The History of Rome, Book III - Theodor Mommsen
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Notes for Chapter IV
1. Our accounts as to these events are not only imperfect but one-
sided, for of course it was the version of the Carthaginian peace
party which was adopted by the Roman annalists. Even, however, in
our fragmentary and confused accounts (the most important are those of
Fabius, in Polyb. iii. 8; Appian. Hisp. 4; and Diodorus, xxv. p. 567)
the relations of the parties appear dearly enough. Of the vulgar
gossip by which its opponents sought to blacken the "revolutionary
combination" (--etaireia ton ponerotaton anthropon--) specimens may
be had in Nepos (Ham. 3), to which it will be difficult perhaps
to find a parallel.
2. The Barca family conclude the most important state treaties, and
the ratification of the governing board is a formality (Pol. iii. 21).
Rome enters her protest before them and before the senate (Pol. iii.
15). The position of the Barca family towards Carthage in many points
resembles that of the Princes of Orange towards the States-General.
3. It was not till the middle ages that the route by Mont Cenis became
a military road. The eastern passes, such as that over the Poenine
Alps or the Great St. Bernard--which, moreover, was only converted
into a military road by Caesar and Augustus--are, of course, in this
case out of the question.
4. The much-discussed questions of topography, connected with this
celebrated expedition, may be regarded as cleared up and substantially
solved by the masterly investigations of Messrs. Wickham and Cramer.
Respecting the chronological questions, which likewise present
difficulties, a few remarks may be exceptionally allowed to have
a place here.
When Hannibal reached the summit of the St. Bernard, "the peaks were
already beginning to be thickly covered with snow" (Pol. iii. 54),
snow lay on the route (Pol. iii. 55), perhaps for the most part snow
not freshly fallen, but proceeding from the fall of avalanches. At
the St. Bernard winter begins about Michaelmas, and the falling of
snow in September; when the Englishmen already mentioned crossed
the mountain at the end of August, they found almost no snow on
their road, but the slopes on both sides were covered with it.
Hannibal thus appears to have arrived at the pass in the beginning
of September; which is quite compatible with the statement that
he arrived there "when the winter was already approaching"
--for --sunaptein ten tes pleiados dusin-- (Pol. iii. 54) does
not mean anything more than this, least of all, the day of the
heliacal setting of the Pleiades (about 26th October); comp.
Ideler, Chronol. i. 241.
If Hannibal reached Italy nine days later, and therefore about the
middle of September, there is room for the events that occurred from
that time up to the battle of the Trebia towards the end of December
(--peri cheimerinas tropas--, Pol. iii. 72), and in particular for
the transporting of the army destined for Africa from Lilybaeum to
Placentia. This hypothesis further suits the statement that the
day of departure was announced at an assembly of the army --upo ten
earinen oran-- (Pol. iii. 34), and therefore towards the end of March,
and that the march lasted five (or, according to App. vii. 4, six)
months. If Hannibal was thus at the St. Bernard in the beginning of
September, he must have reached the Rhone at the beginning of August
--for he spent thirty days in making his way from the Rhone thither
--and in that case it is evident that Scipio, who embarked at
the beginning of summer (Pol. iii. 41) and so at latest by the
commencement of June, must have spent much time on the voyage or
remained for a considerable period in singular inaction at Massilia.
Chapter V
The War under Hannibal to the Battle of Cannae
Hannibal and the Italian Celts
The appearance of the Carthaginian army on the Roman side of the Alps
changed all at once the situation of affairs, and disconcerted the
Roman plan of war. Of the two principal armies of the Romans, one had
landed in Spain and was already engaged with the enemy there: it was
no longer possible to recall it. The second, which was destined
for Africa under the command of the consul Tiberius Sempronius, was
fortunately still in Sicily: in this instance Roman delay for once
proved useful. Of the two Carthaginian squadrons destined for Italy
and Sicily, the first was dispersed by a storm, and some of its
vessels were captured by the Syracusans near Messana; the second had
endeavoured in vain to surprise Lilybaeum, and had thereafter been
defeated in a naval engagement off that port. But the continuance of
the enemy's squadrons in the Italian waters was so inconvenient, that
the consul determined, before crossing to Africa, to occupy the small
islands around Sicily, and to drive away the Carthaginian fleet
operating against Italy. The summer passed away in the conquest of
Melita, in the chase after the enemy's squadron, which he expected
to find at the Lipari islands while it had made a descent near Vibo
(Monteleone) and pillaged the Bruttian coast, and, lastly, in gaining
information as to a suitable spot for landing on the coast of Africa;
so that the army and fleet were still at Lilybaeum, when orders
arrived from the senate that they should return with all possible
speed for the defence of their homes.
In this way, while the two great Roman armies, each in itself equal
in numbers to that of Hannibal, remained at a great distance from the
valley of the Po, the Romans were quite unprepared for an attack in
that quarter. No doubt a Roman army was there, in consequence of
an insurrection that had broken out among the Celts even before the
arrival of the Carthaginian army. The founding of the two Roman
strongholds of Placentia and Cremona, each of which received 6000
colonists, and more especially the preparations for the founding of
Mutina in the territory of the Boii, had already in the spring of 536
driven the Boii to revolt before the time concerted with Hannibal;
and the Insubres had immediately joined them. The colonists already
settled in the territory of Mutina, suddenly attacked, took refuge in
the town. The praetor Lucius Manlius, who held the chief command at
Ariminum, hastened with his single legion to relieve the blockaded
colonists; but he was surprised in the woods, and no course was left
to him after sustaining great loss but to establish himself upon a
hill and to submit to a siege there on the part of the Boii, till
a second legion sent from Rome under the praetor Lucius Atilius
succeeded in relieving army and town, and in suppressing for the
moment the Gaulish insurrection. This premature rising of the Boii
on the one hand, by delaying the departure of Scipio for Spain,
essentially promoted the plans of Hannibal; on the other hand, but
for its occurrence he would have found the valley of the Po entirely
unoccupied, except the fortresses. But the Roman corps, whose two
severely thinned legions did not number 20,000 soldiers, had enough
to do to keep the Celts in check, and did not think of occupying the
passes of the Alps. The Romans only learned that the passes were
threatened, when in August the consul Publius Scipio returned without
his army from Massilia to Italy, and perhaps even then they gave
little heed to the matter, because, forsooth, the foolhardy attempt
would be frustrated by the Alps alone. Thus at the decisive hour and
on the decisive spot there was not even a Roman outpost. Hannibal had
full time to rest his army, to capture after a three days' siege the
capital of the Taurini which closed its gates against him, and to
induce or terrify into alliance with him all the Ligurian and Celtic
communities in the upper basin of the Po, before Scipio, who had
taken the command in the Po valley, encountered him.
Scipio in the Valley of the Po
Conflict on the Ticino
The Armies at Placentia
Scipio, who, with an army considerably smaller and very weak in
cavalry, had the difficult task of preventing the advance of the
superior force of the enemy and of repressing the movements of
insurrection which everywhere were spreading among the Celts, had
crossed the Po presumably at Placentia, and marched up the river to
meet the enemy, while Hannibal after the capture of Turin marched
downwards to relieve the Insubres and Boii. In the plain between
the Ticino and the Sesia, not far from Vercelli, the Roman cavalry,
which had advanced with the light infantry to make a reconnaissance
in force, encountered the Punic cavalry sent out for the like purpose,
both led by the generals in person. Scipio accepted battle when
offered, notwithstanding the superiority of the enemy; but his light
infantry, which was placed in front of the cavalry, dispersed before
the charge of the heavy cavalry of the enemy, and while the latter
engaged the masses of the Roman horsemen in front, the light Numidian
cavalry, after having pushed aside the broken ranks of the enemy's
infantry, took the Roman horsemen in flank and rear. This decided
the combat. The loss of the Romans was very considerable. The consul
himself, who made up as a soldier for his deficiencies as a general,
received a dangerous wound, and owed his safety entirely to the
devotion of his son of seventeen, who, courageously dashing into the
ranks of the enemy, compelled his squadron to follow him and rescued
his father. Scipio, enlightened by this combat as to the strength of
the enemy, saw the error which he had committed in posting himself,
with a weaker army, in the plain with his back to the river, and
resolved to return to the right bank of the Po under the eyes of his
antagonist. As the operations became contracted into a narrower space
and his illusions regarding Roman invincibility departed, he recovered
the use of his considerable military talents, which the adventurous
boldness of his youthful opponent's plans had for a moment paralyzed.
While Hannibal was preparing for a pitched battle, Scipio by a rapidly
projected and steadily executed march succeeded in reaching the right
bank of the river which in an evil hour he had abandoned, and broke
down the bridge over the Po behind his army; the Roman detachment of
600 men charged to cover the process of destruction were, however,
intercepted and made prisoners. But as the upper course of the river
was in the hands of Hannibal, he could not be prevented from marching
up the stream, crossing on a bridge of boats, and in a few days
confronting the Roman army on the right bank. The latter had taken
a position in the plain in front of Placentia; but the mutiny of a
Celtic division in the Roman camp, and the Gallic insurrection
breaking out afresh all around, compelled the consul to evacuate the
plain and to post himself on the hills behind the Trebia. This was
accomplished without notable loss, because the Numidian horsemen sent
in pursuit lost their time in plundering, and setting fire to, the
abandoned camp. In this strong position, with his left wing resting
on the Apennines, his right on the Po and the fortress of Placentia,
and covered in front by the Trebia--no inconsiderable stream at that
season--Scipio was unable to save the rich stores of Clastidium
(Casteggio) from which in this position he was cut off by the army of
the enemy; nor was he able to avert the insurrectionary movement on
the part of almost all the Gallic cantons, excepting the Cenomani who
were friendly to Rome; but he completely checked the progress of
Hannibal, and compelled him to pitch his camp opposite to that of
the Romans. Moreover, the position taken up by Scipio, and the
circumstance of the Cenomani threatening the borders of the Insubres,
hindered the main body of the Gallic insurgents from directly joining
the enemy, and gave to the second Roman army, which meanwhile had
arrived at Ariminum from Lilybaeum, the opportunity of reaching
Placentia through the midst of the insurgent country without material
hindrance, and of uniting itself with the army of the Po.
Battle on the Trebia
Scipio had thus solved his difficult task completely and brilliantly.
The Roman army, now close on 40,000 strong, and though not a match for
its antagonist in cavalry, at least equal in infantry, had simply to
remain in its existing position, in order to compel the enemy either
to attempt in the winter season the passage of the river and an attack
upon the camp, or to suspend his advance and to test the fickle temper
of the Gauls by the burden of winter quarters. Clear, however, as
this was, it was no less clear that it was now December, and that
under the course proposed the victory might perhaps be gained by Rome,
but would not be gained by the consul Tiberius Sempronius, who held
the sole command in consequence of Scipio's wound, and whose year of
office expired in a few months. Hannibal knew the man, and neglected
no means of alluring him to fight. The Celtic villages that had
remained faithful to the Romans were cruelly laid waste, and, when
this brought on a conflict between the cavalry, Hannibal allowed his
opponents to boast of the victory. Soon thereafter on a raw rainy
day a general engagement came on, unlocked for by the Romans. From
the earliest hour of the morning the Roman light troops had been
skirmishing with the light cavalry of the enemy; the latter slowly
retreated, and the Romans eagerly pursued it through the deeply
swollen Trebia to follow up the advantage which they had gained.
Suddenly the cavalry halted; the Roman vanguard found itself face to
face with the army of Hannibal drawn up for battle on a field chosen
by himself; it was lost, unless the main body should cross the stream
with all speed to its support. Hungry, weary, and wet, the Romans
came on and hastened to form in order of battle, the cavalry, as
usual, on the wings, the infantry in the centre. The light troops,
who formed the vanguard on both sides, began the combat: but the
Romans had already almost exhausted their missiles against the
cavalry, and immediately gave way. In like manner the cavalry gave
way on the wings, hard pressed by the elephants in front, and
outflanked right and left by the far more numerous Carthaginian horse.
But the Roman infantry proved itself worthy of its name: at the
beginning of the battle it fought with very decided superiority
against the infantry of the enemy, and even when the repulse of the
Roman horse allowed the enemy's cavalry and light-armed troops to turn
their attacks against the Roman infantry, the latter, although ceasing
to advance, obstinately maintained its ground. At this stage a select
Carthaginian band of 1000 infantry, and as many horsemen, under the
leadership of Mago, Hannibal's youngest brother, suddenly emerged from
an ambush in the rear of the Roman army, and fell upon the densely
entangled masses. The wings of the army and the rear ranks of the
Roman centre were broken up and scattered by this attack, while the
first division, 10,000 men strong, in compact array broke through the
Carthaginian line, and made a passage for itself obliquely through the
midst of the enemy, inflicting great loss on the opposing infantry and
more especially on the Gallic insurgents. This brave body, pursued
but feebly, thus reached Placentia. The remaining mass was for the
most part slaughtered by the elephants and light troops of the enemy
in attempting to cross the river: only part of the cavalry and some
divisions of infantry were able, by wading through the river, to gain
the camp whither the Carthaginians did not follow them, and thus they
too reached Placentia.(1) Few battles confer more honour on the Roman
soldier than this on the Trebia, and few at the same time furnish
graver impeachment of the general in command; although the candid
judge will not forget that a commandership in chief expiring on a
definite day was an unmilitary institution, and that figs cannot be
reaped from thistles. The victory came to be costly even to the
victors. Although the loss in the battle fell chiefly on the Celtic
insurgents, yet a multitude of the veteran soldiers of Hannibal died
afterwards from diseases engendered by that raw and wet winter day,
and all the elephants perished except one.
Hannibal Master of Northern Italy
The effect of this first victory of the invading army was, that the
national insurrection now spread and assumed shape without hindrance
throughout the Celtic territory. The remains of the Roman army of
the Po threw themselves into the fortresses of Placentia and Cremona:
completely cut off from home, they were obliged to procure their
supplies by way of the river. The consul Tiberius Sempronius only
escaped, as if by miracle, from being taken prisoner, when with a
weak escort of cavalry he went to Rome on account of the elections.
Hannibal, who would not hazard the health of his troops by further
marches at that inclement season, bivouacked for the winter where he
was; and, as a serious attempt on the larger fortresses would have
led to no result, contented himself with annoying the enemy by attacks
on the river port of Placentia and other minor Roman positions. He
employed himself mainly in organizing the Gallic insurrection: more
than 60,000 foot soldiers and 4000 horsemen from the Celts are said
to have joined his army.
Military and Political Position of Hannibal
No extraordinary exertions were made in Rome for the campaign of 537.
The senate thought, and not unreasonably, that, despite the lost
battle, their position was by no means fraught with serious danger.
Besides the coast garrisons, which were despatched to Sardinia,
Sicily, and Tarentum, and the reinforcements which were sent to Spain,
the two new consuls Gaius Flaminius and Gnaeus Servilius obtained
only as many men as were necessary to restore the four legions to
their full complement; additions were made to the strength of the
cavalry alone. The consuls had to protect the northern frontier, and
stationed themselves accordingly on the two highways which led from
Rome to the north, the western of which at that lime terminated at
Arretium, and the eastern at Ariminum; Gaius Flaminius occupied the
former, Gnaeus Servilius the latter. There they ordered the troops
from the fortresses on the Po to join them, probably by water, and
awaited the commencement of the favourable season, when they proposed
to occupy in the defensive the passes of the Apennines, and then,
taking up the offensive, to descend into the valley of the Po and
effect a junction somewhere near Placentia. But Hannibal by no means
intended to defend the valley of the Po. He knew Rome better perhaps
than the Romans knew it themselves, and was very well aware how
decidedly he was the weaker and continued to be so notwithstanding the
brilliant battle on the Trebia; he knew too that his ultimate object,
the humiliation of Rome, was not to be wrung from the unbending Roman
pride either by terror or by surprise, but could only be gained by
the actual subjugation of the haughty city. It was clearly apparent
that the Italian federation was in political solidity and in military
resources infinitely superior to an adversary, who received only
precarious and irregular support from home, and who in Italy was
dependent for primary aid solely on the vacillating and capricious
nation of the Celts; and that the Phoenician foot soldier was,
notwithstanding all the pains taken by Hannibal, far inferior in
point of tactics to the legionary, had been completely proved by
the defensive movements of Scipio and the brilliant retreat of the
defeated infantry on the Trebia. From this conviction flowed the two
fundamental principles which determined Hannibal's whole method of
operations in Italy--viz., that the war should be carried on, in
somewhat adventurous fashion, with constant changes in the plan and
in the theatre of operations; and that its favourable issue could
only be looked for as the result of political and not of military
successes--of the gradual loosening and final breaking up of the
Italian federation. That mode of carrying on the war was necessary,
because the single element which Hannibal had to throw into the scale
against so many disadvantages--his military genius--only told with
its full weight, when he constantly foiled his opponents by unexpected
combinations; he was undone, if the war became stationary. That aim
was the aim dictated to him by right policy, because, mighty conqueror
though he was in battle, he saw very clearly that on each occasion he
vanquished the generals and not the city, and that after each new
battle the Romans remained just as superior to the Carthaginians as
he was personally superior to the Roman commanders. That Hannibal
even at the height of his fortune never deceived himself on this
point, is worthier of admiration than his most admired battles.
Hannibal Crosses the Apennines
It was these motives, and not the entreaties of the Gauls that he
should spare their country--which would not have influenced him--that
induced Hannibal now to forsake, as it were, his newly acquired basis
of operations against Italy, and to transfer the scene of war to Italy
itself. Before doing so he gave orders that all the prisoners should
be brought before him. He ordered the Romans to be separated and
loaded with chains as slaves--the statement that Hannibal put to death
all the Romans capable of bearing arms, who here and elsewhere fell
into his hands, is beyond doubt at least strongly exaggerated. On the
other hand, all the Italian allies were released without ransom, and
charged to report at home that Hannibal waged war not against Italy,
but against Rome; that he promised to every Italian community the
restoration of its ancient independence and its ancient boundaries;
and that the deliverer was about to follow those whom he had set free,
bringing release and revenge. In fact, when the winter ended, he
started from the valley of the Po to search for a route through
the difficult defiles of the Apennines. Gaius Flaminius, with the
Etruscan army, was still for the moment at Arezzo, intending to move
from that point towards Lucca in order to protect the vale of the Arno
and the passes of the Apennines, so soon as the season should allow.
But Hannibal anticipated him. The passage of the Apennines was
accomplished without much difficulty, at a point as far west as
possible or, in other words, as distant as possible from the enemy;
but the marshy low grounds between the Serchio and the Arno were so
flooded by the melting of the snow and the spring rains, that the army
had to march four days in water, without finding any other dry spot
for resting by night than was supplied by piling the baggage or by
the sumpter animals that had fallen. The troops underwent unutterable
sufferings, particularly the Gallic infantry, which marched behind the
Carthaginians along tracks already rendered impassable: they murmured
loudly and would undoubtedly have dispersed to a man, had not the
Carthaginian cavalry under Mago, which brought up the rear, rendered
flight impossible. The horses, assailed by a distemper in their
hoofs, fell in heaps; various diseases decimated the soldiers;
Hannibal himself lost an eye in consequence of ophthalmia.
Flaminius
But the object was attained. Hannibal encamped at Fiesole, while
Gaius Flaminius was still waiting at Arezzo until the roads should
become passable that he might blockade them. After the Roman
defensive position had thus been turned, the best course for the
consul, who might perhaps have been strong enough to defend the
mountain passes but certainly was unable now to face Hannibal in the
open field, would have been to wait till the second army, which had
now become completely superfluous at Ariminum, should arrive. He
himself, however, judged otherwise. He was a political party leader,
raised to distinction by his efforts to limit the power of the senate;
indignant at the government in consequence of the aristocratic
intrigues concocted against him during his consulship; carried away,
through a doubtless justifiable opposition to their beaten track of
partisanship, into a scornful defiance of tradition and custom;
intoxicated at once by blind love of the common people and equally
bitter hatred of the party of the nobles; and, in addition to all
this, possessed with the fixed idea that he was a military genius.
His campaign against the Insubres of 531, which to unprejudiced
judges only showed that good! soldiers often repair the errors
of bad generals,(2) was regarded by him and by his adherents as an
irrefragable proof that the Romans had only to put Gaius Flaminius at
the head of the army in order to make a speedy end of Hannibal. Talk
of this sort had procured for him his second consulship, and hopes of
this sort had now brought to his camp so great a multitude of unarmed
followers eager for spoil, that their number, according to the
assurance of sober historians, exceeded that of the legionaries.
Hannibal based his plan in part on this circumstance. So far from
attacking him, he marched past him, and caused the country all around
to be pillaged by the Celts who thoroughly understood plundering,
and by his numerous cavalry. The complaints and indignation of the
multitude which had to submit to be plundered under the eyes of the
hero who had promised to enrich them, and the protestation of the
enemy that they did not believe him possessed of either the power
or the resolution to undertake anything before the arrival of his
colleague, could not but induce such a man to display his genius
for strategy, and to give a sharp lesson to his inconsiderate
and haughty foe.