalry quickly routed that of the Romans, and the Roman infantry also was too tired out to effect any thing. They did what they could; but they were fighting as militia against veterans, besideswhich they had the elements against them, and when they had passed the river, the men in ambush arose and fell upon their flank. The loss was very great: some were driven into the river, and perished; the left wing—about ten thousand men—escaped to Placentia. The snow-storm was so fearful, and the troops were likewise so much in want of rest, that Hannibal was unable to pursue the enemy, though otherwise he always made the very most of his victories. The Romans therefore, one and all, threw themselves into Placentia, where they had their magazines, and there they remained some time. At first, the consul deceived the senate by false reports; but the truth was soon known. Hannibal took up his quarters on both banks of the Po, and lived in plenty on the stores of the Romans; he wished his troops to have their full rest, and did not care for Placentia. The Insubrians also now declared for him. The Romans, on the other hand, embarked on the Po, and went to Ariminum, where the new consul Flaminius brought them reinforcements.
According to Livy Hannibal tried that very winter to break through the Apennines into Etruria. This is possible, but hardly likely; Polybius does not mention it: it may have been a movement of no consequence, perhaps a reconnoitring. Livy’s description, however, of the locality, and of the struggle which Hannibal had to sustain with the elements, is, as I myself know from experience, a very happy one.
The unlucky honour of the consulship devolved, the next year, on C. Flaminius, a man, whose name has come down to us with disgrace, though, as far as we can judge from his actions, unjustly. He had, when a tribune, carried through the assignment of theAger Gallicus Picenus, for which the nobles never forgave him; he now, as consul, supported a tribunician law which also gave high offence, and was a remarkable instance of the hypocrisy of the nobility. The aristocracy always rail against trade, business, and so forth, and talk of noble feeling and high-mindedness;and yet, they will not let an advantage slip out of their hands. The new law decreed, that no senator, and no one, whose father had a seat in the senate, should own a sea-going ship of more than a certain tonnage, nor for any other purpose than to convey corn from his estates to Rome; and it therefore debarred the nobility from making money by traffic, and restricted them to what they got from their landed property. Commerce, shipping, and such things, were to be left to the trading class which had now risen, theequites, and the senators were not to interfere with them. Nothing indeed could have been more in the spirit of the Venetian aristocracy in the best times, than such a law; but the grasping nobility of Rome felt so much aggrieved by its operation, that Flaminius was spoken of as a turbulent fellow. Flaminius may have been a rash and hot-headed man; yet I am convinced that he was any thing but a revolutionist. In the same spirit, he was also now decried for having made too much haste, because he had set out for Ariminum, without waiting for the Feriæ Latinæ! Such an accusation is quite unbearable; for it is plain that Hannibal had not waited for the end of the Latin holidays. Flaminius in fact still came too late.
The prospects of the Romans were very gloomy, the enemy being in Italy with a superior force. And when they raised new legions, a great disadvantage now shewed itself; for the veterans were lost, and the Roman system of tactics was the very worst when the troops were not well trained, (hence the defeat at Cannæ,) as, on the other hand, it was the best with practised soldiers: they ought now to have formed in phalanx only, so as to keep their ground by means of masses. Hannibal had three roads before him, two of them through Tuscany, and one along the Adriatic to Rimini; there lay the army of Sempronius, reinforced by the fresh draughts which the new consul had brought with him. In Tuscany, the Romans must have expected no attack whatever,nor does any army seem to have been stationed there, unless perhaps an Etrurian levy at most; for Hannibal met with no resistance at all when he had resolved to go through the marshes. One of the roads was through the Apennines, by Prato to Florence; the other, from Bologna by Pietramala and Barberino, where the Apennines are broadest and wildest. The latter of these must at that time have been impassable, having perhaps been left to grow wild as a protection against the Gauls; it also passed too close by the Apennines,[23]and Flaminius might have arrived before its difficulties were overcome. He therefore chose the other road. With regard to this, much dispute has unaccountably arisen, and even the judicious and excellent Strabo is mistaken in thinking of the marshes near Parma: in Tuscany, no one now has a doubt about it. The road in question led by Lucca and Pisa. It is a very pleasant one now; but formerly the outlet of the Arno was a shallow gulf running up into the land as far as Sendi,[24]and this had been filled up from time immemorial, and had become a marsh like the Pontine, only it was not quite so unhealthy. Even now, on the northern side, one still sees a succession of lakes, six German miles long; the marshes drained by canals may everywhere be traced. This extends as far as Pisa, which lies somewhat higher, and is connected with the fruitful country of Lucca. Here, by Lucca where in spring all is a vast lake, we must presume the march of Hannibal to have been. He had learned that it was not a morass, but that it could be passed, although the whole way was under water: the Romans, however, did not expect any inroad from thence. Hannibal very likely went first to Modena, in order to deceive the Romans, and then turned off to the right. The difficulties of themarch may have been somewhat exaggerated; but on the whole, there is a correct notion at bottom. Hannibal lost very many men and horses, and all his remaining elephants but one: he himself lost an eye. After three days and a half, he got out near Fiesole, and marched behind Florence into the upper valley of the Arno, which even as early as that time was drained; and he allowed his soldiers, among whom there were now already many Gauls, to console themselves for the toils which they had gone through.[25]The Romans under Flaminius were encamped near Arezzo. He believed that Hannibal would now burst upon Ariminum, and so he wished to go across the Romagna to the assistance of the Romans there. But Hannibal now suddenly appeared in the heart of Etruria, on which Flaminiusbroke up in all haste, that he might get the start of him in reaching the road to Rome. Hannibal advanced to Chiusi, wasting the country on his way; Flaminius followed with his utmost speed. Among the hypocritical reproaches made against him was also this, that he had not stopped his march when a standard stuck fast in the ground,—a superstition which, to use the remark of Polybius, is beyond all conception. Hannibal went on from the upper valley of the Arno below Cortona, having the lake of Perugia (Trasimenus) on his left, still on the road to Rome. He had got ahead of Flaminius by some days’ marches; the latter with hurried speed pressed on from Cortona. Hannibal could now already discern the goal, and he wished for a decisive battle. When the Romans reached the pass on the south side, they found it beset. On that very morning, there was an impenetrable fog, so that they saw neither the hills nor the lake: the troops in front kept pushing on, in order to find room. When these were already attacked at the defile, the men behind, as they were marching in a long column, did not perceive any thing of it; and now the rear itself was charged by the troops which had been posted on the hills. Then the Carthaginians wheeled to the right, until they outflanked the Romans, and thus drove them towards the lake; and these, in order to force their way, again and again assailed the intrenchments of the defile, without effecting anything. The battle had a great resemblance to the unfortunate affair of Auerstedt, where continual assaults were likewise made in vain, and one division sacrificed after another. At last, about six thousand men made an assault upon the hills, broke through, and thus made their escape: the rest were either driven into the lake, or taken prisoners. InDutens Manuel du Voyageur, and other books, it is stated that the names of two spots of that neighbourhood,la OssajaandPonte di Sanguinetto, referred to the battle on the Trasimene lake; yet at the latter place a battle cannot possiblyhave been fought, andla Ossajawas as late as in the sixteenth century calledOrsaria, that is, bear’s-garden, because the lords of Perugia kept there the bears and wild beasts for their sports.
Just as Shakspeare connects awful natural phenomena with frightful moral ones, and as Thucydides in the Peloponnesian war always mentions such phenomena, thus also during the war of Hannibal the earth was convulsed with throes. The year of the battle at the Trasimenus was, as Pliny says, richer in earthquakes than had ever been known in the memory of man: fifty-seven of them were observed. We shall not discuss whether these were all on different days, or whether it was always the same one on different points. Many places lay in ruins, as Cannæ in Apulia; others lost their walls. But we cannot believe what Livy relates, that during the battle such a dreadful earthquake had happened, that the walls of many Italian towns fell down, and yet that the contending armies were not aware of it. It is possible that the thick fog was connected with this earthquake. Fogs are, however, very frequent there at that time of the year: I have myself seen a very thick one in the same neighbourhood, which very strongly reminded me of the battle at the Trasimene lake. Flaminius himself fell bravely fighting. Although his guilt is infinitely small when compared with the charges which have been laid upon him, yet, according to my views of the battle, he is not quite to be acquitted of carelessness; but in great events which are to change the destinies of the world, a fatality rules, which blinds the eyes even of the very shrewdest.
After this battle, Hannibal exchanged, even as he had already begun to do so after that of the Trebia, the arms of his Libyans for those of the Romans, a proof how, even in the midst of war, he still trained his troops. The practice of thepilumwas not so easy to learn: in fact, to use the Roman arms with success, he was obliged to adopt their drill in all its parts. To the Spaniardshe left their original mode of fighting. As early as after the battle of the Trebia, he had made a difference between his prisoners. He had treated the Italians with kindness, having often given them presents, taken care of their wounded, and then sent them home, probably under a promise of serving no longer against him; he now did the same on a larger scale, and announced himself to the inhabitants of Italy as their deliverer from the Roman yoke. A man like Hannibal was far from intending, with the troops which he had brought with him, and the Cisalpine Gauls who had joined him, to sweep down like a torrent upon Italy, and without fresh forces to scale the walls of Rome: he must have founded all his hopes on rousing the south of Italy, by the remembrance of the old struggles with Rome, to cast off the Roman rule, and unite with him, and thus to shake down Rome in the course of a few years. Pyrrhus had the power, to run down Rome; Hannibal had first to create one for himself. He must have started immediately after the battle, as in Umbria he fell in with a reinforcement of four thousand men, which the consul Servilius sent to Flaminius, and which consisted chiefly of cavalry: it was surrounded by Hannibal, and almost entirely destroyed. Such is the account of Polybius, which has every appearance of truth; Livy, on the contrary, says that Centenius had formed an army by order of the senate, when tidings had been heard of the defeat at the Trasimene lake, a thing which is not likely, as the news could not yet have reached Rome.
Hannibal now turned to Spoleto, which he could hope to overawe; yet the town, which belonged to the third line of the Roman colonies, remained faithful, and held out. Hannibal, like many great generals, Frederic the Great, for instance, had an aversion to sieges, and he never undertook any in person. He first tried to intimidate Spoleto; and when he did not succeed in it he withdrew. The gates were everywhere shut against him, wherever the earthquake had not opened them.He strove therefore to spread terror far and wide. Why did he not march close up to Rome? why did he not entrench himself before its walls? and why, if he could not take it by storm, did he not at least try and blockade it? But for a siege like this, very great machines were indeed requisite, and as he had none whatever with him, he could only have burned down the suburbs. When one knows the extent of ancient Rome, one understands the difficulties of a siege. The Capitoline hill was a scarped rock; the side of the Quirinal to thePorta Collinawas very much like it; then came the wall of Servius Tullius: it would have needed an immense army to invest Rome. Hannibal’s men were suffering from sickness, especially from diseases of the skin; the horses also had suffered much; he had therefore to put them into quarters. The unhealthy air of the neighbourhood of Rome in summer is another reason. The battle at the Trasimene lake may have taken place in May, or in the beginning of June, and already before the festival of St. Peter and St. Paul, the malaria at Rome begins; so that the army would have been swept away by disease. He therefore stationed himself in Picenum and the March of Ancona, a fruitful country, with a very temperate climate, and exceedingly healthy. There he had his summer-quarters, which in Italy are just as necessary as winter-quarters are elsewhere. The earthquakes had been his battering rams, and the walls of not an inconsiderable number of Italian towns had been thrown down: he was thus able to enter into them without hindrance, and to appropriate to himself their resources.
Whilst he was allowing his soldiers this necessary relaxation, the Romans made every exertion in their power, and appointed Q. Fabius Cunctator dictator. The flower of the Roman troops were destroyed, and Fabius had to bring together a new army: this was now a medley of all sorts of people; even the prisoners were already taken as volunteers. With such troops hewas to make head against Hannibal, whose power could not but increase with his success; whilst, on the other hand, the Romans had the consciousness of having been beaten, and dared not risk an engagement, although Hannibal, like all great generals, was not willing to give battle when there was no necessity for it. Fabius perceived that he had to train his troops, and that it was very fortunate for him that the allies remained faithful: this he was to turn to advantage. He also hoped that the consequences which might be expected from such a motley composition of Hannibal’s army would show themselves; and yet this was not the case. That army was indeed swept together from all nations,—Gauls especially there were in it, though these were so exasperated against the Romans, that he might safely rely upon them,—but his choice troops consisted of Africans, and in a lesser proportion, of Spaniards, which last were most likely the best of all. Moreover, he had many slingers; his infantry did not yet on the whole amount to more than forty thousand men; and with this army, he was in a country in which not one town had hitherto opened to him its gates of its own free will. The country especially which he had last marched through, was firmly attached to the Romans; in Apulia, perhaps, the feeling was already different.
Hannibal, however, started in autumn, and marched along the Adriatic through the Abruzzi, the country of the Marrucinians and Pelignians. Here Fabius withstood him, and tried to cut off his supplies, in which he also partly succeeded. But Hannibal, when hard pressed, eluded his vigilance, and quietly breaking up his camp, appeared all at once in Campania. It was his design to make himself master of Casinum and the Latin road, and by confining the communication between Rome and Campania to the Appian road alone, to try and see whether the Italians would declare for him. Here we may see an example of the disadvantage of the want of maps, although on the whole it is wonderfulhow well they managed in ancient times without them. Hannibal meant to give the order to lead the army to Casinum; but the guide, either misunderstanding him, or from downright dishonesty, led him through Upper Samnium, along the banks of the Vulturnus, down to Casilinum; and here Hannibal perceived that he was in quite a different neighbourhood from where he had wished to be. In the meanwhile, Fabius had been beforehand with him, and had left the Latin road, and strongly posted himself in Samnium. Hannibal, after having visited the country of the Falernians and Campania with devastation, and made an immense booty, owing to which the men of rank at Rome were already sufferers, now wanted to begin his retreat through Samnium to Apulia, a very mild, sunny district, where he meant to take up his winter-quarters, and to establish a communication with Tarentum and other towns of lower Italy, and also with the king of Macedon. Here Fabius cut off his retreat near Mount Callicula, blocking up with his troops the Caudine road, while another body of Romans beset the passes of Casinum, which led to Rome. Then Hannibal availed himself of his famous stratagem: he had encamped near the mountains which Fabius occupied. Livy’s account of this stratagem makes out rather a silly story for the Romans. He says that Hannibal tied faggots to the horns of oxen, and setting these on fire, had them driven up into the mountains between the Roman posts; and that on this, the Romans, believing them to be spectres, had betaken themselves to flight. But the real truth is what Polybius tells. Nothing was more common among the ancients than to march by torch light. Now, when the Romans saw lights between their stations in the space which was left unoccupied, they thought that the Carthaginians were breaking through; and they quickly made for what they supposed to be the endangered spot, that they might stop their further progress. In the meanwhile, the rest of the Carthaginians had advanced close to thedefiles, and had stormed the abandoned posts; and thus the whole of the army got off without any loss: the Roman camp was burnt. Hannibal encamped on the borders between Apulia and the country of the Frentanians. Fabius followed him; and here the Master of the Horse, Minucius, in Fabius’ absence, and contrary to his orders, engaged in a successful battle with Hannibal. This raised the pride of the Romans so much, that they took it into their heads, that all their former mishaps had only befallen them by chance, and that now they were able to make up for it all; and Minucius got an equal command with Fabius. Hannibal enticed him out, and gave him such a defeat, that he would have been annihilated, had not Fabius and a faithful band of Samnites come up at the very nick of time. Fabius brought the campaign to an honourable conclusion, as he did not lose anything against Hannibal, and not to lose anything, was a great deal indeed. Minucius resigned his power. Hannibal passed the winter in a state of actual distress: he was badly off for provisions, and as yet, not a single people had declared for him.
In the year 536, L. Æmilius Paullus and C. Terentius Varro were consuls. For the first, and perhaps, the only time in Roman history, symptoms now manifest themselves, like those to which we are so well accustomed in the times of Cleon and Hyperbolus, namely, that we meet with tradesmen holding the first offices of the state. C. Terentius Varro is said to have been the son of a butcher, which is so much at variance with everything before and after, that we can hardly believe it. Yet if this were so, the notion of plebeity must already have been quite changed, and such trades were carried on, not only by foreigners, Metics, and freedmen, but also by born citizens. Terentius Varro is made out to have been a demagogue who had a decided influence with the people, and used it in a spirit the very fellow to that of Cleon at Athens. But if we look to facts, we might entertain some doubts with regard to the sentenceof condemnation, which our historians pronounce against him. If the overthrow at Cannæ had really been owing to his fault, and his fault alone, how would the senate—although,ominis causa, he was no more chosen consul—have over and over again, during a long series of years, entrusted him with an army, and after the battle have gone out to meet him, and to thank him for not having despaired? This shows that the judgment formed of Varro, as handed down to us, cannot be relied on; and that the pride of the great men was arrayed against him, as it was in former times against Cn. Flavius. That the learned M. Terentius Varro was his descendant, seems to be beyond a doubt: the latter, who lived not a hundred and fifty years later, belonged to the aristocratical party,—so much, and so quickly will the state of things change. L. Æmilius Paullus was μισόδημος, very likely from just causes; he had, after his Illyrian campaign, been wrongfully accused, and had a narrow escape from being condemned.
It was the rule that each consul had to command a consular army of two legions, each of four thousand two hundred foot and two hundred horse, with a corresponding number of allies: the latter furnished five thousand men and six hundred horse. If this force was to be strengthened, four legions and a proportionate number of allies took the field, in all, 16,800 Romans, 20,000 allies, and 3,200 horse; if one wanted to increase it still more, then, instead of four thousand two hundred Romans, there were five thousand levied for each legion, and three hundred horse instead of two hundred. The Romans now raised such an army of eight legions; and besides the consuls of the year, those of the year before were also placed at its head as proconsuls. This army collected in Apulia. Q. Fabius most earnestly recommended that his plan should be faithfully kept to, and such was likewise the conviction of the consul L. Æmilius Paullus; but the feeling at Rome was quite different.
The description of the battle of Cannæ in Appian, is taken from Fabius Pictor; the very same is likewise to be found in Zonaras. According to this version, Terentius Varro was far from being so blameable as Livy, and also Polybius make out. In fact, it is said that at the departure of the consuls from Rome, the whole people had raised an outcry against the sluggishness of Fabius, and had demanded a battle, because the long war pressed heavily upon them. This story is likely in itself, and it accounts for Paullus having yielded against his own conviction. The two consuls joined each other in Apulia, and embarrassed Hannibal by their superior numbers: he took up his position near Cannæ. This town had been destroyed by the earthquake; but thearxwas yet standing, and he took it by treachery. The statement in Gellius[26]that the battle was fought on the second of August, is hard to understand: if it be correct, the two armies must have faced each other for months. But it would seem from Polybius’ account, that the season was not yet so far advanced; though this is by no means clear: the harvest there is at the end of May, and it must at all events have been already over. Both armies were encamped on the banks of the Aufidus, in the midst of the plains of Apulia, where the soil throughout is calcareous, as in Champagne, and there are therefore but few springs in it; so that they were obliged to keep near the river. Hannibal is said to have been so hard put to it for provisions, that, if the battle had been at all delayed, he must needs have decamped. Yet he enticed the Romans into fighting; for in a petty skirmish, whilst foraging, they got the best of it, as he did not come to the support of his men, but feigned to be afraid. The Romans still had a camp on either side of the river; their base was Canusium, their magazines at Cannæ: Hannibal took these before their eyes, they being not yet strong enough to hinder it.Even later than this, Paullus was very loth to give battle, and it would also have perhaps been best to wait quietly: the longer Hannibal kept himself inactive, the more favourable matters became for the Romans; if once the day was lost, all would be lost. Yet, on the other hand, much might be said in behalf of the expediency of a battle. If the Romans could not gain the victory with such superior numbers, they gave the allies, who, as it was, were already troublesome, the opportunity of falling off; and if, in their rear, the Samnites, or Capua proved faithless, their situation would have been desperate. The Romans therefore passed the river.
The first who has given a satisfactory and clear description of the ground of the battle of Cannæ, was the traveller Swinburne. From his account, the battle may easily be made out. The Aufidus near Cannæ makes a bend within which the two armies took their position: the Romans stood on the chord of the arc which is formed by the river; Hannibal likewise passed over, and rested his two flanks on the curve of the river, so that the numerical superiority of the Romans was of no avail.