CHAPTER XI.

BATTLES OF TREBIA AND TRASIMENE.

(B.C. 218-217.)

P. Scipio returns from Gaul to Italy-Sempronius recalled from Sicily— Battle of the Ticinus-Hannibal crosses the Po-He is joined by the Gauls-Retreat of Scipio to the Trebia-Hannibal selects his ground and time-Battle of the Trebia-Results of the victory-Hannibal crosses the Apennines-The marshes of the Arno-Position of the Roman armies-Flaminius and his antecedents-Despondency at Rome -Resolution of Flaminius-He follows Hannibal from Arretium-Livy and Polybius compared-Position chosen by Hannibal-Battle of the Trasimene lake-Death of Flaminius.

It is time now to ask what the Romans were doing to meet the storm. Publius Scipio, after his encounter with the enemy's cavalry on the Rhone, had marched up the river to the camp which Hannibal had just left, and discovering that he was already off for Italy had flattered his soldiers and, perhaps, himself, by representing his march as a flight. He showed, however, that he was himself alive to the gravity of the occasion by returning at once to Italy, while he sent his brother Cneius with the bulk of his army on to Spain.1 Had Scipio been a man of commanding ability, had he been a Hannibal, he might have taken the responsibility upon himself of overruling the orders of the Senate and diverting the whole expedition from the country which, as circumstances had proved, did not then need it to that which needed it immediately and imperatively. Had he

hastened back by sea with all his force from Marseilles to

SEMPRONIUS RECALLED FROM SICILY.

187

Genoa, he might have pushed up at once through the friendly Ligurian tribes to the base of the very pass over which Hannibal was crossing, and have overwhelmed him on his first arrival. If the struggle should be prolonged, it was doubtless all-important that a force should be sent to Spain to harass Hasdrubal and to prevent the dispatch of reinforcements to Hannibal. But if the bold venture of a general who knew how to face responsibility had succeeded, as it well might, there would have been no Hannibal and no Hannibal's army to reinforce. Anyhow the Roman Senate could very soon have raised fresh legions for the service in Spain. As it was, Publius landed, not with his army at Genoa, but with a few attendants only at Pisa, and thence made his way across the Apennines to Placentia.1 He found it as difficult to believe that the Hannibal whose quarters he had so lately occupied on the Rhone was already with his heterogeneous army safe across the Alps, as Hannibal, in his turn, to believe that the general who had been dallying at Marseilles, while he crossed the Rhone unmolested, was already back in Italy, and was nearing the Po.

As for the Senate, the last message that had reached them from Spain had told them of the taking of Saguntum, and they had accordingly despatched troops who were to stop Hannibal at the Ebro. The news they now received was to the effect that Hannibal had crossed, not the Ebro only, but the Pyrenees, the Rhone, and the Alps, and he might be expected at any moment across the Po. They now awoke they could not help awaking--to the character of the war. Orders were sent to Sempronius to return at once from Sicily for the protection of Italy. It must have been a bitter disappointment to him. In the southern seas the war had opened prosperously enough for Rome. The old alliance with Hiero of Syracuse had been renewed; an attempt of the Carthaginian fleet on Lilybæum, their last stronghold in the First Punic War, had been foiled, and the Polyb. iii. 56. 5.

I

fleet defeated; Sempronius himself had visited Malta, that ancient settlement of the Phoenician race, and had taken it for ever from Carthage; and he was now about to organise a descent on Africa itself, when the order came to return. He obeyed with a heavy heart, and sending his troops, some by land and some by sea, bade them rejoin him at Ariminum, an important town on the Adriatic, situated just where the great Flaminian road ends and the plain of the Po begins.1

2

But meanwhile Scipio and Hannibal had come into collision, and the first Roman blood in the great duel had been shed. The Carthaginian troops, it would seem, did not recover their spirits after their five months' journey from New Carthage and their terrible passage of the Alps as soon as the restless energy of their leader required; but Hannibal, allowing, as it is reported, his Gallic prisoners to secure their liberty by fighting in single combat in presence of his men, bade the latter observe how brave souls always preferred victory or death to a life of dishonour.3 In fact, the third alternative was no longer open to his army, for retreat was out of the question. The example of the Gauls did its work, and Hannibal's words drove the lesson home. From the valley of the Dora Baltea he advanced towards the Po; but turning aside westward to chastise the Taurini, he gave Scipio time to cross that river near Placentia, and to throw a bridge over the Ticinus, a stream which, issuing from the Lake Verbanus (Maggiore), flows southward into the Po near Pavia.

Not far from the Ticinus the armies, or a part of them, met in battle. Both generals had led out their cavalry in person to make a reconnaissance in force. Scipio, to compensate, as he hoped, for his inferiority in that arm, had also taken some light infantry with him; but these proved one of the causes of his defeat. Fearing to be trampled under

1 Polyb. iii. 61. 8-11; Livy, xxi. 49-52.

2 Polyb. iii. 56. 3; Livy, xxi. 38.

3 Polyb. iii. 62; Livy, xxi. 42.

BATTLE OF THE TICINUS.

189

foot by the cavalry, they retired behind their supports. The Gallic horse, who formed his centre, gallantly withstood the charge of the bridled Spanish cavalry of Hannibal. But the bridleless Numidian cavalry, on which he most relied, and which he had placed upon his wings, outflanking the enemy, and riding round towards their rear, first, fell on the retreating infantry, and dealt them the very death which they had tried to avoid; then, charging in their peculiar fashion, sometimes in twos and threes, sometimes in a compact mass, they fell on the Roman centre. This decided the conflict. Scipio received a dangerous wound, and was only, as it is said, rescued by his son, a youth of seventeen, who risked his own to save his father's life, and lived to conquer Hannibal at Zama, to finish the war, and to win the proud name of Africanus.1

The retreat of the Romans, though a hasty retreat, was not a rout; but it was ominous of what was to follow. It proved the superiority of the Numidian cavalry to any which the Romans could bring against them; and, seeing that the plains of Lombardy would always give them the advantage, Scipio determined to place the Po between himself and the enemy. He crossed in safety; but a party of six hundred men who were left behind to cover the retreat and to cut down the bridge, fell into Hannibal's hands. Unable to cross the river there, Hannibal marched up its left bank till he found a convenient place. He there threw a bridge of boats across, and then marching down on its right side crossed, as it would seem, the Trebia also, and pitched his camp six miles to the south of Placentia, under the strong walls of which Scipio's army lay entrenched.?

The whole country to the north of the Po, with the exception of the recently planted colony of Cremona, was now lost to the Romans. Already, before the battle of the Ticinus, the Ligurians and the Gallic tribes along the upper Po had joined Hannibal; and now embassies flowed in from almost all the remaining tribes of Cisalpine Gaul, offering 1 Polyb. iii. 65; Livy, xxi. 46. 2 Polyb. iii. 66; Livy, xxi. 47.

their alliance. The Boii, frightened at the planting of Mutina in their midst, had already, in the spring of the year, taken up arms against the Romans; and it was well for Rome that they had done so; otherwise Hannibal might have found no Roman army in the whole north of Italy to oppose his progress. These same Boii now appeared in Hannibal's camp, bringing with them, as a peace-offering the Roman triumvirs who had been sent to divide their lands. Hannibal received the Gallic chieftains kindly, and bade them retain their prisoners as security for themselves. Another band of 2,200 Gauls, who were serving in the Roman army, seeing which way the tide had turned, rose by night, murdered their officers, and went over in a body to Hannibal, who, knowing that they were now committed to his cause past all recall, sent them to their respective states to fan the revolt.1

Scipio was now alarmed for his safety; better, he thought, the exposed hill-sides than the fortified camp before Placentia, if only he could quit himself of these Gauls, so formidable as enemies, so doubly formidable as allies. Accordingly he broke up his camp by night, put, as it would seem, the Trebia between himself and Hannibal, and marching southward, took possession of some high ground formed by a spur of the Northern Apennines. It was a perilous operation, for his line of retreat took him near to Hannibal, who discovered the movement before it was completed; and had not the Numidian horsemen sent in pursuit turned aside to plunder the deserted camp, it might have fared ill with the whole Roman army. But the hills to the west of the Trebia, on

I Polyb. iii. 67; Livy xxi. 48.

2 It is a moot question whether the battle of Trebia was fought on the east or the west of the river. Niebuhr, Arnold, and Ihne are in favour of the eastern; Vaudincourt and Mommsen of the western bank. The ancient authorities are not explicit; but Polybius, 67. 9; 68. 4, etc., seems to point to the former supposition, and it is, at all events, clear that Livy so understood him. In any case several difficulties remain which admit only of partial explanation.