more foully than Carthage had destroyed it, and bad them seek allies where its fate had not been heard of. The watchword was adopted by the other tribes, and the ambassadors retired into Gaul, where they were equally unsuccessful in preparing an opposition to the passage of Hannibal. It was only at Massilia that they rested from the alarms inspired by the armed councils of the Celts. Hannibal had meanwhile returned from the smoking ruins of Saguntum to New Carthage, where he spent the winter in preparing at once for the invasion of Italy, and for the defence of Spain and Africa, for he was the general-in-chief of Carthage at home as well as abroad. He had an army of 120,000 foot, 16,000 horse, and 58 elephants, and a fleet of 32 quinqueremes manned and 18 not manned, besides the reserves of ships and elephants at Carthage. But the quality of his troops differed widely from that of the common Punic armies. Discarding all mercenaries, he trusted to the Libyans and Iberians who, trained under his own eyes, found a substitute for the impulse of patriotism in attachment to their general. As a sign of his confidence and a preparation for the long campaigns that lay before them in a distant land, he gave them leave of absence for the winter; and he secured the devotion of the Libyans by a promise of the Carthaginian franchise as the reward of victory. He allotted 20,000 men to the defence of Africa, the passage of the Straits especially being secured by a strong force. In Spain he left 12,000 infantry and 2500 cavalry, with the bulk of the navy, under his brother Hasdrubal; and he placed in the fortress of Saguntum the hostages whom he took from the natives for the fidelity of their troops. All that he required of the home government was to send out 20 quinqueremes and 1000 soldiers to ravage the coasts of Italy, and, if possible, to station 25 ships at Lilybæum. His own course was to execute the plan inherited from his father-a direct invasion of Italy. A moderate force thrown on any point of the Italian coast would have had no hope of success amidst allies now more firmly bound to Rome than when they had stood faithful to her against Pyrrhus. But Rome might be approached through the recently subjugated and still faithless tribes of Gaul, who, it has been observed, were to Hannibal what Poland was to Napoleon, in his very similar Russian campaign. Treaties were concluded with the Insubrians. and Boii; and, if Hannibal could force his way through the untamed savages between the Pyrenees and the Alps, he reckoned on finding, as he descended into Italy, both guides and reinforcements. B.C. 218.] CHARACTER OF THE SECOND PUNIC WAR. 429 CHAPTER XXVI. THE SECOND PUNIC WAR. B.C. 218 TO B.C. 201. "İn parte operis mei licet mihi præfari bellum maxime omnium memorabile, quæ unquam gesta sint, me scripturum; quod, Hannibale duce, Carthaginienses cum populo Romano gessere. Nam neque validiores opibus ullæ inter se civitates gentesque contulerunt arma, neque his ipsis tantum unquam virium atque roboris fuit: et haud ignotas belli artes inter se, sed expertas primo Punico conserebant bello: et adeo varia belli fortuna ancepsque Mars fuit, ut propius periculo fuerint qui vicerunt." CHARACTER OF THE SECOND PUNIC WAR-ITS THREE PERIODS AND THREE SCENES, ITALY, THOUGH more than twenty centuries have passed since the second war between Rome and Carthage, and the world has witnessed, and still witnesses, conflicts compared with which its mere magnitude and the very principles at issue were insignificant, it is still in many respects "the most memorable of all wars ever waged." It displayed to the world two of its greatest generals, one perhaps the greatest of all, except him who never made a mistake in war and never lost a gun. It bequeathed to the students of the art of war every form of example and of warning, and left to free states in every age the far nobler lessons of effort, self-sacrifice, long-endurance, and confidence amidst desperate fortunes. Above all, it decided the future destiny of the world, whether the nations should become the slaves of a commercial oligarchy and of oriental superstitions, or be united under the laws of a free state, which even as a conqueror respected their liberties, in readiness to receive the truth that should make them free indeed. Nor is the Roman historian less discriminating in the prominence he assigns to the Carthaginian leader: for it was not so much a war between two republics as between the genius of Hannibal and the resources of the Roman people. As we watch the great captain's course, Carthage remains altogether in the background, grudgingly contributing a few supplies, but more discouragements through the intrigues of Hanno and his party, and utterly failing in the extreme crisis, when Hannibal was compelled to fall back upon her resources. The nearest parallel in history is the position of General Buonaparte, at about the same age, during his first campaign in Italy; but a brilliant issue relieved the latter in a few months from the anxieties which Hannibal endured for fifteen years. Accordingly it is his steps that the historian follows, and his alternations of success and reverse mark out the three periods into which the eighteen years of the war are naturally divided. Three campaigns conducted him in triumph from New Carthage to the field of Cannæ (B.c. 218-216). Then came the first check: the tide seemed to turn in favour of the Romans but Hannibal held his ground in Italy with various fortune for ten years, till the successes of Scipio, and the fatal battle of the Metaurus, cut him off from his true military base in Spain (B.C. 215-206). At length he was called back to meet the danger, to avert which he had begun the war,-the invasion of Africa by a general who knew how to avoid the errors of Agathocles and Regulus. The election of Scipio to the consulship marks the beginning of the last period of the war, which was concluded five years later by his triumph for the victory of Zama (B.C. 205–201). And the war has three scenes, as well as three periods,-Italy, Spain, and Africa-besides the episode of the Syracusan war consequent upon the death of Hiero. It is especially important to keep an eye fixed upon the events in Spain, for it was their early occupation of that base of Hannibal's operations, that alone enabled the Scipios to sow the seeds of victory which they reaped on the field of Zama. In the spring of B.C. 218, Hannibal set out from New Carthage with an army of 90,000 infantry and 12,000 cavalry, Africans and Iberians, in the proportion of about two to one, and with 37 elephants. The passage of the Ebro placed him beyond the limits of the Barcine kingdom, among the wild tribes of Catalonia, ever renowned for their fierce independence, and inclined, if to either party, to the Romans. The four months and fourth part of his army, exhausted in subduing them, were not deemed a cost B.C. 218. ] HANNIBAL PASSES THE RHONE. 431 too great for making Spain secure; and he left, besides, 11,000 men under Hanno to guard the newly-conquered province. The intricate passes of the Pyrenees gave many of the Spaniards the opportunity of desertion; but, so far from regretting this weeding of his forces, Hannibal is said to have sent back a large part of his army, as a contradiction to the presentiment that few were destined to return. He entered Gaul with a picked force of 50,000 horse and 9000 foot, and marched without serious opposition to the Rhone, reaching it opposite to Avignon about the end of July. It was here for the first time that he met with even the show of resistance from the Romans. Their councils had been wavering and their forces wasted in petty enterprizes, as if Carthage had been thoroughly subdued, and the time for action everywhere left at their disposal. While making a new enemy in Macedonia, they had neglected to crush the Celts and make themselves masters of the Alps, or to resist the growth of the Barcide power in Spain-at least, if not before, by sending a force adequate to save Saguntum, and failing that by seizing the country between the Pyrenees and Ebro or to anticipate the crisis by employing their fleet of 220 sail to strike a decisive blow in Africa. Even when the allotment of the provinces to the new consuls had indicated the proper course of action, it was not followed up with any vigour. The repeated rumours that Hannibal had passed the Ebro filled the Romans with a vague alarm, and reduced their policy almost to the defensive. The consul Sempronius remained in Sicily, while his colleague Scipio waited to quell some disturbances in Cisalpine Gaul. It was about the end of June when Scipio landed at Massilia on his voyage to Spain, and learned that Hannibal was in full march towards the Rhone. He postponed all else to the object of disputing the passage of the river, and made arrangements for that purpose with the friendly Gallic tribes, who were under the influence of the Massaliots. The consul himself was still at Massilia, deliberating on the best way of guarding the passage, when Hannibal, reaching the river, found the left bank occupied only by the Gauls, whom he outflanked by sending a detachment across on rafts two days' march higher up, and easily forced the passage. Scipio, first enlightened by a cavalry reconnaissance, hastened up the river only to find that Hannibal was three days' march beyond the river. He now resolved to sail back to Pisa and aid his colleague to meet the invader in Cisalpine Gaul; but after all his blunders he took a step which contributed mainly to save the state, by sending the bulk of his army into his allotted. province of Spain under his brother Cneius, thus providing occupation for Hasdrubal, and checking the flow of Hannibal's supplies and reinforcements. Two passes then led across the Alps from the banks of the lower Rhone, for the coast-road through the Riviera-to say nothing of resistance from the Massaliots-would have placed Hannibal far from his expected allies in Cisalpine Gaul. The one by the Cottian Alps (Mt. Genèvre), though lower and more direct, led through the more difficult country into the territory of the savage Taurini (round Turin), who were the enemies of the Insubrians. Besides these reasons for the rejection of that route, the easier though higher pass of the Graian Alps (Little Mt. St. Bernard) was the ordinary and well-known route from Gaul to Italy, and it is now almost universally agreed that this route was Hannibal's. But the passage of light-armed hordes of Celts, though they doubtless suffered terribly in their migrations across the Alps, was a very different task from the transit of a great army, with baggage, cavalry, and elephants, at a season when the autumn snows were falling, and resisted by the mountaineers, against whom they had to fight their way to the very summit of the pass.* The descent, though free from enemies, was still more dangerous, and in one spot on the banks of the Doria, where the avalanches glide along an almost vertical slope, it required the labour of three days to make the road practicable for the elephants. It was about the middle of September when the shattered army rested in the plain of Ivrea, amongst the friendly people of the Salassians. Since the passage of the Pyrenees the army had lost more than half its force, *It seems equally unnecessary to trouble the reader with the arguments upon a question which may now be considered settled, or, in these days of Alpine travel, to dwell on the details of the passage. Livy's rhetorical embellishments probably bear much the same proportion to the truth as David's picture of Napoleon on his impossibly-poised charger to the grey-coated traveller toiling up the rocky steps on his mule. After all that has been done to smooth the passage, a personal knowledge of the ground gives an idea of the achievement such as no words could convey to one who has never crossed the Alps: but the traveller must not forget the contrast, so beautifully drawn by Rogers, between "the path of pleasure which modern engineering has "flung like a silver zone" round mountains and along ravines, and the pathless chasms through which "The Carthaginian, on his way to Rome Entered their fastnesses. Trampling the snows |