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THE

HISTORY OF ROME.

BOOK XXII.

Hannibal, after a laborious march of four days and three nights, without re. pose, through the marshes, in which he lost an eye, arrives in Etruria. Caius Flaminius, consul, a man of rash and inconsiderate conduct, is involved, by the artifice of Hannibal, in a dangerous defile, and cut of, with the greatest part of his army. Fabius Maximus created dictator, and sent against Hannibal; avoids fighting, and baffles Hannibal's efforts. The master of the horse, Marcus Minucius, excites general dissatisfaction against the dictator's dilatory conduct; is made equal to him in authority; engages the enemy with his half of the forces, and is saved from utter destruction by Fabius coming opportunely to his relief, with the other half of the Roman army; acknowledges his misconduct, and puts himself again under the command of the dictator. Hannibal, shut up by Fabius, in a valley at Cassilinum, extricates himself by a stratagem of tying firebrands to the horns of oxen. Æmilius Paullus and Terentius Varro utterly defeated at Cannæ, the former being slain, with forty-five thousand men, of whom were eighty senators, and thirty who had served the office of consul, prætor, or ædile. A project of abandoning Italy quashed by Publius Cornelius Scipio, a military tribune, who afterwards acquired the surname of Africanus. Prosperous events in Spain. The Romans enlist slaves; refuse to ransom the prisoners; go out, in a body, to meet Varro, and thank him for not despairing of the commonwealth.

Y. R. 535.

I. AT the first approach of spring, Hannibal quitted his winter station. He had been foiled before, in his attempt to pass over the Appennine, by the intolera- B. C. 217. ble severity of the cold; for he would gladly have effected it, exposed as he was, during his stay in quarters, to the utmost degree of apprehension and danger. For, when the Gauls, VOL. III.-A

whom the hopes of spoil and pillage had allured to his standard, perceived, that, instead of carrying off booty from the lands of others, their own had become the seat of war, and that they were burthened with the winter residence of both the contending armies, they turned upon Hannibal the enmity which they had harboured against the Romans. Many plots were formed against him, by their chiefs, from the effects of which he was preserved, by their treacherously betraying one another, and discovering their designs, through the same inconstancy which led them to conspire against him. But still he was careful to guard himself against their plots, by frequent disguises; changing sometimes his dress, sometimes the covering of his head. However, his fears, on this account, were his principal motives for leaving his winter quarters earlier than usual. In the mean time at Rome, Cneius Servilius entered on the office of consul, on the ides of March. He proposed to the senate to take under consideration the state of the commonwealth; whereupon the clamour against Caius Flaminius was renewed. "They created," they said, "two consuls, yet had but one. For what legal authority, what auspices did the other possess? These the magistrates carried with them from home, from their own tutelar gods; and also those of the public, the Latine festival being celebrated, the sacrifices on the Alban mount performed, and vows duly offered in the Capitol. Setting out in a private capacity, he could not carry the auspices with him, neither could he take them new, and for the first time, in a foreign soil." Their apprehensions were increased by reports of prodigies, brought from various places at once. In Sicily, a number of arrows, and in Sardinia, the truncheon of a horseman, as he was going the rounds of the watch on the walls of Sulci, took fire, as was said; many fires were seen blazing on the shore; two shields sweated blood; several soldiers were struck by lightning; and the sun's orb appeared to be contracted. At Præneste, red-hot stones fell

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from the sky. At Arpi, bucklers were seen in the air, and the sun fighting with the moon. At Capena, two moons appeared in the day-time. At Cære, the streams of water were mixed with blood; and even the fountain of Hercules was tinged with bloody spots. In the district of Antium, while people were reaping, bloody ears of corn fell into a basket. At Falerii, the sky seemed to be rent asunder with a very wide cleft, and through the opening a strong light burst forth; the divining tickets, without any apparent cause, were diminished in size, and one fell out, which had this inscription, Mars brandishes his spear.' About the same time, at Rome, the statue of Mars, on the Appian road, and the images of the wolves, sweated. At Capua, the sky appeared as if on fire, and the moon as falling amongst rain. Afterwards, prodigies of lesser note were heard of: some asserted that goats were converted into sheep; that a hen was turned into a male, and a cock into a female. The consul, laying before the senate all these matters, as reported, and bringing the authors of the reports into the senate-house, proposed to their consideration the affairs of religion. They decreed, that those prodigies should be expiated, some with the greater, some with the lesser victims; and that a supplication for three days should be performed at all the shrines; that, when the decemvirs should have inspected the books, all other particulars should be conducted in such manner as the gods should declare, in their oracles, to be agreeable to them. By the direction of the decemvirs, it was decreed, that, first, a golden thunderbolt, of fifty pounds weight, should be made as an offering to Jupiter; and that offerings of silver should be presented to Juno and Minerva; that sacrifices of the greater victims should be offered to Juno Regina, on the Aventine, and to Juno Sospita, at Lanuvium; that the matrons, contributing such sums of money as might be convenient to each, should carry an offering to Juno Regina, to the Aventine, and celebrate a lectisternium to her: and that even the

descendants of freed women should make a contribution, in proportion to their abilities, out of which an offering should be made to Feronia. When these orders were fulfilled, the decemvirs sacrificed, with the greater victims, in the Forum at Ardea: and, lastly, so late as the month of December, sacrifices were offered at the temple of Saturn, in Rome, and a lectisternium was ordered: on which occasion the couches were laid out by senators, and also a public banquet. Proclamation was likewise made through the city, of a feast of Saturn, to be celebrated during a day and a night, and the people were commanded to keep that day as a festival, and to observe it for ever.

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II. While the consul was employed at Rome in endeavouring to procure the favour of the gods, and in levying troops, Hannibal, set out from his winter quarters, and hearing that the consul Flaminius had already arrived at Arretium, he chose notwithstanding that another road, less difficult, but longer, was pointed out to him, the shorter one through marshes, which, at that time, were overflowed by the river Arnus, to an unusual height. He ordered the Spaniards and Africans, the main strength of his veteran troops, to march in the van, with their baggage between their divisions; that, in case they should be obliged to halt, they might not be at a loss for a supply of necessaries; then the Gauls to follow, so that they should compose the centre of the line, the cavalry in the rear; and after them Mago, with the light-armed Numidians, as a rear guard, to prevent the troops from straggling; particularly to hinder the Gauls, if weary of the labour, or of the length of the journey, from attempting either to slip away, or to stay behind: for that people, it had been found, want firmness to support fatigue. The troops in the van, though almost swallowed in mud, and frequently plunging entirely under water, yet followed the standards wherever their guides led the way, but the Gauls could neither keep their feet, nor, when they fell, raise them

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