The History of Rome; Books Nine to Twenty Six - Titus Livius
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63. Flaminius, one of the consuls elect, to whom the legions which
were wintering at Placentia had fallen by lot, sent an edict and
letter to the consul, desiring that those forces should be ready in
camp at Ariminum on the ides of March. He had a design to enter on the
consulship in his province, recollecting his old contests with the
fathers, which he had waged with them when tribune of the people, and
afterwards when consul, first about his election to the office, which
was annulled, and then about a triumph. He was also odious to the
fathers on account of a new law which Quintus Claudius, tribune of the
people, had carried against the senate, Caius Flaminius alone of that
body assisting him, that no senator, or he who had been father of a
senator, should possess a ship fit for sea service, containing more
than three hundred amphorae. This size was considered sufficient for
conveying the produce of their lands: all traffic appeared unbecoming
a senator. This contest, maintained with the warmest opposition,
procured the hatred of the nobility to Flaminius, the advocate of the
law; but the favour of the people, and afterwards a second consulship.
For these reasons, thinking that they would detain him in the city by
falsifying the auspices, by the delay of the Latin festival, and other
hinderances to which a consul was liable, he pretended a journey, and,
while yet in a private capacity, departed secretly to his province.
This proceeding, when it was made public, excited new and additional
anger in the senators, who were before irritated against him. They
said, "That Caius Flaminius waged war not only with the senate, but
now with the immortal gods; that having been formerly made consul
without the proper auspices, he had disobeyed both gods and men
recalling him from the very field of battle; and now, through
consciousness of their having been dishonoured, had shunned the
Capitol and the customary offering of vows, that he might not on the
day of entering his office approach the temple of Jupiter, the best
and greatest of gods; he might not see and consult the senate, himself
hated by it, as it was hateful to him alone; that he might not
proclaim the Latin festival, or perform on the Alban mount the
customary rights to Jupiter Latiaris; that he might not, under the
direction of the auspices, go up to the Capitol to recite his vows,
and thence, attended by the lictors, proceed to his province in the
garb of a general; but that he had set off, like some camp boy,
without his insignia, without the lictors, in secrecy and stealth,
just as if he had been quitting his country to go into banishment; as
if forsooth he would enter his office more consistently with the
dignity of the consul at Ariminum than Rome, and assume the robe of
office in a public inn better than before his own household gods."--it
was unanimously resolved that he, should be recalled and brought back,
and be constrained to perform in person every duty to gods and men
before he went to the army and the province. Quintus Terentius and
Marcus Antistius having set out on this embassy, (for it was decreed
that ambassadors should be sent,) prevailed with him in no degree more
than the letter sent by the senate in his former consulship. A few
days after he entered on his office, and as he was sacrificing a calf,
after being struck, having broken away from the hands of the
ministers, sprinkled several of the bystanders with its blood. Flight
and disorder ensued, to a still greater degree at a distance among
those who were ignorant what was the cause of the alarm. This
circumstance was regarded by most persons as an omen of great terror.
Having then received two legions from Sempronius, the consul of the
former year, and two from Caius Atilius, the praetor, the army began
to be led into Etruria, through the passes of the Apennines.
BOOK XXII.
_Hannibal, after an uninterrupted march of four days and three
nights, arrives in Etruria, through the marshes, in which he lost an
eye. Caius Flaminius, the consul, an inconsiderate man, having gone
forth in opposition to the omens, dug up the standards which could not
otherwise be raised, and been thrown from his horse immediately after
he had mounted, is insnared by Hannibal, and cut off by his army near
the Thrasimene lake. Three thousand who had escaped are placed in
chains by Hannibal, in violation of pledges given. Distress occasioned
in Rome by the intelligence. The Sibylline books consulted, and a
sacred spring decreed. Fabius Maximus sent as dictator against
Hannibal, whom he frustrates by caution and delay. Marcus Minucius,
the master of the horse, a rash and impetuous man, inveighs against
the caution of Fabius, and obtains an equality of command with him.
The army is divided between them, and Minucius engaging Hannibal in an
unfavourable position, is reduced to the extremity of danger, and is
rescued by the dictator, and places himself under his authority.
Hannibal, after ravaging Campania, is shut up by Fabius in a valley
near the town of Casilinum, but escapes by night, putting to flight
the Romans on guard by oxen with lighted faggots attached to their
horns. Hannibal attempts to excite a suspicion of the fidelity of
Fabius by sparing his farm while ravaging with fire the whole country
around it. Aemilius Paulus and Terentius Varro are routed at Cannae,
and forty thousand men slain, among whom were Paulus the consul,
eighty senators, and thirty who had served the office of consul,
praetor, or edile. A design projected by some noble youths of quitting
Italy in despair after this calamity, is intrepidly quashed by Publius
Cornelius Scipio, a military tribune, afterwards surnamed Africanus.
Successes in Spain, eight thousand slaves are enlisted by the Romans,
they refuse to ransom the captives, they go out in a body to meet
Varro, and thank him for not having despaired of the commonwealth._
* * * * *
1. Spring was now at hand, when Hannibal quitted his winter quarters,
having both attempted in vain to cross the Apennines, from the
intolerable cold, and having remained with great danger and alarm. The
Gauls, whom the hope of plunder and spoil had collected, when, instead
of being themselves engaged in carrying and driving away booty from
the lands of others, they saw their own lands made the seat of war and
burdened by the wintering of the armies of both forces, turned their
hatred back again from the Romans to Hannibal; and though plots were
frequently concerted against him by their chieftains, he was preserved
by the treachery they manifested towards each other; disclosing their
conspiracy with the same inconstancy with which they had conspired;
and by changing sometimes his dress, at other times the fashion of his
hair, he protected himself from treachery by deception. However, this
fear was the cause of his more speedily quitting his winter quarters.
Meanwhile Cneius Servilius, the consul, entered upon his office at
Rome, on the ides of March. There, when he had consulted the senate on
the state of the republic in general, the indignation against
Flaminius was rekindled. They said "that they had created indeed two
consuls, that they had but one; for what regular authority had the
other, or what auspices? That their magistrates took these with them
from home, from the tutelar deities of themselves and the state, after
the celebration of the Latin holidays; the sacrifice upon the mountain
being completed, and the vows duly offered up in the Capitol: that
neither could an unofficial individual take the auspices, nor could
one who had gone from home without them, take them new, and for the
first time, in a foreign soil." Prodigies announced from many places
at the same time, augmented the terror: in Sicily, that several darts
belonging to the soldiers had taken fire; and in Sardinia, that the
staff of a horseman, who was going his rounds upon a wall, took fire
as he held it in his hand; that the shores had blazed with frequent
fires; that two shields had sweated blood at Praeneste; that redhot
stones had fallen from the heavens at Arpi; that shields were seen in
the heavens, and the sun fighting with the moon, at Capena; that two
moons rose in the day-time; that the waters of Caere had flowed mixed
with blood; and that even the fountain of Hercules had flowed
sprinkled with spots of blood. In the territory of Antium, that bloody
ears of corn had fallen into the basket as they were reaping. At
Falerii, that the heavens appeared cleft as if with a great chasm;
and, that where it had opened, a vast light had shone forth; that the
prophetic tablets had spontaneously become less; and that one had
fallen out thus inscribed, "Mars shakes his spear." During the same
time, that the statue of Mars at Rome, on the Appian way, had sweated
at the sight of images of wolves. At Capua that there had been the
appearance of the heavens being on fire, and of the moon as falling
amidst rain. After these, credence was given to prodigies of less
magnitude: that the goats of certain persons had borne wool; that a
hen had changed herself into a cock; and a cock into a hen: these
things having been laid before the senate as reported, the authors
being conducted into the senate-house, the consul took the sense of
the fathers on religious affairs. It was decreed that those prodigies
should be expiated, partly with full-grown, partly with sucking
victims; and that a supplication should be made at every shrine for
the space of three days; that the other things should be done
accordingly as the gods should declare in their oracles to be
agreeable to their will when the decemviri had examined the books. By
the advice of the decemviri it was decreed, first, that a golden
thunderbolt of fifty pounds' weight should be made as an offering to
Jupiter; that offerings of silver should be presented to Juno and
Minerva; that sacrifices of full-grown victims should be offered to
Juno Regina on the Aventine; and to Juno Sospita at Lanuvium; that the
matrons, contributing as much money as might be convenient to each,
should carry it to the Aventine, as a present to Juno Regina; and that
a lectisternium should be celebrated. Moreover, that the very
freed-women should, according to their means, contribute money from
which a present might be made to Feronia. When these things were done,
the decemviri sacrificed with the larger victims in the forum at
Ardea. Lastly, it being now the month of December, a sacrifice was
made at the temple of Saturn at Rome, and a lectisternium ordered, in
which senators prepared the couch and a public banquet. Proclamation
was made through the city, that the Saturnalia should be kept for a
day and a night; and the people were commanded to account that day as
a holiday, and observe it for ever.
2. While the consul employs himself at Rome in appeasing the gods and
holding the levy, Hannibal, setting out from his winter quarters,
because it was reported that the consul Flaminius had now arrived at
Arretium, although a longer but more commodious route was pointed out
to him, takes the nearer road through a marsh where the Arno had, more
than usual, overflowed its banks. He ordered the Spaniards and
Africans (in these lay the strength of his veteran army) to lead,
their own baggage being intermixed with them, lest, being compelled to
halt any where, they should want what might be necessary for their
use: the Gauls he ordered to go next, that they might form the middle
of the marching body; the cavalry to march in the rear: next, Mago
with the light-armed Numidians to keep the army together, particularly
coercing the Gauls, if, fatigued with exertion and the length of the
march, as that nation is wanting in vigour for such exertions, they
should fall away or halt. The van still followed the standards
wherever the guides did but lead them, through the exceeding deep and
almost fathomless eddies of the river, nearly swallowed up in mud, and
plunging themselves in. The Gauls could neither support themselves
when fallen, nor raise themselves from the eddies. Nor did they
sustain their bodies with spirit, nor their minds with hope; some
scarce dragging on their wearied limbs; others dying where they had
once fallen, their spirits being subdued with fatigue, among the
beasts which themselves also lay prostrate in every place. But chiefly
watching wore them out, endured now for four days and three nights.
When, the water covering every place, not a dry spot could be found
where they might stretch their weary bodies, they laid themselves down
upon their baggage, thrown in heaps into the waters. Piles of beasts,
which lay every where through the whole route, afforded a necessary
bed for temporary repose to those seeking any place which was not
under water. Hannibal himself, riding on the only remaining elephant,
to be the higher from the water, contracted a disorder in his eyes, at
first from the unwholesomeness of the vernal air, which is attended
with transitions from heat to cold; and at length from watching,
nocturnal damps, the marshy atmosphere disordering his head, and
because he had neither opportunity nor leisure for remedies, loses one
of them.
3. Many men and cattle having been lost thus wretchedly, when at
length he had emerged from the marshes, he pitched his camp as soon as
he could on dry ground. And here he received information, through the
scouts sent in advance, that the Roman army was round the walls of
Arretium. Next the plans and temper of the consul, the situation of
the country, the roads, the sources from which provisions might be
obtained, and whatever else it was useful to know; all these things he
ascertained by the most diligent inquiry. The country was among the
most fertile of Italy, the plain of Etruria, between Faesulae and
Arretium, abundant in its supply of corn, cattle, and every other
requisite. The consul was haughty from his former consulship, and felt
no proper degree of reverence not only for the laws and the majesty of
the fathers, but even for the gods. This temerity, inherent in his
nature, fortune had fostered by a career of prosperity and success in
civil and military affairs. Thus it was sufficiently evident that,
heedless of gods and men, he would act in all cases with presumption
and precipitation; and, that he might fall the more readily into the
errors natural to him, the Carthaginian begins to fret and irritate
him; and leaving the enemy on his left, he takes the road to Faesulae,
and marching through the centre of Etruria, with intent to plunder, he
exhibits to the consul, in the distance, the greatest devastation he
could with fires and slaughters. Flaminius, who would not have rested
even if the enemy had remained quiet; then, indeed, when he saw the
property of the allies driven and carried away almost before his eyes,
considering that it reflected disgrace upon him that the Carthaginian
now roaming at large through the heart of Italy, and marching without
resistance to storm the very walls of Rome, though every other person
in the council advised safe rather than showy measures, urging that he
should wait for his colleague, in order that, joining their armies,
they might carry on the war with united courage and counsels; and
that, meanwhile, the enemy should be prevented from his unrestrained
freedom in plundering by the cavalry and the light-armed auxiliaries;
in a fury hurried out of the council, and at once gave out the signal
for marching and for battle. "Nay, rather," says he, "let him be
before the walls of Arretium, for here is our country, here our
household gods. Let Hannibal, slipping through our fingers, waste
Italy through and through; and, ravaging and burning every thing, let
him arrive at the walls of Rome; let us move hence till the fathers
shall have summoned Flaminius from Arretium, as they did Camillus of
old from Veii." While reproaching them thus, and in the act of
ordering the standards to be speedily pulled up, when he had mounted
upon his horse, the animal fell suddenly, and threw the unseated
consul over his head. All the bystanders being alarmed at this as an
unhappy omen in the commencement of the affair, in addition word is
brought, that the standard could not be pulled up, though, the
standard-bearer strove with all his force. Flaminius, turning to the
messenger, says, "Do you bring, too, letters from the senate,
forbidding me to act. Go, tell them to dig up the standard, if,
through fear, their hands are so benumbed that they cannot pluck it
up." Then the army began to march; the chief officers, besides that
they dissented from the plan, being terrified by the twofold prodigy;
while the soldiery in general were elated by the confidence of their
leader, since they regarded merely the hope he entertained, and not
the reasons of the hope.
4. Hannibal lays waste the country between the city Cortona and the
lake Trasimenus, with all the devastation of war, the more to
exasperate the enemy to revenge the injuries inflicted on his allies.
They had now reached a place formed by nature for an ambuscade, where
the Trasimenus comes nearest to the mountains of Cortona. A very
narrow passage only intervenes, as though room enough just for that
purpose had been left designedly; after that a somewhat wider plain
opens itself, and then some hills rise up. On these he pitches his
camp, in full view, where he himself with his Spaniards and Africans
only might be posted. The Baliares and his other light troops he leads
round the mountains; his cavalry he posts at the very entrance of the
defile, some eminences conveniently concealing them; in order that
when the Romans had entered, the cavalry advancing, every place might
be enclosed by the lake and the mountains. Flaminius, passing the
defiles before it was quite daylight, without reconnoitering, though
he had arrived at the lake the preceding day at sunset, when the
troops began to be spread into the wider plain, saw that part only of
the enemy which was opposite to him; the ambuscade in his rear and
overhead escaped his notice. And when the Carthaginian had his enemy
enclosed by the lake and mountains, and surrounded by his troops, he
gives the signal to all to make a simultaneous charge; and each
running down the nearest way, the suddenness and unexpectedness of the
event was increased to the Romans by a mist rising from the lake,
which had settled thicker on the plain than on the mountains; and thus
the troops of the enemy ran down from the various eminences,
sufficiently well discerning each other, and therefore with the
greater regularity. A shout being raised on all sides, the Roman found
himself surrounded before he could well see the enemy; and the attack
on the front and flank had commenced ere his line could be well
formed, his arms prepared for action, or his swords unsheathed.
5. The consul, while all were panic-struck, himself sufficiently
undaunted though in so perilous a case, marshals, as well as the time
and place permitted, the lines which were thrown into confusion by
each man's turning himself towards the various shouts; and wherever he
could approach or be heard exhorts them, and bids them stand and
fight: for that they could not escape thence by vows and prayers to
the gods but by exertion and valour; that a way was sometimes opened
by the sword through the midst of marshalled armies, and that
generally the less the fear the less the danger. However, from the
noise and tumult, neither his advice nor command could be caught; and
so far were the soldiers from knowing their own standards, and ranks,
and position, that they had scarce sufficient courage to take up arms
and make them ready for battle; and certain of them were surprised
before they could prepare them, being burdened rather than protected
by them; while in so great darkness there was more use of ears than of
eyes. They turned their faces and eyes in every direction towards the
groans of the wounded, the sounds of blows upon the body or arms, and
the mingled clamours of the menacing and the affrighted. Some, as they
were making their escape, were stopped, having encountered a body of
men engaged in fight; and bands of fugitives returning to the battle,
diverted others. After charges had been attempted unsuccessfully in
every direction, and on their flanks the mountains and the lake, on
the front and rear the lines of the enemy enclosed them, when it was
evident that there was no hope of safety but in the right hand and the
sword; then each man became to himself a leader, and encourager to
action; and an entirely new contest arose, not a regular line, with
principes, hastati, and triarii; nor of such a sort as that the
vanguard should fight before the standards, and the rest of the troops
behind them; nor such that each soldier should be in his own legion,
cohort, or company: chance collects them into bands; and each man's
own will assigned to him his post, whether to fight in front or rear;
and so great was the ardour of the conflict, so intent were their
minds upon the battle, that not one of the combatants felt an
earthquake which threw down large portions of many of the cities of
Italy, turned rivers from their rapid courses, carried the sea up into
rivers, and levelled mountains with a tremendous crash.
6. The battle was continued near three hours, and in every quarter
with fierceness; around the consul, however, it was still hotter and
more determined. Both the strongest of the troops, and himself too,
promptly brought assistance wherever he perceived his men hard pressed
and distressed. But, distinguished by his armour, the enemy attacked
him with the utmost vigour, while his countrymen defended him; until
an Insubrian horseman, named Ducarius, knowing him also by his face,
says to his countrymen, "Lo, this is the consul who slew our legions
and laid waste our fields and city. Now will I offer this victim to
the shades of my countrymen, miserably slain;" and putting spurs to
his horse, he rushes through a very dense body of the enemy; and first
slaying his armour-bearer, who had opposed himself to his attack as he
approached, ran the consul through with his lance; the triarii,
opposing their shields, kept him off when seeking to despoil him. Then
first the flight of a great number began; and now neither the lake nor
the mountains obstructed their hurried retreat; they run through all
places, confined and precipitous, as though they were blind; and arms
and men are tumbled one upon another. A great many, when there
remained no more space to run, advancing into the water through the
first shallows of the lake, plunge in, as far as they could stand
above it with their heads and shoulders. Some there were whom
inconsiderate fear induced to try to escape even by swimming; but as
that attempt was inordinate and hopeless, they were either overwhelmed
in the deep water, their courage failing, or, wearied to no purpose,
made their way back, with extreme difficulty, to the shallows; and
there were cut up on all hands by the cavalry of the enemy, which had
entered the water. Near upon six thousand of the foremost body having
gallantly forced their way through the opposing enemy, entirely
unacquainted with what was occurring in their rear, escaped from the
defile; and having halted on a certain rising ground, and hearing only
the shouting and clashing of arms, they could not know nor discern, by
reason of the mist, what was the fortune of the battle. At length, the
affair being decided, when the mist, dispelled by the increasing heat
of the sun, had cleared the atmosphere, then, in the clear light, the
mountains and plains showed their ruin and the Roman army miserably
destroyed; and thus, lest, being descried at a distance, the cavalry
should be sent against them, hastily snatching up their standards,
they hurried away with all possible expedition. On the following day,
when in addition to their extreme sufferings in other respects, famine
also was at hand, Maharbal, who had followed them during the night
with the whole body of cavalry, pledging his honour that he would let
them depart with single garments, if they would deliver up their arms,
they surrendered themselves; which promise was kept by Hannibal with
Punic fidelity, and he threw them all into chains.
7. This is the celebrated battle at the Trasimenus, and recorded among
the few disasters of the Roman people. Fifteen thousand Romans were
slain in the battle. Ten thousand, who had been scattered in the
flight through all Etruria, returned to the city by different roads.
One thousand five hundred of the enemy perished in the battle; many on
both sides died afterwards of their wounds. The carnage on both sides
is related, by some authors, to have been many times greater. I,
besides that I would relate nothing drawn from a worthless source, to
which the minds of historians generally incline too much, have as my
chief authority Fabius, who was contemporary with the events of this
war. Such of the captives as belonged to the Latin confederacy being
dismissed without ransom, and the Romans thrown into chains, Hannibal
ordered the bodies of his own men to be gathered from the heaps of the
enemy, and buried: the body of Flaminius too, which was searched for
with great diligence for burial, he could not find. On the first
intelligence of this defeat at Rome, a concourse of the people,
dismayed and terrified, took place in the forum. The matrons,
wandering through the streets, ask all they meet, what sudden disaster
was reported? what was the fate of the army? And when the multitude,
like a full assembly, having directed their course to the comitium and
senate-house, were calling upon the magistrates, at length, a little
before sunset, Marcus Pomponius, the praetor, declares, "We have been
defeated in a great battle;" and though nothing more definite was
heard from him, yet, full of the rumours which they had caught one
from another, they carry back to their homes intelligence, that the
consul, with a great part of his troops, was slain; that a few only
survived, and these either widely dispersed in flight through Etruria,
or else captured by the enemy. As many as had been the calamities of
the vanquished army, into so many anxieties were the minds of those
distracted whose relations had served under Flaminius, and who were
uninformed of what had been the fate of their friends, nor does any
one know certainly what he should either hope or fear. During the next
and several successive days, a greater number of women almost than men
stood at the gates, waiting either for some one of their friends or
for intelligence of them, surrounding and earnestly interrogating
those they met: nor could they be torn away from those they knew
especially, until they had regularly inquired into every thing. Then
as they retired from the informants you might discern their various
expressions of countenance according as intelligence, pleasing or sad,
was announced to each; and those who congratulated or condoled on
their return home. The joy and grief of the women were especially
manifested. They report that one, suddenly meeting her son, who had
returned safe, expired at the very door before his face--that another,
who sat grieving at her house at the falsely reported death of her
son, became a corpse, from excessive joy, at the first sight of him on
his return. The praetors detained the senators in the house for
several days from sunrise to sunset, deliberating under whose conduct
and by what forces, the victorious Carthaginians could be opposed.