The History of Rome; Books Nine to Twenty Six - Titus Livius
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18. Fabius perceived this tumult, but concluding that it was a snare,
and being disinclined for a battle, particularly by night, kept his
troops within the works. At break of day a battle took place under the
summit of the mountain, in which the Romans, who were considerably
superior in numbers, would have easily overpowered the light-armed of
the enemy, cut off as they were from their party, had not a cohort of
Spaniards, sent back by Hannibal for that very purpose, reached the
spot. That body being more accustomed to mountains, and being more
adapted, both from the agility of their limbs and also from the
character of their arms, to skirmishing amid rocks and crags, easily
foiled, by their manner of fighting, an enemy loaded with arms,
accustomed to level ground and the steady kind of fighting. Separating
from a contest thus by no means equal, they proceeded to their camps;
the Spaniards almost all untouched; the Romans having lost a few.
Fabius also moved his camp, and passing the defile, took up a position
above Allifae, in a strong and elevated place. Then Hannibal,
pretending to march to Rome through Samnium, came back as far as the
Peligni, spreading devastation. Fabius led his troops along the
heights midway between the army of the enemy and the city of Rome;
neither avoiding him altogether, nor coming to an engagement. From the
Peligni the Carthaginian turned his course, and going back again to
Apulia, reached Geronium, a city deserted by its inhabitants from
fear, as a part of its walls had fallen down together in ruins. The
dictator formed a completely fortified camp in the territory of
Larinum, and being recalled thence to Rome on account of some sacred
rites, he not only urged the master of the horse, in virtue of his
authority, but with advice and almost with prayers, that he would
trust rather to prudence than fortune; and imitate him as a general
rather than Sempronius and Flaminius; that he would not suppose that
nothing had been achieved by having worn out nearly the whole summer
in baffling the enemy; that physicians too sometimes gained more by
rest than by motion and action. That it was no small thing to have
ceased to be conquered by an enemy so often victorious, and to have
taken breath after successive disasters. Having thus unavailingly
admonished the master of the horse, he set out for Rome.
19. In the beginning of the summer in which these events occurred, the
war commenced by land and sea in Spain also. To the number of ships
which he had received from his brother, equipped and ready for action,
Hasdrubal added ten. The fleet of forty ships he delivered to Himilco:
and thus setting out from Carthage, kept his ships near the land,
while he led his army along the shore, ready to engage with whichever
part of his forces the enemy might fall in with. Cneius Scipio, when
he heard that the enemy had quitted his winter quarters, at first
formed the same plan; but afterwards, not daring to engage him by
land, from a great rumour of fresh auxiliaries, he advances to meet
him with a fleet of thirty-five ships, having put some chosen soldiers
on board. Setting out from Tarraco, on the second day, he reached a
convenient station, ten miles from the mouth of the Iberus. Two ships
of the Massilians, sent forward from that place reconnoitering,
brought word back that the Carthaginian fleet was stationed in the
mouth of the river, and that the camp was pitched upon the bank. In
order, therefore, to overpower them while off their guard and
incautious, by a universal and wide-spread terror, he weighed anchor
and advanced. In Spain there are several towers placed in high
situations, which they employ both as watch-towers and as places of
defence against pirates. From them first, a view of the ships of the
enemy having been obtained, the signal was given to Hasdrubal; and a
tumult arose in the camp, and on land sooner than on the ships and at
sea; the dashing of the oars and other nautical noises not being yet
distinctly heard, nor the promontories disclosing the fleet. Upon
this, suddenly one horseman after another, sent out by Hasdrubal,
orders those who were strolling upon the shore or resting quietly in
their tents, expecting any thing rather than the enemy and a battle on
that day, immediately to embark and take up arms: that the Roman fleet
was now a short distance from the harbour. The horsemen, despatched in
every direction, delivered these orders; and presently Hasdrubal
himself comes up with the main army. All places resound with noises of
various kinds; the soldiers and rowers hurrying together to the ships,
rather like men running away from the land than marching to battle.
Scarcely had all embarked, when some, unfastening the hawsers, are
carried out against the anchors; others cut their cables, that nothing
might impede them; and by doing every thing with hurry and
precipitation, the duties of mariners were impeded by the preparations
of the soldiers, and the soldiers were prevented from taking and
preparing for action their arms, by the bustle of the mariners. And
now the Roman was not only approaching, but had drawn up his ships for
the battle. The Carthaginians, therefore, thrown into disorder, not
more by the enemy and the battle than by their own tumult, having
rather made an attempt at fighting than commenced a battle, turned
their fleet for flight; and as the mouth of the river which was before
them could not be entered in so broad a line, and by so many pressing
in at the same time, they ran their ships on shore in every part. And
being received, some in the shallows, and others on the dry shore,
some armed and some unarmed, they escaped to their friends, who were
drawn up in battle-array over the shore. Two Carthaginian ships were
captured and four sunk on the first encounter.
20. The Romans, though the enemy was master of the shore, and they saw
armed troops lining the whole bank, promptly pursuing the discomfited
fleet of the enemy, towed out into the deep all the ships which had
not either shattered their prows by the violence with which they
struck the shore, or set their keels fast in the shallows. They
captured as many as twenty-five out of forty. Nor was that the most
splendid result of their victory: but they became masters of the whole
sea on that coast by one slight battle; advancing, then, with their
fleet to Honosca, and making a descent from the ships upon the coast,
when they had taken the city by storm and pillaged it, they afterwards
made for Carthage: then devastating the whole surrounding country,
they, lastly, set fire also to the buildings contiguous to the wall
and gates. Thence the fleet laden with plunder, arrived at Longuntica,
where a great quantity of oakum for naval purposes had been collected
by Hasdrubal: of this, taking away as much as was sufficient for their
necessities, they burnt all the rest. Nor did they only sail by the
prominent coasts of the continent, but crossed over into the island
Ebusus; where, having with the utmost exertion, but in vain, carried
on operations against the city, which is the capital of the island,
for two days, when they found that time was wasted to no purpose upon
a hopeless task, they turned their efforts to the devastation of the
country; and having plundered and fired several villages, and acquired
a greater booty than they had obtained on the continent, they retired
to their ships, when ambassadors from the Baliares came to Scipio to
sue for peace. From this place the fleet sailed back, and returned to
the hither parts of the province, whither ambassadors of all the
people who dwell on the Iberus, and of many people in the most distant
parts of Spain, assembled. But the number of states who really became
subject to the authority and dominion of the Romans, and gave
hostages, amounted to upwards of one hundred and twenty. The Roman
therefore, relying sufficiently on his land forces also, advanced as
far as the pass of Castulo. Hasdrubal retired into Lusitania, and
nearer the ocean.
21. After this, it seemed probable that the remainder of the summer
would be peaceful; and so it would have been with regard to the Punic
enemy: but besides that the tempers of the Spaniards themselves are
naturally restless, and eager for innovation, Mandonius, together with
Indibilis, who had formerly been petty prince of the Ilergetes, having
stirred up their countrymen, came to lay waste the peaceful country of
the Roman allies, after the Romans had retired from the pass to the
sea-coast. A military tribune with some light-armed auxiliaries being
sent against these by Scipio, with a small effort put them all to the
rout, as being but a disorderly band: some having been captured and
slain, a great portion of them were deprived of their arms. This
disturbance, however, brought back Hasdrubal, who was retiring to the
ocean, to protect his allies on this side the Iberus. The Carthaginian
camp was in the territory of Ilercao, the Roman camp at the New Fleet,
when unexpected intelligence turned the war into another quarter. The
Celtiberians, who had sent the chief men of their country as
ambassadors to the Romans, and had given them hostages, aroused by a
message from Scipio, take up arms and invade the province of the
Carthaginians with a powerful army; take three towns by storm; and
after that, encountering Hasdrubal himself in two battles with,
splendid success, slew fifteen thousand and captured four thousand,
together with many military standards.
22. This being the state of affairs in Spain, Publius Scipio came into
his province, having been sent thither by the senate, his command
being continued to him after his consulate, with thirty long ships,
eight thousand soldiers, and a large importation of provisions. That
fleet, swelled to an enormous size by a multitude of transports, being
descried at a distance, entered safe the port of Tarraco, to the great
joy of the citizens and allies. Landing his troops there, Scipio set
out and formed a junction with his brother, and thenceforward they
prosecuted the war with united courage and counsels. While the
Carthaginians, therefore, were occupied with the Celtiberian war, they
promptly crossed the Iberus, and not seeing any enemy, pursue their
course to Saguntum; for it was reported that the hostages from every
part of Spain, having been consigned to custody, were kept in the
citadel of that place under a small guard. That pledge alone checked
the affections of all the people of Spain, which were inclined towards
an alliance with the Romans; lest the guilt of their defection should
be expiated with the blood of their children. One man, by a stratagem
more subtle than honourable, liberated the Spaniards from this
restraint. There was at Saguntum a noble Spaniard, named Abelux,
hitherto faithful to the Carthaginians, but now (such are for the most
part the dispositions of barbarians) had changed his attachment with
fortune; but considering that a deserter going over to enemies without
the betraying of something valuable, would be looked upon only as a
stigmatized and worthless individual, was solicitous to render as
great a service as possible to his new confederates. Having turned
over in his mind, then, the various means which, under the favour of
fortune, he might employ, in preference to every other, he applied
himself to the delivering up of the hostages; concluding that this one
thing, above all others, would gain the Romans the friendship of the
Spanish chieftains. But since he knew that the guards of the hostages
would do nothing without the authority of Bostar, the governor, he
addresses himself with craft to Bostar himself. Bostar had his camp
without the city, just upon the shore, in order to preclude the
approach of the Romans from that quarter. He informs him, taken aside
to a secret place, and as if uninformed, in what position affairs
were: "That hitherto fear had withheld the minds of the Spaniards to
them, because the Romans were at a great distance: that now the Roman
camp was on this side the Iberus, a secure fortress and asylum for
such as desired a change, that therefore those whom fear could not
bind should be attached by kindness and favour." When Bostar, in
astonishment, earnestly asked him, what sudden gift of so much
importance that could be, he replied, "Send back the hostages to their
states: this will be an acceptable boon, privately to their parents,
who possess the greatest influence in their respective states, and
publicly to the people. Every man wishes to have confidence reposed in
him; and confidence reposed generally enforces the fidelity itself.
The office of restoring the hostages to their homes, I request for
myself; that I may enhance my project by the trouble bestowed, and
that I may add as much value as I can to a service in its own
intrinsic nature so acceptable." When he had persuaded the man, who
was not cunning as compared with Carthaginian minds in general, having
gone secretly and by night to the outposts of the enemy, he met with
some auxiliary Spaniards; and having been brought by them into the
presence of Scipio, he explains what brought him. Pledges of fidelity
having been given and received, and the time and place for delivering
the hostages having been appointed, he returns to Saguntum. The
following day he spent with Bostar, in taking his commands for
effecting the business; having so arranged it, that he should go by
night, in order that he might escape the observation of the enemy, he
was dismissed; and awakening the guards of the youths at the hour
agreed upon with them, set out and led them, as if unconsciously, into
a snare prepared by his own deceit. They were brought to the Roman
camp, and every thing else respecting the restoration of the hostages
was transacted as had been agreed upon with Bostar, and in the same
course as if the affair had been carried on in the name of the
Carthaginians. But the favour of the Romans was somewhat greater than
that of the Carthaginians would have been in a similar case; for
misfortune and fear might have seemed to have softened them, who had
been found oppressive and haughty in prosperity. The Roman, on the
contrary, on his first arrival, having been unknown to them before,
had begun with an act of clemency and liberality: and Abelux, a man of
prudence, did not seem likely to have changed his allies without good
cause. Accordingly all began, with great unanimity, to meditate a
revolt; and hostilities would immediately have commenced, had not the
winter intervened, which compelled the Romans, and the Carthaginians
also, to retire to shelter.
23. Such were the transactions in Spain also during the second summer
of the Punic war; while in Italy the prudent delay of Fabius had
procured the Romans some intermission from disasters; which conduct,
as it kept Hannibal disturbed with no ordinary degree of anxiety, for
it proved to him that the Romans had at length selected a general who
would carry on the war with prudence, and not in dependence on
fortune; so was it treated with contempt by his countrymen, both in
the camp and in the city; particularly after that a battle had been
fought during his absence from the temerity of the master of the
horse, in its issue, as I may justly designate it, rather joyful than
successful. Two causes were added to augment the unpopularity of the
dictator: one arising out of a stratagem and artful procedure of
Hannibal; for the farm of the dictator having been pointed out to him
by deserters, he ordered that the fire and sword and every outrage of
enemies should be restrained from it alone, while all around were
levelled with the ground; in order that it might appear to have been
the term of some secret compact: the other from an act of his own, at
first perhaps suspicious, because in it he had not waited for the
authority of the senate, but in the result turning unequivocally to
his highest credit, with relation to the exchange of prisoners: for,
as was the case in the first Punic war, an agreement had been made
between the Roman and Carthaginian generals, that whichever received
more prisoners than he restored, should give two pounds and a half of
silver for every man. And when the Roman had received two hundred and
forty-seven more than the Carthaginian, and the silver which was due
for them, after the matter had been frequently agitated in the senate,
was not promptly supplied, because he had not consulted the fathers,
he sent his son Quintus to Rome and sold his farm, uninjured by the
enemy, and thus redeemed the public credit at his own private expense.
Hannibal lay in a fixed camp before the walls of Geronium, which city
he had captured and burnt, leaving only a few buildings for the
purpose of granaries: thence he was in the habit of sending out
two-thirds of his forces to forage; with the third part kept in
readiness, he himself remained on guard, both as a protection to his
camp, and for the purpose of looking out, if from any quarter an
attack should be made upon his foragers.
24. The Roman army was at that time in the territory of Larinum.
Minucius, the master of the horse, had the command of it; the
dictator, as was before mentioned, having gone to the city. But the
camp, which had been pitched in an elevated and secure situation, was
now brought down into the plain; plans of a bolder character,
agreeably with the temper of the general, were in agitation; and
either an attack was to be made upon the scattered foragers, or upon
the camp now left with an inconsiderable guard. Nor did it escape the
observation of Hannibal, that the plan of the war had been changed
with the general, and that the enemy would act with more boldness than
counsel. Hannibal himself too, which one would scarcely credit, though
the enemy was near, despatched a third part of his troops to forage,
retaining the remaining two-thirds in the camp. After that he advanced
his camp itself nearer to the enemy, to a hill within the enemy's
view, nearly two miles from Geronium; that they might be aware that he
was on the alert to protect his foragers if any attack should be made
upon them. Then he discovered an eminence nearer to, and commanding
the very camp of the Romans: and because if he marched openly in the
day-time to occupy it, the enemy would doubtless anticipate him by a
shorter way, the Numidians having been sent privately in the night,
took possession of it. These, occupying this position, the Romans, the
next day, despising the smallness of their numbers, dislodge, and
transfer their camp thither themselves. There was now, therefore, but
a very small space between rampart and rampart, and that the Roman
line had almost entirely filled; at the same time the cavalry, with
the light infantry sent out against the foragers through the opposite
part of the camp, effected a slaughter and flight of the scattered
enemy far and wide. Nor dared Hannibal hazard a regular battle;
because with so few troops, that he would scarcely be able to protect
his camp if attacked. And now he carried on the war (for part of his
army was away) according to the plans of Fabius, by sitting still and
creating delays. He had also withdrawn his troops to their former
camp, which was before the walls of Geronium. Some authors affirm that
they fought in regular line, and with encountering standards; that in
the first encounter the Carthaginian was driven in disorder quite to
his camp; but that, a sally thence having been suddenly made all at
once, the Romans in their turn became alarmed; that after that the
battle was restored by the arrival of Numerius Decimius the Samnite;
that this man, the first in family and fortune, not only in Bovianum,
whence he came, but in all Samnium, when conducting by command of the
dictator to the camp eight thousand infantry and five hundred horse,
having shown himself on the rear of Hannibal, seemed to both parties
to be a fresh reinforcement coming with Quintus Fabius from Rome; that
Hannibal, fearing also some ambuscade, withdrew his troops; and that
the Roman, aided by the Samnite, pursuing him, took by storm two forts
on that day; that six thousand of the enemy were slain, and about five
thousand of the Romans; but that though the loss was so nearly equal,
intelligence was conveyed to Rome of a signal victory; and a letter
from the master of the horse still more presumptuous.
25. These things were very frequently discussed, both in the senate
and assemblies. When the dictator alone, while joy pervaded the city,
attached no credit to the report or letter; and granting that all were
true, affirmed that he feared more from success than failure; then
Marcus Metilius, a Plebeian tribune, declares that such conduct surely
could not be endured. That the dictator, not only when present was an
obstacle to the right management of the affair, but also being absent
from the camp, opposed it still when achieved; that he studiously
dallied in his conduct of the war, that he might continue the longer
in office, and that he might have the sole command both at Rome and in
the army. Since one of the consuls had fallen in battle, and the other
was removed to a distance from Italy, under pretext of pursuing a
Carthaginian fleet; and the two praetors were occupied in Sicily and
Sardinia, neither of which provinces required a praetor at this time.
That Marcus Minucius, the master of the horse, was almost put under a
guard, lest he should see the enemy, and carry on any warlike
operation. That therefore, by Hercules, not only Samnium, which had
now been yielded to the Carthaginians, as if it had been land beyond
the Iberus, but the Campanian, Calenian, and Falernian territories had
been devastated, while the dictator was sitting down at Casilinum,
protecting his own farm with the legions of the Roman people: that the
army, eager for battle, as well as the master of the horse, were kept
back almost imprisoned within the rampart: that their arms were taken
out of their hands, as from captured enemies: at length, as soon as
ever the dictator had gone away, having marched out beyond their
rampart, that they had routed the enemy and put him to flight. On
account of which circumstances, had the Roman commons retained their
ancient spirit, that he would have boldly proposed to them to annul
the authority of Quintus Fabius; but now he would bring forward a
moderate proposition, to make the authority of the master of the horse
and the dictator equal; and that even then Quintus Fabius should not
be sent to the army, till he had substituted a consul in the room of
Caius Flaminius. The dictator kept away from the popular assemblies,
in which he did not command a favourable hearing, and even in the
senate he was not heard with favourable ears, when his eloquence was
employed in praising the enemy, and attributing the disasters of the
last two years to the temerity and unskilfulness of the generals; and
when he declared that the master of the horse ought to be called to
account for having fought contrary to his injunction. That "if the
supreme command and administration of affairs were intrusted to him,
he would soon take care that men should know, that to a good general
fortune was not of great importance; that prudence and conduct
governed every thing; that it was more glorious for him to have saved
the army at a crisis, and without disgrace, than to have slain many
thousands of the enemy." Speeches of this kind having been made
without effect, and Marcus Atilius Regulus created consul, that he
might not be present to dispute respecting the right of command, he
withdrew to the army on the night preceding the day on which the
proposition was to be decided. When there was an assembly of the
people at break of day, a secret displeasure towards the dictator, and
favour towards the master of the horse, rather possessed their minds,
than that men had not sufficient resolution to advise a measure which
was agreeable to the public; and though favour carried it, influence
was wanting to the bill. One man indeed was found who recommended the
law, Caius Terentius Varro, who had been praetor in the former year,
sprung not only from humble but mean parentage. They report that his
father was a butcher, the retailer of his own meat, and that he
employed this very son in the servile offices of that trade.
26. This young man, when a fortune left him by his father, acquired in
such a traffic, had inspired him with the hope of a higher condition,
and the gown and forum were the objects of his choice, by declaiming
vehemently in behalf of men and causes of the lowest kind, in
opposition to the interest and character of the good, first came to
the notice of the people, and then to offices of honour. Having passed
through the offices of quaestor, plebeian, and curule aedile, and,
lastly, that of praetor; when now he raised his mind to the hope of
the consulship, he courted the gale of popular favour by maligning the
dictator, and received alone the credit of the decree of the people.
All men, both at Rome and in the army, both friends and foes, except
the dictator himself, considered this measure to have been passed as
an insult to him; but the dictator himself bore the wrong which the
infuriated people had put upon him, with the same gravity with which
he endured the charges against him which his enemies laid before the
multitude; and receiving the letter containing a decree of the senate
respecting the equalization of the command while on his journey,
satisfied that an equal share of military skill was not imparted
together with the equal share of command, he returned to the army with
a mind unsubdued alike by his fellow-citizens and by the enemy.