THE

HISTORY OF ROME.

BOOK XXI.

Rise of the second Punic war. Hannibal, contrary to treaty, passes the Iberus: besieges, and, after eight months takes Saguntum. The Romans send an embassy to Carthage; declare war. Hannibal crosses the Pyrennees; makes his way through Gaul; with great fatigue passes the Alps; defeats the Romans at the river Ticinus, in a fight between the cavalry, in which P. Cornelius Scipio, being wounded, is saved by his son, afterwards AfriThe Romans again defeated at the Trebia. Cneius Cornelius Scipio defeats the Carthaginian army in Spain, and makes Hanno, their general, prisoner.

than any in which he was then engaged; and | should be accustomed to military service, and that, if he had lived some time longer, the Car- succeed to the power of his father. Hanno, thaginians would have carried their arms into the leader of the other faction, said, "Although Italy under the command of Hamilcar, instead what Hasdrubal demands, seems reasonable of under that of Hannibal. The death of Ha- nevertheless, I do not think that his request milcar, which happened most seasonably for ought to be granted ;" and, when all turned Rome, and the unripe age of Hannibal, occa- their eyes on him, with surprise at this ambisioned the delay. During an interval of about guous declaration, he proceeded, "Hasdrubal eight years, between the demise of the father, thinks that he is justly entitled to demand, from and the succession of the son, the command the son, the bloom of youth, which he himself was held by Hasdrubal; whom, it was said, dedicated to the pleasures of Hannibal's father. Hamilcar had first chosen as a favourite, on It would however be exceedingly improper in account of his youthful beauty, and afterwards us, instead of a military education, to initiate made him his son-in-law, on account of his our young men in the lewd practices of geneeminent abilities; in consequence of which con- rals. Are we afraid lest too much time should nection, being supported by the interest of the pass, before the son of Hamilcar acquires noBarcine faction, which among the army and tions of the unlimited authority, and the parade the commons was exceedingly powerful, he was of his father's sovereignty or that after be had, invested with the command in chief, in opposi- like a king, bequeathed our armies, as heredition to the wishes of the nobles. He prose-tary property to his son-in-law, we should not cuted his designs more frequently by means of policy than of force; and augmented the Carthaginian power considerably, by forming connections with the petty princes; and through the friendship of their leaders, conciliating the regard of nations hitherto strangers. But peace proved no security to himself. One of the barbarians, in resentment of his master having been put to death, openly assassinated him, and be- IV. A few, particularly those of the best ing seized by the persons present, showed no understanding, concurred in opinion with Hankind of concern; nay, even while racked with no; but, as it generally happens, the more nutortures, as if his exultation, at having effected merous party prevailed over the more judicious. his purpose, had got the better of the pains, the Hannibal was sent into Spain, and on his first expression of his countenance was such as car- arrival attracted the notice of the whole army. ried the appearance of a smile. With this Has- The veteran soldiers imagined that Hamilcar drubal, who possessed a surprising degree of was restored to them from the dead, observing skill in negotiation, and in attaching foreign na-in him the same animated look and penetrating tions to his government, the Romans renewed the treaty, on the terms, that the river Iberus should be the boundary of the two empires, and that the Saguntines, who lay between them, should retain their liberty.

III. There was no room to doubt that the suffrages of the commons, in appointing a successor to Hasdrubal, would follow the direction pointed out by the leading voice of the army, who had instantly carried young Hannibal to the head-quarters, and with one consent, and universal acclamations, saluted him general. This youth, when scarcely arrived at the age of manhood, Hasdrubal had invited by letter to come to him; and that affair had even been taken into deliberation in the senate, where the Barcine faction showed a desire that Hannibal

soon enough become slaves to his son? I am of opinion that this youth should be kept at home, where he will be amenable to the laws and to the magistrates; and that he should be taught to live on an equal footing with the rest of his countrymen; otherwise this spark, small as it is, may hereafter kindle a terrible conflagration."

eye; the same expression of countenance, and the same features. Then, such was his behaviour, and so conciliating, that, in a short time, the memory of his father was the least among their inducements to esteem him. Never man possessed a genius so admirably fitted to the discharge of offices so very opposite in their nature as obeying and commanding: so that it was not easy to discern whether he were more beloved by the general or by the soldiers. There was none to whom Hasdrubal rather wished to entrust the command in any case where courage and activity were required; nor did the soldiers ever feel a greater degree of confidence and boldness under any other commander. With perfect intrepidity in facing danger, he possessed, in the midst of the greatest,

could either fatigue his body or break his spirit: heat and cold he endured with equal firmness: the quantity of his food and drink was limited by natural appetite, not by the pleasure of the palate. His seasons for sleeping and waking were not distinguished by the day, or by the night; whatever time he had to spare, after business was finished, that he gave to repose, which, however, he never courted, either by a soft bed or quiet retirement: he was often seen, covered with a cloak, lying on the ground in the midst of the soldiers on guard, and on the advanced posts. His dress had nothing particular in it, beyond that of others of the same rank; his horses, and his armour, he was always remarkably attentive to : and whether he acted among the horsemen, or the infantry, he was eminently the first of either, the foremost in advancing to the fight, the last who quitted the field of battle. These great virtues were counterbalanced in him by vices of equal magnitude; inhuman cruelty; perfidy beyond that of a Carthaginian; a total disregard of truth, and of every obligation deemed sacred; utterly devoid of all reverence for the gods, he paid no regard to an oath, no respect to religion. Endowed with such a disposition, a compound of virtues and vices, he served under the command of Hasdrubal for three years, during which he omitted no opportunity of improving himself in every particular, both of theory and practice, that could contribute to the forming of an accomplished gen

perfect presence of mind. No degree of labour | Here he took and plundered Althea, the capital of the nation, abounding in wealth; and this struck such terror into the smaller cities, that they submitted to his authority, and to the imposition of a tribute. He then led his army, flushed with a victory, and enriched with spoil, into winter-quarters, at New Carthage. Here, by a liberal distribution of the booty, and by discharging punctually the arrears of pay, he firmly secured the attachment both of his own countrymen and of the allies; and, at the opening of the spring, carried forward his arms against the Vaccæans, from whom he took, by storm, the cities Hermandica and Arbacala. Arbacala, by the bravery and number of its inhabitants, was enabled to make a long defence. Those who escaped from Hermandica, joining the exiles of the Olcadians, the nation subdued in the preceding summer, roused up the Carpetans to arms, and attacking Hannibal, as he was returning from the country of the Vaccæans, not far from the river Tagus, caused a good deal of disorder among his troops, encumbered, as they were, with spoil. Hannibal avoided fighting, and encamped on the bank; then, as soon as the enemy afforded him an opportunity, he crossed the river by a ford, and carried his rampart to such a distance from its edge, as to leave room for the enemy to pass over, resolving to attack them in their passage. He gave orders to his cavalry, that as soon as they should see the troops advance into the water, they should fall upon them his infantry he formed on the bank, with forty elephants in their front. The Carpetans, with the addition of the Olcadians and Vaccæans, were one hundred thousand in number, an army not to be overcome, if a fight were to take place in an open plain. These being naturally of an impetuous temper, and confiding in their numbers, believing also that the enemy's retreat was owing to fear, and thinking that there was no obstruction to their gaining an immediate victory, but the river lying in their way, they raised the shout, and without orders, rushed from all parts into it, every one by the shortest way. At the same time a vast body of cavalry pushed from the opposite bank into the river, and the conflict began in the middle of the channel, where they fought upon very unequal terms: for in such a situation the infantry, not being secure of footing, and scarcely able to bear up against the stream, were liable to be borne down by any shock

eral.

V. But, from the day on which he was declared chief, he acted as if Italy had been decreed to him as his province, and he had been commissioned to wage war with Rome. Thinking every kind of delay imprudent; lest, while he procrastinated, some unforeseen event might disconcert his design, as had been the case of his father Hamilcar, and afterwards of Hasdrubal, he determined to make war on the Saguntines. And, as an attack on them would certainly call forth the Roman arms, he first led his army into the territory of the Olcadians, a nation beyond the Iberus, which, though within the boundaries of the Carthaginians, was not under their dominion, in order that he might not seem to have aimed directly at the Saguntines, but to be drawn on into a war with them by a series of events, and by advancing progressively, after the conquest of the adjoining nations, from one place to the next contiguous.

and land, and proposed, that Spain and Africa should be decreed as the provinces of the consuls: others wished to direct the whole force of their arms against Spain and Hannibal; while many thought that it would be imprudent to engage hastily in a matter of so great impor

from the horse, though the rider were unarm- | prosecuted with vigorous exertions, both by sea ed, and took no trouble; whereas a horseman having his limbs at liberty, and his horse moving steadily, even through the midst of the eddies, could act either in close fight, or at a distance. Great numbers were swallowed up in the current; while several, whom the eddies of the river carried to the Carthagin-tance, and that they ought to wait for the reians' side, were trodden to death by the ele.. phants. The hindmost, who could more safely retreat to their own bank, attempting to collect themselves into one body, from the various parts to which their terror and confusion had dispersed them, Hannibal, not to give them time to recover from their consternation, marched into the river with his infantry in close order, and obliged them to fly from the bank. Then, by ravaging their country, he reduced the Carpetans also, in a few days, to submission. And now, all parts of the country beyond the Iberus, except the territory of Saguntum, was under subjection to the Carthaginians.

turn of the ambassadors from Spain. This opinion being deemed the safest, was adopted; and the ambassadors, Publius Valerius Flaccus and Quintus Babius Tamphilus, were on that account despatched, with the greater speed, to Saguntum, to Hannibal; and, in case of his refusing to desist from hostilities, from thence to Carthage, to insist on that general being delivered up, to atone for the infraction of the treaty.

VII. While the Romans were employed in these deliberations and preparatory measures, the siege of Saguntum was prosecuted with the utmost vigour. This city, by far the most wealthy of any beyond the Iberus, stood at the distance of about a mile from the sea: the inhabitants are said to have come originally from the island Zacynthus, and to have been joined by some of the Rutulian race from Ardea. They had grown up, in a very short time, to this high degree of opulence, by means of a profitable commerce, both by sea and land, aid

religious observance of compacts, which they carried so far as to maintain the faith of all en

VI. [Y. R. 534. B. C. 218.] As yet there was no war with the Saguntines; but disputes, which seemed likely to be productive of war, were industriously fomented between them and their neighbours, particularly the Turdetans: and the cause of these latter being espoused by the same person, who first sowed the seeds of the contention, and plain proofs appearing, that not an amicable discussion of rights, but opened by the increase of their numbers, and their force was the means intended to be used, the Saguntines despatched ambassadors to Rome, to implore assistance in the war, which evident-gagements inviolate, even should they tend to ly threatened them with immediate danger. their own destruction. Hannibal marched inThe consuls at Rome, at that time, were Pub- to their territory in a hostile manner, and, after lius Cornelius Scipio and Tiberius Sempro- laying all the country waste, attacked their city nius Longus; who, after having introduced the on three different sides. There was an angle of ambassadors to the senate, proposed, that the the wall which stretched down into a vale, state of the public affairs should be taken into more level and open than the rest of the ground consideration. It was resolved, that ambassa-round the place: against this he resolved to dors should be sent into Spain, to inspect the affairs of the allies; instructed, if they saw sufficient reason, to warn Hannibal not to molest the Saguntines, the confederates of the Roman people; and also to pass over into Africa, to represent, at Carthage, the complaints of these to the Romans. After this embassy had been decreed, and before it was despatched, news arrived, which no one had expected so soon, that Saguntum was besieged. The business was then laid entire before the senate, as if no resolution had yet passed. Some were of opinion, that the affair should be

carry on his approaches, by means of which the battering ram might be advanced up to the walis. But although the ground, at some distance, was commodious enough for the management of his machines, yet, when the works came to be applied to the purpose intended, it was found to be no way favourable to the design for it was overlooked by a very large tower; and, as in that part danger was apprehended, the wall had been raised to a height beyond that of the rest. Besides, as the greatest share of fatigue and danger was expected there, it was defended with the greater vigour,