Makers of History

 Hannibal

 BY JACOB ABBOTT

 WITH ENGRAVINGS

 NEW YORK AND LONDON HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS 1901

 Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year one thousand eight hundred and forty-nine, by

 HARPER & BROTHERS, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the Southern District of New York. 

 Copyright, 1876, by JACOB ABBOTT. 

PREFACE

The author of this series has made it his special object to confinehimself very strictly, even in the most minute details which herecords, to historic truth. The narratives are not tales founded uponhistory, but history itself, without any embellishment or anydeviations from the strict truth, so far as it can now be discoveredby an attentive examination of the annals written at the time when theevents themselves occurred. In writing the narratives, the author hasendeavored to avail himself of the best sources of information whichthis country affords; and though, of course, there must be in thesevolumes, as in all historical narratives, more or less of imperfectionand error, there is no intentional embellishment. Nothing is stated, not even the most minute and apparently imaginary details, withoutwhat was deemed good historical authority. The readers, therefore, mayrely upon the record as the truth, and nothing but the truth, so faras an honest purpose and a careful examination have been effectual inascertaining it. 

CONTENTS. 

 Chapter Page

 I. THE FIRST PUNIC WAR 13

 II. HANNIBAL AT SAGUNTUM 33

 III. OPENING OF THE SECOND PUNIC WAR 52

 IV. THE PASSAGE OF THE RHONE 69

 V. HANNIBAL CROSSES THE ALPS 90

 VI. HANNIBAL IN THE NORTH OF ITALY 126

 VII. THE APENNINES 144

 VIII. THE DICTATOR FABIUS 163

 IX. THE BATTLE OF CANNÆ 185

 X. SCIPIO 205

 XI. HANNIBAL A FUGITIVE AND AN EXILE 235

 XII. THE DESTRUCTION OF CARTHAGE 262

ENGRAVINGS. 

 Page

 MAP _Frontispiece. _

 THE BATTLE IN THE RIVER 42

 THE ELEPHANTS CROSSING THE RHONE 87

 HANNIBAL ON THE ALPS 111

 CROSSING THE MARSHES 161

 HASDRUBAL'S HEAD 227

 THE BURNING OF THE CARTHAGINIAN FLEET 242

[Illustration: MAP]

HANNIBAL. 

CHAPTER I. 

THE FIRST PUNIC WAR. 

B. C. 280-249

Hannibal. --Rome and Carthage. --Tyre. --Founding of Carthage. --Itscommercial spirit. --Gold and silver mines. --New Carthage. --Shipsand army. --Numidia. --Balearic Isles. --The sling. --The governmentof Carthage. --The aristocracy. --Geographical relations of theCarthaginian empire. --Rome and the Romans. --Their character. --Progressof Carthage and Rome. --Origin of the first Punic war. --Rhegium andMessina. --A perplexing question. --The Romans determine to build afleet. --Preparations. --Training the oarsmen. --The Roman fleet puts tosea. --Grappling irons. --Courage and resolution of the Romans. --Successof the Romans. --The rostral column. --Government of Rome. --Theconsuls. --Story of Regulus. --He is made consul. --Regulus marches againstCarthage. --His difficulties. --Successes of Regulus. --Arrival ofGreeks. --The Romans put to flight. --Regulus a prisoner. --Regulus beforethe Roman senate. --Result of his mission. --Death of Regulus. --Conclusionof the war. 

Hannibal was a Carthaginian general. He acquired his great distinctionas a warrior by his desperate contests with the Romans. Rome andCarthage grew up together on opposite sides of the Mediterranean Sea. For about a hundred years they waged against each other most dreadfulwars. There were three of these wars. Rome was successful in the end, and Carthage was entirely destroyed. 

There was no real cause for any disagreement between these twonations. Their hostility to each other was mere rivalry andspontaneous hate. They spoke a different language; they had adifferent origin; and they lived on opposite sides of the same sea. Sothey hated and devoured each other. 

Those who have read the history of Alexander the Great, in thisseries, will recollect the difficulty he experienced in besieging andsubduing Tyre, a great maritime city, situated about two miles fromthe shore, on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea. Carthage wasoriginally founded by a colony from this city of Tyre, and it soonbecame a great commercial and maritime power like its mother. TheCarthaginians built ships, and with them explored all parts of theMediterranean Sea. They visited all the nations on these coasts, purchased the commodities they had to sell, carried them to othernations, and sold them at great advances. They soon began to grow richand powerful. They hired soldiers to fight their battles, and began totake possession of the islands of the Mediterranean, and, in someinstances, of points on the main land. For example, in Spain: some oftheir ships, going there, found that the natives had silver and gold, which they obtained from veins of ore near the surface of the ground. At first the Carthaginians obtained this gold and silver by sellingthe natives commodities of various kinds, which they had procured inother countries; paying, of course, to the producers only a very smallprice compared with what they required the Spaniards to pay them. Finally, they took possession of that part of Spain where the mineswere situated, and worked the mines themselves. They dug deeper; theyemployed skillful engineers to make pumps to raise the water, whichalways accumulates in mines, and prevents their being worked to anygreat depth unless the miners have a considerable degree of scientificand mechanical skill. They founded a city here, which they called NewCarthage--_Nova Carthago_. They fortified and garrisoned this city, and made it the center of their operations in Spain. This city iscalled Carthagena to this day. 

Thus the Carthaginians did every thing by power of money. Theyextended their operations in every direction, each new extensionbringing in new treasures, and increasing their means of extendingthem more. They had, besides the merchant vessels which belonged toprivate individuals, great ships of war belonging to the state. Thesevessels were called galleys, and were rowed by oarsmen, tier abovetier, there being sometimes four and five banks of oars. They hadarmies, too, drawn from different countries, in various troops, according as different nations excelled in the different modes ofwarfare. For instance, the Numidians, whose country extended in theneighborhood of Carthage, on the African coast, were famous for theirhorsemen. There were great plains in Numidia, and good grazing, and itwas, consequently, one of those countries in which horses and horsemennaturally thrive. On the other hand, the natives of the BalearicIsles, now called Majorca, Minorca, and Ivica, were famous for theirskill as slingers. So the Carthaginians, in making up their forces, would hire bodies of cavalry in Numidia, and of slingers in theBalearic Isles; and, for reasons analogous, they got excellentinfantry in Spain. 

The tendency of the various nations to adopt and cultivate differentmodes of warfare was far greater, in those ancient times, than now. The Balearic Isles, in fact, received their name from the Greek word_ballein_, which means to throw with a sling. The youth there weretrained to perfection in the use of this weapon from a very early age. It is said that mothers used to practice the plan of putting the breadfor their boys' breakfast on the branches of trees, high above theirheads, and not allow them to have their food to eat until they couldbring it down with a stone thrown from a sling. 

Thus the Carthaginian power became greatly extended. The wholegovernment, however, was exercised by a small body of wealthy andaristocratic families at home. It was very much such a government asthat of England is at the present day, only the aristocracy of Englandis based on ancient birth and landed property, whereas in Carthage itdepended on commercial greatness, combined, it is true, withhereditary family distinction. The aristocracy of Carthage controlledand governed every thing. None but its own sons could ordinarilyobtain office or power. The great mass of inhabitants were kept in astate of servitude and vassalage. This state of things operated then, as it does now in England, very unjustly and hardly for those who werethus debased; but the result was--and in this respect the analogy withEngland still holds good--that a very efficient and energeticgovernment was created. The government of an oligarchy makes sometimesa very rich and powerful state, but a discontented and unhappy people. 

Let the reader now turn to the map and find the place of Carthage uponit. Let him imagine a great and rich city there, with piers, anddocks, and extensive warehouses for the commerce, and temples, andpublic edifices of splendid architecture, for the religious and civilservice of the state, and elegant mansions and palaces for thewealthy aristocracy, and walls and towers for the defense of thewhole. Let him then imagine a back country, extending for some hundredmiles into the interior of Africa, fertile and highly cultivated, producing great stores of corn, and wine, and rich fruits of everydescription. Let him then look at the islands of Sicily, of Corsica, and Sardinia, and the Baleares, and conceive of them as rich andprosperous countries, and all under the Carthaginian rule. Look, also, at the coast of Spain; see, in imagination, the city of Carthagena, with its fortifications, and its army, and the gold and silver mines, with thousands and thousands of slaves toiling in them. Imagine fleetsof ships going continually along the shores of the Mediterranean, fromcountry to country, cruising back and forth to Tyre, to Cyprus, toEgypt, to Sicily, to Spain, carrying corn, and flax, and purple dyes, and spices, and perfumes, and precious stones, and ropes and sails forships, and gold and silver, and then periodically returning toCarthage, to add the profits they had made to the vast treasures ofwealth already accumulated there. Let the reader imagine all this withthe map before him, so as to have a distinct conception of thegeographical relations of the localities, and he will have a prettycorrect idea of the Carthaginian power at the time it commenced itsdreadful conflicts with Rome. 

Rome itself was very differently situated. Rome had been built by somewanderers from Troy, and it grew, for a long time, silently andslowly, by a sort of internal principle of life and energy. One regionafter another of the Italian peninsula was merged in the Roman state. They formed a population which was, in the main, stationary andagricultural. They tilled the fields; they hunted the wild beasts;they raised great flocks and herds. They seem to have been a race--asort of variety of the human species--possessed of a very refined andsuperior organization, which, in its development, gave rise to acharacter of firmness, energy, and force, both of body and mind, whichhas justly excited the admiration of mankind. The Carthaginians hadsagacity--the Romans called it cunning--and activity, enterprise andwealth. Their rivals, on the other hand, were characterized by genius, courage, and strength, giving rise to a certain calm and indomitableresolution and energy, which has since, in every age, been stronglyassociated, in the minds of men, with the very word Roman. 

The progress of nations was much more slow in ancient days than now, and these two rival empires continued their gradual growth andextension, each on its own side of the great sea which divided them, for _five hundred years_, before they came into collision. At last, however, the collision came. It originated in the following way:

By looking at the map, the reader will see that the island of Sicilyis separated from the main land by a narrow strait called the Straitof Messina. This strait derives its name from the town of Messina, which is situated upon it, on the Sicilian side. Opposite Messina, onthe Italian side, there was a town named Rhegium. Now it happened thatboth these towns had been taken possession of by lawless bodies ofsoldiery. The Romans came and delivered Rhegium, and punished thesoldiers who had seized it very severely. The Sicilian authoritiesadvanced to the deliverance of Messina. The troops there, findingthemselves thus threatened, sent to the Romans to say that if they, the Romans, would come and protect them, they would deliver Messinainto their hands. 

The question, what answer to give to this application, was broughtbefore the Roman senate, and caused them great perplexity. It seemedvery inconsistent to take sides with the rebels of Messina, when theyhad punished so severely those of Rhegium. Still the Romans had been, for a long time, becoming very jealous of the growth and extension ofthe Carthaginian power. Here was an opportunity of meeting andresisting it. The Sicilian authorities were about calling for directaid from Carthage to recover the city, and the affair would probablyresult in establishing a large body of Carthaginian troops withinsight of the Italian shore, and at a point where it would be easy forthem to make hostile incursions into the Roman territories. In a word, it was a case of what is called political necessity; that is to say, acase in which the _interests_ of one of the parties in a contest wereso strong that all considerations of justice, consistency, and honorare to be sacrificed to the promotion of them. Instances of this kindof political necessity occur very frequently in the management ofpublic affairs in all ages of the world. 

The contest for Messina was, after all, however, considered by theRomans merely as a pretext, or rather as an occasion, for commencingthe struggle which they had long been desirous of entering upon. Theyevinced their characteristic energy and greatness in the plan whichthey adopted at the outset. They knew very well that the power ofCarthage rested mainly on her command of the seas, and that they couldnot hope successfully to cope with her till they could meet andconquer her on her own element. In the mean time, however, they hadnot a single ship and not a single sailor, while the Mediterranean wascovered with Carthaginian ships and seamen. Not at all daunted by thisprodigious inequality, the Romans resolved to begin at once the workof creating for themselves a naval power. 

The preparations consumed some time; for the Romans had not only tobuild the ships, they had first to learn how to build them. They tooktheir first lesson from a Carthaginian galley which was cast away in astorm upon the coast of Italy. They seized this galley, collectedtheir carpenters to examine it, and set woodmen at work to fell treesand collect materials for imitating it. The carpenters studied theirmodel very carefully, measured the dimensions of every part, andobserved the manner in which the various parts were connected andsecured together. The heavy shocks which vessels are exposed to fromthe waves makes it necessary to secure great strength in theconstruction of them; and, though the ships of the ancients were verysmall and imperfect compared with the men-of-war of the present day, still it is surprising that the Romans could succeed at all in such asudden and hasty attempt at building them. 

They did, however, succeed. While the ships were building, officersappointed for the purpose were training men, on shore, to the art ofrowing them. Benches, like the seats which the oarsman would occupy inthe ships, were arranged on the ground, and the intended seamen weredrilled every day in the movements and action of rowers. The resultwas, that in a few months after the building of the ships wascommenced, the Romans had a fleet of one hundred galleys of five banksof oars ready. They remained in harbor with them for some time, togive the oarsmen the opportunity to see whether they could row on thewater as well as on the land, and then boldly put to sea to meet theCarthaginians. 

There was one part of the arrangements made by the Romans in preparingtheir fleets which was strikingly characteristic of the determinedresolution which marked all their conduct. They constructed machinescontaining grappling irons, which they mounted on the prows of theirvessels. These engines were so contrived, that the moment one of theships containing them should encounter a vessel of the enemy, thegrappling irons would fall upon the deck of the latter, and hold thetwo firmly together, so as to prevent the possibility of eitherescaping from the other. The idea that they themselves should have anywish to withdraw from the encounter seemed entirely out of thequestion. Their only fear was that the Carthaginian seamen wouldemploy their superior skill and experience in naval maneuvers inmaking their escape. Mankind have always regarded the action of theRomans, in this case, as one of the most striking examples of militarycourage and resolution which the history of war has ever recorded. Anarmy of landsmen come down to the sea-shore, and, without scarcelyhaving ever seen a ship, undertake to build a fleet, and go out toattack a power whose navies covered the sea, and made her the sole andacknowledged mistress of it. They seize a wrecked galley of theirenemies for their model; they build a hundred vessels like it; theypractice maneuvers for a short time in port; and then go forth tomeet the fleets of their powerful enemy, with grappling machines tohold them, fearing nothing but the possibility of their escape. 

The result was as might have been expected. The Romans captured, sunk, destroyed, or dispersed the Carthaginian fleet which was brought tooppose them. They took the prows of the ships which they captured andconveyed them to Rome, and built what is called a _rostral pillar_ ofthem. A rostral pillar is a column ornamented with such beaks orprows, which were, in the Roman language, called _rostra_. This columnwas nearly destroyed by lightning about fifty years afterward, but itwas repaired and rebuilt again, and it stood then for many centuries, a very striking and appropriate monument of this extraordinary navalvictory. The Roman commander in this case was the consul Duilius. Therostral column was erected in honor of him. In digging among the ruinsof Rome, there was found what was supposed to be the remains of thiscolumn, about three hundred years ago. 

The Romans now prepared to carry the war into Africa itself. Of courseit was easy, after their victory over the Carthaginian fleet, totransport troops across the sea to the Carthaginian shore. The Romancommonwealth was governed at this time by a senate, who made the laws, and by two supreme executive officers, called consuls. They thought itwas safer to have two chief magistrates than one, as each of the twowould naturally be a check upon the other. The result was, however, that mutual jealousy involved them often in disputes and quarrels. Itis thought better, in modern times, to have but one chief magistratein the state, and to provide other modes to put a check upon anydisposition he might evince to abuse his powers. 

The Roman consuls, in time of war, took command of the armies. Thename of the consul upon whom it devolved to carry on the war with theCarthaginians, after this first great victory, was Regulus, and hisname has been celebrated in every age, on account of his extraordinaryadventures in this campaign, and his untimely fate. How far the storyis strictly true it is now impossible to ascertain, but the followingis the story, as the Roman historians relate it:

At the time when Regulus was elected consul he was a plain man, livingsimply on his farm, maintaining himself by his own industry, andevincing no ambition or pride. His fellow citizens, however, observedthose qualities of mind in him which they were accustomed to admire, and made him consul. He left the city and took command of the army. Heenlarged the fleet to more than three hundred vessels. He put onehundred and forty thousand men on board, and sailed for Africa. One ortwo years had been spent in making these preparations, which time theCarthaginians had improved in building new ships; so that, when theRomans set sail, and were moving along the coast of Sicily, they sooncame in sight of a larger Carthaginian fleet assembled to oppose them. Regulus advanced to the contest. The Carthaginian fleet was beaten asbefore. The ships which were not captured or destroyed made theirescape in all directions, and Regulus went on, without furtheropposition, and landed his forces on the Carthaginian shore. Heencamped as soon as he landed, and sent back word to the Roman senateasking what was next to be done. 

The senate, considering that the great difficulty and danger, viz. , that of repulsing the Carthaginian fleet, was now past, orderedRegulus to send home nearly all the ships and a very large part of thearmy, and with the rest to commence his march toward Carthage. Regulus obeyed: he sent home the troops which had been ordered home, and with the rest began to advance upon the city. 

Just at this time, however, news came out to him that the farmer whohad had the care of his land at home had died, and that his littlefarm, on which rested his sole reliance for the support of his family, was going to ruin. Regulus accordingly sent to the senate, asking themto place some one else in command of the army, and to allow him toresign his office, that he might go home and take care of his wife andchildren. The senate sent back orders that he should go on with hiscampaign, and promised to provide support for his family, and to seethat some one was appointed to take care of his land. This story isthought to illustrate the extreme simplicity and plainness of all thehabits of life among the Romans in those days. It certainly does so, if it is true. It is, however, very extraordinary, that a man who wasintrusted by such a commonwealth, with the command of a fleet of ahundred and thirty vessels, and an army of a hundred and fortythousand men, should have a family at home dependent for subsistenceon the hired cultivation of seven acres of land. Still, such is thestory. 

Regulus advanced toward Carthage, conquering as he came. TheCarthaginians were beaten in one field after another, and werereduced, in fact, to the last extremity, when an occurrence took placewhich turned the scale. This occurrence was the arrival of a largebody of troops from Greece, with a Grecian general at their head. These were troops which the Carthaginians had hired to fight for them, as was the case with the rest of their army. But these were _Greeks_, and the Greeks were of the same race, and possessed the samequalities, as the Romans. The newly-arrived Grecian general evinced atonce such military superiority, that the Carthaginians gave him thesupreme command. He marshaled the army, accordingly, for battle. Hehad a hundred elephants in the van. They were trained to rush forwardand trample down the enemy. He had the Greek phalanx in the center, which was a close, compact body of many thousand troops, bristlingwith long, iron-pointed spears, with which the men pressed forward, bearing every thing before them. Regulus was, in a word, ready to meetCarthaginians, but he was not prepared to encounter Greeks. His armywas put to flight, and he was taken prisoner. Nothing could exceedthe excitement and exultation in the city when they saw Regulus andfive hundred other Roman soldiers, brought captive in. A few daysbefore, they had been in consternation at the imminent danger of hiscoming in as a ruthless and vindictive conqueror. 

The Roman senate were not discouraged by this disaster. They fittedout new armies, and the war went on, Regulus being kept all the timeat Carthage as a close prisoner. At last the Carthaginians authorizedhim to go to Rome as a sort of commissioner, to propose to the Romansto exchange prisoners and to make peace. They exacted from him asolemn promise that if he was unsuccessful he would return. The Romanshad taken many of the Carthaginians prisoners in their naval combats, and held them captive at Rome. It is customary, in such cases, for thebelligerent nations to make an exchange, and restore the captives onboth sides to their friends and home. It was such an exchange ofprisoners as this which Regulus was to propose. 

When Regulus reached Rome he refused to enter the city, but heappeared before the senate without the walls, in a very humble garband with the most subdued and unassuming demeanor. He was no longer, he said, a Roman officer, or even citizen, but a Carthaginianprisoner, and he disavowed all right to direct, or even to counsel, the Roman authorities in respect to the proper course to be pursued. His opinion was, however, he said, that the Romans ought not to makepeace or to exchange prisoners. He himself and the other Romanprisoners were old and infirm, and not worth the exchange; and, moreover, they had no claim whatever on their country, as they couldonly have been made prisoners in consequence of want of courage orpatriotism to die in their country's cause. He said that theCarthaginians were tired of the war, and that their resources wereexhausted, and that the Romans ought to press forward in it withrenewed vigor, and leave himself and the other prisoners to theirfate. 

The senate came very slowly and reluctantly to the conclusion tofollow this advice. They, however, all earnestly joined in attemptingto persuade Regulus that he was under no obligation to return toCarthage. His promise, they said, was extorted by the circumstances ofthe case, and was not binding. Regulus, however, insisted on keepinghis faith with his enemies. He sternly refused to see his family, and, bidding the senate farewell, he returned to Carthage. TheCarthaginians, exasperated at his having himself interposed to preventthe success of his mission, tortured him for some time in the mostcruel manner, and finally put him to death. One would think that heought to have counseled peace and an exchange of prisoners, and heought not to have refused to see his unhappy wife and children; but itwas certainly very noble in him to refuse to break his word. 

The war continued for some time after this, until, at length, bothnations became weary of the contest, and peace was made. The followingis the treaty which was signed. It shows that the advantage, on thewhole, in this first Punic war, was on the part of the Romans:

 "There shall be peace between Rome and Carthage. The Carthaginians shall evacuate all Sicily. They shall not make war upon any allies of the Romans. They shall restore to the Romans, without ransom, all the prisoners which they have taken from them, and pay them within ten years three thousand two hundred talents of silver. "

The war had continued twenty-four years. 

CHAPTER II. 

HANNIBAL AT SAGUNTUM. 

B. C. 234-218

Parentage of Hannibal. --Character of Hamilcar. --Religiousceremonies. --Hannibal's famous oath of enmity to Rome. --Hamilcarin Spain. --Hasdrubal. --Death of Hamilcar. --Hannibal sent for toSpain. --Opposition of Hanno. --Hannibal sets out for Spain. --Favorableimpression on the army. --Character of Hannibal. --He is elevated tothe supreme command. --The River Iberus. --Hannibal seeks a war withthe Romans. --Stratagem of Hannibal. --Fording the river. --Greatbattle in the River Tagus. --Victory of Hannibal. --Saguntum. --Hannibalattacks it. --Progress of the siege. --Hannibal wounded. --Hannibalrecovers. --The falarica. --Arrival of the Roman embassadors. --Hannibal'spolicy. --Hannibal sends embassadors to Carthage. --The Romanembassadors. --Parties in the Carthaginian senate. --Speech ofHanno. --Hanno proposes to give up Hannibal. --Defense of Hannibal'sfriends. --Hannibal triumphant. --Saguntum falls. 

The name of Hannibal's father was Hamilcar. He was one of the leadingCarthaginian generals. He occupied a very prominent position, both onaccount of his rank, and wealth, and high family connections atCarthage, and also on account of the great military energy which hedisplayed in the command of the armies abroad. He carried on the warswhich the Carthaginians waged in Africa and in Spain after theconclusion of the war with the Romans, and he longed to commencehostilities with the Romans again. 

At one time, when Hannibal was about nine years of age, Hamilcar waspreparing to set off on an expedition into Spain, and, as was usual inthose days, he was celebrating the occasion with games, andspectacles, and various religious ceremonies. It has been the customin all ages of the world, when nations go to war with each other, foreach side to take measures for propitiating the favor of Heaven. Christian nations at the present day do it by prayers offered in eachcountry for the success of their own arms. Heathen nations do it bysacrifices, libations, and offerings. Hamilcar had made arrangementsfor such sacrifices, and the priests were offering them in thepresence of the whole assembled army. 

Young Hannibal, then about nine years of age, was present. He was aboy of great spirit and energy, and he entered with much enthusiasminto the scene. He wanted to go to Spain himself with the army, and hecame to his father and began to urge his request. His father could notconsent to this. He was too young to endure the privations andfatigues of such an enterprise. However, his father brought him to oneof the altars, in the presence of the other officers of the army, andmade him lay his hand upon the consecrated victim, and swear that, assoon as he was old enough, and had it in his power, he would make warupon the Romans. This was done, no doubt, in part to amuse youngHannibal's mind, and to relieve his disappointment in not being ableto go to war at that time, by promising him a great and mighty enemyto fight at some future day. Hannibal remembered it, and longed forthe time to come when he could go to war against the _Romans_. 

Hamilcar bade his son farewell and embarked for Spain. He was atliberty to extend his conquests there in all directions west of theRiver Iberus, a river which the reader will find upon the map, flowingsoutheast into the Mediterranean Sea. Its name, Iberus, has beengradually changed, in modern times, to Ebro. By the treaty with theRomans the Carthaginians were not to cross the Iberus. They were alsobound by the treaty not to molest the people of Saguntum, a city lyingbetween the Iberus and the Carthaginian dominions. Saguntum was inalliance with the Romans and under their protection. 

Hamilcar was, however, very restless and uneasy at being obliged thusto refrain from hostilities with the Roman power. He began, immediately after his arrival in Spain, to form plans for renewing thewar. He had under him, as his principal lieutenant, a young man whohad married his daughter. His name was Hasdrubal. With Hasdrubal'said, he went on extending his conquests in Spain, and strengtheninghis position there, and gradually maturing his plans for renewing warwith the Romans, when at length he died. Hasdrubal succeeded him. Hannibal was now, probably, about twenty-one or two years old, andstill in Carthage. Hasdrubal sent to the Carthaginian government arequest that Hannibal might receive an appointment in the army, and besent out to join him in Spain. 

On the subject of complying with this request there was a great debatein the Carthaginian senate. In all cases where questions of governmentare controlled by _votes_, it has been found, in every age, that_parties_ will always be formed, of which the two most prominent willusually be nearly balanced one against the other. Thus, at this time, though the Hamilcar family were in power, there was a very strongparty in Carthage in opposition to them. The leader of this party inthe senate, whose name was Hanno, made a very earnest speech againstsending Hannibal. He was too young, he said, to be of any service. Hewould only learn the vices and follies of the camp, and thus becomecorrupted and ruined. "Besides, " said Hanno, "at this rate, thecommand of our armies in Spain is getting to be a sort of hereditaryright. Hamilcar was not a king, that his authority should thus descendfirst to his son-in-law and then to his son; for this plan of makingHannibal, " he said, "while yet scarcely arrived at manhood, a highofficer in the army, is only a stepping-stone to the putting of theforces wholly under his orders, whenever, for any reason, Hasdrubalshall cease to command them. "

The Roman historian, through whose narrative we get our only accountof this debate, says that, though these were good reasons, yetstrength prevailed, as usual, over wisdom, in the decision of thequestion. They voted to send Hannibal, and he set out to cross the seato Spain with a heart full of enthusiasm and joy. 

A great deal of curiosity and interest was felt throughout the army tosee him on his arrival. The soldiers had been devotedly attached tohis father, and they were all ready to transfer this attachment atonce to the son, if he should prove worthy of it. It was very evident, soon after he reached the camp, that he was going to prove himselfthus worthy. He entered at once into the duties of his position with adegree of energy, patience, and self-denial which attracted universalattention, and made him a universal favorite. He dressed plainly; heassumed no airs; he sought for no pleasures or indulgences, nordemanded any exemption from the dangers and privations which thecommon soldiers had to endure. He ate plain food, and slept, often inhis military cloak, on the ground, in the midst of the soldiers onguard; and in battle he was always foremost to press forward into thecontest, and the last to leave the ground when the time came forrepose. The Romans say that, in addition to these qualities, he wasinhuman and merciless when in open warfare with his foes, and cunningand treacherous in every other mode of dealing with them. It is veryprobable that he was so. Such traits of character were considered bysoldiers in those days, as they are now, virtues in themselves, thoughvices in their enemies. 

However this may be, Hannibal became a great and universal favorite inthe army. He went on for several years increasing his militaryknowledge, and widening and extending his influence, when at length, one day, Hasdrubal was suddenly killed by a ferocious native of thecountry whom he had by some means offended. As soon as the first shockof this occurrence was over, the leaders of the army went in pursuitof Hannibal, whom they brought in triumph to the tent of Hasdrubal, and instated him at once in the supreme command, with one consent andin the midst of universal acclamations. As soon as news of this eventreached Carthage, the government there confirmed the act of the army, and Hannibal thus found himself suddenly but securely invested with avery high military command. 

His eager and restless desire to try his strength with the Romansreceived a new impulse by his finding that the power was now in hishands. Still the two countries were at peace. They were bound bysolemn treaties to continue so. The River Iberus was the boundarywhich separated the dominions of the two nations from each other inSpain, the territory east of that boundary being under the Romanpower, and that on the west under that of the Carthaginians; exceptthat Saguntum, which was on the western side, was an ally of theRomans, and the Carthaginians were bound by the treaty to leave itindependent and free. 

Hannibal could not, therefore, cross the Iberus or attack Saguntumwithout an open infraction of the treaty. He, however, immediatelybegan to move toward Saguntum and to attack the nations in theimmediate vicinity of it. If he wished to get into a war with theRomans, this was the proper way to promote it; for, by advancing thusinto the immediate vicinity of the capital of their allies, there wasgreat probability that disputes would arise which would sooner orlater end in war. 

The Romans say that Hannibal was cunning and treacherous, and hecertainly did display, on some occasions, a great degree of adroitnessin his stratagems. In one instance in these preliminary wars he gaineda victory over an immensely superior force in a very remarkablemanner. He was returning from an inroad upon some of the northernprovinces, laden and encumbered with spoil, when he learned that animmense army, consisting, it was said, of a hundred thousand men, werecoming down upon his rear. There was a river at a short distancebefore him. Hannibal pressed on and crossed the river by a ford, thewater being, perhaps, about three feet deep. He secreted a large bodyof cavalry near the bank of the stream, and pushed on with the mainbody of the army to some little distance from the river, so as toproduce the impression upon his pursuers that he was pressing forwardto make his escape. 

[Illustration: THE BATTLE IN THE RIVER. ]

The enemy, thinking that they had no time to lose, poured down ingreat numbers into the stream from various points along the banks;and, as soon as they had reached the middle of the current, and werewading laboriously, half submerged, with their weapons held abovetheir heads, so as to present as little resistance as possible to thewater, the horsemen of Hannibal rushed in to meet and attack them. Thehorsemen had, of course, greatly the advantage; for, though theirhorses were in the water, they were themselves raised above it, andtheir limbs were free, while their enemies were half submerged, and, being encumbered by their arms and by one another, were nearlyhelpless. They were immediately thrown into complete confusion, andwere overwhelmed and carried down by the current in great numbers. Some of them succeeded in landing below, on Hannibal's side; but, inthe mean time, the main body of his army had returned, and was readyto receive them, and they were trampled under foot by the elephants, which it was the custom to employ, in those days, as a military force. As soon as the river was cleared, Hannibal marched his own army acrossit, and attacked what remained of the enemy on their own side. Hegained a complete victory, which was so great and decisive that hesecured by it possession of the whole country west of the Iberus, except Saguntum, and Saguntum itself began to be seriously alarmed. 

The Saguntines sent embassadors to Rome to ask the Romans to interposeand protect them from the dangers which threatened them. Theseembassadors made diligent efforts to reach Rome as soon as possible, but they were too late. On some pretext or other, Hannibal contrivedto raise a dispute between the city and one of the neighboring tribes, and then, taking sides with the tribe, he advanced to attack the city. The Saguntines prepared for their defense, hoping soon to receivesuccors from Rome. They strengthened and fortified their walls, whileHannibal began to move forward great military engines for batteringthem down. 

Hannibal knew very well that by his hostilities against this city hewas commencing a contest with Rome itself, as Rome must necessarilytake part with her ally. In fact, there is no doubt that his designwas to bring on a general war between the two great nations. He beganwith Saguntum for two reasons: first, it would not be safe for him tocross the Iberus, and advance into the Roman territory, leaving sowealthy and powerful a city in his rear; and then, in the secondplace, it was easier for him to find pretexts for getting indirectlyinto a quarrel with Saguntum, and throwing the odium of a declarationof war on Rome, than to persuade the Carthaginian state to renouncethe peace and themselves commence hostilities. There was, as has beenalready stated, a very strong party at Carthage opposed to Hannibal, who would, of course, resist any measures tending to a war with Rome, for they would consider such a war as opening a vast field forgratifying Hannibal's ambition. The only way, therefore, was toprovoke a war by aggressions on the Roman allies, to be justified bythe best pretexts he could find. 

Saguntum was a very wealthy and powerful city. It was situated about amile from the sea. The attack upon the place, and the defense of it bythe inhabitants, went on for some time with great vigor. In theseoperations, Hannibal exposed himself to great danger. He approached, at one time, so near the wall, in superintending the arrangements ofhis soldiers and the planting of his engines, that a heavy javelin, thrown from the parapet, struck him on the thigh. It pierced theflesh, and inflicted so severe a wound that he fell immediately, andwas borne away by the soldiers. It was several days before he was freefrom the danger incurred by the loss of blood and the fever whichfollows such a wound. During all this time his army were in a greatstate of excitement and anxiety, and suspended their activeoperations. As soon, however, as Hannibal was found to be decidedlyconvalescent, they resumed them again, and urged them onward withgreater energy than before. 

The weapons of warfare in those ancient days were entirely differentfrom those which are now employed, and there was one, described by anancient historian as used by the Saguntines at this siege, which mightalmost come under the modern denomination of fire-arms. It was calledthe _falarica_. It was a sort of javelin, consisting of a shaft ofwood, with a long point of iron. This point was said to be three feetlong. This javelin was to be thrown at the enemy either from the handof the soldier or by an engine. The leading peculiarity of it was, however, that, near to the pointed end, there were wound around thewooden shaft long bands of _tow_, which were saturated with pitch andother combustibles, and this inflammable band was set on fire justbefore the javelin was thrown. As the missile flew on its way, thewind fanned the flames, and made them burn so fiercely, that when thejavelin struck the shield of the soldier opposing it, it could not bepulled out, and the shield itself had to be thrown down and abandoned. 

While the inhabitants of Saguntum were vainly endeavoring to defendthemselves against their terrible enemy by these and similar means, their embassadors, not knowing that the city had been attacked, hadreached Rome, and had laid before the Roman senate their fears thatthe city would be attacked, unless they adopted vigorous and immediatemeasures to prevent it. The Romans resolved to send embassadors toHannibal to demand of him what his intentions were, and to warn himagainst any acts of hostility against Saguntum. When these Romanembassadors arrived on the coast, near to Saguntum, they found thathostilities had commenced, and that the city was hotly besieged. Theywere at a loss to know what to do. 

It is better for a rebel not to hear an order which he is determinedbeforehand not to obey. Hannibal, with an adroitness which theCarthaginians called sagacity, and the Romans treachery and cunning, determined not to see these messengers. He sent word to them, at theshore, that they must not attempt to come to his camp, for the countrywas in such a disturbed condition that it would not be safe for themto land; and besides, he could not receive or attend to them, for hewas too much pressed with the urgency of his military works to haveany time to spare for debates and negotiations. 

Hannibal knew that the embassadors, being thus repulsed, and havingfound, too, that the war had broken out, and that Saguntum wasactually beset and besieged by Hannibal's armies, would proceedimmediately to Carthage to demand satisfaction there. He knew, also, that Hanno and his party would very probably espouse the cause of theRomans, and endeavor to arrest his designs. He accordingly sent hisown embassadors to Carthage, to exert an influence in his favor in theCarthaginian senate, and endeavor to urge them to reject the claims ofthe Romans, and allow the war between Rome and Carthage to break outagain. 

The Roman embassadors appeared at Carthage, and were admitted to anaudience before the senate. They stated their case, representing thatHannibal had made war upon Saguntum in violation of the treaty, andhad refused even to receive the communication which had been sent himby the Roman senate through them. They demanded that the Carthaginiangovernment should disavow his acts, and deliver him up to them, inorder that he might receive the punishment which his violation of thetreaty, and his aggressions upon an ally of the Romans, so justlydeserved. 

The party of Hannibal in the Carthaginian senate were, of course, earnest to have these proposals rejected with scorn. The other side, with Hanno at their head, maintained that they were reasonabledemands. Hanno, in a very energetic and powerful speech, told thesenate that he had warned them not to send Hannibal into Spain. He hadforeseen that such a hot and turbulent spirit as his would involvethem in inextricable difficulties with the Roman power. Hannibal had, he said, plainly violated the treaty. He had invested and besiegedSaguntum, which they were solemnly bound not to molest, and they hadnothing to expect in return but that the Roman legions would soon beinvesting and besieging their own city. In the mean time, the Romans, he added, had been moderate and forbearing. They had brought nothingto the charge of the Carthaginians. They accused nobody but Hannibal, who, thus far, alone was guilty. The Carthaginians, by disavowing hisacts, could save themselves from the responsibility of them. Heurged, therefore, that an embassage of apology should be sent to Rome, that Hannibal should be deposed and delivered up to the Romans, andthat ample restitution should be made to the Saguntines for theinjuries they had received. 

On the other hand, the friends of Hannibal urged in the Carthaginiansenate their defense of the general. They reviewed the history of thetransactions in which the war had originated, and showed, or attemptedto show, that the Saguntines themselves commenced hostilities, andthat consequently they, and not Hannibal, were responsible for allthat followed; that, under those circumstances, the Romans ought notto take their part, and if they did so, it proved that they preferredthe friendship of Saguntum to that of Carthage; and that it would becowardly and dishonorable in the extreme for them to deliver thegeneral whom they had placed in power, and who had shown himself soworthy of their choice by his courage and energy, into the hands oftheir ancient and implacable foes. 

Thus Hannibal was waging at the same time two wars, one in theCarthaginian senate, where the weapons were arguments and eloquence, and the other under the walls of Saguntum, which was fought withbattering rains and fiery javelins. He conquered in both. The senatedecided to send the Roman embassadors home without acceding to theirdemands, and the walls of Saguntum were battered down by Hannibal'sengines. The inhabitants refused all terms of compromise, and resistedto the last, so that, when the victorious soldiery broke over theprostrate walls, and poured into the city, it was given up to them toplunder, and they killed and destroyed all that came in their way. Thedisappointed embassadors returned to Rome with the news that Saguntumhad been taken and destroyed by Hannibal, and that the Carthaginians, far from offering any satisfaction for the wrong, assumed theresponsibility of it themselves, and were preparing for war. 

Thus Hannibal accomplished his purpose of opening the way for wagingwar against the Roman power. He prepared to enter into the contestwith the utmost energy and zeal. The conflict that ensued lastedseventeen years, and is known in history as the second Punic war. Itwas one of the most dreadful struggles between rival and hostilenations which the gloomy history of mankind exhibits to view. Theevents that occurred will be described in the subsequent chapters. 

CHAPTER III. 

OPENING OF THE SECOND PUNIC WAR. 

B. C. 217

Fall of Hanno's party. --Power of Hannibal. --Desperate valor of theSaguntines. --Hannibal's disposition of the spoils. --Hannibal chosenone of the suffetes. --Nature of the office. --Great excitement atRome. --Fearful anticipations. --New embassy to Carthage. --Warmdebates. --Fruitless negotiations. --The embassadors return. --Reply ofthe Volscians. --Council of Gauls. --Tumultuous scene. --Repulse of theembassadors. --Hannibal's kindness to his soldiers. --He matures hisdesigns. --Hannibal's plan for the government of Spain in hisabsence. --Hannibal's brother Hasdrubal. --He is left in charge ofSpain. --Preparations of the Romans. --Their plan for the war. --TheRoman fleet. --Drawing lots. --Religious ceremonies. --Hannibal'smarch. --The Pyrenees. --Discontent in Hannibal's army. --Hannibal'saddress. --The discontented sent home. --Hannibal's sagacity. --ThePyrenees passed. 

When the tide once turns in any nation in favor of war, it generallyrushes on with great impetuosity and force, and bears all before it. It was so in Carthage in this instance. The party of Hanno were thrownentirely into the minority and silenced, and the friends and partisansof Hannibal carried not only the government, but the whole communitywith them, and every body was eager for war. This was owing, in part, to the natural contagiousness of the martial spirit, which, when feltby one, catches easily, by sympathy, in the heart of another. It is afire which, when once it begins to burn, spreads in every direction, and consumes all that comes in its way. 

Besides, when Hannibal gained possession of Saguntum, he found immensetreasures there, which he employed, not to increase his own privatefortune, but to strengthen and confirm his civil and military power. The Saguntines did every thing they could to prevent these treasuresfrom falling into his hands. They fought desperately to the last, refused all terms of surrender, and they became so insanely desperatein the end, that, according to the narrative of Livy, when they foundthat the walls and towers of the city were falling in, and that allhope of further defense was gone, they built an enormous fire in thepublic streets, and heaped upon it all the treasures which they hadtime to collect that fire could destroy, and then that many of theprincipal inhabitants leaped into the flames themselves, in order thattheir hated conquerors might lose their prisoners as well as theirspoils. 

Notwithstanding this, however, Hannibal obtained a vast amount of goldand silver, both in the form of money and of plate, and also muchvaluable merchandise, which the Saguntine merchants had accumulated intheir palaces and warehouses. He used all this property to strengthenhis own political and military position. He paid his soldiers all thearrears due to them in full. He divided among them a large additionalamount as their share of the spoil. He sent rich trophies home toCarthage, and presents, consisting of sums of money, and jewelry, andgems, to his friends there, and to those whom he wished to make hisfriends. The result of this munificence, and of the renown which hisvictories in Spain had procured for him, was to raise him to thehighest pinnacle of influence and honor. The Carthaginians chose himone of the _suffetes_. 

The suffetes were the supreme executive officers of the Carthaginiancommonwealth. The government was, as has been remarked before, a sortof aristocratic republic, and republics are always very cautious aboutintrusting power, even executive power, to any one man. As Rome had_two_ consuls, reigning jointly, and France, after her firstrevolution, a Directory of _five_, so the Carthaginians chose annuallytwo _suffetes_, as they were called at Carthage, though the Romanwriters call them indiscriminately suffetes, consuls, and kings. Hannibal was now advanced to this dignity; so that, in conjunctionwith his colleague, he held the supreme civil authority at Carthage, besides being invested with the command of the vast and victoriousarmy in Spain. 

When news of these events--the siege and destruction of Saguntum, therejection of the demands of the Roman embassadors, and the vigorouspreparations making by the Carthaginians for war--reached Rome, thewhole city was thrown into consternation. The senate and the peopleheld tumultuous and disorderly assemblies, in which the events whichhad occurred, and the course of proceeding which it was incumbent onthe Romans to take, were discussed with much excitement and clamor. The Romans were, in fact, afraid of the Carthaginians. The campaignsof Hannibal in Spain had impressed the people with a strong sense ofthe remorseless and terrible energy of his character; they at onceconcluded that his plans would be formed for marching into Italy, andthey even anticipated the danger of his bringing the war up to thevery gates of the city, so as to threaten _them_ with the destructionwhich he had brought upon Saguntum. The event showed how justly theyappreciated his character. 

Since the conclusion of the first Punic war, there had been peacebetween the Romans and Carthaginians for about a quarter of a century. During all this time both nations had been advancing in wealth andpower, but the Carthaginians had made much more rapid progress thanthe Romans. The Romans had, indeed, been very successful at the onsetin the former war, but in the end the Carthaginians had provedthemselves their equal. They seemed, therefore, to dread now a freshencounter with these powerful foes, led on, as they were now to be, bysuch a commander as Hannibal. 

They determined, therefore, to send a second embassy to Carthage, witha view of making one more effort to preserve peace before actuallycommencing hostilities. They accordingly elected five men from amongthe most influential citizens of the state--men of venerable age andof great public consideration--and commissioned them to proceed toCarthage and ask once more whether it was the deliberate and finaldecision of the Carthaginian senate to avow and sustain the action ofHannibal. This solemn embassage set sail. They arrived at Carthage. They appeared before the senate. They argued their cause, but it was, of course, to deaf and unwilling ears. The Carthaginian oratorsreplied to them, each side attempting to throw the blame of theviolation of the treaty on the other. It was a solemn hour, for thepeace of the world, the lives of hundreds of thousands of men, and thecontinued happiness or the desolation and ruin of vast regions ofcountry, depended on the issue of the debate. Unhappily, the breachwas only widened by the discussion. "Very well, " said the Romancommissioners, at last, "we offer you peace or war, which do youchoose?" "Whichever you please, " replied the Carthaginians; "decidefor yourselves. " "War, then, " said the Romans, "since it must be so. "The conference was broken up, and the embassadors returned to Rome. 

They returned, however, by the way of Spain. Their object in doingthis was to negotiate with the various kingdoms and tribes in Spainand in France, through which Hannibal would have to march in invadingItaly, and endeavor to induce them to take sides with the Romans. Theywere too late, however, for Hannibal had contrived to extend andestablish his influence in all that region too strongly to be shaken;so that, on one pretext or another, the Roman proposals were allrejected. There was one powerful tribe, for example, called theVolscians. The embassadors, in the presence of the great council ofthe Volscians, made known to them the probability of war, and invitedthem to ally themselves with the Romans. The Volscians rejected theproposition with a sort of scorn. "We see, " said they, "from the fateof Saguntum, what is to be expected to result from an alliance withthe Romans. After leaving that city defenseless and alone in itsstruggle against such terrible danger, it is in vain to ask othernations to trust to your protection. If you wish for new allies, itwill be best for you to go where the story of Saguntum is not known. "This answer of the Volscians was applauded by the other nations ofSpain, as far as it was known, and the Roman embassadors, despairingof success in that country, went on into Gaul, which is the name bywhich the country now called France is known in ancient history. 

On reaching a certain place which was a central point of influence andpower in Gaul, the Roman commissioners convened a great martialcouncil there. The spectacle presented by this assembly was veryimposing, for the warlike counselors came to the meeting armedcompletely and in the most formidable manner, as if they were comingto a battle instead of a consultation and debate. The venerableembassadors laid the subject before them. They descanted largely onthe power and greatness of the Romans, and on the certainty that theyshould conquer in the approaching contest, and they invited the Gaulsto espouse their cause, and to rise in arms and intercept Hannibal'spassage through their country, if he should attempt to effect one. 

The assembly could hardly be induced to hear the embassadors through;and, as soon as they had finished their address, the whole councilbroke forth into cries of dissent and displeasure, and even intoshouts of derision. Order was at length restored, and the officers, whose duty it was to express the sentiments of the assembly, gave fortheir reply that the Gauls had never received any thing but violenceand injuries from Rome, or any thing but kindness and goodwill fromCarthage; and that they had no idea of being guilty of the folly ofbringing the impending storm of Hannibal's hostility upon their ownheads, merely for the sake of averting it from their ancient andimplacable foes. Thus the embassadors were every where repulsed. Theyfound no friendly disposition toward the Roman power till they hadcrossed the Rhone. 

Hannibal began now to form his plans, in a very deliberate andcautious manner, for a march into Italy. He knew well that this was anexpedition of such magnitude and duration as to require beforehand themost careful and well-considered arrangements, both for the forceswhich were to go, and for the states and communities which were toremain. The winter was coming on. His first measure was to dismiss alarge portion of his forces, that they might visit their homes. Hetold them that he was intending some great designs for the ensuingspring, which might take them to a great distance, and keep them for along time absent from Spain, and he would, accordingly, give them theintervening time to visit their families and their homes, and toarrange their affairs. This act of kind consideration and confidencerenewed the attachment of the soldiers to their commander, and theyreturned to his camp in the spring not only with new strength andvigor, but with redoubled attachment to the service in which they wereengaged. 

Hannibal, after sending home his soldiers, retired himself to NewCarthage, which, as will be seen by the map, is further west thanSaguntum, where he went into winter quarters, and devoted himself tothe maturing of his designs. Besides the necessary preparations forhis own march, he had to provide for the government of the countriesthat he should leave. He devised various and ingenious plans toprevent the danger of insurrections and rebellions while he was gone. One was, to organize an army for Spain out of soldiers drawn from_Africa_, while the troops which were to be employed to garrisonCarthage, and to sustain the government there, were taken from Spain. By thus changing the troops of the two countries, each country wascontrolled by a foreign soldiery, who were more likely to be faithfulin their obedience to their commanders, and less in danger ofsympathizing with the populations which they were respectivelyemployed to control, than if each had been retained in its own nativeland. 

Hannibal knew very well that the various states and provinces ofSpain, which had refused to ally themselves with the Romans andabandon him, had been led to do this through the influence of hispresents or the fear of his power, and that if, after he hadpenetrated into Italy, he should meet with reverses, so as to diminishvery much their hope of deriving benefit from his favor or their fearof his power, there would be great danger of defections and revolts. As an additional security against this, he adopted the followingingenious plan. He enlisted a body of troops from among all thenations of Spain that were in alliance with him, selecting the youngmen who were enlisted as much as possible from families ofconsideration and influence, and this body of troops, when organizedand officered, he sent into Carthage, giving the nations and tribesfrom which they were drawn to understand that he considered them notonly as soldiers serving in his armies, but as _hostages_, which heshould hold as security for the fidelity and obedience of thecountries from which they had come. The number of these soldiers wasfour thousand. 

Hannibal had a brother, whose name, as it happened, was the same asthat of his brother-in-law, Hasdrubal. It was to him that he committedthe government of Spain during his absence. The soldiers provided forhim were, as has been already stated, mainly drawn from Africa. Inaddition to the foot soldiers, he provided him with a small body ofhorse. He left with him, also, fourteen elephants. And as he thoughtit not improbable that the Romans might, in some contingency duringhis absence, make a descent upon the Spanish coast from the sea, hebuilt and equipped for him a small fleet of about sixty vessels, fiftyof which were of the first class. In modern times, the magnitude andefficiency of a ship is estimated by the number of guns she willcarry; then, it was the number of banks of oars. Fifty of Hasdrubal'sships were _quinqueremes_, as they were called, that is, they had fivebanks of oars. 

The Romans, on the other hand, did not neglect their own preparations. Though reluctant to enter upon the war, they still prepared to engagein it with their characteristic energy and ardor, when they found thatit could not be averted. They resolved on raising two powerful armies, one for each of the consuls. The plan was, with one of these toadvance to meet Hannibal, and with the other to proceed to Sicily, andfrom Sicily to the African coast, with a view of threatening theCarthaginian capital. This plan, if successful, would compel theCarthaginians to recall a part or the whole of Hannibal's army fromthe intended invasion of Italy to defend their own African homes. 

The force raised by the Romans amounted to about seventy thousand men. About a third of these were Roman soldiers, and the remainder weredrawn from various nations dwelling in Italy and in the islands of theMediterranean Sea which were in alliance with the Romans. Of thesetroops six thousand were cavalry. Of course, as the Romans intendedto cross into Africa, they needed a fleet. They built and equippedone, which consisted of two hundred and twenty ships of the largestclass, that is, quinqueremes, besides a number of smaller and lightervessels for services requiring speed. There were vessels in use inthose times larger than the quinqueremes. Mention is occasionally madeof those which had six and even seven banks of oars. But these wereonly employed as the flag-ships of commanders, and for other purposesof ceremony and parade, as they were too unwieldy for efficientservice in action. 

Lots were then drawn in a very solemn manner, according to the Romancustom on such occasions, to decide on the assignment of these twoarmies to the respective consuls. The one destined to meet Hannibal onhis way from Spain, fell to a consul named Cornelius Scipio. The nameof the other was Sempronius. It devolved on him, consequently, to takecharge of the expedition destined to Sicily and Africa. When all thearrangements were thus made, the question was finally put, in a verysolemn and formal manner, to the Roman people for their final vote anddecision. "Do the Roman people decide and decree that war shall bedeclared against the Carthaginians?" The decision was in theaffirmative. The war was then proclaimed with the usual imposingceremonies. Sacrifices and religious celebrations followed, topropitiate the favor of the gods, and to inspire the soldiers withthat kind of courage and confidence which the superstitious, howeverwicked, feel when they can imagine themselves under the protection ofheaven. These shows and spectacles being over, all things were ready. 

In the mean time Hannibal was moving on, as the spring advanced, toward the banks of the Iberus, that frontier stream, the crossing ofwhich made him an invader of what was, in some sense, Roman territory. He boldly passed the stream, and moved forward along the coast of theMediterranean, gradually approaching the Pyrenees, which form theboundary between France and Spain. His soldiers hitherto did not knowwhat his plans were. It is very little the custom _now_ for militaryand naval commanders to communicate to their men much informationabout their designs, and it was still less the custom then; andbesides, in those days, the common soldiers had no access to thosemeans of information by which news of every sort is now souniversally diffused. Thus, though all the officers of the army, andwell-informed citizens, both in Rome and Carthage, anticipated andunderstood Hannibal's designs, his own soldiers, ignorant anddegraded, knew nothing except that they were to go on some distant anddangerous service. They, very likely, had no idea whatever of Italy orof Rome, or of the magnitude of the possessions, or of the power heldby the vast empire which they were going to invade. 

When, however, after traveling day after day they came to the foot ofthe Pyrenees, and found that they were really going to pass thatmighty chain of mountains, and for this purpose were actually enteringits wild and gloomy defiles, the courage of some of them failed, andthey began to murmur. The discontent and alarm were, in fact, sogreat, that one corps, consisting of about three thousand men, leftthe camp in a body, and moved back toward their homes. On inquiry, Hannibal found that there were ten thousand more who were in a similarstate of feeling. His whole force consisted of over one hundredthousand. And now what does the reader imagine that Hannibal would doin such an emergency? Would he return in pursuit of these deserters, to recapture and destroy them as a terror to the rest? or would he letthem go, and attempt by words of conciliation and encouragement toconfirm and save those that yet remained? He did neither. He calledtogether the ten thousand discontented troops that were still in hiscamp, and told them that, since they were afraid to accompany hisarmy, or unwilling to do so, they might return. He wanted none in hisservice who had not the courage and the fortitude to go on wherever hemight lead. He would not have the faint-hearted and the timid in hisarmy. They would only be a burden to load down and impede the courageand energy of the rest. So saying, he gave orders for them to return, and with the rest of the army, whose resolution and ardor wereredoubled by this occurrence, he moved on through the passes of themountains. 

This act of Hannibal, in permitting his discontented soldiers toreturn, had all the effect of a deed of generosity in its influenceupon the minds of the soldiers who went on. We must not, however, imagine that it was prompted by a spirit of generosity at all. It waspolicy. A seeming generosity was, in this case, exactly what waswanted to answer his ends. Hannibal was mercilessly cruel in allcases where he imagined that severity was demanded. It requires greatsagacity sometimes in a commander to know when he must punish, andwhen it is wisest to overlook and forgive. Hannibal, like Alexanderand Napoleon, possessed this sagacity in a very high degree; and itwas, doubtless, the exercise of that principle alone which promptedhis action on this occasion. 

Thus Hannibal passed the Pyrenees. The next difficulty that heanticipated was in crossing the River Rhone. 

CHAPTER IV. 

THE PASSAGE OF THE RHONE. 

B. C. 217

Difficulties anticipated. --Reconnoitering party. --Some tribesreduced. --Alarm of the Gauls. --The Alps. --Difficulty of theirpassage. --Hannibal's message to the Gauls. --Success of hispolicy. --Cornelius Scipio. --He embarks his army. --Both armies onthe Rhone. --Exploring party. --Feelings of the Gauls in respectto Hannibal. --The Gauls beyond the river oppose Hannibal'spassage. --Preparations for crossing the river. --Boatbuilding. --Rafts. --The enemy look on in silence. --Difficulties ofcrossing a river. --Hannibal's tactics. --His stratagem. --Detachmentunder Hanno. --Success of Hanno. --The signal. --Passage of theriver. --Scene of confusion. --Attack of Hanno. --Flight of theGauls. --Transportation of the elephants. --Manner of doing it. --Anew plan. --Huge rafts. --The elephants got safely over. --Thereconnoitering parties. --The detachments meet. --A battle ensues. 

Hannibal, after he had passed the Pyrenees, did not anticipate any newdifficulty till he should arrive at the Rhone. He knew very well thatthat was a broad and rapid river, and that he must cross it near itsmouth, where the water was deep and the banks low; and, besides, itwas not impossible that the Romans who were coming to meet him, underCornelius Scipio, might have reached the Rhone before he should arrivethere, and be ready upon the banks to dispute his passage. He had sentforward, therefore, a small detachment in advance, to reconnoiter thecountry and select a route to the Rhone, and if they met with nodifficulties to arrest them there, they were to go on till theyreached the Alps, and explore the passages and defiles through whichhis army could best cross those snow-covered mountains. 

It seems that before he reached the Pyrenees--that is, while he wasupon the Spanish side of them, some of the tribes through whoseterritories he had to pass undertook to resist him, and he, consequently, had to attack them and reduce them by force; and then, when he was ready to move on, he left a guard in the territories thusconquered to keep them in subjection. Rumors of this reached Gaul. TheGauls were alarmed for their own safety. They had not intended tooppose Hannibal so long as they supposed that he only wished for asafe passage through their country on his way to Italy; but now, whenthey found, from what had occurred in Spain, that he was going toconquer the countries he traversed as he passed along, they becamealarmed. They seized their arms, and assembled in haste at Ruscino, and began to devise measures of defense. Ruscino was the same place asthat in which the Roman embassadors met the great council of the Gaulson their return to Italy from Carthage. 

While this great council, or, rather, assembly of armies, wasgathering at Ruscino, full of threats and anger, Hannibal was atIlliberis, a town at the foot of the Pyrenean Mountains. He seems tohave had no fear that any opposition which the Gauls could bring tobear against him would be successful, but he dreaded the delay. Hewas extremely unwilling to spend the precious months of the earlysummer in contending with such foes as they, when the road to Italywas before him. Besides, the passes of the Alps, which are difficultand laborious at any time, are utterly impracticable except in themonths of July and August. At all other seasons they are, or were inthose days, blocked up with impassable snows. In modern times roadshave been made, with galleries cut through the rock, and with theexposed places protected by sloping roofs projecting from above, overwhich storms sweep and avalanches slide without injury; so that nowthe intercourse of ordinary travel between France and Italy, acrossthe Alps, is kept up, in some measure, all the year. In Hannibal'stime, however, the mountains could not be traversed except in thesummer months, and if it had not been that the result justified theundertaking, it would have been considered an act of inexcusablerashness and folly to attempt to cross with an army at all. 

Hannibal had therefore no time to lose, and that circumstance madethis case one of those in which forbearance and a show of generositywere called for, instead of defiance and force. He accordingly sentmessengers to the council at Ruscino to say, in a very complaisant andaffable manner, that he wished to see and confer with their princes inperson, and that, if they pleased, he would advance for this purposetoward Ruscino; or they might, if they preferred, come on toward himat Illiberis, where he would await their arrival. He invited them tocome freely into his camp, and said that he was ready, if they werewilling to receive him, to go into theirs, for he had come to Gaul asa friend and an ally, and wanted nothing but a free passage throughtheir territory. He had made a resolution, he said, if the Gauls wouldbut allow him to keep it, that there should not be a single sworddrawn in his army till he got into Italy. 

The alarm and the feelings of hostility which prevailed among theGauls were greatly allayed by this message. They put their camp inmotion, and went on to Illiberis. The princes and high officers oftheir armies went to Hannibal's camp, and were received with thehighest marks of distinction and honor. They were loaded withpresents, and went away charmed with the affability, the wealth, andthe generosity of their visitor. Instead of opposing his progress, they became the conductors and guides of his army. They took themfirst to Ruscino, which was, as it were, their capital, and thence, after a short delay, the army moved on without any further molestationtoward the Rhone. 

In the mean time, the Roman consul Scipio, having embarked the troopsdestined to meet Hannibal in sixty ships at the mouth of the Tiber, set sail for the mouth of the Rhone. The men were crowded together inthe ships, as armies necessarily must be when transported by sea. Theycould not go far out to sea, for, as they had no compass in thosedays, there were no means of directing the course of navigation, incase of storms or cloudy skies, except by the land. The shipsaccordingly made their way slowly along the shore, sometimes by meansof sails and sometimes by oars, and, after suffering for some time thehardships and privations incident to such a voyage--the sea-sicknessand the confinement of such swarming numbers in so narrow a spacebringing every species of discomfort in their train--the fleet enteredthe mouth of the Rhone. The officers had no idea that Hannibal wasnear. They had only heard of his having crossed the Iberus. Theyimagined that he was still on the other side of the Pyrenees. Theyentered the Rhone by the first branch they came to--for the Rhone, like the Nile, divides near its mouth, and flows into the sea byseveral separate channels--and sailed without concern up toMarseilles, imagining that their enemy was still hundreds of milesaway, entangled, perhaps, among the defiles of the Pyrenees. Insteadof that, he was safely encamped upon the banks of the Rhone, a shortdistance above them, quietly and coolly making his arrangements forcrossing it. 

When Cornelius got his men upon the land, they were too much exhaustedby the sickness and misery they had endured upon the voyage to move onto meet Hannibal without some days for rest and refreshment. Cornelius, however, selected three hundred horsemen who were able tomove, and sent them up the river on an exploring expedition, to learnthe facts in respect to Hannibal, and to report them to him. Dispatching them accordingly, he remained himself in his camp, reorganizing and recruiting his army, and awaiting the return of theparty that he had sent to explore. 

Although Hannibal had thus far met with no serious opposition in hisprogress through Gaul it must not, on that account, be supposed thatthe people, through whose territories he was passing, were reallyfriendly to his cause, or pleased with his presence among them. Anarmy is always a burden and a curse to any country that it enters, even when its only object is to pass peacefully through. The Gaulsassumed a friendly attitude toward this dreaded invader and his hordeonly because they thought that by so doing he would the sooner passand be gone. They were too weak, and had too few means of resistanceto attempt to stop him; and, as the next best thing that they coulddo, resolved to render him every possible aid to hasten him on. Thiscontinued to be the policy of the various tribes until he reached theriver. The people on the _further_ side of the river, however, thoughtit was best for them to resist. They were nearer to the Romanterritories, and, consequently, somewhat more under Roman influence. They feared the resentment of the Romans if they should, evenpassively, render any co-operation to Hannibal in his designs; and, asthey had the broad and rapid river between them and their enemy, theythought there was a reasonable prospect that, with its aid, they couldexclude him from their territories altogether. 

Thus it happened that, when Hannibal came to the stream, the people onone side were all eager to promote, while those on the other weredetermined to prevent his passage, both parties being animated by thesame desire to free their country from such a pest as the presence ofan army of ninety thousand men; so that Hannibal stood at last uponthe banks of the river, with the people on _his_ side of the streamwaiting and ready to furnish all the boats and vessels that they couldcommand, and to render every aid in their power in the embarkation, while those on the other were drawn up in battle array, rank behindrank, glittering with weapons, marshaled so as to guard every place oflanding, and lining with pikes the whole extent of the shore, whilethe peaks of their tents, in vast numbers, with banners among themfloating in the air, were to be seen in the distance behind them. Allthis time, the three hundred horsemen which Cornelius had dispatchedwere slowly and cautiously making their way up the river from theRoman encampment below. 

After contemplating the scene presented to his view at the river forsome time in silence, Hannibal commenced his preparations for crossingthe stream. He collected first all the boats of every kind whichcould be obtained among the Gauls who lived along the bank of theriver. These, however, only served for a beginning, and so he next gottogether all the workmen and all the tools which the country couldfurnish, for several miles around, and went to work constructing more. The Gauls of that region had a custom of making boats of the trunks oflarge trees. The tree, being felled and cut to the proper length, washollowed out with hatchets and adzes, and then, being turned bottomupward, the outside was shaped in such a manner as to make it glideeasily through the water. So convenient is this mode of making boats, that it is practiced, in cases where sufficiently large trees arefound, to the present day. Such boats are now called canoes. 

There were plenty of large trees on the banks of the Rhone. Hannibal'ssoldiers watched the Gauls at their work, in making boats of them, until they learned the art themselves. Some first assisted their newallies in the easier portions of the operation, and then began to felllarge trees and make the boats themselves. Others, who had less skillor more impetuosity chose not to wait for the slow process ofhollowing the wood, and they, accordingly, would fell the trees uponthe shore, cut the trunks of equal lengths, place them side by side inthe water, and bolt or bind them together so as to form a raft. Theform and fashion of their craft was of no consequence, they said, asit was for one passage only. Any thing would answer, if it would onlyfloat and bear its burden over. 

In the mean time, the enemy upon the opposite shore looked on, butthey could do nothing to impede these operations. If they had hadartillery, such as is in use at the present day, they could have firedacross the river, and have blown the boats and rafts to pieces withballs and shells as fast as the Gauls and Carthaginians could buildthem. In fact, the workmen could not have built them under such acannonading; but the enemy, in this case, had nothing but spears, andarrows, and stones, to be thrown either by the hand, or by engines fartoo weak to send them with any effect across such a stream. They hadto look on quietly, therefore, and allow these great and formidablepreparations for an attack upon them to go on without interruption. Their only hope was to overwhelm the army with their missiles, andprevent their landing, when they should reach the bank at last intheir attempt to cross the stream. 

If an army is crossing a river without any enemy to oppose them, amoderate number of boats will serve, as a part of the army can betransported at a time, and the whole gradually transferred from onebank to the other by repeated trips of the same conveyances. But whenthere is an enemy to encounter at the landing, it is necessary toprovide the means of carrying over a very large force at a time; forif a small division were to go over first alone, it would only throwitself, weak and defenseless, into the hands of the enemy. Hannibal, therefore, waited until he had boats, rafts, and floats enoughconstructed to carry over a force all together sufficiently numerousand powerful to attack the enemy with a prospect of success. 

The Romans, as we have already remarked, say that Hannibal wascunning. He certainly was not disposed, like Alexander, to trust inhis battles to simple superiority of bravery and force, but was alwayscontriving some stratagem to increase the chances of victory. He didso in this case. He kept up for many days a prodigious parade andbustle of building boats and rafts in sight of his enemy, as if hissole reliance was on the multitude of men that he could pour acrossthe river at a single transportation, and he thus kept theirattention closely riveted upon these preparations. All this time, however, he had another plan in course of execution. He had sent astrong body of troops secretly up the river, with orders to make theirway stealthily through the forests, and cross the stream some fewmiles above. This force was intended to move back from the river, assoon as it should cross the stream, and come down upon the enemy inthe rear, so as to attack and harass them there at the same time thatHannibal was crossing with the main body of the army. If theysucceeded in crossing the river safely, they were to build a fire inthe woods, on the other side, in order that the column of smoke whichshould ascend from it might serve as a signal of their success toHannibal. 

This detachment was commanded by an officer named Hanno--of course avery different man from Hannibal's great enemy of that name inCarthage. Hanno set out in the night, moving back from the river, incommencing his march, so as to be entirely out of sight from the Gaulson the other side. He had some guides, belonging to the country, whopromised to show him a convenient place for crossing. The party wentup the river about twenty-five miles. Here they found a place wherethe water spread to a greater width, and where the current was lessrapid, and the water not so deep. They got to this place in silenceand secrecy, their enemies below not having suspected any such design. As they had, therefore, nobody to oppose them, they could cross muchmore easily than the main army below. They made some rafts forcarrying over those of the men that could not swim, and such munitionsof war as would be injured by the wet. The rest of the men waded tillthey reached the channel, and then swam, supporting themselves in partby their bucklers, which they placed beneath their bodies in thewater. Thus they all crossed in safety. They paused a day, to drytheir clothes and to rest, and then moved cautiously down the riveruntil they were near enough to Hannibal's position to allow theirsignal to be seen. The fire was then built, and they gazed withexultation upon the column of smoke which ascended from it high intothe air. 

Hannibal saw the signal, and now immediately prepared to cross withhis army. The horsemen embarked in boats, holding their horses bylines, with a view of leading them into the water so that they mightswim in company with the boats. Other horses, bridled and accoutered, were put into large flat-bottomed boats, to be taken across dry, inorder that they might be all ready for service at the instant oflanding. The most vigorous and efficient portion of the army were, ofcourse, selected for the first passage, while all those who, for anycause, were weak or disabled, remained behind, with the stores andmunitions of war, to be transported afterward, when the first passageshould have been effected. All this time the enemy, on the oppositeshore, were getting their ranks in array, and making every thing readyfor a furious assault upon the invaders the moment they shouldapproach the land. 

There was something like silence and order during the period while themen were embarking and pushing out from the land, but as they advancedinto the current, the loud commands, and shouts, and outcriesincreased more and more, and the rapidity of the current and of theeddies by which the boats and rafts were hurried down the stream, orwhirled against each other, soon produced a terrific scene of tumultand confusion. As soon as the first boats approached the land, theGauls assembled to oppose them rushed down upon them with showers ofmissiles, and with those unearthly yells which barbarous warriorsalways raise in going into battle, as a means both of excitingthemselves and of terrifying their enemy. Hannibal's officers urgedthe boats on, and endeavored, with as much coolness and deliberationas possible, to effect a landing. It is perhaps doubtful how thecontest would have ended, had it not been for the detachment underHanno, which now came suddenly into action. While the Gauls were inthe height of their excitement, in attempting to drive back theCarthaginians from the bank, they were thunderstruck at hearing theshouts and cries of an enemy behind them, and, on looking around, theysaw the troops of Hanno pouring down upon them from the thickets withterrible impetuosity and force. It is very difficult for an army tofight both in front and in the rear at the same time. The Gauls, aftera brief struggle, abandoned the attempt any longer to opposeHannibal's landing. They fled down the river and back into theinterior, leaving Hanno in secure possession of the bank whileHannibal and his forces came up at their leisure out of the water, finding friends instead of enemies to receive them. 

The remainder of the army, together with the stores and munitions ofwar, were next to be transported, and this was accomplished withlittle difficulty now that there was no enemy to disturb theiroperations. There was one part of the force, however, which occasionedsome trouble and delay. It was a body of elephants which formed a partof the army. How to get these unwieldy animals across so broad andrapid a river was a question of no little difficulty. There arevarious accounts of the manner in which Hannibal accomplished theobject, from which it would seem that different methods were employed. One mode was as follows: the keeper of the elephants selected one morespirited and passionate in disposition than the rest, and contrived toteaze and torment him so as to make him angry. The elephant advancedtoward his keeper with his trunk raised to take vengeance. The keeperfled; the elephant pursued him, the other elephants of the herdfollowing, as is the habit of the animal on such occasions. The keeperran into the water as if to elude his pursuer, while the elephant anda large part of the herd pressed on after him. The man swam into thechannel, and the elephants, before they could check themselves, foundthat they were beyond their depth. Some swam on after the keeper, andcrossed the river, where they were easily secured. Others, terrified, abandoned themselves to the current, and were floated down, strugglinghelplessly as they went, until at last they grounded upon shallows orpoints of land, whence they gained the shore again, some on one sideof the stream and some on the other. 

This plan was thus only partially successful, and Hannibal devised amore effectual method for the remainder of the troop. He built animmensely large raft, floated it up to the shore, fastened it theresecurely, and covered it with earth, turf, and bushes, so as to makeit resemble a projection of the land. He then caused a second raft tobe constructed of the same size, and this he brought up to the outeredge of the other, fastened it there by a temporary connection, andcovered and concealed it as he had done the first. The first of theserafts extended two hundred feet from the shore, and was fifty feetbroad. The other, that is, the outer one, was only a little smaller. The soldiers then contrived to allure and drive the elephants overthese rafts to the outer one, the animals imagining that they had notleft the land. The two rafts were then disconnected from each other, and the outer one began to move with its bulky passengers over thewater, towed by a number of boats which had previously been attachedto its outer edge. 

As soon as the elephants perceived the motion, they were alarmed, andbegan immediately to look anxiously this way and that, and to crowdtoward the edges of the raft which was conveying them away. They foundthemselves hemmed in by water on every side, and were terrified andthrown into confusion. Some were crowded off into the river, and weredrifted down till they landed below. The rest soon became calm, andallowed themselves to be quietly ferried across the stream, when theyfound that all hope of escape and resistance were equally vain. 

[Illustration: THE ELEPHANTS CROSSING THE RHONE. ]

In the mean time, while these events were occurring, the troop ofthree hundred, which Scipio had sent up the river to see what tidingshe could learn of the Carthaginians, were slowly making their waytoward the point where Hannibal was crossing; and it happened thatHannibal had sent down a troop of _five_ hundred, when he firstreached the river, to see if they could learn any tidings of theRomans. Neither of the armies had any idea how near they were tothe other. The two detachments met suddenly and unexpectedly on theway. They were sent to explore, and not to fight; but as they werenearly equally matched, each was ambitious of the glory of capturingthe others and carrying them prisoners to their camp. They fought along and bloody battle. A great number were killed, and in about thesame proportion on either side. The Romans say _they_ conquered. We donot know what the Carthaginians said, but as both parties retreatedfrom the field and went back to their respective camps, it is safe toinfer that neither could boast of a very decisive victory. 

CHAPTER V. 

HANNIBAL CROSSES THE ALPS. 

B. C. 217

The Alps. --Their sublimity and grandeur. --Perpetual cold in theupper regions of the atmosphere. --Avalanches. --Their terribleforce. --The glaciers. --Motion of the ice. --Crevices andchasms. --Situation of the Alps. --Roads over the Alps. --Sublimescenery. --Beauty of the Alpine scenery. --Picturesquescenery. --Hannibal determines to cross the Alps. --Hannibal'sspeech to his army. --Its effects. --His army follows. --Scipio movesafter Hannibal. --Sad vestiges. --Perplexity of Scipio. --He sails backto Italy. --Hannibal approaches the Alps. --A dangerous defile. --Thearmy encamps. --The mountaineers. --Hannibal's stratagem. --Itssuccess. --Astonishment of the mountaineers. --Terrible conflict inthe defile. --Attack of Hannibal. --The mountaineers defeated. --Thearmy pauses to refresh. --Scarcity of food. --Herds and flocks uponthe mountains. --Foraging parties. --Collecting cattle. --Progress ofthe army. --Cantons. --An embassage. --Hostages. --Hannibal'ssuspicions. --Treachery of the mountaineers. --They attackHannibal. --The elephants. --Hannibal's army divided. --Hannibal'sattack on the mountaineers. --They embarrass his march. --Hannibal'sindomitable perseverance. --He encamps. --Return of stragglingparties. --Dreary scenery of the summit. --Storms in the mountains. --Adreary encampment. --Landmarks. --A snow storm. --The army resumes itsmarch. --Hannibal among the pioneers. --First sight of Italy. --Joy ofthe army. --Hannibal's speech. --Fatigues of the march. --Newdifficulties. --March over the glacier. --A formidable barrier. --Hannibalcuts his way through the rocks. --The army in safety on the plains ofItaly. 

It is difficult for any one who has not actually seen such mountainscenery as is presented by the Alps, to form any clear conception ofits magnificence and grandeur. Hannibal had never seen the Alps, butthe world was filled then, as now, with their fame. 

Some of the leading features of sublimity and grandeur which thesemountains exhibit, result mainly from the perpetual cold which reignsupon their summits. This is owing simply to their elevation. In everypart of the earth, as we ascend from the surface of the ground intothe atmosphere, it becomes, for some mysterious reason or other, moreand more cold as we rise, so that over our heads, wherever we are, there reigns, at a distance of two or three miles above us, an intenseand perpetual cold. This is true not only in cool and temperatelatitudes, but also in the most torrid regions of the globe. If wewere to ascend in a balloon at Borneo at midday, when the burning sunof the tropics was directly over our heads, to an elevation of fiveor six miles, we should find that although we had been moving nearerto the sun all the time, its rays would have lost, gradually, alltheir power. They would fall upon us as brightly as ever, but theirheat would be gone. They would feel like moonbeams, and we should besurrounded with an atmosphere as frosty as that of the icebergs of thefrigid zone. 

It is from this region of perpetual cold that hail-stones descend uponus in the midst of summer, and snow is continually forming and fallingthere; but the light and fleecy flakes melt before they reach theearth, so that, while the hail has such solidity and momentum that itforces its way through, the snow dissolves, and falls upon us as acool and refreshing rain. Rain cools the air around us and the ground, because it comes from cooler regions of the air above. 

Now it happens that not only the summits, but extensive portions ofthe upper declivities of the Alps, rise into the region of perpetualwinter. Of course, ice congeals continually there, and the snow whichforms falls to the ground as snow, and accumulates in vast andpermanent stores. The summit of Mount Blanc is covered with a bed ofsnow of enormous thickness, which is almost as much a permanentgeological stratum of the mountain as the granite which lies beneathit. 

Of course, during the winter months, the whole country of the Alps, valley as well as hill, is covered with snow. In the spring the snowmelts in the valleys and plains, and higher up it becomes damp andheavy with partial melting, and slides down the declivities in vastavalanches, which sometimes are of such enormous magnitude, anddescend with such resistless force, as to bring down earth, rocks, andeven the trees of the forest in their train. On the higherdeclivities, however, and over all the rounded summits, the snow stillclings to its place, yielding but very little to the feeble beams ofthe sun, even in July. 

There are vast ravines and valleys among the higher Alps where thesnow accumulates, being driven into them by winds and storms in thewinter, and sliding into them, in great avalanches, in the spring. These vast depositories of snow become changed into ice below thesurface; for at the surface there is a continual melting, and thewater, flowing down through the mass, freezes below. Thus there arevalleys, or rather ravines, some of them two or three miles wide andten or fifteen miles long, filled with ice, transparent, solid, andblue, hundreds of feet in depth. They are called _glaciers_. And whatis most astonishing in respect to these icy accumulations is that, though the ice is perfectly compact and solid, the whole mass is foundto be continually in a state of slow motion down the valley in whichit lies, at the rate of about a foot in twenty-four hours. By standingupon the surface and listening attentively, we hear, from time totime, a grinding sound. The rocks which lie along the sides arepulverized, and are continually moving against each other and falling;and then, besides, which is a more direct and positive proof still ofthe motion of the mass, a mark may be set up upon the ice, as has beenoften done, and marks corresponding to it made upon the solid rocks oneach side of the valley, and by this means the fact of the motion, andthe exact rate of it, may be fully ascertained. 

Thus these valleys are really and literally rivers of ice, risingamong the summits of the mountains, and flowing, slowly it is true, but with a continuous and certain current, to a sort of mouth in somegreat and open valley below. Here the streams which have flowed overthe surface above, and descended into the mass through countlesscrevices and chasms, into which the traveler looks down with terror, concentrate and issue from under the ice in a turbid torrent, whichcomes out from a vast archway made by the falling in of masses whichthe water has undermined. This lower end of the glacier sometimespresents a perpendicular wall hundreds of feet in height; sometimes itcrowds down into the fertile valley, advancing in some unusually coldsummer into the cultivated country, where, as it slowly moves on, itplows up the ground, carries away the orchards and fields, and evendrives the inhabitants from the villages which it threatens. If thenext summer proves warm, the terrible monster slowly draws back itsfrigid head, and the inhabitants return to the ground it reluctantlyevacuates, and attempt to repair the damage it has done. 

The Alps lie between France and Italy, and the great valleys and theranges of mountain land lie in such a direction that they must be_crossed_ in order to pass from one country to the other. These rangesare, however, not regular. They are traversed by innumerable chasms, fissures, and ravines; in some places they rise in vast roundedsummits and swells, covered with fields of spotless snow; in othersthey tower in lofty, needle-like peaks, which even the chamois cannot scale, and where scarcely a flake of snow can find a place ofrest. Around and among these peaks and summits, and through thesefrightful defiles and chasms, the roads twist and turn, in a zigzagand constantly ascending course, creeping along the most frightfulprecipices, sometimes beneath them and sometimes on the brink, penetrating the darkest and gloomiest defiles, skirting the mostimpetuous and foaming torrents, and at last, perhaps, emerging uponthe surface of a glacier, to be lost in interminable fields of ice andsnow, where countless brooks run in glassy channels, and crevassesyawn, ready to take advantage of any slip which may enable them totake down the traveler into their bottomless abysses. 

And yet, notwithstanding the awful desolation which reigns in theupper regions of the Alps, the lower valleys, through which thestreams finally meander out into the open plains, and by which thetraveler gains access to the sublimer scenes of the upper mountains, are inexpressibly verdant and beautiful. They are fertilized by thedeposits of continual inundations in the early spring, and the sunbeats down into them with a genial warmth in summer, which brings outmillions of flowers, of the most beautiful forms and colors, andripens rapidly the broadest and richest fields of grain. Cottages, ofevery picturesque and beautiful form, tenanted by the cultivators, theshepherds and the herdsmen, crown every little swell in the bottom ofthe valley, and cling to the declivities of the mountains which riseon either hand. Above them eternal forests of firs and pines wave, feathering over the steepest and most rocky slopes with their somberfoliage. Still higher, gray precipices rise and spires and pinnacles, far grander and more picturesque, if not so symmetrically formed, thanthose constructed by man. Between these there is seen, here and there, in the background, vast towering masses of white and dazzling snow, which crown the summits of the loftier mountains beyond. 

Hannibal's determination to carry an army into Italy by way of theAlps, instead of transporting them by galleys over the sea, has alwaysbeen regarded as one of the greatest undertakings of ancient times. Hehesitated for some time whether he should go down the Rhone, and meetand give battle to Scipio, or whether he should leave the Roman armyto its course, and proceed himself directly toward the Alps andItaly. The officers and soldiers of the army, who had now learnedsomething of their destination and of their leader's plans, wanted togo and meet the Romans. They dreaded the Alps. They were willing toencounter a military foe, however formidable, for this was a dangerthat they were accustomed to and could understand; but theirimaginations were appalled at the novel and awful images they formedof falling down precipices of ragged rocks, or of gradually freezing, and being buried half alive, during the process, in eternal snows. 

Hannibal, when he found that his soldiers were afraid to proceed, called the leading portions of his army together, and made them anaddress. He remonstrated with them for yielding now to unworthy fears, after having successfully met and triumphed over such dangers as theyhad already incurred. "You have surmounted the Pyrenees, " said he, "you have crossed the Rhone. You are now actually in sight of theAlps, which are the very gates of access to the country of the enemy. What do you conceive the Alps to be? They are nothing but highmountains, after all. Suppose they are higher than the Pyrenees, theydo not reach to the skies; and, since they do not, they can not beinsurmountable. They _are_ surmounted, in fact, every day; they areeven inhabited and cultivated, and travelers continually pass overthem to and fro. And what a single man can do, an army can do, for anarmy is only a large number of single men. In fact, to a soldier, whohas nothing to carry with him but the implements of war, no way can betoo difficult to be surmounted by courage and energy. "

After finishing his speech, Hannibal, finding his men reanimated andencouraged by what he had said, ordered them to go to their tents andrefresh themselves, and prepare to march on the following day. Theymade no further opposition to going on. Hannibal did not, however, proceed at once directly toward the Alps. He did not know what theplans of Scipio might be, who, it will be recollected, was below him, on the Rhone, with the Roman army. He did not wish to waste his timeand his strength in a contest with Scipio in Gaul, but to press on andget across the Alps into Italy as soon as possible. And so, fearinglest Scipio should strike across the country, and intercept him if heshould attempt to go by the most direct route, he determined to movenorthwardly, up the River Rhone, till he should get well into theinterior, with a view of reaching the Alps ultimately by a morecircuitous journey. 

It was, in fact, the plan of Scipio to come up with Hannibal andattack him as soon as possible; and, accordingly, as soon as hishorsemen, or, rather, those who were left alive after the battle hadreturned and informed him that Hannibal and his army were near, he puthis camp in motion and moved rapidly up the river. He arrived at theplace where the Carthaginians had crossed a few days after they hadgone. The spot was in a terrible state of ruin and confusion. Thegrass and herbage were trampled down for the circuit of a mile, andall over the space were spots of black and smouldering remains, wherethe camp-fires had been kindled. The tops and branches of trees layevery where around, their leaves withering in the sun, and the grovesand forests were encumbered with limbs, and rejected trunks, and treesfelled and left where they lay. The shore was lined far down thestream with ruins of boats and rafts, with weapons which had been lostor abandoned, and with the bodies of those who had been drowned in thepassage, or killed in the contest on the shore. These and numerousother vestiges remained but the army was gone. 

There were, however, upon the ground groups of natives and othervisitors, who had come to look at the spot now destined to become somemorable in history. From these men Scipio learned when and whereHannibal had gone. He decided that it was useless to attempt to pursuehim. He was greatly perplexed to know what to do. In the casting oflots, Spain had fallen to him, but now that the great enemy whom hehad come forth to meet had left Spain altogether, his only hope ofintercepting his progress was to sail back into Italy, and meet him ashe came down from the Alps into the great valley of the Po. Still, asSpain had been assigned to him as his province, he could not wellentirely abandon it. He accordingly sent forward the largest part ofhis army into Spain, to attack the forces that Hannibal had leftthere, while he himself, with a smaller force, went down to thesea-shore and sailed back to Italy again. He expected to find Romanforces in the valley of the Po, with which he hoped to be strongenough to meet Hannibal as he descended from the mountains, if heshould succeed in effecting a passage over them. 

In the mean time Hannibal went on, drawing nearer and nearer to theranges of snowy summits which his soldiers had seen for many days intheir eastern horizon. These ranges were very resplendent and grandwhen the sun went down in the west, for then it shone directly uponthem. As the army approached nearer and nearer to them, they graduallywithdrew from sight and disappeared, being concealed by interveningsummits less lofty, but nearer. As the soldiers went on, however, andbegan to penetrate the valleys, and draw near to the awful chasms andprecipices among the mountains, and saw the turbid torrents descendingfrom them, their fears revived. It was, however, now too late toretreat. They pressed forward, ascending continually, till their roadgrew extremely precipitous and insecure, threading its way throughalmost impassable defiles, with rugged cliffs overhanging them, andsnowy summits towering all around. 

At last they came to a narrow defile through which they mustnecessarily pass, but which was guarded by large bodies of armed menassembled on the rocks and precipices above, ready to hurl stones andweapons of every kind upon them if they should attempt to passthrough. The army halted. Hannibal ordered them to encamp where theywere, until he could consider what to do. In the course of the day helearned that the mountaineers did not remain at their elevated postsduring the night, on account of the intense cold and exposure, knowing, too, that it would be impossible for an army to traverse sucha pass as they were attempting to guard without daylight to guidethem, for the road, or rather pathway, which passes through thesedefiles, follows generally the course of a mountain torrent, whichflows through a succession of frightful ravines and chasms, and oftenpasses along on a shelf or projection of the rock, hundreds andsometimes thousands of feet from the bed of the stream, which foamsand roars far below. There could, of course, be no hope of passingsafely by such a route without the light of day. 

The mountaineers, therefore, knowing that it was not necessary toguard the pass at night--its own terrible danger being then asufficient protection--were accustomed to disperse in the evening, anddescend to regions where they could find shelter and repose, and toreturn and renew their watch in the morning. When Hannibal learnedthis, he determined to anticipate them in getting up upon the rocksthe next day, and, in order to prevent their entertaining anysuspicion of his design, he pretended to be making all thearrangements for encamping for the night on the ground he had taken. He accordingly pitched more tents, and built, toward evening, a greatmany fires, and he began some preparations indicating that it was hisintention the next day to force his way through the pass. He movedforward a strong detachment up to a point near the entrance to thepass, and put them in a fortified position there, as if to have themall ready to advance when the proper time should arrive on thefollowing day. 

The mountaineers, seeing all these preparations going on, lookedforward to a conflict on the morrow, and, during the night, left theirpositions as usual, to descend to places of shelter. The next morning, however, when they began, at an early hour, to ascend to them again, they were astonished to find all the lofty rocks, and cliffs, andshelving projections which overhung the pass, covered withCarthaginians. Hannibal had aroused a strong body of his men at theearliest dawn, and led them up, by steep climbing, to the places whichthe mountaineers had left, so as to be there before them. Themountaineers paused, astonished, at this spectacle, and theirdisappointment and rage were much increased on looking down into thevalley below, and seeing there the remainder of the Carthaginian armyquietly moving through the pass in a long train, safe apparently fromany molestation, since friends, and not enemies, were now inpossession of the cliffs above. 

The mountaineers could not restrain their feelings of vexation andanger, but immediately rushed down the declivities which they had inpart ascended, and attacked the army in the defile. An awful scene ofstruggle and confusion ensued. Some were killed by weapons or by rocksrolled down upon them. Others, contending together, and strugglingdesperately in places of very narrow foothold, tumbled headlong downthe rugged rocks into the torrent below; and horses, laden withbaggage and stores, became frightened and unmanageable, and crowdedeach other over the most frightful precipices. Hannibal, who wasabove, on the higher rocks, looked down upon this scene for a timewith the greatest anxiety and terror. He did not dare to descendhimself and mingle in the affray, for fear of increasing theconfusion. He soon found, however, that it was absolutely necessaryfor him to interpose, and he came down as rapidly as possible, hisdetachment with him. They descended by oblique and zigzag paths, wherever they could get footing among the rocks, and attacked themountaineers with great fury. The result was, as he had feared, agreat increase at first of the confusion and the slaughter. The horseswere more and more terrified by the fresh energy of the combat, and bythe resounding of louder shouts and cries, which were made doublyterrific by the echoes and reverberations of the mountains. Theycrowded against each other, and fell, horses and men together, inmasses, over the cliffs to the rugged rocks below, where they lay inconfusion, some dead, and others dying, writhing helplessly in agony, or vainly endeavoring to crawl away. 

The mountaineers were, however, conquered and driven away at last, andthe pass was left clear. The Carthaginian column was restored toorder. The horses that had not fallen were calmed and quieted. Thebaggage which had been thrown down was gathered up, and the woundedmen were placed on litters, rudely constructed on the spot, that theymight be borne on to a place of safety. In a short time all were readyto move on, and the march was accordingly recommenced. There was nofurther difficulty. The column advanced in a quiet and orderly manneruntil they had passed the defile. At the extremity of it they came toa spacious fort belonging to the natives. Hannibal took possession ofthis fort, and paused for a little time there to rest and refresh hismen. 

One of the greatest difficulties encountered by a general inconducting an army through difficult and dangerous roads, is that ofproviding food for them. An army can transport its own food only avery little way. Men traveling over smooth roads can only carryprovisions for a few days, and where the roads are as difficult anddangerous as the passes of the Alps, they can scarcely carry any. Thecommander must, accordingly, find subsistence in the country throughwhich he is marching. Hannibal had, therefore, now not only to lookout for the safety of his men, but their food was exhausted, and hemust take immediate measures to secure a supply. 

The lower slopes of lofty mountains afford usually abundant sustenancefor flocks and herds. The showers which are continually falling there, and the moisture which comes down the sides of the mountains throughthe ground keep the turf perpetually green, and sheep and cattle loveto pasture upon it; they climb to great heights, finding the herbagefiner and sweeter the higher they go. Thus the inhabitants of mountainranges are almost always shepherds and herdsmen. Grain can be raisedin the valleys below, but the slopes of the mountains, though theyproduce grass to perfection, are too steep to be tilled. 

As soon as Hannibal had got established in the fort, he sent aroundsmall bodies of men to seize and drive in all the cattle and sheepthat they could find. These men were, of course, armed, in order thatthey might be prepared to meet any resistance which they mightencounter. The mountaineers, however, did not attempt to resist them. They felt that they were conquered, and they were accordinglydisheartened and discouraged. The only mode of saving their cattlewhich was left to them, was to drive them as fast as they could intoconcealed and inaccessible places. They attempted to do this, andwhile Hannibal's parties were ranging up the valleys all around them, examining every field, and barn, and sheepfold that they could find, the wretched and despairing inhabitants were flying in all directions, driving the cows and sheep, on which their whole hope of subsistencedepended, into the fastnesses of the mountains. They urged them intowild thickets, and dark ravines and chasms, and over dangerousglaciers, and up the steepest ascents, wherever there was the readiestprospect of getting them out of the plunderer's way. 

These attempts, however, to save their little property were but verypartially successful. Hannibal's marauding parties kept coming home, one after another, with droves of sheep and cattle before them, somelarger and some smaller, but making up a vast amount in all. Hannibalsubsisted his men three days on the food thus procured for them. Itrequires an enormous store to feed ninety or a hundred thousand men, even for three days; besides, in all such cases as this, an armyalways waste and destroy far more than they really consume. 

During these three days the army was not stationary, but was movingslowly on. The way, though still difficult and dangerous, was at leastopen before them, as there was now no enemy to dispute their passage. So they went on, rioting upon the abundant supplies they had obtained, and rejoicing in the double victory they were gaining, over thehostility of the people and the physical dangers and difficulties ofthe way. The poor mountaineers returned to their cabins ruined anddesolate, for mountaineers who have lost their cows and their sheephave lost their all. 

The Alps are not all in Switzerland. Some of the most celebrated peaksand ranges are in a neighboring state called Savoy. The whole countryis, in fact, divided into small states, called _cantons_ at thepresent day, and similar political divisions seem to have existed inthe time of the Romans. In his march onward from the pass which hasbeen already described, Hannibal, accordingly, soon approached theconfines of another canton. As he was advancing slowly into it, withthe long train of his army winding up with him through the valleys, hewas met at the borders of this new state by an embassage sent from thegovernment of it. They brought with them fresh stores of provisions, and a number of guides. They said that they had heard of the terribledestruction which had come upon the other canton in consequence oftheir effort to oppose his progress, and that they had no intention ofrenewing so vain an attempt. They came, therefore, they said, to offerHannibal their friendship and their aid. They had brought guides toshow the army the best way over the mountains, and a present ofprovisions; and to prove the sincerity of their professions theyoffered Hannibal hostages. These hostages were young men and boys, thesons of the principal inhabitants, whom they offered to deliver intoHannibal's power, to be kept by him until he should see that they werefaithful and true in doing what they offered. 

[Illustration: HANNIBAL ON THE ALPS. ]

Hannibal was so accustomed to stratagem and treachery himself, that hewas at first very much at a loss to decide whether these offers andprofessions were honest and sincere, or whether they were only made toput him off his guard. He thought it possible that it was their designto induce him to place himself under their direction, so that theymight lead him into some dangerous defile or labyrinth of rocks, fromwhich he could not extricate himself, and where they could attack anddestroy him. He, however, decided to return them a favorable answer, but to watch them very carefully, and to proceed under their guidancewith the utmost caution and care. He accepted of the provisions theyoffered, and took the hostages. These last he delivered into thecustody of a body of his soldiers and they marched on with the rest ofthe army. Then, directing the new guides to lead the way, the armymoved on after them. The elephants went first, with a moderate forcefor their protection preceding and accompanying them. Then came longtrains of horses and mules, loaded with military stores and baggage, and finally the foot soldiers followed, marching irregularly in a longcolumn. The whole train must have extended many miles, and must haveappeared from any of the eminences around like an enormous serpent, winding its way tortuously through the wild and desolate valleys. 

Hannibal was right in his suspicions. The embassage was a stratagem. The men who sent it had laid an ambuscade in a very narrow pass, concealing their forces in thickets and in chasms, and in nooks andcorners among the rugged rocks, and when the guides had led the armywell into the danger, a sudden signal was given, and these concealedenemies rushed down upon them in great numbers, breaking into theirranks, and renewing the scene of terrible uproar, tumult, anddestruction which had been witnessed in the other defile. One wouldhave thought that the elephants, being so unwieldy and so helpless insuch a scene, would have been the first objects of attack. But it wasnot so. The mountaineers were afraid of them. They had never seensuch animals before, and they felt for them a mysterious awe, notknowing what terrible powers such enormous beasts might be expected towield. They kept away from them, therefore, and from the horsemen, andpoured down upon the head of the column of foot soldiers whichfollowed in the rear. 

They were quite successful at the first onset. They broke through thehead of the column, and drove the rest back. The horses and elephants, in the mean time, moved forward, bearing the baggage with them, sothat the two portions of the army were soon entirely separated. Hannibal was behind, with the soldiers. The mountaineers made goodtheir position, and, as night came on, the contest ceased, for in suchwilds as these no one can move at all, except with the light of day. The mountaineers, however, remained in their place, dividing the army, and Hannibal continued, during the night, in a state of great suspenseand anxiety, with the elephants and the baggage separated from him andapparently at the mercy of the enemy. 

During the night he made vigorous preparations for attacking themountaineers the next day. As soon as the morning light appeared, hemade the attack, and he succeeded in driving the enemy away, so far, at least, as to allow him to get his army together again. He thenbegan once more to move on. The mountaineers, however, hovered abouthis way, and did all they could to molest and embarrass his march. They concealed themselves in ambuscades, and attacked theCarthaginians as they passed. They rolled stones down upon them, ordischarged spears and arrows from eminences above; and if any ofHannibal's army became, from any reason, detached from the rest, theywould cut off their retreat, and then take them prisoners or destroythem. Thus they gave Hannibal a great deal of trouble. They harassedhis march continually, without presenting at any point a force whichhe could meet and encounter in battle. Of course, Hannibal could nolonger trust to his guides, and he was obliged to make his way as hebest could, sometimes right, but often wrong, and exposed to athousand difficulties and dangers, which those acquainted with thecountry might have easily avoided. All this time the mountaineers werecontinually attacking him, in bands like those of robbers, sometimesin the van, and sometimes in the rear, wherever the nature of theground or the circumstances of the marching army afforded them anopportunity. 

Hannibal persevered, however, through all these discouragements, protecting his men as far as it was in his power, but pressingearnestly on, until in nine days he reached the summit. By the summit, however, is not meant the summit of the mountains, but the summit ofthe _pass_, that is, the highest point which it was necessary for himto attain in going over. In all mountain ranges there are depressions, which are in Switzerland called _necks_, [A] and the pathways and roadsover the ranges lie always in these. In America, such a depression ina ridge of land, if well marked and decided, is called a _notch_. Hannibal attained the highest point of the _col_, by which he was topass over, in nine days after the great battle. There were, however, of course, lofty peaks and summits towering still far above him. 

[Footnote A: The French word is _col_. Thus, there is the Col deBalme, the Col de Géant, &c. ]

He encamped here two days to rest and refresh his men. The enemy nolonger molested him. In fact, parties were continually coming into thecamp, of men and horses, that had got lost, or had been left in thevalleys below. They came in slowly, some wounded, others exhaustedand spent by fatigue and exposure. In some cases horses came in alone. They were horses that had slipped or stumbled, and fallen among therocks, or had sunk down exhausted by their toil, and had thus beenleft behind, and afterward, recovering their strength, had followedon, led by a strange instinct to keep to the tracks which theircompanions had made, and thus they rejoined the camp at last insafety. 

In fact, one great reason for Hannibal's delay at his encampment on ornear the summit of the pass, was to afford time for all the missingmen to join the army again, that had the power to do so. Had it notbeen for this necessity, he would doubtless have descended somedistance, at least, to a more warm and sheltered position beforeseeking repose. A more gloomy and desolate resting-place than thesummit of an Alpine pass can scarcely be found. The bare and barrenrocks are entirely destitute of vegetation, and they have lost, besides, the sublime and picturesque forms which they assume furtherbelow. They spread in vast, naked fields in every direction around thespectator, rising in gentle ascents, bleak and dreary, the surfacewhitened as if bleached by the perpetual rains. Storms are, in fact, almost perpetual in these elevated regions. The vast cloud which, tothe eye of the shepherd in the valley below, seems only a fleecy cap, resting serenely upon the summit, or slowly floating along the sides, is really a driving mist, or cold and stormy rain, howling dismallyover interminable fields of broken rocks, as if angry that it can makenothing grow upon them, with all its watering. Thus there are seldomdistant views to be obtained, and every thing near presents a scene ofsimple dreariness and desolation. 

Hannibal's soldiers thus found themselves in the midst of a dismalscene in their lofty encampment. There is one special source ofdanger, too, in such places as this, which the lower portions of themountains are less exposed to, and that is the entire obliteration ofthe pathway by falls of snow. It seems almost absurd to speak ofpathway in such regions, where there is no turf to be worn, and theboundless fields of rocks, ragged and hard, will take no trace offootsteps. There are, however, generally some faint traces of way, andwhere these fail entirely the track is sometimes indicated by smallpiles of stones, placed at intervals along the line of route. Anunpracticed eye would scarcely distinguish these little landmarks, inmany cases, from accidental heaps of stones which lie every wherearound. They, however, render a very essential service to the guidesand to the mountaineers, who have been accustomed to conduct theirsteps by similar aids in other portions of the mountains. 

But when snow begins to fall, all these and every other possible meansof distinguishing the way are soon entirely obliterated. The wholesurface of the ground, or, rather, of the rocks, is covered, and alllandmarks disappear. The little monuments become nothing but slightinequalities in the surface of the snow, undistinguishable from athousand others. The air is thick and murky, and shuts off alike alldistant prospects, and the shape and conformation of the land that isnear; the bewildered traveler has not even the stars to guide him, asthere is nothing but dark, falling flakes, descending from animpenetrable canopy of stormy clouds, to be seen in the sky. 

Hannibal encountered a snow storm while on the summit of the pass, andhis army were very much terrified by it. It was now November. The armyhad met with so many detentions and delays that their journey had beenprotracted to a late period. It would be unsafe to attempt to waittill this snow should melt again. As soon, therefore, as the stormended, and the clouds cleared away, so as to allow the men to see thegeneral features of the country around, the camp was broken up and thearmy put in motion. The soldiers marched through the snow with greatanxiety and fear. Men went before to explore the way, and to guide therest by flags and banners which they bore. Those who went first madepaths, of course, for those who followed behind, as the snow wastrampled down by their footsteps. Notwithstanding these aids, however, the army moved on very laboriously and with much fear. 

At length, however, after descending a short distance, Hannibal, perceiving that they must soon come in sight of the Italian valleysand plains which lay beyond the Alps, went forward among the pioneers, who had charge of the banners by which the movements of the army weredirected, and, as soon as the open country began to come into view, heselected a spot where the widest prospect was presented, and haltedhis army there to let them take a view of the beautiful country whichnow lay before them. The Alps are very precipitous on the Italianside. The descent is very sudden, from the cold and icy summits, to abroad expanse of the most luxuriant and sunny plains. Upon theseplains, which were spread out in a most enchanting landscape at theirfeet, Hannibal and his soldiers now looked down with exultation anddelight. Beautiful lakes, studded with still more beautiful islands, reflected the beams of the sun. An endless succession of fields, insober autumnal colors, with the cottages of the laborers and stacks ofgrain scattered here and there upon them, and rivers meanderingthrough verdant meadows, gave variety and enchantment to the view. 

Hannibal made an address to his officers and men, congratulating themon having arrived, at last, so near to a successful termination oftheir toils. "The difficulties of the way, " he said, "are at lastsurmounted, and these mighty barriers that we have scaled are thewalls, not only of Italy, but of Rome itself. Since we have passed theAlps, the Romans will have no protection against us remaining. It isonly one battle, when we get down upon the plains, or at most two, andthe great city itself will be entirely at our disposal. "

The whole army were much animated and encouraged, both by theprospect which presented itself to their view, and by the words ofHannibal. They prepared for the descent, anticipating littledifficulty; but they found, on recommencing their march, that theirtroubles were by no means over. The mountains are far steeper on theItalian side than on the other, and it was extremely difficult to findpaths by which the elephants and the horses, and even the men, couldsafely descend. They moved on for some time with great labor andfatigue, until, at length, Hannibal, looking on before, found that thehead of the column had stopped, and the whole train behind was soonjammed together, the ranks halting along the way in succession, asthey found their path blocked up by the halting of those before them. 

Hannibal sent forward to ascertain the cause of the difficulty, andfound that the van of the army had reached a precipice down which itwas impossible to descend. It was necessary to make a circuit in hopesof finding some practicable way of getting down. The guides andpioneers went on, leading the army after them, and soon got upon aglacier which lay in their way. There was fresh snow upon the surface, covering the ice and concealing the _crevasses_, as they aretermed--that is, the great cracks and fissures which extend in theglaciers down through the body of the ice. The army moved on, trampling down the new snow, and making at first a good roadway bytheir footsteps; but very soon the old ice and snow began to betrampled _up_ by the hoofs of the horses and the heavy tread of suchvast multitudes of armed men. It softened to a great depth, and madethe work of toiling through it an enormous labor. Besides, the surfaceof the ice and snow sloped steeply, and the men and beasts werecontinually falling or sliding down, and getting swallowed up inavalanches which their own weight set in motion, or in concealedcrevasses where they sank to rise no more. 

They, however, made some progress, though slowly, and with greatdanger. They at last got below the region of the snow, but here theyencountered new difficulties in the abruptness and ruggedness of therocks, and in the zigzag and tortuous direction of the way. At lastthey came to a spot where their further progress appeared to beentirely cut off by a large mass of rock, which it seemed necessary toremove in order to widen the passage sufficiently to allow them to goon. The Roman historian says that Hannibal removed these rocks bybuilding great fires upon them, and then pouring on vinegar, whichopened seams and fissures in them, by means of which the rocks couldbe split and pried to pieces with wedges and crowbars. On reading thisaccount, the mind naturally pauses to consider the probability of itsbeing true. As they had no gunpowder in those days, they werecompelled to resort to some such method as the one above described forremoving rocks. There are some species of rock which are easilycracked and broken by the action of fire. Others resist it. Thereseems, however, to be no reason obvious why vinegar should materiallyassist in the operation. Besides, we can not suppose that Hannibalcould have had, at such a time and place, any very large supply ofvinegar on hand. On the whole, it is probable that, if any suchoperation was performed at all, it was on a very small scale, and theresults must have been very insignificant at the time, though the facthas since been greatly celebrated in history. 

In coming over the snow, and in descending the rocks immediatelybelow, the army, and especially the animals connected with it, suffered a great deal from hunger. It was difficult to procure foragefor them of any kind. At length, however, as they continued theirdescent, they came first into the region of forests, and soon after toslopes of grassy fields descending into warm and fertile valleys. Herethe animals were allowed to stop and rest, and renew their strength byabundance of food. The men rejoiced that their toils and dangers wereover, and, descending easily the remainder of the way, they encampedat last safely on the plains of Italy. 

CHAPTER VI. 

HANNIBAL IN THE NORTH OF ITALY. 

B. C. 217

Miserable condition of the army. --Its great losses. --Feelings ofHannibal's soldiers. --Plans of Scipio. --The armies approach eachother. --Feelings of Hannibal and Scipio. --Address of Scipio to theRoman army. --Hannibal's ingenious method of introducing hisspeech. --Curious combat. --Effect on the army. --Hannibal's speechto his army. --His words of encouragement. --Hannibal's promises. --Hisreal feelings. --Hannibal's energy and decision. --His steadyresolution. --Hannibal's unfaltering courage. --Movements ofScipio. --Scipio's bridge over the Po. --The army crosses theriver. --Hannibal's warlike operations. --He concentrates hisarmy. --Hannibal addresses his soldiers. --He promises themlands. --Ratifying a promise. --Omens. --The battle. --The Romansthrown into confusion. --Scipio wounded. --The Romans driven backacross the river. --The Romans destroy the bridge over the Ticinus. 

When Hannibal's army found themselves on the plains of Italy, and satdown quietly to repose, they felt the effects of their fatigues andexposures far more sensibly than they had done under the excitementwhich they naturally felt while actually upon the mountains. Theywere, in fact, in a miserable condition. Hannibal told a Roman officerwhom he afterward took prisoner that more than thirty thousandperished on the way in crossing the mountains; some in the battleswhich were fought in the passes, and a greater number still, probably, from exposure to fatigue and cold, and from falls among the rocks andglaciers, and diseases produced by destitution and misery. The remnantof the army which was left on reaching the plain were emaciated, sickly, ragged, and spiritless; far more inclined to lie down and die, than to go on and undertake the conquest of Italy and Rome. 

After some days, however, they began to recruit. Although they hadbeen half starved among the mountains, they had now plenty ofwholesome food. They repaired their tattered garments and their brokenweapons. They talked with one another about the terrific scenesthrough which they had been passing, and the dangers which they hadsurmounted, and thus, gradually strengthening their impressions of thegreatness of the exploits they had performed, they began soon toawaken in each other's breasts an ambition to go on and undertake theaccomplishment of other deeds of daring and glory. 

We left Scipio with his army at the mouth of the Rhone, about to setsail for Italy with a part of his force, while the rest of it was senton toward Spain. Scipio sailed along the coast by Genoa, and thence toPisa, where he landed. He stopped a little while to recruit hissoldiers after the voyage, and in the mean time sent orders to all theRoman forces then in the north of Italy to join his standard. He hopedin this way to collect a force strong enough to encounter Hannibal. These arrangements being made, he marched to the northward as rapidlyas possible. He knew in what condition Hannibal's army had descendedfrom the Alps, and wished to attack them before they should have timeto recover from the effects of their privations and sufferings. Hereached the Po before he saw any thing of Hannibal. 

Hannibal, in the mean time, was not idle. As soon as his men were in acondition to move, he began to act upon the tribes that he found atthe foot of the mountains, offering his friendship to some, andattacking others. He thus conquered those who attempted to resist him, moving, all the time, gradually southward toward the Po. That riverhas numerous branches, and among them is one named the Ticinus. It wason the banks of this river that the two armies at last came together. 

Both generals must have felt some degree of solicitude in respect tothe result of the contest which was about to take place. Scipio knewvery well Hannibal's terrible efficiency as a warrior, and he washimself a general of great distinction, and a _Roman_, so thatHannibal had no reason to anticipate a very easy victory. Whateverdoubts or fears, however, general officers may feel on the eve of anengagement, it is always considered very necessary to conceal thementirely from the men, and to animate and encourage the troops with amost undoubting confidence that they will gain the victory. 

Both Hannibal and Scipio, accordingly, made addresses to theirrespective armies--at least so say the historians of those times--eachone expressing to his followers the certainty that the other sidewould easily be beaten. The speech attributed to Scipio was somewhatas follows:

"I wish to say a few words to you, soldiers, before we go into battle. It is, perhaps, scarcely necessary. It certainly would not benecessary if I had now under my command the same troops that I tookwith me to the mouth of the Rhone. They knew the Carthaginians there, and would not have feared them here. A body of our horsemen met andattacked a larger body of theirs, and defeated them. We then advancedwith our whole force toward their encampment, in order to give thembattle. They, however, abandoned the ground and retreated before wereached the spot, acknowledging, by their flight, their own fear andour superiority. If you had been with us there, and had witnessedthese facts, there would have been no need that I should say any thingto convince you now how easily you are going to defeat thisCarthaginian foe. 

"We have had a war with this same nation before. We conquered themthen, both by land and sea; and when, finally, peace was made, werequired them to pay us tribute, and we continued to exact it fromthem for twenty years. They are a conquered nation; and now thismiserable army has forced its way insanely over the Alps, just tothrow itself into our hands. They meet us reduced in numbers, andexhausted in resources and strength. More than half of their armyperished in the mountains, and those that survive are weak, dispirited, ragged, and diseased. And yet they are compelled to meetus. If there was any chance for retreat, or any possible way for themto avoid the necessity of a battle, they would avail themselves of it. But there is not. They are hemmed in by the mountains, which are now, to them, an impassable wall, for they have not strength to scale themagain. They are not real enemies; they are the mere remnants andshadows of enemies. They are wholly disheartened and discouraged, their strength and energy, both of soul and body, being spent andgone, through the cold, the hunger, and the squalid misery they haveendured. Their joints are benumbed, their sinews stiffened, and theirforms emaciated. Their armor is shattered and broken, their horses arelamed, and all their equipments worn out and ruined, so that reallywhat most I fear is that the world will refuse us the glory of thevictory, and say that it was the Alps that conquered Hannibal, and notthe Roman army. 

"Easy as the victory is to be, however, we must remember that there isa great deal at stake in the contest. It is not merely for glory thatwe are now about to contend. If Hannibal conquers, he will march toRome, and our wives, our children, and all that we hold dear will beat his mercy. Remember this, and go into the battle feeling that thefate of Rome itself is depending upon the result. "

An oration is attributed to Hannibal, too, on the occasion of thisbattle. He showed, however, his characteristic ingenuity and spirit ofcontrivance in the way in which he managed to attract strong attentionto what he was going to say, by the manner in which he introduced it. He formed his army into a circle, as if to witness a spectacle. Hethen brought in to the center of this circle a number of prisonersthat he had taken among the Alps--perhaps they were the hostages whichhad been delivered to him, as related in the preceding chapter. Whoever they were, however, whether hostages or captives taken in thebattles which had been fought in the defiles, Hannibal had broughtthem with his army down into Italy, and now introducing them into thecenter of the circle which the army formed, he threw down before themsuch arms as they were accustomed to use in their native mountains, and asked them whether they would be willing to take those weapons andfight each other, on condition that each one who killed his antagonistshould be restored to his liberty, and have a horse and armor givenhim, so that he could return home with honor. The barbarous monsterssaid readily that they would, and seized the arms with the greatestavidity. Two or three pairs of combatants were allowed to fight. Oneof each pair was killed, and the other set at liberty according to thepromise of Hannibal. The combats excited the greatest interest, andawakened the strongest enthusiasm among the soldiers who witnessedthem. When this effect had been sufficiently produced, the rest of theprisoners were sent away, and Hannibal addressed the vast ring ofsoldiery as follows:

"I have intended, soldiers, in what you have now seen, not merely toamuse you, but to give you a picture of your own situation. You arehemmed in on the right and left by two seas, and you have not so muchas a single ship upon either of them. Then there is the Po before youand the Alps behind. The Po is a deeper, and more rapid and turbulentriver than the Rhone; and as for the Alps, it was with the utmostdifficulty that you passed over them when you were in full strengthand vigor; they are an insurmountable wall to you now. You aretherefore shut in, like our prisoners, on every side, and have no hopeof life and liberty but in battle and victory. 

"The victory, however, will not be difficult. I see, wherever I lookamong you, a spirit of determination and courage which I am sure willmake you conquerors. The troops which you are going to contend againstare mostly fresh recruits, that know nothing of the discipline of thecamp, and can never successfully confront such war-worn veterans asyou. You all know each other well, and me. I was, in fact, a pupilwith you for many years, before I took the command. But Scipio'sforces are strangers to one another and to him, and, consequently, have no common bond of sympathy; and as for Scipio himself, his verycommission as a Roman general is only six months old. 

"Think, too, what a splendid and prosperous career victory will openbefore you. It will conduct you to Rome. It will make you masters ofone of the most powerful and wealthiest cities in the world. Thus faryou have fought your battles only for glory or for dominion; now, youwill have something more substantial to reward your success. Therewill be great treasures to be divided among you if we conquer, but ifwe are defeated we are lost. Hemmed in as we are on every side, thereis no place that we can reach by flight. There is, therefore, no suchalternative as flight left to us. We _must conquer_. "

It is hardly probable that Hannibal could have really and honestlyfelt all the confidence that he expressed in his harangues to hissoldiers. He must have had some fears. In fact, in all enterprisesundertaken by man, the indications of success, and the hopes basedupon them, will fluctuate from time to time, and cause his confidencein the result to ebb and flow, so that bright anticipations of successand triumph will alternate in his heart with feelings ofdiscouragement and despondency. This effect is experienced by all; bythe energetic and decided as well as by the timid and the faltering. The former, however, never allow these fluctuations of hope and fearto influence their action. They consider well the substantial groundsfor expecting success before commencing their undertaking, and then gosteadily forward, under all aspects of the sky--when it shines andwhen it rains--till they reach the end. The inefficient and undecidedcan act only under the stimulus of present hope. The end they aim atmust be visible before them all the time. If for a moment it passesout of view, their motive is gone, and they can do no more, till, bysome change in circumstances, it comes in sight again. 

Hannibal was energetic and decided. The time for him to considerwhether he would encounter the hostility of the Roman empire, arousedto the highest possible degree, was when his army was drawn up uponthe banks of the Iberus, before they crossed it. The Iberus was hisRubicon. That line once overstepped, there was to be no furtherfaltering. The difficulties which arose from time to time to throw acloud over his prospects, only seemed to stimulate him to freshenergy, and to awaken a new, though still a calm and steadyresolution. It was so at the Pyrenees; it was so at the Rhone; it wasso among the Alps, where the difficulties and dangers would haveinduced almost any other commander to have returned; and it was stillso, now that he found himself shut in on every hand by the sternboundaries of Northern Italy, which he could not possibly hope againto pass, and the whole disposable force of the Roman empire, commanded, too, by one of _the consuls_, concentrated before him. Theimminent danger produced no faltering, and apparently no fear. 

The armies were not yet in sight of each other. They were, in fact, yet on opposite sides of the River Po. The Roman commander concludedto march his troops across the river, and advance in search ofHannibal, who was still at some miles' distance. After considering thevarious means of crossing the stream, he decided finally on building abridge. 

Military commanders generally throw some sort of a bridge across astream of water lying in their way, if it is too deep to be easilyforded, unless, indeed, it is so wide and rapid as to make theconstruction of the bridge difficult or impracticable. In this lattercase they cross as well as they can by means of boats and rafts, andby swimming. The Po, though not a very large stream at this point, wastoo deep to be forded, and Scipio accordingly built a bridge. Thesoldiers cut down the trees which grew in the forests along the banks, and after trimming off the tops and branches, they rolled the trunksinto the water. They placed these trunks side by side, with others, laid transversely and pinned down, upon the top. Thus they formedrafts, which they placed in a line across the stream, securing themwell to each other and to the banks. This made the foundation for thebridge, and after this foundation was covered with other materials, soas to make the upper surface a convenient roadway, the army wereconducted across it, and then a small detachment of soldiers werestationed at each extremity of it as a guard. 

Such a bridge as this answers a very good temporary purpose, and instill water, as, for example, over narrow lakes or very sluggishstreams, where there is very little current, a floating structure ofthis kind is sometimes built for permanent service. Such bridges willnot, however, stand on broad and rapid rivers liable to floods. Thepressure of the water alone, in such cases, would very much endangerall the fastenings; and in cases where drift wood or ice is broughtdown by the stream, the floating masses, not being able to pass underthe bridge, would accumulate above it, and would soon bear upon itwith so enormous a pressure that nothing could withstand its force. The bridge would be broken away, and the whole accumulation--bridge, drift-wood, and ice--would be borne irresistibly down the streamtogether. 

Scipio's bridge, however, answered very well for his purpose. His armypassed over it in safety. When Hannibal heard of this, he knew thatthe battle was at hand. Hannibal was himself at this time about fivemiles distant. While Scipio was at work upon the bridge, Hannibal wasemployed, mainly, as he had been all the time since his descent fromthe mountains, in the subjugation of the various petty nations andtribes north of the Po. Some of them were well disposed to join hisstandard. Others were allies of the Romans, and wished to remain so. He made treaties and sent help to the former, and dispatcheddetachments of troops to intimidate and subdue the latter. When, however, he learned that Scipio had crossed the river, he ordered allthese detachments to come immediately in, and he began to prepare inearnest for the contest that was impending. 

He called together an assembly of his soldiers, and announced to themfinally that the battle was now nigh. He renewed the words ofencouragement that he had spoken before, and in addition to what hethen said, he now promised the soldiers rewards in land in case theyproved victorious. "I will give you each a farm, " said he, "whereveryou choose to have it, either in Africa, Italy, or Spain. If, insteadof the land, any of you shall prefer to receive rather an equivalentin money, you shall have the reward in that form, and then you canreturn home and live with your friends, as before the war, undercircumstances which will make you objects of envy to those whoremained behind. If any of you would like to live in Carthage, I willhave you made free citizens, so that you can live there inindependence and honor. "

But what security would there be for the faithful fulfillment of thesepromises? In modern times such security is given by bonds, withpecuniary penalties, or by the deposit of titles to property inresponsible hands. In ancient days they managed differently. Thepromiser bound himself by some solemn and formal mode of adjuration, accompanied, in important cases, with certain ceremonies, which weresupposed to seal and confirm the obligation assumed. In this caseHannibal brought a lamb in the presence of the assembled army. He heldit before them with his left hand, while with his right he grasped aheavy stone. He then called aloud upon the gods, imploring them todestroy him as he was about to slay the lamb, if he failed to performfaithfully and fully the pledges that he had made. He then struck thepoor lamb a heavy blow with the stone. The animal fell dead at hisfeet, and Hannibal was thenceforth bound, in the opinion of the army, by a very solemn obligation indeed, to be faithful in fulfilling hisword. 

The soldiers were greatly animated and excited by these promises, andwere in haste to have the contest come on. The Roman soldiers, itseems, were in a different mood of mind. Some circumstances hadoccurred which they considered as bad omens, and they were very muchdispirited and depressed by them. It is astonishing that men shouldever allow their minds to be affected by such wholly accidentaloccurrences as these were. One of them was this: a wolf came intotheir camp, from one of the forests near, and after wounding severalmen, made his escape again. The other was more trifling still. A swarmof bees flew into the encampment, and lighted upon a tree just overScipio's tent. This was considered, for some reason or other, a signthat some calamity was going to befall them, and the men wereaccordingly intimidated and disheartened. They consequently lookedforward to the battle with uneasiness and anxiety, while the army ofHannibal anticipated it with eagerness and pleasure. 

The battle came on, at last, very suddenly, and at a moment whenneither party were expecting it. A large detachment of both armieswere advancing toward the position of the other, near the RiverTicinus, to reconnoiter, when they met, and the battle began. Hannibaladvanced with great impetuosity, and sent, at the same time, adetachment around to attack his enemy in the rear. The Romans soonbegan to fall into confusion; the horsemen and foot soldiers gotentangled together; the men were trampled upon by the horses, and thehorses were frightened by the men. In the midst of this scene, Scipioreceived a wound. A consul was a dignitary of very high consideration. He was, in fact, a sort of semi-king. The officers, and all thesoldiers, so fast as they heard that the consul was wounded, wereterrified and dismayed, and the Romans began to retreat. Scipio had ayoung son, named also Scipio, who was then about twenty years of age. He was fighting by the side of his father when he received his wound. He protected his father, got him into the center of a compact body ofcavalry, and moved slowly off the ground, those in the rear facingtoward the enemy and beating them back, as they pressed on in pursuitof them. In this way they reached their camp. Here they stopped forthe night. They had fortified the place, and, as night was coming on, Hannibal thought it not prudent to press on and attack them there. Hewaited for the morning. Scipio, however, himself wounded and his armydiscouraged, thought it not prudent for him to wait till the morning. At midnight he put his whole force in motion on a retreat. He kept thecamp-fires burning, and did every thing else in his power to preventthe Carthaginians observing any indications of his departure. His armymarched secretly and silently till they reached the river. Theyrecrossed it by the bridge they had built, and then, cutting away thefastenings by which the different rafts were held together, thestructure was at once destroyed, and the materials of which it wascomposed floated away, a mere mass of ruins, down the stream. Fromthe Ticinus they floated, we may imagine, into the Po, and thence downthe Po into the Adriatic Sea, where they drifted about upon the wasteof waters till they were at last, one after another, driven by stormsupon the sandy shores. 

CHAPTER VII. 

THE APENNINES. 

B. C. 217

Hannibal pursues the Romans. --He takes some prisoners. --Revolt ofsome Gauls from the Romans. --Hannibal crosses the river. --Dismay ofthe Romans. --Sempronius recalled to Italy. --Sufferings of Scipiofrom his wound. --He is joined by Sempronius. --The Roman commandersdisagree. --Skirmishes. --Sempronius eager for a battle. --Hannibal'sstratagem. --Details of Hannibal's scheme. --The ambuscade. --Twothousand chosen men. --Hannibal's manner of choosing them. --Attack onthe Roman camp. --Success of Hannibal's stratagem. --Sempronius crossesthe river. --Impetuous attack of Hannibal. --Situation of the Romanarmy. --Terrible conflict. --Utter defeat of the Romans. --Scene afterthe battle. --Various battles of Hannibal. --Scarcity of food. --Valleyof the Arno. --Crossing the Apennines. --Terrific storm. --Death of theelephants. --Hannibal's uneasiness. --He crosses the Apennines. --Perilousmarch. --Hannibal's sickness. 

As soon as Hannibal was apprised in the morning that Scipio and hisforces had left their ground, he pressed on after them, very earnestto overtake them before they should reach the river. But he was toolate. The main body of the Roman army had got over. There was, however, a detachment of a few hundred men, who had been left onHannibal's side of the river to guard the bridge until all the armyshould have passed, and then to help in cutting it away. They hadaccomplished this before Hannibal's arrival, but had not had time tocontrive any way to get across the river themselves. Hannibal tookthem all prisoners. 

The condition and prospects of both the Roman and Carthaginian causewere entirely changed by this battle, and the retreat of Scipio acrossthe Po. All the nations of the north of Italy, who had been subjectsor allies of the Romans, now turned to Hannibal. They sent embassiesinto his camp, offering him their friendship and alliance. In fact, there was a large body of Gauls in the Roman camp, who were fightingunder Scipio at the battle of Ticinus, who deserted his standardimmediately afterward, and came over in a mass to Hannibal. They madethis revolt in the night, and, instead of stealing away secretly, theyraised a prodigious tumult, killed the guards, filled the encampmentwith their shouts and outcries, and created for a time an awful sceneof terror. 

Hannibal received them, but he was too sagacious to admit such atreacherous horde into his army. He treated them with greatconsideration and kindness, and dismissed them with presents, thatthey might all go to their respective homes, charging them to exerttheir influence in his favor among the tribes to which they severallybelonged. 

Hannibal's soldiers, too, were very much encouraged by thecommencement they had made. The army made immediate preparations forcrossing the river. Some of the soldiers built rafts, others went upthe stream in search of places to ford. Some swam across. They couldadopt these or any other modes in safety, for the Romans made no standon the opposite bank to oppose them, but moved rapidly on, as fast asScipio could be carried. His wounds began to inflame, and wereextremely painful. 

In fact, the Romans were dismayed at the danger which now threatenedthem. As soon as news of these events reached the city, theauthorities there sent a dispatch immediately to Sicily to recall theother consul. His name was Sempronius. It will be recollected that, when the lots were cast between him and Scipio, it fell to Scipio toproceed to Spain, with a view to arresting Hannibal's march, whileSempronius went to Sicily and Africa. The object of this movement wasto threaten and attack the Carthaginians at home, in order to distracttheir attention and prevent their sending any fresh forces to aidHannibal, and, perhaps, even to compel them to recall him from Italyto defend their own capital. But now that Hannibal had not only passedthe Alps, but had also crossed the Po, and was marching towardRome--Scipio himself disabled, and his army flying before him--theywere obliged at once to abandon the plan of threatening Carthage. Theysent with all dispatch an order to Sempronius to hasten home andassist in the defense of Rome. 

Sempronius was a man of a very prompt and impetuous character, withgreat confidence in his own powers, and very ready for action. He cameimmediately into Italy, recruited new soldiers for the army, puthimself at the head of his forces, and marched northward to joinScipio in the valley of the Po. Scipio was suffering great pain fromhis wounds, and could do but little toward directing the operations ofthe army. He had slowly retreated before Hannibal, the fever and painof his wounds being greatly exasperated by the motion of traveling. Inthis manner he arrived at the Trebia, a small stream flowing northwardinto the Po. He crossed this stream, and finding that he could not goany further, on account of the torturing pain to which it put him tobe moved, he halted his army, marked out an encampment, threw upfortifications around it, and prepared to make a stand. To his greatrelief, Sempronius soon came up and joined him here. 

There were now two generals. Napoleon used to say that one badcommander was better than two good ones, so essential is it to successin all military operations to secure that promptness, and confidence, and decision which can only exist where action is directed by onesingle mind. Sempronius and Scipio disagreed as to the proper courseto be pursued. Sempronius wished to attack Hannibal immediately. Scipio was in favor of delay. Sempronius attributed Scipio'sreluctance to give battle to the dejection of mind and discouragementproduced by his wound, or to a feeling of envy lest he, Sempronius, should have the honor of conquering the Carthaginians, while hehimself was helpless in his tent. On the other hand, Scipio thoughtSempronius inconsiderate and reckless, and disposed to rush heedlesslyinto a contest with a foe whose powers and resources he did notunderstand. 

In the mean time, while the two commanders were thus divided inopinion, some skirmishes and small engagements took place betweendetachments from the two armies, in which Sempronius thought that theRomans had the advantage. This excited his enthusiasm more and more, and he became extremely desirous to bring on a general battle. Hebegan to be quite out of patience with Scipio's caution and delay. Thesoldiers, he said, were full of strength and courage, all eager forthe combat, and it was absurd to hold them back on account of thefeebleness of one sick man. "Besides, " said he, "of what use can it beto delay any longer? We are as ready to meet the Carthaginians now aswe shall ever be. There is no _third_ consul to come and help us; andwhat a disgrace it is for us Romans, who in the former war led ourtroops to the very gates of Carthage, to allow Hannibal to bear swayover all the north of Italy, while we retreat gradually before him, afraid to encounter now a force that we have always conquered before. "

Hannibal was not long in learning, through his spies, that there wasthis difference of opinion between the Roman generals, and thatSempronius was full of a presumptuous sort of ardor, and he began tothink that he could contrive some plan to draw the latter out intobattle under circumstances in which he would have to act at a greatdisadvantage. He did contrive such a plan. It succeeded admirably; andthe case was one of those numerous instances which occurred in thehistory of Hannibal, of successful stratagem, which led the Romans tosay that his leading traits of character were treachery and cunning. 

Hannibal's plan was, in a word, an attempt to draw the Roman army outof its encampment on a dark, cold, and stormy night in December, andget them into the river. This river was the Trebia. It flowed northinto the Po, between the Roman and Carthaginian camps. His scheme, indetail, was to send a part of his army over the river to attack theRomans in the night or very early in the morning. He hoped that bythis means Sempronius would be induced to come out of his camp toattack the Carthaginians. The Carthaginians were then to fly andrecross the river, and Hannibal hoped that Sempronius would follow, excited by the ardor of pursuit. Hannibal was then to have a strongreserve of the army, that had remained all the time in warmth andsafety, to come out and attack the Romans with unimpaired strength andvigor, while the Romans themselves would be benumbed by the cold andwet, and disorganized by the confusion produced in crossing thestream. 

A part of Hannibal's reserve were to be placed in an ambuscade. Therewere some meadows near the water, which were covered in many placeswith tall grass and bushes. Hannibal went to examine the spot, andfound that this shrubbery was high enough for even horsemen to beconcealed in it. He determined to place a thousand foot soldiers and athousand horsemen here, the most efficient and courageous in thearmy. He selected them in the following manner:

He called one of his lieutenant generals to the spot, explainedsomewhat of his design to him, and then asked him to go and choosefrom the cavalry and the infantry, a hundred each, the best soldiershe could find. This two hundred were then assembled, and Hannibal, after surveying them with looks of approbation and pleasure, said, "Yes, you are the men I want, only, instead of two hundred, I need twothousand. Go back to the army, and select and bring to me, each ofyou, nine men like yourselves. " It is easy to be imagined that thesoldiers were pleased with this commission, and that they executed itfaithfully. The whole force thus chosen was soon assembled, andstationed in the thickets above described, where they lay in ambushready to attack the Romans after they should pass the river. 

Hannibal also made arrangements for leaving a large part of his armyin his own camp, ready for battle, with orders that they shouldpartake of food and refreshments, and keep themselves warm by thefires until they should be called upon. All things being thus ready, he detached a body of horsemen to cross the river, and see if theycould provoke the Romans to come out of their camp and pursue them. 

"Go, " said Hannibal, to the commander of this detachment, "pass thestream, advance to the Roman camp, assail the guards, and when thearmy forms and comes out to attack you, retreat slowly before themback across the river. "

The detachment did as it was ordered to do. When they arrived at thecamp, which was soon after break of day--for it was a part ofHannibal's plan to bring the Romans out before they should have hadtime to breakfast--Sempronius, at the first alarm, called all thesoldiers to arms, supposing that the whole Carthaginian force wasattacking them. It was a cold and stormy morning, and the atmospherebeing filled with rain and snow, but little could be seen. Columnafter column of horsemen and of infantry marched out of the camp. TheCarthaginians retreated. Sempronius was greatly excited at the idea ofso easily driving back the assailants, and, as they retreated, hepressed on in pursuit of them. As Hannibal had anticipated, he becameso excited in the pursuit that he did not stop at the banks of theriver. The Carthaginian horsemen plunged into the stream in theirretreat, and the Romans, foot soldiers and horsemen together, followed on. The stream was usually small, but it was now swelled bythe rain which had been falling all the night. The water was, ofcourse, intensely cold. The horsemen got through tolerably well, butthe foot soldiers were all thoroughly drenched and benumbed; and asthey had not taken any food that morning, and had come forth on a verysudden call, and without any sufficient preparation, they felt theeffects of the exposure in the strongest degree. Still they pressedon. They ascended the bank after crossing the river, and when they hadformed again there, and were moving forward in pursuit of their stillflying enemy, suddenly the whole force of Hannibal's reserves, strongand vigorous, just from their tents and their fires, burst upon them. They had scarcely recovered from the astonishment and the shock ofthis unexpected onset, when the two thousand concealed in theambuscade came sallying forth in the storm, and assailed the Romans inthe rear with frightful shouts and outcries. 

All these movements took place very rapidly. Only a very short periodelapsed from the time that the Roman army, officers and soldiers, werequietly sleeping in their camp, or rising slowly to prepare for theroutine of an ordinary day, before they found themselves all drawn outin battle array some miles from their encampment, and surrounded andhemmed in by their foes. The events succeeded each other so rapidly asto appear to the soldiers like a dream; but very soon their wet andfreezing clothes, their limbs benumbed and stiffened, the sleet whichwas driving along the plain, the endless lines of Carthaginianinfantry, hemming them in on all sides, and the columns of horsemenand of elephants charging upon them, convinced them that theirsituation was one of dreadful reality. The calamity, too, whichthreatened them was of vast extent, as well as imminent and terrible;for, though the stratagem of Hannibal was very simple in its plan andmanagement, still he had executed it on a great scale, and had broughtout the whole Roman army. There were, it is said, about forty thousandthat crossed the river, and about an equal number in the Carthaginianarmy to oppose them. Such a body of combatants covered, of course, alarge extent of ground, and the conflict that ensued was one of themost terrible scenes of the many that Hannibal assisted in enacting. 

The conflict continued for many hours, the Romans getting more andmore into confusion all the time. The elephants of the Carthaginians, that is, the few that now remained, made great havoc in their ranks, and finally, after a combat of some hours, the whole army was brokenup and fled, some portions in compact bodies, as their officers couldkeep them together, and others in hopeless and inextricable confusion. They made their way back to the river, which they reached at variouspoints up and down the stream. In the mean time, the continued rainhad swollen the waters still more, the low lands were overflowed, thedeep places concealed, and the broad expanse of water in the center ofthe stream whirled in boiling and turbid eddies, whose surface wasroughened by the December breeze, and dotted every where with thedrops of rain still falling. 

When the Roman army was thoroughly broken up and scattered, theCarthaginians gave up the further prosecution of the contest. Theywere too wet, cold, and exhausted themselves to feel any ardor in thepursuit of their enemies. Vast numbers of the Romans, however, attempted to recross the river, and were swept down and destroyed bythe merciless flood, whose force they had not strength enoughremaining to withstand. Other portions of the troops lay hid inlurking-places to which they had retreated, until night came on, andthen they made rafts on which they contrived to float themselves backacross the stream. Hannibal's troops were too wet, and cold, andexhausted to go out again into the storm, and so they were unmolestedin these attempts. Notwithstanding this, however, great numbers ofthem were carried down the stream and lost. 

It was now December, too late for Hannibal to attempt to advance muchfurther that season, and yet the way before him was open to theApennines, by the defeat of Sempronius, for neither he nor Scipiocould now hope to make another stand against him till they shouldreceive new re-enforcements from Rome. During the winter monthsHannibal had various battles and adventures, sometimes with portionsand detachments of the Roman army, and sometimes with the nativetribes. He was sometimes in great difficulty for want of food for hisarmy, until at length he bribed the governor of a castle, where aRoman granary was kept, to deliver it up to him, and after that he waswell supplied. 

The natives of the country were, however, not at all well disposedtoward him, and in the course of the winter they attempted to impedehis operations, and to harass his army by every means in their power. Finding his situation uncomfortable, he moved on toward the south, andat length determined that, inclement as the season was, he would crossthe Apennines. 

By looking at the map of Italy, it will be seen that the great valleyof the Po extends across the whole north of Italy. The valley of theArno and of the Umbro lies south of it, separated from it by a part ofthe Apennine chain. This southern valley was Etruria. Hannibal decidedto attempt to pass over the mountains into Etruria. He thought heshould find there a warmer climate, and inhabitants more well-disposedtoward him, besides being so much nearer Rome. 

But, though Hannibal conquered the Alps, the Apennines conquered him. A very violent storm arose just as he reached the most exposed placeamong the mountains. It was intensely cold, and the wind blew the hailand snow directly into the faces of the troops, so that it wasimpossible for them to proceed. They halted and turned their backs tothe storm, but the wind increased more and more, and was attended withterrific thunder and lightning, which filled the soldiers with alarm, as they were at such an altitude as to be themselves enveloped in theclouds from which the peals and flashes were emitted. Unwilling toretreat, Hannibal ordered the army to encamp on the spot, in the bestshelter they could find. They attempted, accordingly, to pitch theirtents, but it was impossible to secure them. The wind increased to ahurricane. The tent poles were unmanageable, and the canvas wascarried away from its fastenings, and sometimes split or blown intorags by its flapping in the wind. The poor elephants, that is, allthat were left of them from previous battles and exposures, sunk downunder this intense cold and died. One only remained alive. 

Hannibal ordered a retreat, and the army went back into the valley ofthe Po. But Hannibal was ill at ease here. The natives of the countrywere very weary of his presence. His army consumed their food, ravagedtheir country, and destroyed all their peace and happiness. Hannibalsuspected them of a design to poison him or assassinate him in someother way. He was continually watching and taking precautions againstthese attempts. He had a great many different dresses made to be usedas disguises, and false hair of different colors and fashion, so thathe could alter his appearance at pleasure. This was to prevent any spyor assassin who might come into his camp from identifying him by anydescription of his dress and appearance. Still, notwithstanding theseprecautions, he was ill at ease, and at the very earliest practicableperiod in the spring he made a new attempt to cross the mountains, andwas now successful. 

On descending the southern declivities of the Apennines he learnedthat a new Roman army, under a new consul, was advancing toward himfrom the south. He was eager to meet this force, and was preparing topress forward at once by the nearest way. He found, however, that thiswould lead him across the lower part of the valley of the Arno, whichwas here very broad, and, though usually passable, was now overflowedin consequence of the swelling of the waters of the river by themelting of the snows upon the mountains. The whole country was now, infact, a vast expanse of marshes and fens. 

Still, Hannibal concluded to cross it, and, in the attempt, heinvolved his army in difficulties and dangers as great, almost, as hehad encountered upon the Alps. The waters were rising continually;they filled all the channels and spread over extended plains. Theywere so turbid, too, that every thing beneath the surface wasconcealed, and the soldiers wading in them were continually sinkinginto deep and sudden channels and into bogs of mire, where many werelost. They were all exhausted and worn out by the wet and cold, andthe long continuance of their exposure to it. They were four days andthree nights in this situation, as their progress was, of course, extremely slow. The men, during all this time, had scarcely any sleep, and in some places the only way by which they could get any repose wasto lay their arms and their baggage in the standing water, so as tobuild, by this means, a sort of couch or platform on which they couldlie. Hannibal himself was sick too. He was attacked with a violentinflammation of the eyes, and the sight of one of them was in the enddestroyed. He was not, however, so much exposed as the other officers;for there was one elephant left of all those that had commenced themarch in Spain, and Hannibal rode this elephant during the four days'march through the water. There were guides and attendants to precedehim, for the purpose of finding a safe and practicable road, and bytheir aid, with the help of the animal's sagacity, he got safelythrough. 

[Illustration: CROSSING THE MARSHES. ]

CHAPTER VIII. 

THE DICTATOR FABIUS. 

B. C. 216

Alarm at Rome. --The consul Flaminius. --Another stratagem. --Confidenceof Flaminius. --Complete rout of the Romans. --Effects of thebattle. --Panic of the Romans. --Their superstitious fears. --Omens andbad signs. --Curious transformations. --Their influence. --Importanceattached to these stories. --Feverish excitement at Rome. --News of thebattle. --Gatherings of the people. --Arrival of stragglers. --Appointmentof a dictator. --Fabius. --Measures of Fabius. --Religiousceremonies. --Minucius. --Supreme authority of a dictator. --Proclamationof Fabius. --Progress of Hannibal. --Policy of Fabius. --He declinesfighting. --Hannibal's danger. --Stratagem of the fieryoxen. --Unpopularity of Fabius. --Hannibal's sagacity. --Plots againstFabius. --He goes to Rome. --Minucius risks a battle. --Speech ofFabius. --Fabius returns to the army. --He is deprived of the supremepower. --Division of power. --Ambuscade of Hannibal. --Hannibal'ssuccess. --Fabius comes to the rescue. --Speech of Minucius. --The Romanarmy again united. --Character of Fabius. --His integrity. 

In the mean time, while Hannibal was thus rapidly making his waytoward the gates of Rome, the people of the city became more and morealarmed, until at last a general feeling of terror pervaded all theranks of society. Citizens and soldiers were struck with one commondread. They had raised a new army and put it under the command of anew consul, for the terms of service of the others had expired. Flaminius was the name of this new commander, and he was movingnorthward at the head of his forces at the time that Hannibal wasconducting his troops with so much labor and difficulty through themeadows and morasses of the Arno. 

This army was, however, no more successful than its predecessors hadbeen. Hannibal contrived to entrap Flaminius by a stratagem, as he hadentrapped Sempronius before. There is in the eastern part of Etruria, near the mountains, a lake called Lake Thrasymene. It happened thatthis lake extended so near to the base of the mountains as to leaveonly a narrow passage between--a passage but little wider than wasnecessary for a road. Hannibal contrived to station a detachment ofhis troops in ambuscade at the foot of the mountains, and others onthe declivities above, and then in some way or other to enticeFlaminius and his army through the defile. Flaminius was, likeSempronius, ardent, self-confident, and vain. He despised the power ofHannibal, and thought that his success hitherto had been owing to theinefficiency or indecision of his predecessors. For his part, his onlyanxiety was to encounter him, for he was sure of an easy victory. Headvanced, therefore, boldly and without concern into the pass ofThrasymene, when he learned that Hannibal was encamped beyond it. 

Hannibal had established an encampment openly on some elevated groundbeyond the pass, and as Flaminius and his troops came into thenarrowest part of the defile, they saw this encampment at a distancebefore them, with a broad plain beyond the pass intervening. Theysupposed that the whole force of the enemy was there, not dreaming ofthe presence of the strong detachments which were hid on the slopes ofthe mountains above them, and were looking down upon them at thatvery moment from behind rocks and bushes. When, therefore, the Romanshad got through the pass, they spread out upon the plain beyond it, and were advancing to the camp, when suddenly the secreted troopsburst forth from their ambuscade, and, pouring down the mountains, took complete possession of the pass, and attacked the Romans in therear, while Hannibal attacked them in the van. Another long, anddesperate, and bloody contest ensued. The Romans were beaten at everypoint, and, as they were hemmed in between the lake, the mountain, andthe pass, they could not retreat; the army was, accordingly, almostwholly cut to pieces. Flaminius himself was killed. 

The news of this battle spread every where, and produced the strongestsensation. Hannibal sent dispatches to Carthage announcing what heconsidered his final victory over the great foe, and the news wasreceived with the greatest rejoicings. At Rome, on the other hand, thenews produced a dreadful shock of disappointment and terror. It seemedas if the last hope of resisting the progress of their terrible enemywas gone, and that they had nothing now to do but to sink down indespair, and await the hour when his columns should come pouring inthrough the gates of the city. 

The people of Rome were, in fact, prepared for a panic, for theirfears had been increasing and gathering strength for some time. Theywere very superstitious in those ancient days in respect to signs andomens. A thousand trifling occurrences, which would, at the presentday, be considered of no consequence whatever, were then consideredbad signs, auguring terrible calamities; and, on occasions like these, when calamities seemed to be impending, every thing was noticed, andcircumstances which would not have been regarded at all at ordinarytimes, were reported from one to another, the stories beingexaggerated as they spread, until the imaginations of the people werefilled with mysterious but invincible fears. So universal was thebelief in these prodigies and omens, that they were sometimes formallyreported to the senate, committees were appointed to inquire intothem, and solemn sacrifices were offered to "expiate them, " as it wastermed, that is, to avert the displeasure of the gods, which the omenswere supposed to foreshadow and portend. 

A very curious list of these omens was reported to the senate duringthe winter and spring in which Hannibal was advancing toward Rome. Anox from the cattle-market had got into a house, and, losing his way, had climbed up into the third story, and, being frightened by thenoise and uproar of those who followed him, ran out of a window andfell down to the ground. A light appeared in the sky in the form ofships. A temple was struck with lightning. A spear in the hand of astatue of Juno, a celebrated goddess, shook, one day, of itself. Apparitions of men in white garments were seen in a certain place. Awolf came into a camp, and snatched the sword of a soldier on guardout of his hands, and ran away with it. The sun one day looked smallerthan usual. Two moons were seen together in the sky. This was in thedaytime, and one of the moons was doubtless a halo or a white cloud. Stones fell out of the sky at a place called Picenum. This was one ofthe most dreadful of all the omens, though it is now known to be acommon occurrence. 

These omens were all, doubtless, real occurrences, more or lessremarkable, it is true, but, of course, entirely unmeaning in respectto their being indications of impending calamities. There were otherthings reported to the senate which must have originated almost whollyin the imaginations and fears of the observers. Two shields, it wassaid, in a certain camp, sweated blood. Some people were reaping, andbloody ears of grain fell into the basket. This, of course, must havebeen wholly imaginary, unless, indeed, one of the reapers had cut hisfingers with the sickle. Some streams and fountains became bloody;and, finally, in one place in the country, some goats turned intosheep. A hen, also, became a cock, and a cock changed to a hen. 

Such ridiculous stories would not be worthy of a moment's attentionnow, were it not for the degree of importance attached to them then. They were formally reported to the Roman senate, the witnesses whoasserted that they had seen them were called in and examined, and asolemn debate was held on the question what should be done to avertthe supernatural influences of evil which the omens expressed. Thesenate decided to have three days of expiation and sacrifice, duringwhich the whole people of Rome devoted themselves to the religiousobservances which they thought calculated to appease the wrath ofHeaven. They made various offerings and gifts to the different gods, among which one was a golden thunderbolt of fifty pounds' weight, manufactured for Jupiter, whom they considered the thunderer. 

All these things took place before the battle at Lake Thrasymene, sothat the whole community were in a very feverish state of excitementand anxiety before the news from Flaminius arrived. When these tidingsat last came, they threw the whole city into utter consternation. Ofcourse, the messenger went directly to the senate-house to report tothe government, but the story that such news had arrived soon spreadabout the city, and the whole population crowded into the streets andpublic squares, all eagerly asking for the tidings. An enormous throngassembled before the senate-house calling for information. A publicofficer appeared at last, and said to them in a loud voice, "We havebeen defeated in a great battle. " He would say no more. Still rumorsspread from one to another, until it was generally known throughoutthe city that Hannibal had conquered the Roman army again in a greatbattle, that great numbers of the soldiers had fallen or been takenprisoners, and that the consul himself was slain. 

The night was passed in great anxiety and terror, and the next day, and for several of the succeeding days, the people gathered in greatnumbers around the gates, inquiring eagerly for news of every one thatcame in from the country. Pretty soon scattered soldiers and smallbodies of troops began to arrive, bringing with them information ofthe battle, each one having a different tale to tell, according to hisown individual experience in the scene. Whenever these men arrived, the people of the city, and especially the women who had husbands orsons in the army, crowded around them, overwhelming them withquestions, and making them tell their tale again and again, as if theintolerable suspense and anxiety of the hearers could not besatisfied. The intelligence was such as in general to confirm andincrease the fears of those who listened to it; but sometimes, when itmade known the safety of a husband or a son, it produced as muchrelief and rejoicing as it did in other cases terror and despair. Thatmaternal love was as strong an impulse in those rough days as it is inthe more refined and cultivated periods of the present age, is evincedby the fact that two of these Roman mothers, on seeing their sonscoming suddenly into their presence, alive and well, when they hadheard that they had fallen in battle, were killed at once by theshock of surprise and joy, as if by a blow. 

In seasons of great and imminent danger to the commonwealth, it wasthe custom of the Romans to appoint what they called a dictator, thatis, a supreme executive, who was clothed with absolute and unlimitedpowers; and it devolved on him to save the state from the threatenedruin by the most prompt and energetic action. This case was obviouslyone of the emergencies requiring such a measure. There was no time fordeliberations and debates; for deliberations and debates, in periodsof such excitement and danger, become disputes, and end in tumult anduproar. Hannibal was at the head of a victorious army, ravaging thecountry which he had already conquered, and with no obstacle betweenhim and the city itself. It was an emergency calling for theappointment of a dictator. The people made choice of a man of greatreputation for experience and wisdom, named Fabius, and placed thewhole power of the state in his hands. All other authority wassuspended, and every thing was subjected to his sway. The whole city, with the life and property of every inhabitant, was placed at hisdisposal; the army and the fleets were also under his command, eventhe consuls being subject to his orders. 

Fabius accepted the vast responsibility which his election imposedupon him, and immediately began to take the necessary measures. Hefirst made arrangements for performing solemn religious ceremonies, toexpiate the omens and propitiate the gods. He brought out all thepeople in great convocations, and made them take vows, in the mostformal and imposing manner, promising offerings and celebrations inhonor of the various gods, at some future time, in case thesedivinities would avert the threatening danger. It is doubtful, however, whether Fabius, in doing these things, really believed thatthey had any actual efficiency, or whether he resorted to them as ameans of calming and quieting the minds of the people, and producingthat composure and confidence which always results from a hope of thefavor of Heaven. If this last was his object, his conduct waseminently wise. 

Fabius, also, immediately ordered a large levy of troops to be made. His second in command, called his _master of horse_, was directed tomake this levy, and to assemble the troops at a place called Tibur, afew miles east of the city. There was always a master of horseappointed to attend upon and second a dictator. The name of thisofficer in the case of Fabius was Minucius. Minucius was as ardent, prompt, and impetuous, as Fabius was cool, prudent, and calculating. He levied the troops and brought them to their place of rendezvous. Fabius went out to take the command of them. One of the consuls wascoming to join him, with a body of troops which he had under hiscommand. Fabius sent word to him that he must come without any of theinsignia of his authority, as all his authority, semi-regal as it wasin ordinary times, was superseded and overruled in the presence of adictator. A consul was accustomed to move in great state on alloccasions. He was preceded by twelve men, bearing badges and insignia, to impress the army and the people with a sense of the greatness ofhis dignity. To see, therefore, a consul divested of all these marksof his power, and coming into the dictator's presence as any otherofficer would come before an acknowledged superior, made the army ofFabius feel a very strong sense of the greatness of their newcommander's dignity and power. 

Fabius then issued a proclamation, which he sent by proper messengersinto all the region of country around Rome, especially to that parttoward the territory which was in possession of Hannibal. In thisproclamation he ordered all the people to abandon the country and thetowns which were not strongly fortified, and to seek shelter in thecastles, and forts, and fortified cities. They were commanded, also, to lay waste the country which they should leave, and destroy all theproperty, and especially all the provisions, which they could not taketo their places of refuge. This being done, Fabius placed himself atthe head of the forces which he had got together, and moved on, cautiously and with great circumspection, in search of his enemy. 

In the mean time, Hannibal had crossed over to the eastern side ofItaly, and had passed down, conquering and ravaging the country as hewent, until he got considerably south of Rome. He seems to havethought it not quite prudent to advance to the actual attack of thecity, after the battle of Lake Thrasymene; for the vast population ofRome was sufficient, if rendered desperate by his actually threateningthe capture and pillage of the city, to overwhelm his army entirely. So he moved to the eastward, and advanced on that side until he hadpassed the city, and thus it happened that Fabius had to march to thesouthward and eastward in order to meet him. The two armies came insight of each other quite on the eastern side of Italy, very near theshores of the Adriatic Sea. 

The policy which Fabius resolved to adopt was, not to give Hannibalbattle, but to watch him, and wear his army out by fatigue and delays. He kept, therefore, near him, but always posted his army onadvantageous ground, which all the defiance and provocations ofHannibal could not induce him to leave. When Hannibal moved, which hewas soon compelled to do to procure provisions, Fabius would move too, but only to post and intrench himself in some place of security asbefore. Hannibal did every thing in his power to bring Fabius tobattle, but all his efforts were unavailing. 

In fact, he himself was at one time in imminent danger. He had gotdrawn, by Fabius's good management, into a place where he wassurrounded by mountains, upon which Fabius had posted his troops, andthere was only one defile which offered any egress, and this, too, Fabius had strongly guarded. Hannibal resorted to his usual resource, cunning and stratagem, for means of escape. He collected a herd ofoxen. He tied fagots across their horns, filling the fagots withpitch, so as to make them highly combustible. In the night on which hewas going to attempt to pass the defile, he ordered his army to beready to march through, and then had the oxen driven up the hillsaround on the further side of the Roman detachment which was guardingthe pass. The fagots were then lighted on the horns of the oxen. Theyran about, frightened and infuriated by the fire, which burned theirhorns to the quick, and blinded them with the sparks which fell fromit. The leaves and branches of the forests were set on fire. A greatcommotion was thus made, and the guards, seeing the moving lights andhearing the tumult, supposed that the Carthaginian army were upon theheights, and were coming down to attack them. They turned out in greathurry and confusion to meet the imaginary foe, leaving the passunguarded, and, while they were pursuing the bonfires on the oxens'heads into all sorts of dangerous and impracticable places, Hannibalquietly marched his army through the defile and reached a place ofsafety. 

Although Fabius kept Hannibal employed and prevented his approachingthe city, still there soon began to be felt a considerable degree ofdissatisfaction that he did not act more decidedly. Minucius wascontinually urging him to give Hannibal battle, and, not being able toinduce him to do so, he was continually expressing his discontent anddispleasure. The army sympathized with Minucius. He wrote home to Rometoo, complaining bitterly of the dictator's inefficiency. Hanniballearned all this by means of his spies, and other sources ofinformation, which so good a contriver as he has always at command. Hannibal was, of course, very much pleased to hear of thesedissensions, and of the unpopularity of Fabius. He considered such anenemy as he--so prudent, cautious, and watchful--as a far moredangerous foe than such bold and impetuous commanders as Flaminius andMinucius, whom he could always entice into difficulty, and then easilyconquer. 

Hannibal thought he would render Minucius a little help in makingFabius unpopular. He found out from some Roman deserters that thedictator possessed a valuable farm in the country, and he sent adetachment of his troops there, with orders to plunder and destroythe property all around it, but to leave the farm of Fabius untouchedand in safety. The object was to give to the enemies of Fabius at Romeoccasion to say that there was secretly a good understanding betweenhim and Hannibal, and that he was kept back from acting boldly indefense of his country by some corrupt bargain which he hadtraitorously made with the enemy. 

These plans succeeded. Discontent and dissatisfaction spread rapidly, both in the camp and in the city. At Rome they made an urgent demandupon Fabius to return, ostensibly because they wished him to take partin some great religious ceremonies, but really to remove him from thecamp, and give Minucius an opportunity to attack Hannibal. They alsowished to devise some method, if possible, of depriving him of hispower. He had been appointed for six months, and the time had not yetnearly expired: but they wished to shorten, or, if they could notshorten, to limit and diminish his power. 

Fabius went to Rome, leaving the army under the orders of Minucius, but commanding him positively not to give Hannibal battle, nor exposehis troops to any danger, but to pursue steadily the same policywhich he himself had followed. He had, however, been in Rome only ashort time before tidings came that Minucius had fought a battle andgained a victory. There were boastful and ostentatious letters fromMinucius to the Roman senate, lauding the exploit which he hadperformed. 

Fabius examined carefully the accounts. He compared one thing withanother, and satisfied himself of what afterward proved to be thetruth, that Minucius had gained no victory at all. He had lost five orsix thousand men, and Hannibal had lost no more, and Fabius showedthat no advantage had been gained. He urged upon the senate theimportance of adhering to the line of policy he had pursued, and thedanger of risking every thing, as Minucius had done, on the fortunesof a single battle. Besides, he said, Minucius had disobeyed hisorders, which were distinct and positive, and he deserved to berecalled. 

In saying these things Fabius irritated and exasperated his enemiesmore than ever. "Here is a man, " said they, "who will not only notfight the enemies whom he is sent against himself, but he will notallow any body else to fight them. Even at this distance, when hissecond in command has obtained a victory, he will not admit it, andendeavors to curtail the advantages of it. He wishes to protract thewar, that he may the longer continue to enjoy the supreme andunlimited authority with which we have intrusted him. "

The hostility to Fabius at last reached such a pitch, that it wasproposed in an assembly of the people to make Minucius his equal incommand. Fabius, having finished the business which called him toRome, did not wait to attend to the discussion of this question, butleft the city, and was proceeding on his way to join the army again, when he was overtaken with a messenger bearing a letter informing himthat the decree had passed, and that he must thenceforth considerMinucius as his colleague and equal. Minucius was, of course, extremely elated at this result. "Now, " said he, "we will see ifsomething can not be done. "

The first question was, however, to decide on what principle and inwhat way they should share their power. "We can not both command atonce, " said Minucius. "Let us exercise the power in alternation, eachone being in authority for a day, or a week, or a month, or any otherperiod that you prefer. "

"No, " replied Fabius, "we will not divide the time, we will divide themen. There are four legions. You shall take two of them, and the othertwo shall be mine. I can thus, perhaps, save half the army from thedangers in which I fear your impetuosity will plunge all whom you haveunder your command. "

This plan was adopted. The army was divided, and each portion went, under its own leader, to its separate encampment. The result was oneof the most curious and extraordinary occurrences that is recorded inthe history of nations. Hannibal, who was well informed of all thesetransactions, immediately felt that Minucius was in his power. He knewthat he was so eager for battle that it would be easy to entice himinto it, under almost any circumstances that he himself might chooseto arrange. Accordingly, he watched his opportunity when there was agood place for an ambuscade near Minucius's camp, and lodged fivethousand men in it in such a manner that they were concealed by rocksand other obstructions to the view. There was a hill between thisground and the camp of Minucius. When the ambuscade was ready, Hannibal sent up a small force to take possession of the top of thehill, anticipating that Minucius would at once send up a strongerforce to drive them away. He did so. Hannibal then sent up more as are-enforcement. Minucius, whose spirit and pride were now aroused, sent up more still, and thus, by degrees, Hannibal drew out hisenemy's whole force, and then, ordering his own troops to retreatbefore them, the Romans were drawn on, down the hill, till they weresurrounded by the ambuscade. These hidden troops then came pouring outupon them, and in a short time the Romans were thrown into utterconfusion, flying in all directions before their enemies, and entirelyat their mercy. 

All would have been irretrievably lost had it not been for theinterposition of Fabius. He received intelligence of the danger at hisown camp, and marched out at once with all his force, and arrived uponthe ground so opportunely, and acted so efficiently, that he at oncecompletely changed the fortune of the day. He saved Minucius and hishalf of the army from utter destruction. The Carthaginians retreatedin their turn, Hannibal being entirely overwhelmed with disappointmentand vexation at being thus deprived of his prey. History relates thatMinucius had the candor and good sense, after this, to acknowledgehis error, and yield to the guidance and direction of Fabius. Hecalled his part of the army together when they reached their camp, andaddressed them thus: "Fellow-soldiers, I have often heard it said thatthe wisest men are those who possess wisdom and sagacity themselves, and, next to them, those who know how to perceive and are willing tobe guided by the wisdom and sagacity of others; while they are foolswho do not know how to conduct themselves, and will not be guided bythose who do. We will not belong to this last class; and since it isproved that we are not entitled to rank with the first, let us jointhe second. We will march to the camp of Fabius, and join our campwith his, as before. We owe to him, and also to all his portion of thearmy, our eternal gratitude for the nobleness of spirit which hemanifested in coming to our deliverance, when he might so justly haveleft us to ourselves. "

The two legions repaired, accordingly, to the camp of Fabius, and acomplete and permanent reconciliation took place between the twodivisions of the army. Fabius rose very high in the general esteem bythis transaction. The term of his dictatorship, however, expired soonafter this, and as the danger from Hannibal was now less imminent, the office was not renewed, but consuls were chosen as before. 

The character of Fabius has been regarded with the highest admirationby all mankind. He evinced a very noble spirit in all that he did. Oneof his last acts was a very striking proof of this. He had bargainedwith Hannibal to pay a certain sum of money as ransom for a number ofprisoners which had fallen into his hands, and whom Hannibal, on thefaith of that promise, had released. Fabius believed that the Romanswould readily ratify the treaty and pay the amount; but they demurred, being displeased, or pretending to be displeased, because Fabius hadnot consulted them before making the arrangement. Fabius, in order topreserve his own and his country's faith unsullied, sold his farm toraise the money. He did thus most certainly protect and vindicate hisown honor, but he can hardly be said to have saved that of the peopleof Rome. 

CHAPTER IX. 

THE BATTLE OF CANNÆ. 

B. C. 215

Interest excited by the battle of Cannæ. --Various militaryoperations. --State of the public mind at Rome. --The plebeiansand patricians. --The consuls Æmilius and Varro. --A new armyraised. --Self-confidence of Varro. --Caution of Æmilius. --Views ofÆmilius. --Counsel of Fabius. --Conversation between Fabius andÆmilius. --Resolution of Æmilius. --The consuls join the army. --Situationof Hannibal. --Scarcity of food. --Sufferings of Hannibal'stroops. --Defeat of a foraging party. --Hannibal's pretended abandonmentof his camp. --Mission of Statilius. --The stratagem discovered. --Chagrinof Hannibal and the Romans. --Apulia. --Hannibal marches intoApulia. --The Romans follow him. --The new encampments. --Dissensionsbetween the consuls. --Flight of the inhabitants. --Maneuvers. --Thebattle of Cannæ. --Another stratagem. --Defeat of the Romans. --Æmiliuswounded. --Death of Æmilius. --Escape of Varro. --Condition of thebattle-field. --The wounded and dying. --The Roman and Carthaginiansoldier. --Immense plunder. 

The battle of Cannæ was the last great battle fought by Hannibal inItaly. This conflict has been greatly celebrated in history, not onlyfor its magnitude, and the terrible desperation with which it wasfought, but also on account of the strong dramatic interest which thecircumstances attending it are fitted to excite. This interest isperhaps, however, quite as much due to the peculiar skill of theancient historian who narrates the story, as to the events themselveswhich he records. 

It was about a year after the close of the dictatorship of Fabius thatthis battle was fought. That interval had been spent by the Romanconsuls who were in office during that time in various militaryoperations, which did not, however, lead to any decisive results. Inthe mean time, there were great uneasiness, discontent, anddissatisfaction at Rome. To have such a dangerous and terrible foe, atthe head of forty thousand men, infesting the vicinage of their city, ravaging the territories of their friends and allies, and threateningcontinually to attack the city itself, was a continual source ofanxiety and vexation. It mortified the Roman pride, too, to find thatthe greatest armies they could raise, and the ablest generals theycould choose and commission, proved wholly unable to cope with thefoe. The most sagacious of them, in fact, had felt it necessary todecline the contest with him altogether. 

This state of things produced a great deal of ill humor in the city. Party spirit ran very high; tumultuous assemblies were held; disputesand contentions prevailed, and mutual criminations and recriminationswithout end. There were two great parties formed: that of the middlingclasses on one side, and the aristocracy on the other. The former werecalled the Plebeians, the latter the Patricians. The division betweenthese two classes was very great and very strongly marked. There was, in consequence of it, infinite difficulty in the election of consuls. At last the consuls were chosen, one from each party. The name of thepatrician was Paulus Æmilius. The name of the plebeian was Varro. Theywere inducted into office, and were thus put jointly into possessionof a vast power, to wield which with any efficiency and success wouldseem to require union and harmony in those who held it, and yetÆmilius and Varro were inveterate and implacable political foes. Itwas often so in the Roman government. The consulship was adouble-headed monster, which spent half its strength in bittercontests waged between its members. 

The Romans determined now to make an effectual effort to ridthemselves of their foe. They raised an enormous army. It consisted ofeight legions. The Roman legion was an army of itself. It containedordinarily four thousand foot soldiers, and a troop of three hundredhorsemen. It was very unusual to have more than two or three legionsin the field at a time. The Romans, however, on this occasion, increased the number of the legions, and also augmented their size, sothat they contained, each, five thousand infantry and four hundredcavalry. They were determined to make a great and last effort todefend their city, and save the commonwealth from ruin. Æmilius andVarro prepared to take command of this great force, with very strongdeterminations to make it the means of Hannibal's destruction. 

The characters of the two commanders, however, as well as theirpolitical connections, were very dissimilar, and they soon began tomanifest a very different spirit, and to assume a very different airand bearing, each from the other. Æmilius was a friend of Fabius, andapproved of his policy. Varro was for greater promptness and decision. He made great promises, and spoke with the utmost confidence of beingable to annihilate Hannibal at a blow. He condemned the policy ofFabius in attempting to wear out the enemy by delays. He said it was aplan of the aristocratic party to protract the war, in order to putthemselves in high offices, and perpetuate their importance andinfluence. The war might have been ended long ago, he said; and hewould promise the people that he would now end it, without fail, thevery day that he came in sight of Hannibal. 

As for Æmilius, he assumed a very different tone. He was surprised, hesaid, that any man could pretend to decide before he had even left thecity, and while he was, of course, entirely ignorant, both of thecondition of their own army, and of the position, and designs, andstrength of the enemy, how soon and under what circumstances it wouldbe wise to give him battle. Plans must be formed in adaptation tocircumstances, as circumstances can not be made to alter to suitplans. He believed that they should succeed in the encounter withHannibal, but he thought that their only hope of success must be basedon the exercise of prudence, caution, and sagacity; he was sure thatrashness and folly could only lead in future, as they had always donein the past, to discomfiture and ruin. 

It is said that Fabius, the former dictator, conversed with Æmiliusbefore his departure for the army, and gave him such counsel as hisage and experience, and his knowledge of the character and operationsof Hannibal, suggested to his mind. "If you had a colleague likeyourself, " said he, "I would not offer you any advice; you would notneed it. Or, if you were yourself like your colleague, vain, self-conceited, and presumptuous, then I would be silent; counselwould be thrown away upon you. But as it is, while you have greatjudgment and sagacity to guide you, you are to be placed in asituation of extreme difficulty and peril. If I am not mistaken, thegreatest difficulty you will have to encounter will not be the openenemy you are going to meet upon the field. You will find, I think, that Varro will give you quite as much trouble as Hannibal. He will bepresumptuous, reckless, and headstrong. He will inspire all the rashand ardent young men in the army with his own enthusiastic folly, andwe shall be very fortunate if we do not yet see the terrible andbloody scenes of Lake Thrasymene acted again. I am sure that the truepolicy for us to adopt is the one which I marked out. That is alwaysthe proper course for the invaded to pursue with invaders, where thereis the least doubt of the success of a battle. We grow strong whileHannibal grows continually weaker by delay. He can only prosper solong as he can fight battles and perform brilliant exploits. If wedeprive him of this power, his strength will be continually wastingaway, and the spirit and courage of his men waning. He has now scarcea third part of the army which he had when he crossed the Iberus, andnothing can save this remnant from destruction if we are wise. "

Æmilius said, in reply to this, that he went into the contest withvery little of encouragement or hope. If Fabius had found it sodifficult to withstand the turbulent influences of his master ofhorse, who was his subordinate officer, and, as such, under hiscommand, how could _he_ expect to restrain his colleague, who wasentitled, by his office, to full equality with him. But, notwithstanding the difficulties which he foresaw, he was going to dohis duty, and abide by the result; and if the result should beunfavorable, he should seek for death in the conflict, for death byCarthaginian spears was a far lighter evil, in his view, than thedispleasure and censures of his countrymen. 

The consuls departed from Rome to join the army, Æmilius attended by amoderate number of men of rank and station, and Varro by a much largertrain, though it was formed of people of the lower classes of society. The army was organized, and the arrangements of the encampmentsperfected. One ceremony was that of administering an oath to thesoldiers, as was usual in the Roman armies at the commencement of acampaign. They were made to swear that they would not desert the army, that they would never abandon the post at which they were stationed infear or in flight, nor leave the ranks except for the purpose oftaking up or recovering a weapon, striking an enemy, or protecting afriend. These and other arrangements being completed, the army wasready for the field. The consuls made a different arrangement inrespect to the division of their power from that adopted by Fabius andMinucius. It was agreed between them that they would exercise theircommon authority alternately, each for a day. 

In the mean time, Hannibal began to find himself reduced to greatdifficulty in obtaining provisions for his men. The policy of Fabiushad been so far successful as to place him in a very embarrassingsituation, and one growing more and more embarrassing every day. Hecould obtain no food except what he got by plunder, and there was nowvery little opportunity for that, as the inhabitants of the countryhad carried off all the grain and deposited it in strongly-fortifiedtowns; and though Hannibal had great confidence in his power to copewith the Roman army in a regular battle on an open field, he had notstrength sufficient to reduce citadels or attack fortified camps. Hisstock of provisions had become, therefore, more and more nearlyexhausted, until now he had a supply for only ten days, and he saw nopossible mode of increasing it. 

His great object was, therefore, to bring on a battle. Varro was readyand willing to give him battle, but Æmilius, or, to call him by hisname in full, Paulus Æmilius, which is the appellation by which he ismore frequently known, was very desirous to persevere in the Fabianpolicy till the ten days had expired, after which he knew thatHannibal must be reduced to extreme distress, and might have tosurrender at once to save his army from actual famine. In fact, it wassaid that the troops were on such short allowance as to produce greatdiscontent, and that a large body of Spaniards were preparing todesert and go over together to the Roman camp. 

Things were in this state, when, one day, Hannibal sent out a partyfrom his camp to procure food, and Æmilius, who happened to hold thecommand that day, sent out a strong force to intercept them. He wassuccessful. The Carthaginian detachment was routed. Nearly twothousand men were killed, and the rest fled, by any roads they couldfind, back to Hannibal's camp. Varro was very eager to follow themthere, but Æmilius ordered his men to halt. He was afraid of sometrick or treachery on the part of Hannibal, and was disposed to besatisfied with the victory he had already won. 

This little success, however, only inflamed Varro's ardor for abattle, and produced a general enthusiasm in the Roman army; and, aday or two afterward, a circumstance occurred which raised thisexcitement to the highest pitch. Some reconnoiterers, who had beenstationed within sight of Hannibal's camp to watch the motions andindications there, sent in word to the consuls that the Carthaginianguards around their encampment had all suddenly disappeared, and thata very extraordinary and unusual silence reigned within. Parties ofthe Roman soldiers went up gradually and cautiously to theCarthaginian lines, and soon found that the camp was deserted, thoughthe fires were still burning and the tents remained. Thisintelligence, of course, put the whole Roman army into a fever ofexcitement and agitation. They crowded around the consuls' pavilions, and clamorously insisted on being led on to take possession of thecamp, and to pursue the enemy. "He has fled, " they said, "and withsuch precipitation that he has left the tents standing and his firesstill burning. Lead us on in pursuit of him. "

Varro was as much excited as the rest. He was eager for action. Æmilius hesitated. He made particular inquiries. He said they oughtto proceed with caution. Finally, he called up a certain prudent andsagacious officer, named Statilius, and ordered him to take a smallbody of horsemen, ride over to the Carthaginian camp, ascertain thefacts exactly, and report the result. Statilius did so. When hereached the lines he ordered his troops to halt, and took with him twohorsemen on whose courage and strength he could rely, and rode in. Thethree horsemen rode around the camp and examined every thing with aview of ascertaining whether Hannibal had really abandoned hisposition and fled, or whether some stratagem was intended. 

When he came back he reported to the army that, in his opinion, thedesertion of the camp was not real, but a trick to draw the Romansinto some difficulty. The fires were the largest on the side towardthe Romans, which indicated that they were built to deceive. He sawmoney, too, and other valuables strewed about upon the ground, whichappeared to him much more like a bait set in a trap, than likeproperty abandoned by fugitives as incumbrances to flight. Varro wasnot convinced; and the army, hearing of the money, were excited to agreater eagerness for plunder. They could hardly be restrained. Justthen, however, two slaves that had been taken prisoners by theCarthaginians some time before, came into the Roman camp. They toldthe consuls that the whole Carthaginian force was hid in ambush verynear, waiting for the Romans to enter their encampment, when they weregoing to surround them and cut them to pieces. In the bustle andmovement attendant on this plan, the slaves had escaped. Of course, the Roman army were now satisfied. They returned, chagrined anddisappointed, to their own quarters, and Hannibal, still morechagrined and disappointed, returned to his. 

He soon found, however, that he could not remain any longer where hewas. His provisions were exhausted, and he could obtain no more. TheRomans would not come out of their encampment to give him battle onequal terms, and they were too strongly intrenched to be attackedwhere they were. He determined, therefore, to evacuate that part ofthe country, and move, by a sudden march, into Apulia. 

Apulia was on the eastern side of Italy. The River Aufidus runsthrough it, having a town named Cannæ near its mouth. The region ofthe Aufidus was a warm and sunny valley, which was now waving withripening grain. Being further south than the place where he had been, and more exposed to the influence of the sun, Hannibal thought thatthe crops would be sooner ripe, and that, at least, he should have anew field to plunder. 

He accordingly decided now to leave his camp in earnest, and move intoApulia. He made the same arrangements as before, when his departurewas a mere pretense. He left tents pitched and fires burning, butmarched his army off the ground by night and secretly, so that theRomans did not perceive his departure; and the next day, when they sawthe appearances of silence and solitude about the camp, they suspectedanother deception, and made no move themselves. At length, however, intelligence came that the long columns of Hannibal's army had beenseen already far to the eastward, and moving on as fast as possible, with all their baggage. The Romans, after much debate and uncertainty, resolved to follow. The eagles of the Apennines looked down upon thetwo great moving masses, creeping slowly along through the forests andvalleys, like swarms of insects, one following the other, led on by astrange but strong attraction, drawing them toward each other when ata distance but kept asunder by a still stronger repulsion when near. 

The Roman army came up with that of Hannibal on the River Aufidus, near Cannæ, and the two vast encampments were formed with all thenoise and excitement attendant on the movements of two great armiesposting themselves on the eve of a battle, in the neighborhood of eachother. In the Roman camp, the confusion was greatly aggravated by theangry disputes which immediately arose between the consuls and theirrespective adherents as to the course to be pursued. Varro insisted ongiving the Carthaginians immediate battle. Æmilius refused. Varro saidthat he must protest against continuing any longer these inexcusabledelays, and insist on a battle. He could not consent to be responsibleany further for allowing Italy to lie at the mercy of such a scourge. Æmilius replied, that if Varro did precipitate a battle, he himselfprotested against his rashness, and could not be, in any degree, responsible for the result. The various officers took sides, some withone consul and some with the other, but most with Varro. Thedissension filled the camp with excitement, agitation, and ill will. 

In the mean time, the inhabitants of the country into which these twovast hordes of ferocious, though restrained and organized combatants, had made such a sudden irruption, were flying as fast as they couldfrom the awful scene which they expected was to ensue. They carriedfrom their villages and cabins what little property could be saved, and took the women and children away to retreats and fastnesses, wherever they imagined they could find temporary concealment orprotection. The news of the movement of the two armies spreadthroughout the country, carried by hundreds of refugees andmessengers, and all Italy, looking on with suspense and anxiety, awaited the result. 

The armies maneuvered for a day or two, Varro, during his term ofcommand, making arrangements to promote and favor an action, andÆmilius, on the following day, doing every thing in his power toprevent it. In the end, Varro succeeded. The lines were formed and thebattle must be begun. Æmilius gave up the contest now, and while heprotested earnestly against the course which Varro pursued, heprepared to do all in his power to prevent a defeat, since there wasno longer a possibility of avoiding a collision. 

The battle began, and the reader must imagine the scene, since no pencan describe it. Fifty thousand men on one side and eighty thousand onthe other, at work hard and steadily, for six hours, killing eachother by every possible means of destruction--stabs, blows, struggles, outcries, shouts of anger and defiance, and screams of terror andagony, all mingled together, in one general din, which covered thewhole country for an extent of many miles, all together constituted ascene of horror of which none but those who have witnessed greatbattles can form any adequate idea. 

It seems as if Hannibal could do nothing without stratagem. In theearly part of this conflict he sent a large body of his troops over tothe Romans as deserters. They threw down their spears and bucklers, asthey reached the Roman lines, in token of surrender. The Romansreceived them, opened a passage for them through into the rear, andordered them to remain there. As they were apparently unarmed, theyleft only a very small guard to keep them in custody. The men had, however, daggers concealed about their dress, and, watching afavorable moment, in the midst of the battle, they sprang to theirfeet, drew out their weapons, broke away from their guard, andattacked the Romans in the rear at a moment when they were so pressedby the enemy in front that they could scarcely maintain their ground. 

It was evident before many hours that the Roman forces were everywhere yielding. From slowly and reluctantly yielding they soon beganto fly. In the flight, the weak and the wounded were trampled underfoot by the throng who were pressing on behind them, or weredispatched by wanton blows from enemies as they passed in pursuit ofthose who were still able to fly. In the midst of this scene, a Romanofficer named Lentulus, as he was riding away, saw before him at theroad-side another officer wounded, sitting upon a stone, faint andbleeding. He stopped when he reached him, and found that it was theconsul Æmilius. He had been wounded in the head with a sling, and hisstrength was almost gone. Lentulus offered him his horse, and urgedhim to take it and fly. Æmilius declined the offer. He said it was toolate for his life to be saved, and that, besides, he had no wish tosave it. "Go on, therefore, yourself, " said he, "as fast as you can. Make the best of your way to Rome. Tell the authorities there, fromme, that all is lost, and they must do whatever they can themselvesfor the defense of the city. Make all the speed you can, or Hannibalwill be at the gates before you. "

Æmilius sent also a message to Fabius, declaring to him that it wasnot his fault that a battle had been risked with Hannibal. He had doneall in his power, he said, to prevent it, and had adhered to thepolicy which Fabius had recommended to the last. Lentulus havingreceived these messages, and perceiving that the Carthaginians wereclose upon him in pursuit, rode away, leaving the consul to his fate. The Carthaginians came on, and, on seeing the wounded man, they thrusttheir spears into his body, one after another, as they passed, untilhis limbs ceased to quiver. As for the other consul, Varro, he escapedwith his life. Attended by about seventy horsemen, he made his way toa fortified town not very remote from the battle-field, where hehalted with his horsemen, and determined that he would attempt torally there the remains of the army. 

The Carthaginians, when they found the victory complete, abandoned thepursuit of the enemy, returned to their camp, spent some hours infeasting and rejoicing, and then laid down to sleep. They were, ofcourse, well exhausted by the intense exertions of the day. On thefield where the battle had been fought, the wounded lay all nightmingled with the dead, filling the air with cries and groans, andwrithing in their agony. 

Early the next morning the Carthaginians came back to the fieldto plunder the dead bodies of the Romans. The whole field presenteda most shocking spectacle to the view. The bodies of horses and menlay mingled in dreadful confusion, as they had fallen, some dead, others still alive, the men moaning, crying for water, and feeblystruggling from time to time to disentangle themselves from theheaps of carcasses under which they were buried. The deadly andinextinguishable hate which the Carthaginians felt for their foes nothaving been appeased by the slaughter of forty thousand of them, theybeat down and stabbed these wretched lingerers wherever they foundthem, as a sort of morning pastime after the severer labors of thepreceding day. This slaughter, however, could hardly be considered acruelty to the wretched victims of it, for many of them bared theirbreasts to their assailants, and begged for the blow which was to putan end to their pain. In exploring the field, one Carthaginian soldierwas found still alive, but imprisoned by the dead body of his Romanenemy lying upon him. The Carthaginian's face and ears were shockinglymangled. The Roman, having fallen upon him when both were mortallywounded, had continued the combat with his teeth when he could nolonger use his weapon, and had died at last, binding down hisexhausted enemy with his own dead body. 

The Carthaginians secured a vast amount of plunder. The Roman army wasfull of officers and soldiers from the aristocratic ranks of society, and their arms and their dress were very valuable. The Carthaginiansobtained some bushels of gold rings from their fingers, which Hannibalsent to Carthage as a trophy of his victory. 

CHAPTER X. 

SCIPIO. 

B. C. 215-201

Reason of Hannibal's success. --The Scipios. --Fragments of theRoman army. --Scipio elected commander. --Scipio's energy. --Case ofMetellus. --Metellus yields. --Consternation at Rome. --The senateadjourns. --Hannibal refuses to march to Rome. --Hannibal makes hishead-quarters at Capua. --Hannibal sends Mago to Carthage. --Mago'sspeech. --The bag of rings. --Debate in the Carthaginian senate. --Thespeech of Hanno in the Carthaginian senate. --Progress of thewar. --Enervation of Hannibal's army. --Decline of the Carthaginianpower. --Marcellus. --Success of the Romans. --Siege of Capua. --Hannibal'sattack on the Roman camp. --He marches to Rome. --Preparations for abattle. --Prevented by storms. --Sales at auction. --Hasdrubal crosses theAlps. --Livius and Nero. --Division of the provinces. --The interceptedletters. --Nero's perplexity. --Laws of military discipline. --Theirstrictness and severity. --Danger of violating discipline. --Anillustration. --Plan of Nero. --A night march. --Livius and Nero attackHasdrubal. --Hasdrubal orders a retreat. --Butchery of Hasdrubal'sarmy. --Hasdrubal's death. --Progress of the Roman arms. --Successes ofScipio. --Scipio in Africa. --Carthage threatened. --A truce. --Hannibalrecalled. --Hannibal raises a new army. --The Romans capture hisspies. --Negotiations. --Interview between Hannibal and Scipio. --Thelast battle. --Defeat of the Carthaginians. 

The true reason why Hannibal could not be arrested in his triumphantcareer seems not to have been because the Romans did not pursue theright kind of policy toward him, but because, thus far, they had nogeneral who was his equal. Whoever was sent against him soon proved tobe his inferior. Hannibal could out-maneuver them all in stratagem, and could conquer them on the field. There was, however, now destinedto appear a man capable of coping with Hannibal. It was young Scipio, the one who saved the life of his father at the battle of Ticinus. This Scipio, though the son of Hannibal's first great antagonist ofthat name, is commonly called, in history, the elder Scipio; for therewas another of his name after him, who was greatly celebrated for hiswars against the Carthaginians in Africa. These last two received fromthe Roman people the surname of Africanus, in honor of their Africanvictories, and the one who now comes upon the stage was called ScipioAfricanus the elder, or sometimes simply the elder Scipio. The deedsof the Scipio who attempted to stop Hannibal at the Rhone and upon thePo were so wholly eclipsed by his son, and by the other Scipio whofollowed him, that the former is left out of view and forgotten indesignating and distinguishing the others. 

Our present Scipio first appears upon the stage, in the exercise ofmilitary command, after the battle of Cannæ. He was a subordinateofficer and on the day following the battle he found himself at aplace called Canusium, which was at a short distance from Cannæ, onthe way toward Rome, with a number of other officers of his own rank, and with broken masses and detachments of the army coming in from timeto time, faint, exhausted, and in despair. The rumor was that bothconsuls were killed. These fragments of the army had, therefore, noone to command them. The officers met together, and unanimously agreedto make Scipio their commander in the emergency, until some superiorofficer should arrive, or they should get orders from Rome. 

An incident here occurred which showed, in a striking point of view, the boldness and energy of the young Scipio's character. At the verymeeting in which he was placed in command, and when they wereoverwhelmed with perplexity and care, an officer came in, and reportedthat in another part of the camp there was an assembly of officers andyoung men of rank, headed by a certain Metellus, who had decided togive up the cause of their country in despair, and that they weremaking arrangements to proceed immediately to the sea-coast, obtainships, and sail away to seek a new home in some foreign lands, considering their cause in Italy as utterly lost and ruined. Theofficer proposed that they should call a council and deliberate whatwas best to do. 

"Deliberate!" said Scipio; "this is not a case for deliberation, butfor action. Draw your swords and follow me. " So saying, he pressedforward at the head of the party to the quarters of Metellus. Theymarched boldly into the apartment where he and his friends were inconsultation. Scipio held up his sword, and in a very solemn mannerpronounced an oath, binding himself not to abandon his country in thisthe hour of her distress, nor to allow any other Roman citizen toabandon her. If he should be guilty of such treason, he called uponJupiter, by the most dreadful imprecations, to destroy him utterly, house, family, fortune, soul, and body. 

"And now, Metellus, I call upon you, " said he, "and all who are withyou, to take the same oath. You must do it, otherwise you have got todefend yourselves against these swords of ours, as well as those ofthe Carthaginians. " Metellus and his party yielded. Nor was it whollyto fear that they yielded. It was to the influence of hope quite asmuch as to that of fear. The courage, the energy, and the martialardor which Scipio's conduct evinced awakened a similar spirit inthem, and made them hope again that possibly their country might yetbe saved. 

The news of the awful defeat and destruction of the Roman army flewswiftly to Rome, and produced universal consternation. The whole citywas in an uproar. There were soldiers in the army from almost everyfamily, so that every woman and child throughout the city wasdistracted by the double agitation of inconsolable grief at the deathof their husband or their father, slain in the battle, and of terriblefear that Hannibal and his raging followers were about to burst inthrough the gates of the city to murder them. The streets of the city, and especially the Forum, were thronged with vast crowds of men, women, and children, who filled the air with loud lamentations, andwith cries of terror and despair. 

The magistrates were not able to restore order. The senate actuallyadjourned, that the members of it might go about the city, and usetheir influence and their power to produce silence at least, if theycould not restore composure. The streets were finally cleared. Thewomen and children were ordered to remain at home. Armed patrols wereput on guard to prevent tumultuous assemblies forming. Men were sentoff on horseback on the road to Canusium and Cannæ, to get moreaccurate intelligence, and then the senate assembled again, and beganto consider, with as much of calmness as they could command, what wasto be done. 

The panic at Rome was, however, in some measure, a false alarm, forHannibal, contrary to the expectation of all Italy, did not go toRome. His generals urged him very strongly to do so. Nothing couldprevent, they said, his gaining immediate possession of the city. ButHannibal refused to do this. Rome was strongly fortified, and had animmense population. His army, too, was much weakened by the battle ofCannæ, and he seems to have thought it most prudent not to attemptthe reduction of Rome until he should have received re-enforcementsfrom home. It was now so late in the season that he could not expectsuch re-enforcements immediately, and he accordingly determined toselect some place more accessible than Rome and make it hishead-quarters for the winter. He decided in favor of Capua, which wasa large and powerful city one or two hundred miles southeast of Rome. 

Hannibal, in fact, conceived the design of retaining possession ofItaly and of making Capua the capital of the country, leaving Rome toitself, to decline, as under such circumstances it inevitably must, tothe rank of a second city. Perhaps he was tired of the fatigues andhazards of war, and having narrowly escaped ruin before the battle ofCannæ, he now resolved that he would not rashly incur any new dangers. It was a great question with him whether he should go forward to Rome, or attempt to build up a new capital of his own at Capua. The questionwhich of these two he ought to have done was a matter of great debatethen, and it has been discussed a great deal by military men in everyage since his day. Right or wrong, Hannibal decided to establish hisown capital at Capua, and to leave Rome, for the present, undisturbed. 

He, however, sent immediately to Carthage for re-enforcements. Themessenger whom he sent was one of his generals named Mago. Mago madethe best of his way to Carthage with his tidings of victory and hisbushel of rings, collected, as has been already said, from the fieldof Cannæ. The city of Carthage was greatly excited by the news whichhe brought. The friends and patrons of Hannibal were elated withenthusiasm and pride, and they taunted and reproached his enemies withthe opposition to him they had manifested when he was originallyappointed to the command of the army of Spain. 

Mago met the Carthaginian senate, and in a very spirited and eloquentspeech he told them how many glorious battles Hannibal had fought, andhow many victories he had won. He had contended with the greatestgenerals that the Romans could bring against him, and had conqueredthem all. He had slain, he said, in all, over two hundred thousandmen. All Italy was now subject to his power; Capua was his capital, and Rome had fallen. He concluded by saying that Hannibal was in needof considerable additional supplies of men, and money, and provisions, which he did not doubt the Carthaginians would send without anyunnecessary delay. He then produced before the senate the great bag ofrings which he had brought, and poured them upon the pavement of thesenate-house as a trophy of the victories which he had beenannouncing. 

This would, perhaps, have all been very well for Hannibal if hisfriends had been contented to have left the case where Mago left it;but some of them could not resist the temptation of taunting hisenemies, and especially Hanno, who, as will be recollected, originallyopposed his being sent to Spain. They turned to him, and asked himtriumphantly what he thought now of his factious opposition to sobrave a warrior. Hanno rose. The senate looked toward him and wereprofoundly silent, wondering what he would have to reply. Hanno, withan air of perfect ease and composure, spoke somewhat as follows:

"I should have said nothing, but should have allowed the senate totake what action they pleased on Mago's proposition if I had not beenparticularly addressed. As it is, I will say that I think now just asI always have thought. We are plunged into a most costly and mostuseless war, and are, as I conceive, no nearer the end of it now thanever, notwithstanding all these boasted successes. The emptiness ofthem is clearly shown by the inconsistency of Hannibal's pretensionsas to what he has done, with the demands that he makes in respect towhat he wishes us to do. He says he has conquered all his enemies, andyet he wants us to send him more soldiers. He has reduced allItaly--the most fertile country in the world--to subjection, andreigns over it at Capua, and yet he calls upon us for corn. And then, to crown all, he sends us bushels of gold rings as a specimen of theriches he has obtained by plunder, and accompanies the offering with ademand for new supplies of money. In my opinion, his success is allillusive and hollow. There seems to be nothing substantial in hissituation except his necessities, and the heavy burdens upon the statewhich these necessities impose. "

Notwithstanding Hanno's sarcasms, the Carthaginians resolved tosustain Hannibal, and to send him the supplies that he needed. Theywere, however, long in reaching him. Various difficulties and delaysoccurred. The Romans, though they could not dispossess Hannibal fromhis position in Italy, raised armies in different countries, and wagedextended wars with the Carthaginians and their allies, in variousparts of the world, both by sea and land. 

The result was, that Hannibal remained fifteen or sixteen years inItaly, engaged, during all this time, in a lingering struggle with theRoman power, without ever being able to accomplish any decisivemeasures. During this period he was sometimes successful andvictorious, and sometimes he was very hard pressed by his enemies. Itis said that his army was very much enervated and enfeebled by thecomforts and luxuries they enjoyed at Capua. Capua was a very rich andbeautiful city, and the inhabitants of it had opened their gates toHannibal of their own accord, preferring, as they said, his allianceto that of the Romans. The officers--as the officers of an army almostalways do, when they find themselves established in a rich andpowerful city, after the fatigues of a long and honorablecampaign--gave themselves up to festivities and rejoicing, to games, shows, and entertainments of every kind, which they soon learnedinfinitely to prefer to the toil and danger of marches and battles. 

Whatever may have been the cause, there is no question about the factthat, from the time Hannibal and his army got possession of theircomfortable quarters in Capua, the Carthaginian power began graduallyto decline. As Hannibal determined to make that city the Italiancapital instead of Rome, he, of course, when established there, feltin some degree settled and at home, and was less interested than hehad been in plans for attacking the ancient capital. Still, the warwent on; many battles were fought, many cities were besieged, theRoman power gaining ground all the time, though not, however, by anyvery decisive victories. 

In these contests there appeared, at length, a new Roman general namedMarcellus, and, either on account of his possessing a bolder and moreactive temperament, or else in consequence of the change in therelative strength of the two contending powers, he pursued a moreaggressive policy than Fabius had thought it prudent to attempt. Marcellus was, however, cautious and wary in his enterprises, and helaid his plans with so much sagacity and skill that he was almostalways successful. The Romans applauded very highly his activity andardor, without, however, forgetting their obligations to Fabius forhis caution and defensive reserve. They said that Marcellus was the_sword_ of their commonwealth, as Fabius had been its _shield_. 

The Romans continued to prosecute this sort of warfare, being more andmore successful the longer they continued it, until, at last, theyadvanced to the very walls of Capua, and threatened it with a siege. Hannibal's intrenchments and fortifications were too strong for themto attempt to carry the city by a sudden assault, nor were the Romanseven powerful enough to invest the place entirely, so as completely toshut their enemies in. They, however, encamped with a large army inthe neighborhood, and assumed so threatening an attitude as to keepHannibal's forces within in a state of continual alarm. And, besidesthe alarm, it was very humiliating and mortifying to Carthaginianpride to find the very seat of their power, as it were, shut up andoverawed by an enemy over whom they had been triumphing themselves soshort a time before, by a continued series of victories. 

Hannibal was not himself in Capua at the time that the Romans came toattack it. He marched, however, immediately to its relief, andattacking the Romans in his turn, endeavored to compel them to _raisethe siege_, as it is technically termed, and retire. They had, however, so intrenched themselves in the positions that they hadtaken, and the assaults with which he encountered them had lost somuch of their former force, that he could accomplish nothing decisive. He then left the ground with his army, and marched himself towardRome. He encamped in the vicinity of the city, and threatened toattack it; but the walls, and castles, and towers with which Rome, aswell as Capua, was defended, were too formidable, and the preparationsfor defense too complete, to make it prudent for him really to assailthe city. His object was to alarm the Romans, and compel them towithdraw their forces from his capital that they might defend theirown. 

There was, in fact, some degree of alarm awakened, and in thediscussions which took place among the Roman authorities, thewithdrawal of their troops from Capua was proposed; but this proposalwas overruled; even Fabius was against it. Hannibal was no longer tobe feared. They ordered back a small detachment from Capua, and addedto it such forces as they could raise within the city, and thenadvanced to give Hannibal battle. The preparations were all made, itis said, for an engagement, but a violent storm came on, so violent asto drive the combatants back to their respective camps. This happened, the great Roman historian gravely says, two or three times insuccession; the weather immediately becoming serene again, each time, as soon as the respective generals had withdrawn their troops from theintended fight. Something like this may perhaps have occurred, thoughthe fact doubtless was that both parties were afraid, each of theother, and were disposed to avail themselves of any excuse to postponea decisive conflict. There was a time when Hannibal had not beendeterred from attacking the Romans even by the most tempestuousstorms. 

Thus, though Hannibal did, in fact, in the end, get to the walls ofRome, he did nothing but threaten when he was there, and hisencampment near the city can only be considered as a bravado. Hispresence seems to have excited very little apprehension within thecity. The Romans had, in fact, before this time, lost their terror ofthe Carthaginian arms. To show their contempt of Hannibal, they sold, at public auction the land on which he was encamped, while he wasupon it besieging the city, and it brought the usual price. Thebidders were, perhaps, influenced somewhat by a patriotic spirit, andby a desire to taunt Hannibal with an expression of their opinion thathis occupation of the land would be a very temporary encumbrance. Hannibal, to revenge himself for this taunt, put up for sale atauction, in his own camp, the shops of one of the principal streets ofRome, and they were bought by his officers with great spirit. Itshowed that a great change had taken place in the nature of thecontest between Carthage and Rome, to find these vast powers, whichwere a few years before grappling each other with such destructive andterrible fury on the Po and at Cannæ, now satisfying their declininganimosity with such squibbing as this. 

When the other modes by which Hannibal attempted to obtainre-enforcements failed, he made an attempt to have a second armybrought over the Alps under the command of his brother Hasdrubal. Itwas a large army, and in their march they experienced the samedifficulties, though in a much lighter degree, that Hannibal hadhimself encountered. And yet, of the whole mighty mass which set outfrom Spain, nothing reached Hannibal except his brother's _head_. Thecircumstances of the unfortunate termination of Hasdrubal's attemptwere as follows:

When Hasdrubal descended from the Alps, rejoicing in the successfulmanner in which he had surmounted those formidable barriers, heimagined that all his difficulties were over. He dispatched couriersto his brother Hannibal, informing him that he had scaled themountains, and that he was coming on as rapidly as possible to hisaid. 

The two consuls in office at this time were named, the one Nero, andthe other Livius. To each of these, as was usual with the Romanconsuls, was assigned a particular province, and a certain portion ofthe army to defend it, and the laws enjoined it upon them verystrictly not to leave their respective provinces, on any pretextwhatever, without authority from the Roman Legislature. In thisinstance Livius had been assigned to the northern part of Italy, andNero to the southern. It devolved upon Livius, therefore, to meet andgive battle to Hasdrubal on his descent from the Alps, and to Nero toremain in the vicinity of Hannibal, to thwart his plans, oppose hisprogress, and, if possible, conquer and destroy him, while hiscolleague prevented his receiving the expected re-enforcements fromSpain. 

Things being in this state, the couriers whom Hasdrubal sent with hisletters had the vigilance of both consuls to elude before they coulddeliver them into Hannibal's hands. They did succeed in passingLivius, but they were intercepted by Nero. The patrols who seizedthese messengers brought them to Nero's tent. Nero opened and read theletters. All Hasdrubal's plans and arrangements were detailed in themvery fully, so that Nero perceived that, if he were at once to proceedto the northward with a strong force, he could render his colleaguesuch aid as, with the knowledge of Hasdrubal's plans, which he hadobtained from the letters, would probably enable them to defeat him;whereas, if he were to leave Livius in ignorance and alone, he fearedthat Hasdrubal would be successful in breaking his way through, and inultimately effecting his junction with Hannibal. Under thesecircumstances, he was, of course, very earnestly desirous of goingnorthward to render the necessary aid, but he was strictly forbiddenby law to leave his own province to enter that of his colleaguewithout an authority from Rome, which there was not now time toobtain. 

The laws of military discipline are very strict and imperious, and intheory they are never to be disobeyed. Officers and soldiers, of allranks and gradations, must obey the orders which they receive from theauthority above them, without looking at the consequences, ordeviating from the line marked out on any pretext whatever. It is, infact, the very essence of military subordination and efficiency, thata command, once given, suspends all exercise of judgment or discretionon the part of the one to whom it is addressed; and a good general ora good government would prefer generally that harm should be done by astrict obedience to commands, rather than a benefit secured by anunauthorized deviation from them. It is a good principle, not only inwar, but in all those cases in social life where men have to act inconcert, and yet wish to secure efficiency in action. 

And yet there are cases of exception--cases where the necessity is sourgent, or the advantages to be derived are so great; where theinterests involved are so momentous, and the success so sure, that acommander concludes to disobey and take the responsibility. Theresponsibility is, however, very great, and the danger in assuming itextreme. He who incurs it makes himself liable to the severestpenalties, from which nothing but clear proof of the most imperiousnecessity, and, in addition to it, the most triumphant success, cansave him. There is somewhere in English history a story of a navalcommander, in the service of an English queen, who disobeyed theorders of his superiors at one time, in a case of great emergency atsea, and gained by so doing a very important victory. Immediatelyafterward he placed himself under arrest, and went into port as aprisoner accused of crime instead of a commander triumphing in hisvictory. He surrendered himself to the queen's officers of justice, and sent word to the queen herself that he knew very well that deathwas the penalty for his offense, but that he was willing to sacrificehis life _in any way_ in the service of her majesty. He was pardoned!

Nero, after much anxious deliberation, concluded that the emergency inwhich he found himself placed was one requiring him to take theresponsibility of disobedience. He did not, however, dare to gonorthward with all his forces, for that would be to leave southernItaly wholly at the mercy of Hannibal. He selected, therefore, fromhis whole force, which consisted of forty thousand men, seven oreight thousand of the most efficient and trustworthy; the men on whomhe could most securely rely, both in respect to their ability to bearthe fatigues of a rapid march, and the courage and energy with whichthey would meet Hasdrubal's forces in battle at the end of it. He was, at the time when Hasdrubal's letters were intercepted, occupying aspacious and well-situated camp. This he enlarged and strengthened, sothat Hannibal might not suspect that he intended any diminution of theforces within. All this was done very promptly, so that, in a fewhours after he received the intelligence on which he was acting, hewas drawing off secretly, at night, a column of six or eight thousandmen, none of whom knew at all where they were going. 

He proceeded as rapidly as possible to the northward, and, when hearrived in the northern province, he contrived to get into the camp ofLivius as secretly as he had got out from his own. Thus, of the twoarmies, the one where an accession of force was required was greatlystrengthened at the expense of the other, without either of theCarthaginian generals having suspected the change. 

Livius was rejoiced to get so opportune a re-enforcement. Herecommended that the troops should all remain quietly in camp for ashort time, until the newly-arrived troops could rest and recruitthemselves a little after their rapid and fatiguing march; but Neroopposed this plan, and recommended an immediate battle. He knew thecharacter of the men that he had brought, and he was, besides, unwilling to risk the dangers which might arise in his own camp, insouthern Italy, by too long an absence from it. It was decided, accordingly, to attack Hasdrubal at once, and the signal for battlewas given. 

It is not improbable that Hasdrubal would have been beaten by Liviusalone, but the additional force which Nero had brought made the Romansaltogether too strong for him. Besides, from his position in the frontof the battle, he perceived, from some indications that his watchfuleye observed, that a part of the troops attacking him were from thesouthward; and he inferred from this that Hannibal had been defeated, and that, in consequence of this, the whole united force of the Romanarmy was arrayed against him. He was disheartened and discouraged, andsoon ordered a retreat. He was pursued by the various divisions of theRoman army, and the retreating columns of the Carthaginians were soonthrown into complete confusion. They became entangled among rivers andlakes; and the guides who had undertaken to conduct the army, findingthat all was lost, abandoned them and fled, anxious only to save theirown lives. The Carthaginians were soon pent up in a position wherethey could not defend themselves, and from which they could notescape. The Romans showed them no mercy, but went on killing theirwretched and despairing victims until the whole army was almosttotally destroyed. They cut off Hasdrubal's head, and Nero sat out thevery night after the battle to return with it in triumph to his ownencampment. When he arrived, he sent a troop of horse to throw thehead over into Hannibal's camp, a ghastly and horrid trophy of hisvictory. 

Hannibal was overwhelmed with disappointment and sorrow at the loss ofhis army, bringing with it, as it did, the destruction of all hishopes. "My fate is sealed, " said he; "all is lost. I shall send nomore news of victory to Carthage. In losing Hasdrubal my last hope isgone. "

[Illustration: HASDRUBAL'S HEAD. ]

While Hannibal was in this condition in Italy, the Roman armies, aidedby their allies, were gaining gradually against the Carthaginians invarious parts of the world, under the different generals who had beenplaced in command by the Roman senate. The news of these victoriescame continually home to Italy, and encouraged and animated theRomans, while Hannibal and his army, as well as the people who were inalliance with him, were disheartened and depressed by them. Scipio wasone of these generals commanding in foreign lands. His province wasSpain. The news which came home from his army became more and moreexciting, as he advanced from conquest to conquest, until it seemedthat the whole country was going to be reduced to subjection. Heovercame one Carthaginian general after another until he reached NewCarthage, which he besieged and conquered, and the Roman authority wasestablished fully over the whole land. 

Scipio then returned in triumph to Rome. The people received him withacclamations. At the next election they chose him consul. On theallotment of provinces, Sicily fell to him, with power to cross intoAfrica if he pleased. It devolved on the other consul to carry on thewar in Italy more directly against Hannibal. Scipio levied his army, equipped his fleet, and sailed for Sicily. 

The first thing that he did on his arrival in his province was toproject an expedition into Africa itself. He could not, as he wished, face Hannibal directly, by marching his troops into the south ofItaly, for this was the work allotted to his colleague. He could, however, make an incursion into Africa, and even threaten Carthageitself, and this, with the boldness and ardor which marked hischaracter, he resolved to do. 

He was triumphantly successful in all his plans. His army, imbibingthe spirit of enthusiasm which animated their commander, and confidentof success, went on, as his forces in Spain had done, from victory tovictory. They conquered cities, they overran provinces, they defeatedand drove back all the armies which the Carthaginians could bringagainst them, and finally they awakened in the streets and dwellingsof Carthage the same panic and consternation which Hannibal'svictorious progress had produced in Rome. 

The Carthaginians being now, in their turn, reduced to despair, sentembassadors to Scipio to beg for peace, and to ask on what terms hewould grant it and withdraw from the country. Scipio replied that _he_could not make peace. It rested with the Roman senate, whose servanthe was. He specified, however, certain terms which he was willing tohave proposed to the senate, and, if the Carthaginians would agree tothem, he would grant them a _truce_, that is, a temporary suspensionof hostilities, until the answer of the Roman senate could bereturned. 

The Carthaginians agreed to the terms. They were very onerous. TheRomans say that they did not really mean to abide by them, but accededfor the moment in order to gain time to send for Hannibal. They hadgreat confidence in his resources and military power, and thoughtthat, if he were in Africa, he could save them. At the same time, therefore, that they sent their embassadors to Rome with theirpropositions for peace, they dispatched expresses to Hannibal, ordering him to embark his troops as soon as possible, and, abandoningItaly, to hasten home, to save, if it was not already too late, hisnative city from destruction. 

When Hannibal received these messages, he was overwhelmed withdisappointment and sorrow. He spent hours in extreme agitation, sometimes in a moody silence, interrupted now and then by groans ofdespair, and sometimes uttering loud and angry curses, prompted by theexasperation of his feelings. He, however, could not resist. He madethe best of his way to Carthage. The Roman senate, at the same time, instead of deciding on the question of peace or war, which Scipio hadsubmitted to them, referred the question back to him. They sentcommissioners to Scipio, authorizing him to act for them, and todecide himself alone whether the war should be continued or closed, and if to be closed, on what conditions. 

Hannibal raised a large force at Carthage, joining with it suchremains of former armies as had been left after Scipio's battles, andhe went forth at the head of these troops to meet his enemy. Hemarched five days, going, perhaps, seventy-five or one hundred milesfrom Carthage, when he found himself approaching Scipio's camp. Hesent out spies to reconnoiter. The patrols of Scipio's army seizedthese spies and brought them to the general's tent, as they supposed, for execution. Instead of punishing them, Scipio ordered them to beled around his camp, and to be allowed to see every thing theydesired. He then dismissed them, that they might return to Hannibalwith the information they had obtained. 

Of course, the report which they brought in respect to the strengthand resources of Scipio's army was very formidable to Hannibal. Hethought it best to make an attempt to negotiate a peace rather than torisk a battle, and he accordingly sent word to Scipio requesting apersonal interview. Scipio acceded to this request, and a place wasappointed for the meeting between the two encampments. To this spotthe two generals repaired at the proper time, with great pomp andparade, and with many attendants. They were the two greatest generalsof the age in which they lived, having been engaged for fifteen ortwenty years in performing, at the head of vast armies, exploits whichhad filled the world with their fame. Their fields of action had, however, been widely distant, and they met personally now for thefirst time. When introduced into each other's presence, they stood forsome time in silence, gazing upon and examining one another withintense interest and curiosity, but not speaking a word. 

At length, however, the negotiation was opened. Hannibal made Scipioproposals for peace. They were very favorable to the Romans, butScipio was not satisfied with them. He demanded still greatersacrifices than Hannibal was willing to make. The result, after a longand fruitless negotiation, was, that each general returned to hiscamp and prepared for battle. 

In military campaigns, it is generally easy for those who have beenconquering to go on to conquer: so much depends upon the expectationswith which the contending armies go into battle. Scipio and his troopsexpected to conquer. The Carthaginians expected to be beaten. Theresult corresponded. At the close of the day on which the battle wasfought, forty thousand Carthaginians were dead and dying upon theground, as many more were prisoners in the Roman camp, and the rest, in broken masses, were flying from the field in confusion and terror, on all the roads which led to Carthage. Hannibal arrived at the citywith the rest, went to the senate, announced his defeat, and said thathe could do no more. "The fortune which once attended me, " said he, "is lost forever, and nothing is left to us but to make peace with ourenemies on any terms that they may think fit to impose. "

CHAPTER XI. 

HANNIBAL A FUGITIVE AND AN EXILE. 

B. C. 200-182

Hannibal's conquests. --Peaceful pursuits. --The danger of a spirit ofambition and conquest. --Gradual progress of Scipio's victories. --Severeconditions of peace exacted by Scipio. --Debates in the Carthaginiansenate. --Terms of peace complied with. --Surrender of the elephants andships. --Scipio burns the Carthaginian fleet. --Feelings of thespectators. --Scipio sails to Rome. --His reception. --Hannibal's positionand standing at Carthage. --Orders from Rome. --Hannibal'smortification. --Syria and Phoenicia. --King Antiochus. --Hannibal'sintrigues with Antiochus. --Embassy from Rome. --Flight ofHannibal. --Island of Cercina. --Stratagem of Hannibal. --He sails forSyria. --Excitement at Carthage. --Hannibal safe at Ephesus. --Carthaginiandeputies. --The change of fortune. --Hannibal's unconquerable spirit. --Hisnew plans. --Hannibal sends a secret messenger to Carthage. --Theplacards. --Excitement produced by them. --Roman commissioners. --Supposedinterview of Hannibal and Scipio. --Hannibal's opinion of Alexander andPyrrhus. --Anecdotes. --Hannibal's efforts prove vain. --Antiochus agreesto give him up. --Hannibal's treasures. --His plan for securingthem. --Hannibal's unhappy condition. --The potion of poison. --Hannibalfails in his attempt to escape. --He poisons himself. 

Hannibal's life was like an April day. Its brightest glory was in themorning. The setting of his sun was darkened by clouds and showers. Although for fifteen years the Roman people could find no generalcapable of maintaining the field against him, Scipio conquered him atlast, and all his brilliant conquests ended, as Hanno had predicted, only in placing his country in a far worse condition than before. 

In fact, as long as the Carthaginians confined their energies touseful industry, and to the pursuits of commerce and peace, they wereprosperous, and they increased in wealth, and influence, and honorevery year. Their ships went every where, and were every wherewelcome. All the shores of the Mediterranean were visited by theirmerchants, and the comforts and the happiness of many nations andtribes were promoted by the very means which they took to swell theirown riches and fame. All might have gone on so for centuries longer, had not military heroes arisen with appetites for a more piquant sortof glory. Hannibal's father was one of the foremost of these. He beganby conquests in Spain and encroachments on the Roman jurisdiction. Heinculcated the same feelings of ambition and hate in Hannibal's mindwhich burned in his own. For many years, the policy which they ledtheir countrymen to pursue was successful. From being useful andwelcome visitors to all the world, they became the masters and thecurse of a part of it. So long as Hannibal remained superior to anyRoman general that could be brought against him, he went onconquering. But at last Scipio arose, greater than Hannibal. The tidewas then turned, and all the vast conquests of half a century werewrested away by the same violence, bloodshed, and misery with whichthey had been acquired. 

We have described the exploits of Hannibal, in making these conquests, in detail, while those of Scipio, in wresting them away, have beenpassed over very briefly, as this is intended as a history ofHannibal, and not of Scipio. Still Scipio's conquests were made byslow degrees, and they consumed a long period of time. He was butabout eighteen years of age at the battle of Cannæ, soon after whichhis campaigns began, and he was thirty when he was made consul, justbefore his going into Africa. He was thus fifteen or eighteen years intaking down the vast superstructure of power which Hannibal hadraised, working in regions away from Hannibal and Carthage during allthis time, as if leaving the great general and the great city for thelast. He was, however, so successful in what he did, that when, atlength, he advanced to the attack of Carthage, every thing else wasgone. The Carthaginian power had become a mere hollow shell, empty andvain, which required only one great final blow to effect its absolutedemolition. In fact, so far spent and gone were all the Carthaginianresources, that the great city had to summon the great general to itsaid the moment it was threatened, and Scipio destroyed them bothtogether. 

And yet Scipio did not proceed so far as literally and actually todestroy them. He spared Hannibal's life, and he allowed the city tostand; but the terms and conditions of peace which he exacted weresuch as to put an absolute and perpetual end to Carthaginian dominion. By these conditions, the Carthaginian state was allowed to continuefree and independent, and even to retain the government of suchterritories in _Africa_ as they possessed before the war; but alltheir foreign possessions were taken away; and even in respect toAfrica, their jurisdiction was limited and curtailed by very hardrestrictions. Their whole navy was to be given to the Romans exceptten small ships of three banks of oars, which Scipio thought thegovernment would need for the purposes of civil administration. Thesethey were allowed to retain. Scipio did not say what he should do withthe remainder of the fleet: it was to be unconditionally surrenderedto him. Their elephants of war were also to be all given up, and theywere to be bound not to train any more. They were not to appear at allas a military power in any other quarter of the world but Africa, andthey were not to make war in Africa except by previously making knownthe occasion for it to the Roman people, and obtaining theirpermission. They were also to pay to the Romans a very large annualtribute for fifty years. 

There was great distress and perplexity in the Carthaginian councilswhile they were debating these cruel terms. Hannibal was in favor ofaccepting them. Others opposed. They thought it would be better stillto continue the struggle, hopeless as it was, than to submit to termsso ignominious and fatal. 

Hannibal was present at these debates, but he found himself now in avery different position from that which he had been occupying forthirty years as a victorious general at the head of his army. He hadbeen accustomed there to control and direct every thing. In hiscouncils of war, no one spoke but at his invitation, and no opinionwas expressed but such as he was willing to hear. In the Carthaginiansenate, however, he found the case very different. There, opinionswere freely expressed, as in a debate among equals, Hannibal takinghis place among the rest, and counting only as one. And yet the spiritof authority and command which he had been so long accustomed toexercise, lingered still, and made him very impatient and uneasy undercontradiction. In fact, as one of the speakers in the senate wasrising to animadvert upon and oppose Hannibal's views, he undertook topull him down and silence him by force. This proceeding awakenedimmediately such expressions of dissatisfaction and displeasure in theassembly as to show him very clearly that the time for suchdomineering was gone. He had, however, the good sense to express theregret he soon felt at having so far forgotten the duties of his newposition, and to make an ample apology. 

[Illustration: THE BURNING OF THE CARTHAGINIAN FLEET. ]

The Carthaginians decided at length to accede to Scipio's terms ofpeace. The first instalment of the tribute was paid. The elephantsand the ships were surrendered. After a few days, Scipio announcedhis determination not to take the ships away with him, but todestroy them there. Perhaps this was because he thought the shipswould be of little value to the Romans, on account of the difficultyof manning them. Ships, of course, are useless without seamen, andmany nations in modern times, who could easily build a navy, aredebarred from doing it, because their population does not furnishsailors in sufficient numbers to man and navigate it. It wasprobably, in part, on this account that Scipio decided not to takethe Carthaginian ships away, and perhaps he also wanted to show toCarthage and to the world that his object in taking possession ofthe national property of his foes was not to enrich his own countryby plunder, but only to deprive ambitious soldiers of the powerto compromise any longer the peace and happiness of mankind byexpeditions for conquest and power. However this may be, Scipiodetermined to destroy the Carthaginian fleet, and not to conveyit away. 

On a given day, therefore, he ordered all the galleys to be gottogether in the bay opposite to the city of Carthage, and to beburned. There were five hundred of them, so that they constituted alarge fleet, and covered a large expanse of the water. A vastconcourse of people assembled upon the shores to witness the grandconflagration. The emotion which such a spectacle was of itselfcalculated to excite was greatly heightened by the deep but stifledfeelings of resentment and hate which agitated every Carthaginianbreast. The Romans, too, as they gazed upon the scene from theirencampment on the shore, were agitated as well, though with differentemotions. Their faces beamed with an expression of exultation andtriumph as they saw the vast masses of flame and columns of smokeascending from the sea, proclaiming the total and irretrievable ruinof Carthaginian pride and power. 

Having thus fully accomplished his work, Scipio set sail for Rome. AllItaly had been filled with the fame of his exploits in thusdestroying the ascendency of Hannibal. The city of Rome had nownothing more to fear from its great enemy. He was shut up, disarmed, and helpless, in his own native state, and the terror which hispresence in Italy had inspired had passed forever away. The wholepopulation of Rome, remembering the awful scenes of consternation andterror which the city had so often endured, regarded Scipio as a greatdeliverer. They were eager to receive and welcome him on his arrival. When the time came and he approached the city, vast throngs went outto meet him. The authorities formed civic processions to welcome him. They brought crowns, and garlands, and flowers, and hailed hisapproach with loud and prolonged acclamations of triumph and joy. Theygave him the name of Africanus, in honor of his victories. This was anew honor--giving to a conqueror the name of the country that he hadsubdued; it was invented specially as Scipio's reward, the delivererwho had saved the empire from the greatest and most terrible danger bywhich it had ever been assailed. 

Hannibal, though fallen, retained still in Carthage some portion ofhis former power. The glory of his past exploits still invested hischaracter with a sort of halo, which made him an object of generalregard, and he still had great and powerful friends. He was elevatedto high office, and exerted himself to regulate and improve theinternal affairs of the state. In these efforts he was not, however, very successful. The historians say that the objects which he aimed toaccomplish were good, and that the measures for effecting them were, in themselves, judicious; but, accustomed as he was to theauthoritative and arbitrary action of a military commander in camp, hefound it hard to practice that caution and forbearance, and thatdeference for the opinion of others, which are so essential as meansof influencing men in the management of the civil affairs of acommonwealth. He made a great many enemies, who did every thing intheir power, by plots and intrigues, as well as by open hostility, toaccomplish his ruin. 

His pride, too, was extremely mortified and humbled by an occurrencewhich took place very soon after Scipio's return to Rome. There wassome occasion of war with a neighboring African tribe, and Hannibalheaded some forces which were raised in the city for the purpose, andwent out to prosecute it. The Romans, who took care to have agents inCarthage to keep them acquainted with all that occurred, heard ofthis, and sent word to Carthage to warn the Carthaginians that thiswas contrary to the treaty, and could not be allowed. The government, not willing to incur the risk of another visit from Scipio, sentorders to Hannibal to abandon the war and return to the city. Hannibalwas compelled to submit; but after having been accustomed, as he hadbeen, for many years, to bid defiance to all the armies and fleetswhich Roman power could, with their utmost exertion, bring againsthim, it must have been very hard for such a spirit as his to finditself stopped and conquered now by a word. All the force they couldcommand against him, even at the very gates of their own city, wasonce impotent and vain. Now, a mere message and threat, coming acrossthe distant sea, seeks him out in the remote deserts of Africa, and ina moment deprives him of all his power. 

Years passed away, and Hannibal, though compelled outwardly to submitto his fate, was restless and ill at ease. His scheming spirit, spurred on now by the double stimulus of resentment and ambition, wasalways busy, vainly endeavoring to discover some plan by which hemight again renew the struggle with his ancient foe. 

It will be recollected that Carthage was originally a commercialcolony from Tyre, a city on the eastern shores of the MediterraneanSea. The countries of Syria and Phoenicia were in the vicinity ofTyre. They were powerful commercial communities, and they had alwaysretained very friendly relations with the Carthaginian commonwealth. Ships passed continually to and fro, and always, in case of calamitiesor disasters threatening one of these regions, the inhabitantsnaturally looked to the other for refuge and protection, Carthagelooking upon Phoenicia as its mother, and Phoenicia regardingCarthage as her child. Now there was, at this time, a very powerfulmonarch on the throne in Syria and Phoenicia, named Antiochus. Hiscapital was Damascus. He was wealthy and powerful, and was involved insome difficulties with the Romans. Their conquests, graduallyextending eastward, had approached the confines of Antiochus's realms, and the two nations were on the brink of war. 

Things being in this state, the enemies of Hannibal at Carthage sentinformation to the Roman senate that he was negotiating and plottingwith Antiochus to combine the Syrian and Carthaginian forces againstthem, and thus plunge the world into another general war. The Romansaccordingly determined to send an embassage to the Carthaginiangovernment, and to demand that Hannibal should be deposed from hisoffice, and given up to them a prisoner, in order that he might betried on this charge. 

These commissioners came, accordingly, to Carthage, keeping, however, the object of their mission a profound secret, since they knew verywell that, if Hannibal should suspect it, he would make his escapebefore the Carthaginian senate could decide upon the question ofsurrendering him. Hannibal was, however, too wary for them. Hecontrived to learn their object, and immediately resolved on makinghis escape. He knew that his enemies in Carthage were numerous andpowerful, and that the animosity against him was growing stronger andstronger. He did not dare, therefore, to trust to the result of thediscussion in the senate, but determined to fly. 

He had a small castle or tower on the coast, about one hundred andfifty miles southeast of Carthage. He sent there by an express, ordering a vessel to be ready to take him to sea. He also madearrangements to have horsemen ready at one of the gates of the city atnightfall. During the day he appeared freely in the public streets, walking with an unconcerned air, as if his mind was at ease, andgiving to the Roman embassadors, who were watching his movements, theimpression that he was not meditating an escape. Toward the close ofthe day, however, after walking leisurely home, he immediately madepreparations for his journey. As soon as it was dark he went to thegate of the city, mounted the horse which was provided for him, andfled across the country to his castle. Here he found the vessel readywhich he had ordered. He embarked, and put to sea. 

There is a small island called Cercina at a little distance from thecoast. Hannibal reached this island on the same day that he left histower. There was a harbor here, where merchant ships were accustomedto come in. He found several Phoenician vessels in the port, somebound to Carthage. Hannibal's arrival produced a strong sensationhere, and, to account for his appearance among them, he said he wasgoing on an embassy from the Carthaginian government to Tyre. 

He was now afraid that some of these vessels that were about settingsail for Carthage might carry the news back of his having being seenat Cercina, and, to prevent this, he contrived, with hischaracteristic cunning, the following plan. He sent around to all theship-masters in the port, inviting them to a great entertainment whichhe was to give, and asked, at the same time, that they would lend himthe main-sails of their ships, to make a great awning with, to shelterthe guests from the dews of the night. The ship-masters, eager towitness and enjoy the convivial scene which Hannibal's proposalpromised them, accepted the invitation, and ordered their main-sailsto be taken down. Of course, this confined all their vessels to port. In the evening, the company assembled under the vast tent, made by themain-sails, on the shore. Hannibal met them, and remained with themfor a time. In the course of the night, however, when they were all inthe midst of their carousing, he stole away, embarked on board a ship, and set sail, and, before the ship-masters could awake from the deepand prolonged slumbers which followed their wine, and rig theirmain-sails to the masts again, Hannibal was far out of reach on hisway to Syria. 

In the mean time, there was a great excitement produced at Carthageby the news which spread every where over the city, the day after hisdeparture, that he was not to be found. Great crowds assembled beforehis house. Wild and strange rumors circulated in explanation of hisdisappearance, but they were contradictory and impossible, and onlyadded to the universal excitement. This excitement continued until thevessels at last arrived from Cercina, and made the truth known. Hannibal was himself, however, by this time, safe beyond the reach ofall possible pursuit. He was sailing prosperously, so far as outwardcircumstances were concerned, but dejected and wretched in heart, toward Tyre. He landed there in safety, and was kindly received. In afew days he went into the interior, and, after various wanderings, reached Ephesus, where he found Antiochus, the Syrian king. 

As soon as the escape of Hannibal was made known at Carthage, thepeople of the city immediately began to fear that the Romans wouldconsider them responsible for it, and that they should thus incur arenewal of Roman hostility. In order to avert this danger, theyimmediately sent a deputation to Rome, to make known the fact ofHannibal's flight, and to express the regret they felt on account ofit, in hopes thus to save themselves from the displeasure of theirformidable foes. It may at first view seem very ungenerous andungrateful in the Carthaginians to abandon their general in thismanner, in the hour of his misfortune and calamity, and to take partagainst him with enemies whose displeasure he had incurred only intheir service and in executing their will. And this conduct of theCarthaginians would have to be considered as not only ungenerous, butextremely inconsistent, if it had been the same individuals that actedin the two cases. But it was not. The men and the influences which nowopposed Hannibal's projects and plans had opposed them always and fromthe beginning; only, so long as he went on successfully and well, theywere in the minority, and Hannibal's adherents and friends controlledall the public action of the city. But, now that the bitter fruits ofhis ambition and of his totally unjustifiable encroachments on theRoman territories and Roman rights began to be realized, the party ofhis friends was overturned, the power reverted to the hands of thosewho had always opposed him, and in trying to keep him down when he wasonce fallen, their action, whether politically right or wrong, wasconsistent with itself, and can not be considered as at all subjectingthem to the charge of ingratitude or treachery. 

One might have supposed that all Hannibal's hopes and expectations ofever again coping with his great Roman enemy would have been noweffectually and finally destroyed, and that henceforth he would havegiven up his active hostility and would have contented himself withseeking some refuge where he could spend the remainder of his days inpeace, satisfied with securing, after such dangers and escapes, hisown personal protection from the vengeance of his enemies. But it ishard to quell and subdue such indomitable perseverance and energy ashis. He was very little inclined yet to submit to his fate. As soon ashe found himself at the court of Antiochus, he began to form new plansfor making war against Rome. He proposed to the Syrian monarch toraise a naval force and put it under his charge. He said that ifAntiochus would give him a hundred ships and ten or twelve thousandmen, he would take the command of the expedition in person, and he didnot doubt that he should be able to recover his lost ground, and oncemore humble his ancient and formidable enemy. He would go first, hesaid, with his force to Carthage, to get the co-operation and aid ofhis countrymen there in his new plans. Then he would make a descentupon Italy, and he had no doubt that he should soon regain theascendency there which he had formerly held. 

Hannibal's design of going first to Carthage with his Syrian army wasdoubtless induced by his desire to put down the party of his enemiesthere, and to restore the power to his adherents and partisans. Inorder to prepare the way the more effectually for this, he sent asecret messenger to Carthage, while his negotiations with Antiochuswere going on, to make known to his friends there the new hopes whichhe began to cherish, and the new designs which he had formed. He knewthat his enemies in Carthage would be watching very carefully for anysuch communication; he therefore wrote no letters, and committednothing to paper which, on being discovered, might betray him. Heexplained, however, all his plans very fully to his messenger, andgave him minute and careful instructions as to his manner ofcommunicating them. 

The Carthaginian authorities were indeed watching very vigilantly, andintelligence was brought to them, by their spies, of the arrival ofthis stranger. They immediately took measures for arresting him. Themessenger, who was himself as vigilant as they, got intelligence ofthis in his secret lurking-place in the city, and determinedimmediately to fly. He, however, first prepared some papers andplacards, which he posted up in public places, in which he proclaimedthat Hannibal was far from considering himself finally conquered; thathe was, on the contrary, forming new plans for putting down hisenemies in Carthage, resuming his former ascendency there, andcarrying fire and sword again into the Roman territories; and, in themean time, he urged the friends of Hannibal in Carthage to remainfaithful and true to his cause. 

The messenger, after posting his placards, fled from the city in thenight, and went back to Hannibal. Of course, the occurrence producedconsiderable excitement in the city. It aroused the anger andresentment of Hannibal's enemies, and awakened new encouragement andhope in the hearts of his friends. Further than this, however, it ledto no immediate results. The power of the party which was opposed toHannibal was too firmly established at Carthage to be very easilyshaken. They sent information to Rome of the coming of Hannibal'semissary to Carthage, and of the result of his mission, and then everything went on as before. 

In the mean time, the Romans, when they learned where Hannibal hadgone, sent two or three commissioners there to confer with the Syriangovernment in respect to their intentions and plans, and watch themovements of Hannibal. It was said that Scipio himself was joined tothis embassy, and that he actually met Hannibal at Ephesus, and hadseveral personal interviews and conversations with him there. Someancient historian gives a particular account of one of theseinterviews, in which the conversation turned, as it naturally would dobetween two such distinguished commanders, on military greatness andglory. Scipio asked Hannibal whom he considered the greatest militaryhero that had ever lived. Hannibal gave the palm to Alexander theGreat, because he had penetrated, with comparatively a very smallnumber of Macedonian troops, into such remote regions, conquered suchvast armies, and brought so boundless an empire under his sway. Scipiothen asked him who he was inclined to place next to Alexander. He saidPyrrhus. Pyrrhus was a Grecian, who crossed the Adriatic Sea, andmade war, with great success, against the Romans. Hannibal said thathe gave the second rank to Pyrrhus because he systematized andperfected the art of war, and also because he had the power ofawakening a feeling of personal attachment to himself on the part ofall his soldiers, and even of the inhabitants of the countries that heconquered, beyond any other general that ever lived. Scipio then askedHannibal who came next in order, and he replied that he should givethe third rank to himself. "And if, " added he, "I had conqueredScipio, I should consider myself as standing above Alexander, Pyrrhus, and all the generals that the world ever produced. "

Various other anecdotes are related of Hannibal during the time of hisfirst appearance in Syria, all indicating the very high degree ofestimation in which he was held, and the curiosity and interest thatwere every where felt to see him. On one occasion, it happened that avain and self-conceited orator, who knew little of war but from hisown theoretic speculations, was haranguing an assembly where Hannibalwas present, being greatly pleased with the opportunity of displayinghis powers before so distinguished an auditor. When the discourse wasfinished, they asked Hannibal what he thought of it. "I have heard, "said he, in reply, "many old dotards in the course of my life, butthis is, verily, the greatest dotard of them all. "

Hannibal failed, notwithstanding all his perseverance, in obtainingthe means to attack the Romans again. He was unwearied in his efforts, but, though the king sometimes encouraged his hopes, nothing was everdone. He remained in this part of the world for ten years, strivingcontinually to accomplish his aims, but every year he found himselffarther from the attainment of them than ever. The hour of his goodfortune and of his prosperity were obviously gone. His plans allfailed, his influence declined, his name and renown were fast passingaway. At last, after long and fruitless contests with the Romans, Antiochus made a treaty of peace with them, and, among the articles ofthis treaty, was one agreeing to give up Hannibal into their power. 

Hannibal resolved to fly. The place of refuge which he chose was theisland of Crete. He found that he could not long remain here. He had, however, brought with him a large amount of treasure, and when aboutleaving Crete again, he was uneasy about this treasure, as he hadsome reason to fear that the Cretans were intending to seize it. Hemust contrive, then, some stratagem to enable him to get this goldaway. The plan he adopted was this:

He filled a number of earthen jars with lead, covering the tops ofthem with gold and silver. These he carried, with great appearance ofcaution and solicitude, to the Temple of Diana, a very sacred edifice, and deposited them there, under very special guardianship of theCretans, to whom, as he said, he intrusted all his treasures. Theyreceived their false deposit with many promises to keep it safely, andthen Hannibal went away with his real gold cast in the center ofhollow statues of brass, which he carried with him, without suspicion, as objects of art of very little value. 

Hannibal fled from kingdom to kingdom, and from province to province, until life became a miserable burden. The determined hostility of theRoman senate followed him every where, harassing him with continualanxiety and fear, and destroying all hope of comfort and peace. Hismind was a prey to bitter recollections of the past, and still moredreadful forebodings for the future. He had spent all the morning ofhis life in inflicting the most terrible injuries on the objects ofhis implacable animosity and hate, although they had never injuredhim, and now, in the evening of his days, it became his destiny tofeel the pressure of the same terror and suffering inflicted upon_him_. The hostility which he had to fear was equally merciless withthat which he had exercised; perhaps it was made still more intense bybeing mingled with what they who felt it probably considered a justresentment and revenge. 

When at length Hannibal found that the Romans were hemming him in moreand more closely, and that the danger increased of his falling at lastinto their power, he had a potion of poison prepared, and kept italways in readiness, determined to die by his own hand rather than tosubmit to be given up to his enemies. The time for taking the poisonat last arrived. The wretched fugitive was then in Bithynia, a kingdomof Asia Minor. The King of Bithynia sheltered him for a time, but atlength agreed to give him up to the Romans. Hannibal learning this, prepared for flight. But he found, on attempting his escape, that allthe modes of exit from the palace which he occupied, even the secretones which he had expressly contrived to aid his flight, were takenpossession of and guarded. Escape was, therefore, no longer possible, and Hannibal went to his apartment and sent for the poison. He was nowan old man, nearly seventy years of age, and he was worn down andexhausted by his protracted anxieties and sufferings. He was glad todie. He drank the poison, and in a few hours ceased to breathe. 

CHAPTER XII. 

THE DESTRUCTION OF CARTHAGE. 

B. C. 146-145

Destruction. --The third Punic war. --Chronological table of thePunic wars. --Character of the Punic wars. --Intervals betweenthem. --Animosities and dissensions. --Numidia. --Numidianhorsemen. --Masinissa. --Parties at Rome and Carthage. --Theirdifferences. --Masinissa prepares for war. --Hasdrubal. --Carthagedeclares war. --Parallel between Hannibal and Hasdrubal. --Battle withMasinissa. --Defeat of the Carthaginians. --The younger Scipio. --Aspectator of the battle. --Negotiations for peace. --Scipiomade umpire. --Hasdrubal surrenders. --Terms imposed byMasinissa. --Carthaginian embassy to Rome. --Their missionfruitless. --Another embassy. --The Romans declare war. --Negotiationsfor peace. --The Romans demand hostages. --Cruelty of the hostagesystem. --Return of the embassadors. --Consternation in Carthage. --Itsdeplorable condition. --Selecting the hostages. --The hour ofparting. --The parting scene. --Grief and despair. --Advance of theRoman army. --Surrender of Utica. --Demands of the Romans. --TheCarthaginians comply. --The Romans demand all the munitions ofwar. --Their great number. --Brutal demands of the Romans. --Carthageto be destroyed. --Desperation of the people. --Preparations fordefense. --Hasdrubal. --Destruction of the Roman fleet. --Horrorsof the siege. --Heroic valor of the Carthaginians. --Batteringengines. --Attempt to destroy them. --The city stormed. --A desperatestruggle. --The people retreat to the citadel. --The cityfired. --Hasdrubal's wife. --Hasdrubal surrenders. --The citadelfired. --Resentment and despair of Hasdrubal's wife. --Carthagedestroyed. --Its present condition. --War and commerce. --Antagonisticprinciples. --Hannibal's greatness as a military hero. 

The consequences of Hannibal's reckless ambition, and of his whollyunjustifiable aggression on Roman rights to gratify it, did not endwith his own personal ruin. The flame which he had kindled continuedto burn until at last it accomplished the entire and irretrievabledestruction of Carthage. This was effected in a third and final warbetween the Carthaginians and the Romans, which is known in history asthe third Punic war. With a narrative of the events of this war, ending, as it did, in the total destruction of the city, we shallclose this history of Hannibal. 

It will be recollected that the war which Hannibal himself wagedagainst Rome was the second in the series, the contest in whichRegulus figured so prominently having been the first. The one whosehistory is now to be given is the third. The reader will distinctlyunderstand the chronological relations of these contests by thefollowing table:

 TABLE. 

 +------+--------------------------------------+-------------+ | Date | | | | B. C. | Events. | Punic Wars. | +------+--------------------------------------+-------------+ | | | | | 264 | War commenced in Sicily } | | | | } | | | 262 | Naval battles in the Mediterranean } | I. | | | } | | | 249 | Regulus sent prisoner to Rome } | 24 years. | | | } | | | 241 | Peace concluded } | | | | | | | | | | | | Peace for 24 years. | | | | | | | | | | | 217 | Hannibal attacks Saguntum } | | | | } | | | 218 | Crosses the Alps } | II. | | | } | | | 216 | Battle of Cannæ } | 17 years. | | | } | | | 205 | Is conquered by Scipio } | | | | } | | | 200 | Peace concluded } | | | | | | | | | | | | Peace for 52 years | | | | | | | | | | | 148 | War declared } | III. | | | } | | | 145 | Carthage destroyed } | 3 years. | +------+--------------------------------------+-------------+

These three Punic wars extended, as the table shows, over a period ofmore than a hundred years. Each successive contest in the series wasshorter, but more violent and desperate than its predecessor, whilethe intervals of peace were longer. Thus the first Punic war continuedfor twenty-four years, the second about seventeen, and the third onlythree or four. The interval, too, between the first and second wastwenty-four years, while between the second and third there was a sortof peace for about fifty years. These differences were caused, indeed, in some degree, by the accidental circumstances on which thesuccessive ruptures depended, but they were not entirely owing to thatcause. The longer these belligerent relations between the twocountries continued, and the more they both experienced the awfuleffects and consequences of their quarrels, the less disposed theywere to renew such dreadful struggles, and yet, when they did renewthem they engaged in them with redoubled energy of determination andfresh intensity of hate. Thus the wars followed each other at greaterintervals, but the conflicts, when they came, though shorter induration, were more and more desperate and merciless in character. 

We have said that, after the close of the second Punic war, there wasa sort of peace for about fifty years. Of course, during this time, one generation after another of public men arose, both in Rome andCarthage, each successive group, on both sides, inheriting thesuppressed animosity and hatred which had been cherished by theirpredecessors. Of course, as long as Hannibal had lived, and hadcontinued his plots and schemes in Syria, he was the means of keepingup a continual irritation among the people of Rome against theCarthaginian name. It is true that the government at Carthagedisavowed his acts, and professed to be wholly opposed to his designs;but then it was, of course, very well known at Rome that this was onlybecause they thought he was not able to execute them. They had noconfidence whatever in Carthaginian faith or honesty, and, of course, there could be no real harmony or stable peace. 

There arose gradually, also, another source of dissension. Byreferring to the map, the reader will perceive that there lies, to thewestward of Carthage, a country called Numidia. This country was ahundred miles or more in breadth, and extended back several hundredmiles into the interior. It was a very rich and fertile region, andcontained many powerful and wealthy cities. The inhabitants werewarlike, too, and were particularly celebrated for their cavalry. Theancient historians say that they used to ride their horses into thefield without saddles, and often without bridles, guiding andcontrolling them by their voices, and keeping their seats securely bythe exercise of great personal strength and consummate skill. TheseNumidian horsemen are often alluded to in the narratives of Hannibal'scampaigns, and, in fact, in all the military histories of the times. 

Among the kings who reigned in Numidia was one who had taken sideswith the Romans in the second Punic war. His name was Masinissa. Hebecame involved in some struggle for power with a neighboring monarchnamed Syphax, and while he, that is, Masinissa, had allied himself tothe Romans, Syphax had joined the Carthaginians, each chieftainhoping, by this means, to gain assistance from his allies inconquering the other. Masinissa's patrons proved to be the strongest, and at the end of the second Punic war, when the conditions of peacewere made, Masinissa's dominions were enlarged, and the undisturbedpossession of them confirmed to him, the Carthaginians being bound byexpress stipulations not to molest him in any way. 

In commonwealths like those of Rome and Carthage, there will always betwo great parties struggling against each other for the possession ofpower. Each wishes to avail itself of every opportunity to oppose andthwart the other, and they consequently almost always take differentsides in all the great questions of public policy that arise. Therewere two such parties at Rome, and they disagreed in respect to thecourse which should be pursued in regard to Carthage, one beinggenerally in favor of peace, the other perpetually calling for war. Inthe same manner there was at Carthage a similar dissension, the oneside in the contest being desirous to propitiate the Romans and avoidcollisions with them, while the other party were very restless anduneasy under the pressure of the Roman power upon them, and wereendeavoring continually to foment feelings of hostility against theirancient enemies, as if they wished that war should break out again. The latter party were not strong enough to bring the Carthaginianstate into an open rupture with Rome itself, but they succeeded atlast in getting their government involved in a dispute with Masinissa, and in leading out an army to give him battle. 

Fifty years had passed away, as has already been remarked, since theclose of Hannibal's war. During this time, Scipio--that is, the Scipiowho conquered Hannibal--had disappeared from the stage. Masinissahimself was very far advanced in life, being over eighty years of age. He, however, still retained the strength and energy which hadcharacterized him in his prime. He drew together an immense army, andmounting, like his soldiers, bare-back upon his horse, he rode fromrank to rank, gave the necessary commands, and matured thearrangements for battle. 

The name of the Carthaginian general on this occasion was Hasdrubal. This was a very common name at Carthage, especially among the friendsand family of Hannibal. The bearer of it, in this case, may possiblyhave received it from his parents in commemoration of the brother ofHannibal, who lost his head in descending into Italy from the Alps, inasmuch as during the fifty years of peace which had elapsed, therewas ample time for a child born after that event to grow up to fullmaturity. At any rate, the new Hasdrubal inherited the inveteratehatred to Rome which characterized his namesake, and he and his partyhad contrived to gain a temporary ascendency in Carthage, and theyavailed themselves of their brief possession of power to renew, indirectly at least, the contest with Rome. They sent the rivalleaders into banishment, raised an army, and Hasdrubal himself takingthe command of it, they went forth in great force to encounterMasinissa. 

It was in a way very similar to this that Hannibal had commenced hiswar with Rome, by seeking first a quarrel with a Roman ally. Hannibal, it is true, had commenced his aggressions at Saguntum, in Spain. Hasdrubal begins in Numidia, in Africa, but, with the exception of thedifference of geographical locality, all seems the same, and Hasdrubalvery probably supposed that he was about to enter himself upon thesame glorious career which had immortalized his great ancestor's name. 

There was another analogy between the two cases, viz. , that bothHannibal and Hasdrubal had strong parties opposed to them in Carthagein the incipient stages of their undertakings. In the presentinstance, the opposition had been violently suppressed, and theleaders of it sent into banishment; but still the elements remained, ready, in case of any disaster to Hasdrubal's arms, or any otheroccurrence tending to diminish his power, to rise at once and put himdown. Hasdrubal had therefore a double enemy to contend against: onebefore him, on the battle-field, and the other, perhaps still moreformidable, in the city behind him. 

The parallel, however, ends here. Hannibal conquered at Saguntum, butHasdrubal was entirely defeated in the battle in Numidia. The battlewas fought long and desperately on both sides, but the Carthaginianswere obliged to yield, and they retreated at length in confusion toseek shelter in their camp. The battle was witnessed by a Romanofficer who stood upon a neighboring hill, and looked down upon thescene with intense interest all the day. It was Scipio--the youngerScipio--who became afterward the principal actor in the terriblescenes which were enacted in the war which followed. He was then adistinguished officer in the Roman army, and was on duty in Spain. Hiscommanding general there had sent him to Africa to procure someelephants from Masinissa for the use of the army. He came to Numidia, accordingly, for this purpose, and as the battle between Masinissa andHasdrubal came on while he was there, he remained to witness it. 

This second Scipio was not, by blood, any relative of the other, buthe had been adopted by the elder Scipio's son, and thus received hisname; so that he was, by adoption, a grandson. He was, even at thistime, a man of high consideration among all who knew him, for hisgreat energy and efficiency of character, as well as for his soundjudgment and practical good sense. He occupied a very singularposition at the time of this battle, such as very few great commandershave ever been placed in; for, as he himself was attached to a Romanarmy in Spain, having been sent merely as a military messenger toNumidia, he was a neutral in this contest, and could not, properly, take part on either side. He had, accordingly, only to take his placeupon the hill, and look down upon the awful scene as upon a spectaclearranged for his special gratification. He speaks of it as if he werehighly gratified with the opportunity he enjoyed, saying that only twosuch cases had ever occurred before, where a general could look down, in such a way, upon a great battle-field, and witness the wholeprogress of the fight, himself a cool and disinterested spectator. Hewas greatly excited by the scene and he speaks particularly of theappearance of the veteran Masinissa, then eighty-four years old, whorode all day from rank to rank, on a wild and impetuous charger, without a saddle, to give his orders to his men, and to encourage andanimate them by his voice and his example. 

Hasdrubal retreated with his forces to his camp as soon as the battlewas over, and intrenched himself there, while Masinissa advanced withhis army, surrounded the encampment, and hemmed the imprisonedfugitives in. Finding himself in extreme and imminent danger, Hasdrubal sent to Masinissa to open negotiations for peace, and heproposed that Scipio should act as a sort of umpire or mediatorbetween the two parties, to arrange the terms. Scipio was not likelyto be a very impartial umpire; but still, his interposition wouldafford him, as Hasdrubal thought, some protection against anyexcessive and extreme exorbitancy on the part of his conqueror. Theplan, however, did not succeed. Even Scipio's terms were found byHasdrubal to be inadmissible. He required that the Carthaginiansshould accord to Masinissa a certain extension of territory. Hasdrubalwas willing to assent to this. They were to pay him, also, a large sumof money. He agreed, also to this. They were, moreover, to allowHasdrubal's banished opponents to return to Carthage. This, by puttingthe party opposed to Hasdrubal once more into power in Carthage, wouldhave been followed by his own fall and ruin; he could not consent toit. He remained, therefore, shut up in his camp, and Scipio, giving upthe hope of effecting an accommodation, took the elephants which hadbeen provided for him, and returned across the Mediterranean to Spain. 

Soon after this, Hasdrubal's army, worn out with hunger and misery intheir camp, compelled him to surrender on Masinissa's own terms. Themen were allowed to go free, but most of them perished on the way toCarthage. Hasdrubal himself succeeded in reaching some place ofsafety, but the influence of his party was destroyed by the disastrousresult of his enterprise, and his exiled enemies being recalled inaccordance with the treaty of surrender, the opposing party wereimmediately restored to power. 

Under these new councils, the first measure of the Carthaginians wasto impeach Hasdrubal on a charge of treason, for having involved hiscountry in these difficulties, and the next was to send a solemnembassy to Rome, to acknowledge the fault of which their nation hadbeen guilty, to offer to surrender Hasdrubal into their hands, as theprincipal author of the deed, and to ask what further satisfaction theRomans demanded. 

In the mean time, before these messengers arrived, the Romans had beendeliberating what to do. The strongest party were in favor of urgingon the quarrel with Carthage and declaring war. They had not, however, come to any positive decision. They received the deputation, therefore, very coolly, and made them no direct reply. As to thesatisfaction which the Carthaginians ought to render to the Romans forhaving made war upon their ally contrary to the solemn covenants ofthe treaty, they said that that was a question for the Carthaginiansthemselves to consider. They had nothing at present to say upon thesubject. The deputies returned to Carthage with this reply, which, ofcourse, produced great uneasiness and anxiety. 

The Carthaginians were more and more desirous now to do every thing intheir power to avert the threatened danger of Roman hostility. Theysent a new embassy to Rome, with still more humble professions thanbefore. The embassy set sail from Carthage with very little hope, however, of accomplishing the object of their mission. They wereauthorized, nevertheless, to make the most unlimited concessions, andto submit to any conditions whatever to avert the calamity of anotherwar. 

But the Romans had been furnished with a pretext for commencinghostilities again, and there was a very strong party among them nowwho were determined to avail themselves of this opportunity toextinguish entirely the Carthaginian power. War had, accordingly, beendeclared by the Roman senate very soon after the first embassy hadreturned, a fleet and army had been raised and equipped, and theexpedition had sailed. When, therefore, the embassy arrived in Rome, they found that the war, which it was the object of their mission toavert, had been declared. 

The Romans, however, gave them audience. The embassadors expressedtheir willingness to submit to any terms that the senate might proposefor arresting the war. The senate replied that they were willing tomake a treaty with the Carthaginians, on condition that the latterwere to surrender themselves entirely to the Roman power, and bindthemselves to obey such orders as the consuls, on their arrival inAfrica with the army, should issue; the Romans, on their part, guarantying that they should continue in the enjoyment of theirliberty, of their territorial possessions, and of their laws. Asproof, however, of the Carthaginian honesty of purpose in making thetreaty, and security for their future submission, they were requiredto give up to the Romans three hundred hostages. These hostages wereto be young persons from the first families in Carthage, the sons ofthe men who were most prominent in society there, and whose influencemight be supposed to control the action of the nation. 

The embassadors could not but consider these as very onerous terms. They did not know what orders the consuls would give them on theirarrival in Africa, and they were required to put the commonwealthwholly into their power. Besides, in the guarantee which the Romansoffered them, their _territories_ and their _laws_ were to beprotected, but nothing was said of their cities, their ships, or theirarms and munitions of war. The agreement there, if executed, would putthe Carthaginian commonwealth wholly at the mercy of their masters, inrespect to all those things which were in those days most valuable toa nation as elements of power. Still, the embassadors had beeninstructed to make peace with the Romans on any terms, and theyaccordingly acceded to these, though with great reluctance. They wereespecially averse to the agreement in respect to the hostages. 

This system, which prevailed universally in ancient times, of havingthe government of one nation surrender the children of the mostdistinguished citizens to that of another, as security for thefulfillment of its treaty stipulations, was a very cruel hardship tothose who had to suffer the separation; but it would seem that therewas no other security strong enough to hold such lawless powers asgovernments were in those days, to their word. Stern and rough as themen of those warlike nations often were, mothers were the same then asnow, and they suffered quite as keenly in seeing their children sentaway from them, to pine in a foreign land, in hopeless exile, for manyyears; in danger, too, continually, of the most cruel treatment, andeven of death itself, to revenge some alleged governmental wrong. 

Of course, the embassadors knew, when they returned to Carthage withthese terms, that they were bringing heavy tidings. The news, in fact, when it came, threw the community into the most extreme distress. Itis said that the whole city was filled with cries and lamentations. The mothers, who felt that they were about to be bereaved, beat theirbreasts, and tore their hair, and manifested by every other sign theirextreme and unmitigated woe. They begged and entreated their husbandsand fathers not to consent to such cruel and intolerable conditions. They could not, and they would not give up their children. 

The husbands and the fathers, however, felt compelled to resist allthese entreaties. They could not now undertake to resist the Romanwill. Their army had been well-nigh destroyed in the battle withMasinissa; their city was consequently defenseless, and the Romanfleet had already reached its African port, and the troops werelanded. There was no possible way, it appeared, of saving themselvesand their city from absolute destruction, but entire submission to theterms which their stern conquerors had imposed upon them. 

The hostages were required to be sent, within thirty days, to theisland of Sicily, to a port on the western extremity of the island, called Lilybæum. Lilybæum was the port in Sicily nearest to Carthage, being perhaps at a distance of a hundred miles across the waters ofthe Mediterranean Sea. A Roman escort was to be ready to receive themthere and conduct them to Rome. Although thirty days were allowed tothe Carthaginians to select and send forward the hostages, theydetermined not to avail themselves of this offered delay, but to sendthe unhappy children forward at once, that they might testify to theRoman senate, by this their promptness, that they were very earnestlydesirous to propitiate their favor. 

The children were accordingly designated, one from each of the leadingfamilies in the city, and three hundred in all. The reader mustimagine the heart-rending scenes of suffering which must havedesolated these three hundred families and homes, when the stern andinexorable edict came to each of them that one loved member of thehousehold must be selected to go. And when, at last, the hour arrivedfor their departure, and they assembled upon the pier, the picture wasone of intense and unmingled suffering. The poor exiles stoodbewildered with terror and grief, about to part with all that theyever held dear--their parents, their brothers and sisters, and theirnative land--to go they knew not whither, under the care ofiron-hearted soldiers, who seemed to know no feelings of tenderness orcompassion for their woes. Their disconsolate mothers wept and groanedaloud, clasping the loved ones who were about to be torn forever fromthem in their arms, in a delirium of maternal affection andirrepressible grief; their brothers and sisters, and their youthfulfriends stood by, some almost frantic with emotions which they did notattempt to suppress, others mute and motionless in their sorrow, shedding bitter tears of anguish, or gazing wildly on the scene withlooks of despair; while the fathers, whose stern duty it was to passthrough this scene unmoved, walked to and fro restlessly, in deep butsilent distress, spoke in broken and incoherent words to one another, and finally aided, by a mixture of persuasion and gentle force, indrawing the children away from their mothers' arms, and getting themon board the vessels which were to convey them away. The vessels madesail, and passed off slowly from the shore. The mothers watched themtill they could no longer be seen, and then returned, disconsolate andwretched, to their homes; and then the grief and agitation of thisparting scene was succeeded by the anxious suspense which nowpervaded the whole city to learn what new dangers and indignitiesthey were to suffer from the approaching Roman army, which they knewmust now be well on its way. 

The Roman army landed at Utica. Utica was a large city to the north ofCarthage, not far from it, and upon the same bay. When the people ofUtica found that another serious collision was to take place betweenRome and Carthage, they had foreseen what would probably be the end ofthe contest, and they had decided that, in order to save themselvesfrom the ruin which was plainly impending over the sister city, theymust abandon her to her fate, and make common cause with Rome. Theyhad, accordingly, sent deputies to the Roman senate, offering tosurrender Utica to their power. The Romans had accepted thesubmission, and had made this city, in consequence, the port ofdebarkation for their army. 

As soon as the news arrived at Carthage that the Roman army had landedat Utica, the people sent deputies to inquire what were the orders ofthe consuls, for it will be recollected they had bound themselves bythe treaty to obey the orders which the consuls were to bring. Theyfound, when they arrived there, that the bay was covered with theRoman shipping. There were fifty vessels of war, of three banks ofoars each, and a vast number of transports besides. There was, too, inthe camp upon the shore, a force of eighty thousand foot soldiers andfour thousand horse, all armed and equipped in the most perfectmanner. 

The deputies were convinced that this was a force which it was in vainfor their countrymen to think of resisting. They asked, trembling, forthe consuls' orders. The consuls informed them that the orders of theRoman senate were, first, that the Carthaginians should furnish themwith a supply of corn for the subsistence of their troops. Thedeputies went back to Carthage with the demand. 

The Carthaginians resolved to comply. They were bound by their treatyand by the hostages they had given, as well as intimidated by thepresence of the Roman force. They furnished the corn. 

The consuls, soon after this, made another demand of theCarthaginians. It was, that they should surrender to them all theirvessels of war. They were more unwilling to comply with thisrequisition than with the other; but they assented at last. They hopedthat the demands of their enemies would stop here, and that, satisfied with having weakened them thus far, they would go away andleave them; they could then build new ships again when better timesshould return. 

But the Romans were not satisfied yet. They sent a third order, thatthe Carthaginians should deliver up all their arms, military stores, and warlike machines of every kind, by sending them into the Romancamp. The Carthaginians were rendered almost desperate by thisrequisition. Many were determined that they would not submit to it, but would resist at all hazards. Others despaired of all possibilityof resisting now, and gave up all as lost; while the three hundredfamilies from which the hostages had gone, trembled for the safety ofthe captive children, and urged compliance with the demand. Theadvocates for submission finally gained the day. The arms werecollected, and carried in an immensely long train of wagons to theRoman camp. There were two hundred thousand complete suits of armor, with darts and javelins without number, and two thousand militaryengines for hurling beams of wood and stones. Thus Carthage wasdisarmed. 

All these demands, however unreasonable and cruel as theCarthaginians deemed them, were only preliminary to the great finaldetermination, the announcement of which the consuls had reserved forthe end. When the arms had all been delivered, the consuls announcedto their now defenseless victims that the Roman senate had come to thedetermination that Carthage was to be destroyed. They gave orders, accordingly, that the inhabitants should all leave the city, which, assoon as it should be thus vacated, was to be burned. They might takewith them such property as they could carry; and they were at libertyto build, in lieu of this their fortified sea-port, an inland town, not less than ten miles' distance from the sea, only it must have nowalls or fortifications of any kind. As soon as the inhabitants weregone, Carthage, the consuls said, was to be destroyed. 

The announcement of this entirely unparalleled and intolerablerequisition threw the whole city into a phrensy of desperation. Theycould not, and would not submit to this. The entreaties andremonstrances of the friends of the hostages were all silenced oroverborne in the burst of indignation and anger which arose from thewhole city. The gates were closed. The pavements of the streets weretorn up, and buildings demolished to obtain stones, which werecarried up upon the ramparts to serve instead of weapons. The slaveswere all liberated, and stationed on the walls to aid in the defense. Every body that could work at a forge was employed in fabricatingswords, spear-heads, pikes, and such other weapons as could be formedwith the greatest facility and dispatch. They used all the iron andbrass that could be obtained, and then melted down vases and statuesof the precious metals, and tipped their spears with an inferiorpointing of silver and gold. In the same manner, when the supplies offlax and hempen twine for cordage for their bows failed, the beautifulsisters and mothers of the hostages cut off their long hair, andtwisted and braided it into cords to be used as bow-strings forpropelling the arrows which their husbands and brothers made. In aword, the wretched Carthaginians had been pushed beyond the last limitof human endurance, and had aroused themselves to a hopelessresistance in a sort of phrensy of despair. 

The reader will recollect that, after the battle with Masinissa, Hasdrubal lost all his influence in Carthage, and was, to allappearance, hopelessly ruined. He had not, however, then given up thestruggle. He had contrived to assemble the remnant of his army in theneighborhood of Carthage. His forces had been gradually increasingduring these transactions, as those who were opposed to theseconcessions to the Romans naturally gathered around him. He was now inhis camp, not far from the city, at the head of twenty thousand men. Finding themselves in so desperate an emergency, the Carthaginianssent to him to come to their succor. He very gladly obeyed thesummons. He sent around to all the territories still subject toCarthage, and gathered fresh troops, and collected supplies of armsand of food. He advanced to the relief of the city. He compelled theRomans, who were equally astonished at the resistance they met withfrom within the walls, and at this formidable onset from without, toretire a little, and intrench themselves in their camp, in order tosecure their own safety. He sent supplies of food into the city. Healso contrived to fit up, secretly, a great many fire-ships in theharbor, and, setting them in flames, let them drift down upon theRoman fleet, which was anchored in supposed security in the bay. Theplan was so skillfully managed that the Roman ships were almost alldestroyed. Thus the face of affairs was changed. The Romans foundthemselves disappointed for the present of their prey. They confinedthemselves to their encampment, and sent home to the Roman senate fornew re-enforcements and supplies. 

In a word, the Romans found that, instead of having only to effect, unresisted, the simple destruction of a city, they were involved inwhat would, perhaps, prove a serious and a protracted war. The wardid, in fact, continue for two or three years--a horrible war, almostof extermination, on both sides. Scipio came with the Roman army, atfirst as a subordinate officer; but his bravery, his sagacity, and thesuccess of some of his almost romantic exploits, soon made him anobject of universal regard. At one time, a detachment of the army, which he succeeded in releasing from a situation of great peril inwhich they had been placed, testified their gratitude by platting acrown of _grass_, and placing it upon his brow with great ceremony andloud acclamations. 

The Carthaginians did every thing in the prosecution of this war thatthe most desperate valor could do; but Scipio's cool, steady, andwell-calculated plans made irresistible progress, and hemmed them inat last, within narrower and narrower limits, by a steadily-increasingpressure, from which they found it impossible to break away. 

Scipio had erected a sort of mole or pier upon the water near thecity, on which he had erected many large and powerful engines toassault the walls. One night a large company of Carthaginians tooktorches, not lighted, in their hands, together with some sort ofapparatus for striking fire, and partly by wading and partly byswimming, they made their way through the water of the harbor towardthese machines. When they were sufficiently near, they struck theirlights and set their torches on fire. The Roman soldiers who had beenstationed to guard the machines were seized with terror at seeing allthese flashing fires burst out suddenly over the surface of the water, and fled in dismay. The Carthaginians set the abandoned engines onfire, and then, throwing their now useless torches into the flames, plunged into the water again, and swam back in safety. But all thisdesperate bravery did very little good. Scipio quietly repaired theengines, and the siege went on as before. 

But we can not describe in detail all the particulars of thisprotracted and terrible struggle. We must pass on to the closingscene, which as related by the historians of the day, is an almostincredible series of horrors. After an immense number had been killedin the assaults which had been made upon the city, besides thethousands and thousands which had died of famine, and of the exposuresand hardships incident to such a siege, the army of Scipio succeededin breaking their way through the gates, and gaining admission to thecity. Some of the inhabitants were now disposed to contend no longer, but to cast themselves at the mercy of the conqueror. Others, furiousin their despair, were determined to fight to the last, not willing togive up the pleasure of killing all they could of their hated enemies, even to save their lives. They fought, therefore, from street tostreet, retreating gradually as the Romans advanced, till they foundrefuge in the citadel. One band of Scipio's soldiers mounted to thetops of the houses, the roofs being flat, and fought their way there, while another column advanced in the same manner in the streets below. No imagination can conceive the uproar and din of such an assault upona populous city--a horrid mingling of the vociferated commands of theofficers, and of the shouts of the advancing and victoriousassailants, with the screams of terror from affrighted women andchildren, and dreadful groans and imprecations from men dying maddenedwith unsatisfied revenge, and biting the dust in an agony of pain. 

The more determined of the combatants, with Hasdrubal at their head, took possession of the citadel, which was a quarter of the citysituated upon an eminence, and strongly fortified. Scipio advanced tothe walls of this fortification, and set that part of the city on firewhich lay nearest to it. The fire burned for six days, and opened alarge area, which afforded the Roman troops room to act. When thetroops were brought up to the area thus left vacant by the fire, andthe people within the citadel saw that their condition was hopeless, there arose, as there always does in such cases, the desperatestruggle within the walls whether to persist in resistance or tosurrender in despair. There was an immense mass, not far from sixtythousand, half women and children, who were determined on going out tosurrender themselves to Scipio's mercy, and beg for their lives. Hasdrubal's wife, leading her two children by her side, earnestlyentreated her husband to allow her to go with them. But he refused. There was a body of deserters from the Roman camp in the citadel, who, having no possible hope of escaping destruction except by desperateresistance to the last, Hasdrubal supposed would never yield. Hecommitted his wife and children, therefore, to their charge, and thesedeserters, seeking refuge in a great temple within the citadel, borethe frantic mother with them to share their fate. 

Hasdrubal's determination, however, to resist the Romans to the last, soon after this gave way, and he determined to surrender. He isaccused of the most atrocious treachery in attempting thus to savehimself, after excluding his wife and children from all possibility ofescaping destruction. But the confusion and din of such a scene, thesuddenness and violence with which the events succeed each other, andthe tumultuous and uncontrollable mental agitation to which they giverise, deprive a man who is called to act in it of all sense andreason, and exonerate him, almost as much, from moral responsibilityfor what he does, as if he were insane. At any rate, Hasdrubal, aftershutting up his wife and children with a furious gang of desperadoeswho could not possibly surrender, surrendered himself, perhaps hopingthat he might save them after all. 

The Carthaginian soldiers, following Hasdrubal's example, opened thegates of the citadel, and let the conqueror in. The deserters were nowmade absolutely desperate by their danger, and some of them, morefurious than the rest, preferring to die by their own hands ratherthan to give their hated enemies the pleasure of killing them, set thebuilding in which they were shut up in on fire. The miserable inmatesran to and fro, half suffocated by the smoke and scorched by theflames. Many of them reached the roof. Hasdrubal's wife and childrenwere among the number. She looked down from this elevation, thevolumes of smoke and flame rolling up around her, and saw her husbandstanding below with the Roman general--perhaps looking, inconsternation, for his wife and children, amid this scene of horror. The sight of the husband and father in a position of safety made thewife and mother perfectly furious with resentment and anger. "Wretch!"she screamed, in a voice which raised itself above the universal din, "is it thus you seek to save your own life while you sacrifice ours? Ican not reach you in your own person, but I kill you hereby in thepersons of your children. " So saying, she stabbed her affrighted sonswith a dagger, and hurled them down, struggling all the time againsttheir insane mother's phrensy, into the nearest opening from whichflames were ascending, and then leaped in after them herself to sharetheir awful doom. 

The Romans, when they had gained possession of the city, took mosteffectual measures for its complete destruction. The inhabitants werescattered into the surrounding country, and the whole territory wasconverted into a Roman province. Some attempts were afterward made torebuild the city, and it was for a long time a place of some resort, as men lingered mournfully there in huts that they built among theruins. It, however, was gradually forsaken, the stones crumbled anddecayed, vegetation regained possession of the soil, and now there isnothing whatever to mark the spot where the city lay. 

 * * * * *

War and commerce are the two great antagonistic principles whichstruggle for the mastery of the human race, the function of the onebeing to preserve, and that of the other to destroy. Commerce causescities to be built and fields to be cultivated, and diffuses comfortand plenty, and all the blessings of industry and peace. It carriesorganization and order every where; it protects property and life; itdisarms pestilence, and it prohibits famine. War, on the other hand, _destroys_. It disorganizes the social state. It ruins cities, depopulates fields, condemns men to idleness and want, and the onlyremedy it knows for the evils which it brings upon man is to shortenthe miseries of its victims by giving pestilence and famine the mostample commission to destroy their lives. Thus war is the great enemy, while commerce is the great friend of humanity. They are antagonisticprinciples, contending continually for the mastery among all theorganizations of men. 

When Hannibal appeared upon the stage, he found his country engagedpeacefully and prosperously in exchanging the productions of thevarious countries of the then known world, and promoting every wherethe comfort and happiness of mankind. He contrived to turn all theseenergies into the new current of military aggression, conquest, andwar. He perfectly succeeded. We certainly have in his person andhistory all the marks and characteristics of a great military hero. Hegained the most splendid victories, devastated many lands, embarrassed and stopped the commercial intercourse which was carryingthe comforts of life to so many thousand homes, and spread, instead ofthem, every where, privation, want, and terror, with pestilence andfamine in their train. He kept the country of his enemies in a stateof incessant anxiety, suffering, and alarm for many years, andoverwhelmed his own native land, in the end, in absolute andirresistible ruin. In a word, he was one of the greatest militaryheroes that the world has ever known. 

 THE END.