The Histories, Vol. 1
47. This was the origin of what is called the Cleomenic war. At first the Achaeans were for depending on their own resources for facing the Lacedaemonians. Cleomenes, B.C. 227-221.They looked upon it as more honourable not to look to others for preservation, but to guard their own territory and cities themselves; and at the same time the remembrances of his former services made them desirous of keeping up their friendship with Ptolemy,161 and averse from the appearance of seeking aid elsewhere. But when the war had lasted some time; and Cleomenes had revolutionised the constitution of his country, and had turned its constitutional monarchy into a despotism; and, moreover, was conducting the war with extraordinary skill and boldness: ‸seeing clearly what would happen, and fearing the reckless audacity of the Aetolians, Aratus determined that his first duty was to be well beforehand in frustrating their plans. He satisfied himself that Antigonus was a man of activity and practical ability, with some pretensions to the character of a man of honour; he however knew perfectly well that kings look on no man as a friend or foe from personal considerations, but ever measure friendships and enmities solely by the standard of expediency. He, therefore, conceived the idea of addressing himself to this monarch, and entering into friendly relations with him, taking occasion to point out to him the certain result of his present policy. But to act openly in this matter he thought inexpedient for several reasons. By doing so he would not only incur the opposition of Cleomenes and the Aetolians, but would cause consternation among the Achaeans themselves, because his appeal to their enemies would give the impression that he had abandoned all the hopes he once had in them. This was the very last idea he desired should go abroad; and he therefore determined to conduct this intrigue in secrecy.
The result of this was that he was often compelled to speak and act towards the public in a sense contrary to his true sentiments, that he might conceal his real design by suggesting one of an exactly opposite nature. For which reason there are some particulars which he did not even commit to his own commentaries.
48. It did not escape the observation of Aratus that the people of Megalopolis would be more ready than others to seek the protection of Antigonus, and the hopes of safety offered by Macedonia; for their neighbourhood to Sparta exposed them to attack before the other states; while they were unable to get the help which they ought to have, because the Achaeans were themselves hard pressed and in great difficulties. Besides they had special reasons for entertaining feelings of affection towards the royal family of Macedonia, ‸founded on the favours received in the time of Philip, son of Amyntas. He therefore imparted his general design under pledge of secrecy to Nicophanes and Cercidas of Megalopolis, who were family friends of his own and of a character suited to the undertaking; and by their means experienced no difficulty in inducing the people of Megalopolis to send envoys to the league, to advise that an application for help should be made to Antigonus. Nicophanes and Cercidas were themselves selected to go on this mission to the league, and thence, if their view was accepted, to Antigonus. The league consented to allow the people of Megalopolis to send the mission; and accordingly Nicophanes lost no time in obtaining an interview with the king. About the interests of his own country he spoke briefly and summarily, confining himself to the most necessary statements; the greater part of his speech was, in accordance with the directions of Aratus, concerned with the national question.
49. The points suggested by Aratus for the envoy to dwell on were “the scope and object of the understanding between the Aetolians and Cleomenes, ‸and the necessity of caution on the part primarily of the Achaeans, but still more even on that of Antigonus himself: first, because the Achaeans plainly could not resist the attack of both; and, secondly, because if the Aetolians and Cleomenes conquered them, any man of sense could easily see that they would not be satisfied or stop there. For the encroaching spirit of the Aetolians, far from being content to be confined by the boundaries of the Peloponnese, would find even those of Greece too narrow for them. Again, the ambition of Cleomenes was at present directed to the supremacy in the Peloponnese: but this obtained, he would promptly aim at that of all Greece, in which it would be impossible for him to succeed without first crushing the government of Macedonia. They were, therefore, to urge him to consider, with a view to the future, which of the two courses would be the more to his own interests,—to fight for supremacy in Greece in conjunction with the Achaeans and Boeotians against Cleomenes in the Peloponnese; or to abandon the most powerful race, and to stake the Macedonian empire on a battle in Thessaly, against a combined force of Aetolians and Boeotians, with the Achaeans and Lacedaemonians to boot. If the Aetolians, from regard to the goodwill shown them by the Achaeans in the time of Demetrius, were to pretend to be anxious to keep the peace as they were at present doing, they were to assert that the Achaeans were ready to engage Cleomenes by themselves; and if fortune declared in their favour they would want no assistance from any one: but if fortune went against them, and the Aetolians joined in the attack, they begged him to watch the course of events, that he might not let things go too far, but might aid the Peloponnesians while they were still capable of being saved. He had no need to be anxious about the good faith or gratitude of the Achaeans: when the time for action came, Aratus pledged himself to find guarantees which would be satisfactory to both parties; and similarly would himself indicate the moment at which the aid should be given.”
50. These arguments seemed to Antigonus to have been put by Aratus with equal sincerity and ability: and after listening to them, he eagerly took the first necessary step by writing a letter to the people of Megalopolis with an offer of assistance, on condition that such a measure should receive the consent of the Achaeans. When Nicophanes and Cercidas returned home and delivered this despatch from the king, reporting at the same time his other expressions of goodwill and zeal in the cause, the spirits of the people of Megalopolis were greatly elated; and they were all eagerness to attend the meeting of the league, and urge that measures should be taken to secure the alliance of Antigonus, and to put the management of the war in his hands with all despatch. ‸Aratus learnt privately from Nicophanes the king’s feelings towards the league and towards himself; and was delighted that his plan had not failed, and that he had not found the king completely alienated from himself, as the Aetolians hoped he would be. He regarded it also as eminently favourable to his policy, that the people of Megalopolis were so eager to use the Achaean league as the channel of communication with Antigonus. For his first object was if possible to do without this assistance; but if he were compelled to have recourse to it, he wished that the invitation should not be sent through himself personally, but that it should rather come from the Achaeans as a nation. For he feared that, if the king came, and conquered Cleomenes and the Lacedaemonians in the war, and should then adopt any policy hostile to the interests of the national constitution, he would have himself by general consent to bear the blame of the result: while Antigonus would be justified, by the injury which had been inflicted on the royal house of Macedonia in the matter of the Acrocorinthus. Accordingly when Megalopolitan envoys appeared in the national council, and showed the royal despatch, and further declared the general friendly disposition of the king, and added an appeal to the congress to secure the king’s alliance without delay; and when also the sense of the meeting was clearly shown to be in favour of taking this course, Aratus rose, and, after setting forth the king’s zeal, and complimenting the meeting upon their readiness to act in the matter, he proceeded to urge upon them in a long speech that “They should try if possible to preserve their cities and territory by their own efforts, for that nothing could be more honourable or more expedient than that:
but that, if it turned out that fortune declared against them in this effort, they might then have recourse to the assistance of their friends; but not until they had tried all their own resources to the uttermost.” This speech was received with general applause: and it was decided to take no fresh departure at present, and to endeavour to bring the existing war to a conclusion unaided.
51. But when Ptolemy, despairing of retaining the league’s friendship, began to furnish Cleomenes with ‸supplies,—which he did with a view of setting him up as a foil to Antigonus, thinking the Lacedaemonians offered him better hopes than the Achaeans of being able to thwart the policy of the Macedonian kings; and when the Achaeans themselves had suffered three defeats,—one at Lycaeum in an engagement with Cleomenes whom they had met on a march; and again in a pitched battle at Ladocaea in the territory of Megalopolis, in which Lydiades fell; and a third time decisively at a place called Hecatomboeum in the territory of Dyme where their whole forces had been engaged,—after these misfortunes, no further delay was possible, and they were compelled by the force of circumstances to appeal unanimously to Antigonus. Thereupon Aratus sent his son to Antigonus, and ratified the terms of the subvention. The great difficulty was this: it was believed to be certain that the king would send no assistance, except on the condition of the restoration of the Acrocorinthus, and of having the city of Corinth put into his hands as a base of operations in this war; and on the other hand it seemed impossible that the Achaeans should venture to put the Corinthians in the king’s power against their own consent. The final determination of the matter was accordingly postponed, that they might investigate the question of the securities to be given to the king.
52. Meanwhile, on the strength of the dismay caused by his successes, Cleomenes was making an unopposed progress through the cities, ‸winning some by persuasion and others by threats. In this way, he got possession of Caphyae, Pellene, Pheneus, Argos, Phlius, Cleonae, Epidaurus, Hermione, Troezen, and last of all Corinth, while he personally commanded a siege of Sicyon. But this in reality relieved the Achaeans from a very grave difficulty. For the Corinthians by ordering Aratus, as Strategus of the league, and the Achaeans to evacuate the town, and by sending messages to Cleomenes inviting his presence, gave the Achaeans a ground of action and a reasonable pretext for moving. Aratus was quick to take advantage of this; and, as the Achaeans were in actual possession of the Acrocorinthus, he made his peace with the royal family of Macedonia by offering it to Antigonus; and at the same time gave thus a sufficient guarantee for friendship in the future, and further secured Antigonus a base of operations for the war with Sparta.
Upon learning of this compact between the league and Antigonus, Cleomenes raised the siege of ‸Sicyon and pitched his camp near the Isthmus; and, having thrown up a line of fortification uniting the Acrocorinthus with the mountain called the “Ass’s Back,” began from this time to expect with confidence the empire of the Peloponnese. But Antigonus had made his preparations long in advance, in accordance with the suggestion of Aratus, and was only waiting for the right moment to act. ‸And now the news which he received convinced him that the entrance of Cleomenes into Thessaly, at the head of an army, was only a question of a very few days: he accordingly despatched envoys to Aratus and the league to conclude the terms of the treaty162 and marched to the Isthmus with his army by way of Euboea. He took this route because the Aetolians, after trying other expedients for preventing Antigonus bringing this aid, now forbade his marching south of Thermopylae with an army, threatening that, if he did, they would offer armed opposition to his passage.
53. Thus Antigonus and Cleomenes were encamped face to face: the former desirous of effecting an entrance into the Peloponnese, Cleomenes determined to prevent him.
Meanwhile the Achaeans, in spite of their severe disasters, did not abandon their purpose or give up all hopes of retrieving their fortunes. ‸They gave Aristotle of Argos assistance when he headed a rising against the Cleomenic faction; and, under the command of Timoxenus the Strategus, surprised and seized Argos. And this must be regarded as the chief cause of the improvement which took place in their fortunes; for this reverse checked the ardour of Cleomenes and damped the courage of his soldiers in advance, as was clearly shown by what took place afterwards. For though Cleomenes had already possession of more advantageous posts, and was in the enjoyment of more abundant supplies than Antigonus, and was at the same time inspired with superior courage and ambition: yet, as soon as he was informed that Argos was in the hands of the Achaeans, he at once drew back, abandoned all these advantages, and retreated from the Isthmus with every appearance of precipitation, in terror of being completely surrounded by his enemies. At first he retired upon Argos, and for a time made some attempt to regain the town. But the Achaeans offered a gallant resistance; and the Argives themselves were stirred up to do the same by remorse for having admitted him before: and so, having failed in this attempt also, he marched back to Sparta by way of Mantinea.
54. On his part, Antigonus advanced without any casualty into the Peloponnese, and took over the Acrocorinthus; ‸and, without wasting time there, pushed on in his enterprise and entered Argos. He only stayed there long enough to compliment the Argives on their conduct, and to provide for the security of the city; and then immediately starting again directed his march towards Arcadia; and after ejecting the garrisons from the posts which had been fortified by Cleomenes in the territories of Aegys and Belmina, and, putting those strongholds in the hands of the people of Megalopolis, he went to Aegium to attend the meeting of the Achaean league. There he made a statement of his own proceedings, and consulted with the meeting as to the measures to be taken in the future. He was appointed commander-in-chief of the allied army, and went into winter quarters at Sicyon and Corinth.
At the approach of spring he broke up his camp and got on the march. On the third day he arrived at ‸Tegea, and being joined there by the Achaean forces, he proceeded to regularly invest the city. But the vigour displayed by the Macedonians in conducting the siege, and especially in the digging of mines, soon reduced the Tegeans to despair, and they accordingly surrendered. After taking the proper measures for securing the town, Antigonus proceeded to extend his expedition. ‸He now marched with all speed into Laconia; and having found Cleomenes in position on the frontier, he was trying to bring him to an engagement, and was harassing him with skirmishing attacks, when news was brought to him by his scouts that the garrison ‸of Orchomenus had started to join Cleomenes. He at once broke up his camp, hurried thither, and carried the town by assault. Having done that, he next invested Mantinea and began to besiege it. This town also being soon terrified into surrender by the Macedonians, he started again along the road to Heraea and Telphusa. ‸These towns, too, being secured by the voluntary surrender of their inhabitants, as the winter was by this time approaching, he went again to Aegium to attend the meeting of the league. His Macedonian soldiers he sent away to winter at home, while he himself remained to confer with the Achaeans on the existing state of affairs.
55. But Cleomenes was on the alert. He saw that the Macedonians in the army of Antigonus had been sent home; and that the king and his mercenaries in Aegium were three days’ march from Megalopolis; and this latter town he well knew to be difficult to guard, owing to its great extent, and the sparseness of its inhabitants; and, moreover, that it was just then being kept with even greater carelessness than usual, owing to Antigonus being in the country; and what was more important than anything else, he knew that the larger number of its men of military age had fallen at the battles of Lycaeum and Ladoceia. There happened to be residing in Megalopolis some Messenian exiles; by whose help he managed, under cover of night, to get within the walls without being detected. When day broke he had a narrow escape from being ejected, if not from absolute destruction, through the valour of the citizens. This had been his fortune three months before, when he had made his way into the city by the region which is called the Cōlaeum: but on this occasion, by the superiority of his force, and the seizure in advance of the strongest positions in the town, he succeeded in effecting his purpose. He eventually ejected the inhabitants, and took entire possession of the city; which, once in his power, he dismantled in so savage and ruthless a manner as to preclude the least hope that it might ever be restored. The reason of his acting in this manner was, I believe, that Megalopolis and Stymphalus were the only towns in which, during the vicissitudes of that period, he never succeeded in obtaining a single partisan, or inducing a single citizen to turn traitor. For the passion for liberty and the loyalty of the Clitorians had been stained by the baseness of one man, Thearces; whom the Clitorians, with some reason, denied to be a native of their city, asserting that he had been foisted in from Orchomenus, and was the offspring of one of the foreign garrison there.
56. For the history of the same period, with which we are now engaged, there are two authorities, ‸Aratus and Phylarchus,163 whose opinions are opposed in many points and their statements contradictory. I think, therefore, it will be advantageous, or rather necessary, since I follow Aratus in my account of the Cleomenic war, to go into the question; and not by any neglect on my part to suffer misstatements in historical writings to enjoy an authority equal to that of truth. The fact is that the latter of these two writers has, throughout the whole of his history, made statements at random and without discrimination. It is not, however, necessary for me to criticise him on other points on the present occasion, or to call him to strict account concerning them; but such of his statements as relate to the period which I have now in hand, that is the Cleomenic war, these I must thoroughly sift. They will be quite sufficient to enable us to form a judgment on the general spirit and ability with which he approaches historical writing. It was his object to bring into prominence the cruelty of Antigonus and the Macedonians, as well as that of Aratus and the Achaeans; and he accordingly asserts that, when Mantinea fell into their hands, it was cruelly treated; and that the most ancient and important of all the Arcadian towns was involved in calamities so terrible as to move all Greece to horror and tears. And being eager to stir the hearts of his readers to pity, and to enlist their sympathies by his story, he talks of women embracing, tearing their hair, and exposing their breasts; and again of the tears and lamentations of men and women, led off into captivity along with their children and aged parents. And this he does again and again throughout his whole history, by way of bringing the terrible scene vividly before his readers. I say nothing of the unworthiness and unmanliness of the course he has adopted: let us only inquire what is essential and to the purpose in history. Surely an historian’s object should not be to amaze his readers by a series of thrilling anecdotes; nor should he aim at producing speeches which might have been delivered, nor study dramatic propriety in details like a writer of tragedy: but his function is above all to record with fidelity what was actually said or done, however commonplace it may be. For the purposes of history and of the drama are not the same, but widely opposed to each other.
In the former the object is to strike and delight by words as true to nature as possible; in the latter to instruct and convince by genuine words and deeds; in the former the effect is meant to be temporary, in the latter permanent. In the former, again, the power of carrying an audience is the chief excellence, because the object is to create illusion; but in the latter the thing of primary importance is truth, because the object is to benefit the learner. And apart from these considerations, Phylarchus, in most of the catastrophes which he relates, omits to suggest the causes which gave rise to them, or the course of events which led up to them: and without knowing these, it is impossible to feel the due indignation or pity at anything which occurs. For instance, everybody looks upon it as an outrage that the free should be struck: still, if a man provokes it by an act of violence, he is considered to have got no more than he deserved; and, where it is done for correction and discipline, those who strike free men are deemed worthy of honour and gratitude. Again, the killing of a fellow-citizen is regarded as a heinous crime, deserving the severest penalties: and yet it is notorious that the man who kills a thief, or his wife’s paramour, is held guiltless; while he who kills a traitor or tyrant in every country receives honours and pre-eminence. And so in everything our final judgment does not depend upon the mere things done, but upon their causes and the views of the actors, according as these differ.
57. Now the people of Mantinea had in the first instance abandoned the league, and voluntarily submitted, first to the Aetolians, and afterwards to Cleomenes. ‸Being therefore, in accordance with this policy, members of the Lacedaemonian community, in the fourth year before the coming of Antigonus, their city was forcibly taken possession of by the Achaeans owing to the skilful plotting of Aratus. But on that occasion, so far from being subjected to any severity for their act of treason, it became a matter of general remark how promptly the feelings of the conquerors and the conquered underwent a revolution. As soon as he had got possession of the town, Aratus issued orders to his own men that no one was to lay a finger on anything that did not belong to him; and then, having summoned the Mantineans to a meeting, he bade them be of good cheer, and stay in their own houses; for that, as long as they remained members of the league, their safety was secured. On their part, the Mantineans, surprised at this unlooked-for prospect of safety, immediately experienced a universal revulsion of feeling. The very men against whom they had a little while before been engaged in a war, in which they had seen many of their kinsfolk killed, and no small number grievously wounded, they now received into their houses, and entertained as their guests, interchanging every imaginable kindness with them. And naturally so. For I believe that there never were men who met with more kindly foes, or came out of a struggle with what seemed the most dreadful disasters more scatheless, than did the Mantineans, owing to the humanity of Aratus and the Achaeans towards them.
58. But they still saw certain dangers ahead from intestine disorders, and the hostile designs of the Aetolians and Lacedaemonians; they subsequently, therefore, sent envoys to the league asking for a guard for their town. The request was granted: and three hundred of the league army were selected by lot to form it. These men on whom the lot fell started for Mantinea; and, abandoning their native cities and their callings in life, remained there to protect the lives and liberties of the citizens. Besides them, the league despatched two hundred mercenaries, who joined the Achaean guard in protecting the established constitution. But this state of things did not last long: an insurrection broke out in the town, and the Mantineans called in the aid of the Lacedaemonians; delivered the city into their hands; and put to death the garrison sent by the league. It would not be easy to mention a grosser or blacker act of treachery. Even if they resolved to utterly set at nought the gratitude they owed to, and the friendship they had formed with, the league; they ought at least to have spared these men, and to have let every one of them depart under some terms or another: for this much it is the custom by the law of nations to grant even to foreign enemies. But in order to satisfy Cleomenes and the Lacedaemonians of their fidelity in the policy of the hour, they deliberately, and in violation of international law, consummated a crime of the most impious description. To slaughter and wreak vengeance on the men who had just before taken their city, and refrained from doing them the least harm, and who were at that very moment engaged in protecting their lives and liberties,—can anything be imagined more detestable? What punishment can be conceived to correspond with its enormity? If one suggests that they would be rightly served by being sold into slavery, with their wives and children, as soon as they were beaten in war; it may be answered that this much is only what, by the laws of warfare, awaits even those who have been guilty of no special act of impiety. They deserved therefore to meet with a punishment even more complete and heavy than they did; so that, even if what Phylarchus mentions did happen to them, there was no reason for the pity of Greece being bestowed on them: praise and approval rather were due to those who exacted vengeance for their impious crime.
But since, as a matter of fact, nothing worse befel the Mantineans than the plunder of their property and the selling of their free citizens into slavery, this historian, for the mere sake of a sensational story, has not only told a pure lie, but an improbable lie. His wilful ignorance also was so supreme, that he was unable to compare with this alleged cruelty of the Achaeans the conduct of the same people in the case of Tegea, which they took by force at the same period, and yet did no injury to its inhabitants. And yet, if the natural cruelty of the perpetrators was the sole cause of the severity to Mantinea, it is to be presumed that Tegea would have been treated in the same way. But if their treatment of Mantinea was an exception to that of every other town, the necessary inference is that the cause for their anger was exceptional also.
59. Again Phylarchus says that Aristomachus the Argive, a man of a most distinguished family, ‸who had been despot of Argos, as his fathers had been before him, upon falling into the hands of Antigonus and the league “was hurried off to Cenchreae and there racked to death,—an unparalleled instance of injustice and cruelty.” But in this matter also our author preserves his peculiar method. He makes up a story about certain cries of this man, when he was on the rack, being heard through the night by the neighbours: “some of whom,” he says, “rushed to the house in their horror, or incredulity, or indignation at the outrage.” As for the sensational story, let it pass; I have said enough on that point. But I must express my opinion that, even if Aristomachus had committed no crime against the Achaeans besides, yet his whole life and his treason to his own country deserved the heaviest possible punishment. And in order, forsooth, to enhance this man’s reputation, and move his reader’s sympathies for his sufferings, our historian remarks that he had not only been a tyrant himself, but that his fathers had been so before him. It would not be easy to bring a graver or more bitter charge against a man than this: for the mere word “tyrant” involves the idea of everything that is wickedest, and includes every injustice and crime possible to mankind. And if Aristomachus endured the most terrible tortures, as Phylarchus says, he yet would not have been sufficiently punished for the crime of one day, in which, when Aratus had effected an entrance into Argos with the Achaean soldiers,—and after supporting the most severe struggles and dangers for the freedom of its citizens, had eventually been driven out, because the party within who were in league with him had not ventured to stir, for fear of the tyrant,—Aristomachus availed himself of the pretext of their complicity with the irruption of the Achaeans to put to the rack and execute eighty of the leading citizens, who were perfectly innocent, in the presence of their relations. I pass by the history of his whole life and the crimes of his ancestors; for that would be too long a story.
60. But this shows that we ought not to be indignant if a man reaps as he has sown; but rather if he is allowed to end his days in peace, without experiencing such retribution at all. Nor ought we to accuse Antigonus or Aratus of crime, for having racked and put to death a tyrant whom they had captured in war: to have killed and wreaked vengeance on whom, even in time of peace, would have brought praise and honour to the doers from all right-minded persons.
But when, in addition to these crimes, he was guilty also of treachery to the league, what shall we say that he deserved? The facts of the case are these. He abdicated his sovereignty of Argos shortly before, finding himself in difficulties, owing to the state of affairs brought on by the death of Demetrius. He was, however, protected by the clemency and generosity of the league; and, much to his own surprise, was left unmolested. For the Achaean government not only secured him an indemnity for all crimes committed by him while despot, but admitted him as a member of the league, and invested him with the highest office in it,—that, namely, of Commander-in-Chief and Strategus.164 All these favours he immediately forgot, as soon as his hopes were a little raised by the Cleomenic war; and at a crisis of the utmost importance he withdrew his native city, as well as his own personal adhesion, from the league, and attached them to its enemies. For such an act of treason what he deserved was not to be racked under cover of night at Cenchreae, and then put to death, as Phylarchus says: he ought to have been taken from city to city in the Peloponnese, and to have ended his life only after exemplary torture in each of them. And yet the only severity that this guilty wretch had to endure was to be drowned in the sea by order of the officers at Cenchreae.
61. There is another illustration of this writer’s manner to be found in his treatment of the cases of Mantinea and Megalopolis. The misfortunes of the former he has depicted with his usual exaggeration and picturesqueness: apparently from the notion, that it is the peculiar function of an historian to select for special mention only such actions as are conspicuously bad. But about the noble conduct of the Megalopolitans at that same period he has not said a word: as though it were the province of history to deal with crimes rather than with instances of just and noble conduct; or as though his readers would be less improved by the record of what is great and worthy of imitation, than by that of such deeds as are base and fit only to be avoided. For instance, he has told us clearly enough how Cleomenes took the town, preserved it from damage, and forthwith sent couriers to the Megalopolitans in Messene with a despatch, offering them the safe enjoyment of their country if they would throw in their lot with him;—and his object in telling all this is to enhance the magnanimity and moderation of Cleomenes towards his enemies. Nay, he has gone farther, and told us how the people of Megalopolis would not allow the letter to be read to the end, and were not far from stoning the bearers of it. Thus much he does tell us. But the sequel to this, so appropriate to an historian,—the commendation, I mean, and honourable mention of their noble conduct,—this he has altogether left out. And yet he had an opportunity ready to his hand. For if we view with approval the conduct of a people who merely by their declarations and votes support a war in behalf of friends and allies; while to those who go so far as to endure the devastation of their territory, and a siege of their town, we give not only praise but active gratitude: what must be our estimate of the people of Megalopolis? Must it not be of the most exalted character? First of all, they allowed their territory to be at the mercy of Cleomenes, and then consented to be entirely deprived of their city, rather than be false to the league: and, finally, in spite of an unexpected chance of recovering it, they deliberately preferred the loss of their territory, the tombs of their ancestors, their temples, their homes and property, of everything in fact which men value most, to forfeiting their faith to their allies. No nobler action has ever been, or ever will be performed; none to which an historian could better draw his reader’s attention.
For what could be a higher incentive to good faith, or the maintenance of frank and permanent relations between states? But of all this Phylarchus says not a word, being, as it seems to me, entirely blind as to all that is noblest and best suited to be the theme of an historian.
62. He does, however, state in the course of his narrative that, from the spoils of Megalopolis, six thousand talents fell to the Lacedaemonians, ‸of which two thousand, according to custom, were given to Cleomenes. This shows, to begin with, an astounding ignorance of the ordinary facts as to the resources of Greece: a knowledge which above all others should be possessed by historians. I am not of course now speaking of the period in which the Peloponnese had been ruined by the Macedonian kings, and still more completely by a long continuance of intestine struggles; but of our own times, in which it is believed, by the establishment of its unity, to be enjoying the highest prosperity of which it is capable. Still even at this period, if you could collect all the movable property of the whole Peloponnese (leaving out the value of slaves), it would be impossible to get so large a sum of money together. That I speak on good grounds and not at random will appear from the following fact. Every one has read that when the Athenians, in conjunction with the Thebans, ‸entered upon the war with the Lacedaemonians, and despatched an army of twenty thousand men, and manned a hundred triremes, they resolved to supply the expenses of the war by the assessment of a property tax; and accordingly had a valuation taken, not only of the whole land of Attica and the houses in it, but of all other property: but yet the value returned fell short of six thousand talents by two hundred and fifty; which will show that what I have just said about the Peloponnese is not far wide of the mark. But at this period the most exaggerated estimate could scarcely give more than three hundred talents, as coming from Megalopolis itself; for it is acknowledged that most of the inhabitants, free and slaves, escaped to Messene. But the strongest confirmation of my words is the case of Mantinea, which, as he himself observes, was second to no Arcadian city in wealth and numbers. Though it was surrendered after a siege, so that no one could escape, and no property could without great difficulty be concealed; yet the value of the whole spoil of the town, including the price of the captives sold, amounted at this same period to only three hundred talents.
63. But a more astonishing misstatement remains to be remarked. In the course of his history of this war, ‸Phylarchus asserts “that about ten days before the battle an ambassador came from Ptolemy announcing to Cleomenes, that the king declined to continue to support him with supplies, and advised him to make terms with Antigonus. And that when this message had been delivered to Cleomenes, he made up his mind that he had better put his fortune to the supreme test as soon as possible, before his forces learnt about this message, because he could not hope to provide the soldiers’ pay from his own resources.” But if he had at that very time become the master of six thousand talents, he would have been better supplied than Ptolemy himself. And as for war with Antigonus, if he had become master of only three hundred talents, he would have been able to continue it without any difficulty. But the writer states two inconsistent propositions—that Cleomenes depended wholly on Ptolemy for money: and that he at the same time had become master of that enormous sum. Is this not irrational, and grossly careless besides? I might mention many instances of a similar kind, not only in his account of this period, but throughout his whole work; but I think for my present purpose enough has been said.
64. Megalopolis having fallen, then, Antigonus spent the winter at Argos. But at the approach of spring Cleomenes collected his army, ‸addressed a suitable exhortation to them, and led them into the Argive territory. Most people thought this a hazardous and foolhardy step, because the places at which the frontier was crossed were strongly fortified; but those who were capable of judging regarded the measure as at once safe and prudent. For seeing that Antigonus had dismissed his forces, he reckoned on two things,—there would be no one to resist him, and therefore he would run no risk; and when the Argives found that their territory was being laid waste up to their walls, they would be certain to be roused to anger and to lay the blame upon Antigonus: therefore, if on the one hand Antigonus, unable to bear the complaints of the populace, were to sally forth and give him battle with his present forces, Cleomenes felt sure of an easy victory; but if on the other hand Antigonus refused to alter his plans, and kept persistently aloof, he believed that he would be able to effect a safe retreat home, after succeeding by this expedition in terrifying his enemies and inspiring his own forces with courage. And this was the actual result. For as the devastation of the country went on, crowds began to collect and abuse Antigonus: but like a wise general and king, he refused to allow any consideration to outweigh that of sound strategy, and persisted in remaining inactive. Accordingly Cleomenes, in pursuance of his plan, having terrified his enemies and inspired courage in his own army for the coming struggle, returned home unmolested.
65. Summer having now come, and the Macedonian and Achaean soldiers having assembled from their winter quarters, Antigonus moved his army, along with his allies, into Laconia. ‸The main force consisted of ten thousand Macedonians for the phalanx, three thousand light armed, and three hundred cavalry. With these were a thousand Agraei; the same number of Gauls; three thousand mercenary infantry, and three hundred cavalry; picked troops of the Achaeans, three thousand infantry and three hundred cavalry; and a thousand Megalopolitans armed in the Macedonian manner, under the command of Cercidas of Megalopolis. Of the allies there were two thousand infantry, and two hundred cavalry, from Boeotia; a thousand infantry and fifty cavalry from Epirus; the same number from Acarnania; and sixteen hundred from Illyria, under the command of Demetrius of Pharos. The whole amounted to twenty-eight thousand infantry and twelve hundred cavalry.
Cleomenes had expected the attack, and had secured the passes into the country by posting garrisons, ‸digging trenches, and felling trees; while he took up position at a place called Sellasia, with an army amounting to twenty thousand, having calculated that the invading forces would take that direction: which turned out to be the case. This pass lies between two hills, called respectively Evas and Olympus, and the road to Sparta follows the course of the river Oenus. Cleomenes strengthened both these hills by lines of fortification, consisting of trench and palisade. On Evas he posted the perioeci and allies, under the command of his brother Eucleidas; while he himself held Olympus with the Lacedaemonians and mercenaries. On the level ground along the river he stationed his cavalry, with a division of his mercenaries, on both sides of the road. When Antigonus arrived, he saw at once the strength of the position, and the skill with which Cleomenes had selected the different branches of his army to occupy the points of vantage, so that the whole aspect of the position was like that of skilled soldiers drawn up ready for a charge. For no preparation for attack or defence had been omitted; but everything was in order, either for offering battle with effect, or for holding an almost unassailable position.
66. The sight of these preparations decided Antigonus not to make an immediate attack upon the position, or rashly hazard an engagement. He pitched his camp a short distance from it, covering his front by the stream called Gorgylus, and there remained for some days; informing himself by reconnaissances of the peculiarities of the ground and the character of the troops, and at the same time endeavouring by feigned movements to elicit the intentions of the enemy. But he could never find an unguarded point, or one where the troops were not entirely on the alert, for Cleomenes was always ready at a moment’s notice to be at any point that was attacked. He therefore gave up all thoughts of attacking the position; and finally an understanding was come to between him and Cleomenes to bring the matter to the decision of battle. And, indeed, Fortune had there brought into competition two commanders equally endowed by nature with military skill. To face the division of the enemy on Evas Antigonus stationed his Macedonian hoplites with brazen shields, and the Illyrians, drawn up in alternate lines, under the command of Alexander, son of Acmetus, and Demetrius of Pharos, respectively. Behind them he placed the Acarnanians and Cretans, and behind them again were two thousand Achaeans to act as a reserve. His cavalry, on the banks of the river Oenous, were posted opposite the enemy’s cavalry, under the command of Alexander, and flanked by a thousand Achaean infantry and the same number of Megalopolitans. Antigonus himself determined to lead his mercenaries and Macedonian troops in person against the division on Olympus commanded by Cleomenes. Owing to the narrowness of the ground, the Macedonians were arranged in a double phalanx, one close behind the other, while the mercenaries were placed in front of them. It was arranged that the Illyrians, who had bivouacked in full order during the previous night along the river Gorgylus, close to the foot of Evas, were to begin their assault on the hill when they saw a flag of linen raised from the direction of Olympus; and that the Megalopolitans and cavalry should do the same when the king raised a scarlet flag.
67. The moment for beginning the battle had come: the signal was given to the Illyrians, and the word passed by the officers to their men to do their duty, and in a moment they started into view of the enemy and began assaulting the hill. ‸But the light-armed troops who were stationed with Cleomenes’s cavalry, observing that the Achaean lines were not covered by any other troops behind them, charged them on the rear; and thus reduced the division while endeavouring to carry the hill of Evas to a state of great peril,—being met as they were on their front by Eucleidas from the top of the hill, ‸and being charged and vigorously attacked by the light-armed mercenaries on their rear. It was at this point that Philopoemen of Megalopolis, with a clear understanding of the situation and a foresight of what would happen, vainly endeavoured to point out the certain result to his superior officers. They disregarded him for his want of experience in command and his extreme youth; and, accordingly he acted for himself, and cheering on the men of his own city, made a vigorous charge on the enemy. This effected a diversion; for the light-armed mercenaries, who were engaged in harassing the rear of the party ascending Evas, hearing the shouting and seeing the cavalry engaged, abandoned their attack upon this party and hurried back to their original position to render assistance to the cavalry. The result was that the division of Illyrians, Macedonians, and the rest who were advancing with them, no longer had their attention diverted by an attack upon their rear, and so continued their advance upon the enemy with high spirits and renewed confidence. And this afterwards caused it to be acknowledged that to Philopoemen was due the honour of the success against Eucleidas.
68. It is clear that Antigonus at any rate entertained that opinion, for after the battle he asked Alexander, the commander of the cavalry, with the view of convicting him of his shortcoming, “Why he had engaged before the signal was given?” And upon Alexander answering that “He had not done so, but that a young officer from Megalopolis had presumed to anticipate the signal, contrary to his wish:” Antigonus replied, “That young man acted like a good general in grasping the situation; you, general, were the youngster.”
What Eucleidas ought to have done, when he saw the enemy’s lines advancing, was to have rushed down at once upon them; thrown their ranks into disorder; and then retired himself, step by step, to continually higher ground into a safe position: for by thus breaking them up and depriving them, to begin with, of the advantages of their peculiar armour and disposition, he would have secured the victory by the superiority of his position. But he did the very opposite of all this, and thereby forfeited the advantages of the ground. As though victory were assured, he kept his original position on the summit of the hill, with the view of catching the enemy at as great an elevation as possible, that their flight might be all the longer over steep and precipitous ground. The result, as might have been anticipated, was exactly the reverse. ‸For he left himself no place of retreat, and by allowing the enemy to reach his position, unharmed and in unbroken order, he was placed at the disadvantage of having to give them battle on the very summit of the hill; and so, as soon as he was forced by the weight of their heavy armour and their close order to give any ground, it was immediately occupied by the Illyrians; while his own men were obliged to take lower ground, because they had no space for manœuvring on the top. The result was not long in arriving: they suffered a repulse, which the difficult and precipitous nature of the ground over which they had to retire turned into a disastrous flight.
69. Simultaneously with these events the cavalry engagement was also being brought to a decision; in which all the Achaean cavalry, and especially Philopoemen, fought with conspicuous gallantry, for to them it was a contest for freedom. Philopoemen himself had his horse killed under him, and while fighting accordingly on foot received a severe wound through both his thighs. ‸Meanwhile the two kings on the other hill Olympus began by bringing their light-armed troops and mercenaries into action, of which each of them had five thousand. Both the kings and their entire armies had a full view of this action, which was fought with great gallantry on both sides: the charges taking place sometimes in detachments, and at other times along the whole line, and an eager emulation being displayed between the several ranks, and even between individuals. But when Cleomenes saw that his brother’s division was retreating, and that the cavalry in the low ground were on the point of doing the same, alarmed at the prospect of an attack at all points at once, he was compelled to demolish the palisade in his front, and to lead out his whole force in line by one side of his position. A recall was sounded on the bugle for the light-armed troops of both sides, who were on the ground between the two armies: and the phalanxes shouting their war cries, and with spears couched, charged each other. Then a fierce struggle arose: the Macedonians sometimes slowly giving ground and yielding to the superior courage of the soldiers of Sparta, and at another time the Lacedaemonians being forced to give way before the overpowering weight of the Macedonian phalanx. At length Antigonus ordered a charge in close order and in double phalanx; the enormous weight of this peculiar formation proved sufficient to finally dislodge the Lacedaemonians from their strongholds, and they fled in disorder and suffering severely as they went. Cleomenes himself, with a guard of cavalry, effected his retreat to Sparta: but the same night he went down to Gythium, where all preparations for crossing the sea had been made long before in case of mishap, and with his friends sailed to Alexandria.
70. Having surprised and taken Sparta, Antigonus treated the citizens with magnanimity and humanity; and after re-establishing their ancient constitution, he left the town in a few days, on receiving intelligence that the Illyrians had invaded Macedonia and were laying waste the country. This was an instance of the fantastic way in which Fortune decides the most important matters. For if Cleomenes had only put off the battle for a few days, or if when he returned to Sparta he had only held out for a brief space of time, he would have saved his crown.
As it was, Antigonus after going to Tegea and restoring its constitution, arrived on the second day at Argos, at the very time of the Nemean games. ‸Having at this assembly received every mark of immortal honour and glory at the hands of the Achaean community, as well as of the several states, he made all haste to reach Macedonia. He found the Illyrians still in the country, and forced them to give him battle, in which, though he proved entirely successful, he exerted himself to such a pitch in shouting encouragement to his men, that he ruptured a bloodvessel, and fell into an illness which terminated shortly in his death. He was a great loss to the Greeks, whom he had inspired with good hopes, not only by his support in the field, but still more by his character and good principles. He left the kingdom of Macedonia to Philip, son of Demetrius.
71. My reason for writing about this war at such length, was the advisability, or rather necessity, in view of the general purpose of my history, of making clear the relations existing between Macedonia and Greece at a time which coincides with the period of which I am about to treat.
Just about the same time, by the death of Euergetes, Ptolemy Philopator succeeded to the throne of Egypt. At the same period died Seleucus, son of that Seleucus who had the double surnames of Callinicus and Pogon: he was succeeded on the throne of Syria by his brother Antiochus. The deaths of these three sovereigns—Antigonus, Ptolemy, and Seleucus—fell in the same Olympiad, B.C. 284-280. B.C. 224-220.as was the case with the three immediate successors to Alexander the Great,—Seleucus, Ptolemy, and Lysimachus,—for the latter all died in the 124th Olympiad, and the former in the 139th.
I may now fitly close this book. I have completed the introduction and laid the foundation on which my history must rest. I have shown when, how, and why the Romans, after becoming supreme in Italy, began to aim at dominion outside of it, and to dispute with the Carthaginians the dominion of the sea. I have at the same time explained the state of Greece, Macedonia, and Carthage at this epoch. I have now arrived at the period which I originally marked out,—that namely in which the Greeks were on the point of beginning the Social, the Romans the Hannibalic war, and the kings in Asia the war for the possession of Coele-Syria. The termination therefore of the wars just described, and the death of the princes engaged in them, forms a natural period to this book.
BOOK III
1. I stated in my first book that my work was to start from the Social war, the Hannibalian war, and the war for the possession of Coele-Syria. In the same book I stated my reasons for devoting my first two books to a sketch of the period preceding those events. I will now, after a few prefatory remarks as to the scope of my own work, address myself to giving a complete account of these wars, the causes which led to them, and which account for the proportions to which they attained.
The one aim and object, then, of all that I have undertaken to write is to show how, when, and why all the known parts of the world fell under the dominion of Rome. ‸Now as this great event admits of being exactly dated as to its beginning, duration, and final accomplishment, I think it will be advantageous to give, by way of preface, a summary statement of the most important phases in it between the beginning and the end. For I think I shall thus best secure to the student an adequate idea of my whole plan, for as the comprehension of the whole is a help to the understanding of details, and the knowledge of details of great service to the clear conception of the whole; believing that the best and clearest knowledge is that which is obtained from a combination of these, I will preface my whole history by a brief summary of its contents.
I have already described its scope and limits. As to its several parts, the first consists of the above mentioned wars, while the conclusion or closing scene is the fall of the Macedonian monarchy. The time included between these limits is fifty-three years, and never has an equal space embraced events of such magnitude and importance.B.C. 220-216. In describing them I shall start from the 140th Olympiad and shall arrange my exposition in the following order:
2. First I shall indicate the causes of the Punic or Hannibalian war: and shall have to describe how the Carthaginians entered Italy; ‸broke up the Roman power there; made the Romans tremble for their safety and the very soil of their country; and contrary to all calculation acquired a good prospect of surprising Rome itself.
I shall next try to make it clear how in the same period Philip of Macedon, after finishing his war with ‸the Aetolians, and subsequently settling the affairs of Greece, entered upon a design of forming an offensive and defensive alliance with Carthage.
Then I shall tell how Antiochus and Ptolemy Philopator first quarrelled and finally went to war with ‸each other for the possession of Coele-Syria.
Next how the Rhodians and Prusias went to war with the Byzantines, and compelled them to desist from ‸exacting dues from ships sailing into the Pontus.
At this point I shall pause in my narrative to introduce a disquisition upon the Roman Constitution, ‸in which I shall show that its peculiar character contributed largely to their success, not only in reducing all Italy to their authority, and in acquiring a supremacy over the Iberians and Gauls besides, but also at last, after their conquest of Carthage, to their conceiving the idea of universal dominion.
Along with this I shall introduce another ‸digression on the fall of Hiero of Syracuse.
After these digressions will come the disturbances in Egypt; how, after the death of King Ptolemy, ‸Antiochus and Philip entered into a compact for the partition of the dominions of that monarch’s infant son. I shall describe their treacherous dealings, Philip laying hands upon the islands of the Aegean, and Caria and Samos, Antiochus upon Coele-Syria and Phoenicia.
3. Next, after a summary recapitulation of the proceedings of the Carthaginians and Romans in Iberia, Libya, 6. War with Philip, B.C. 201-197.and Sicily, I shall, following the changes of events, shift the scene of my story entirely to Greece. Here I shall first describe the naval battles of Attalus and the Rhodians against Philip; and the war between Philip and Rome, the persons engaged, its circumstances, and result.
Next to this I shall have to record the wrath of the Aetolians, in consequence of which they invited the aid of Antiochus, and thereby gave rise to what is 7. Asiatic war, B.C. 192-191.called the Asiatic war against Rome and the Achaean league. Having stated the causes of this war, and described the crossing of Antiochus into Europe, I shall have to show first in what manner he was driven from Greece; secondly, how, being defeated in the war, he was forced to cede all his territory west of Taurus; and thirdly, how the Romans, after crushing the insolence of the Gauls, secured undisputed possession of Asia, and freed all the nations on the west of Taurus from the fear of barbarian inroads and the lawless violence of the Gauls.
Next, after reviewing the disasters of the Aetolians and Cephallenians, I shall pass to the wars waged ‸by Eumenes against Prusias and the Gauls; as well as that carried on in alliance with Ariarathes against Pharnaces.
Finally, after speaking of the unity and settlement of the Peloponnese, and of the growth of the commonwealth of Rhodes, I shall add a summary of 9. Union of the Peloponnese. Antiochus Epiphanes in Egypt. Fall of the Macedonian monarchy, B.C. 188-168.my whole work, concluding by an account of the expedition of Antiochus Epiphanes against Egypt; of the war against Perseus; and the destruction of the Macedonian monarchy. Throughout the whole narrative it will be shown how the policy adopted by the Romans in one after another of these cases, as they arose, led to their eventual conquest of the whole world.
4. And if our judgment of individuals and constitutions, for praise or blame, could be adequately formed from a simple consideration of their successes or defeats, I must necessarily have stopped at this point, and have concluded my history as soon as I reached these last events in accordance with my original plan. For at this point the fifty-three years were coming to an end, and the progress of the Roman power had arrived at its consummation. And, besides, by this time the acknowledgment had been extorted from all that the supremacy of Rome must be accepted, and her commands obeyed. The plan extended to embrace the period from B.C. 168-146.But in truth, judgments of either side founded on the bare facts of success or failure in the field are by no means final. It has often happened that what seemed the most signal successes have, from ill management, brought the most crushing disasters in their train; while not unfrequently the most terrible calamities, sustained with spirit, have been turned to actual advantage. I am bound, therefore, to add to my statement of facts a discussion on the subsequent policy of the conquerors, and their administration of their universal dominion: and again on the various feelings and opinions entertained by other nations towards their rulers. And I must also describe the tastes and aims of the several nations, whether in their private lives or public policy. The present generation will learn from this whether they should shun or seek the rule of Rome; and future generations will be taught whether to praise and imitate, or to decry it. The usefulness of my history, whether for the present or the future, will mainly lie in this. For the end of a policy should not be, in the eyes either of the actors or their historians, simply to conquer others and bring all into subjection. Nor does any man of sense go to war with his neighbours for the mere purpose of mastering his opponents; nor go to sea for the mere sake of the voyage; nor engage in professions and trades for the sole purpose of learning them. In all these cases the objects are invariably the pleasure, honour, or profit which are the results of the several employments. Accordingly the object of this work shall be to ascertain exactly what the position of the several states was, after the universal conquest by which they fell under the power of Rome, until the commotions and disturbances which broke out at a later period.
These I designed to make the starting-point of what may almost be called a new work, partly because of the greatness and surprising nature of the events themselves, but chiefly because, in the case of most of them, I was not only an eye-witness, but in some cases one of the actors, and in others the chief director.
5. The events I refer to are the wars of Rome against the Celtiberians and Vaccaei; those of Carthage A new departure; the breaking-up of the arrangement made after the fall of Macedonia. Wars of Carthage against Massinissa; and of Rome against the Celtiberians, B.C. 155-150; and against Carthage (3d Punic war, B.C. 149-146).against Massinissa, king of Libya; and those of Attalus and Prusias in Asia. Then also Ariarathes, King of Cappadocia, having been ejected from his throne by Orophernes through the agency of King Demetrius, recovered his ancestral power by the help of Attalus; while Demetrius, son of Seleucus, after twelve years’ possession of the throne of Syria, was deprived of it, and of his life at the same time, by a combination of the other kings against him. Then it was, too, that the Romans restored to their country those Greeks who had been charged with guilt in the matter of the war with Perseus, after formally acquitting them of the crimes alleged against them. Not long afterwards the same people turned their hands against Carthage: at first with the intention of forcing its removal to some other spot, but finally, for reasons to be afterwards stated, with the resolution of utterly destroying it. Contemporaneous with this came the renunciation by the Macedonians of their friendship to Rome, and by the Lacedaemonians of their membership of the Achaean league, to which the disaster that befell all Greece alike owed its beginning and end.
This is my purpose: but its fulfilment must depend upon whether Fortune protracts my life to the necessary length. I am persuaded, however, that, even if the common human destiny does overtake me, this theme will not be allowed to lie idle for want of competent men to handle it; for there are many besides myself who will readily undertake its completion. But having given the heads of the most remarkable events, with the object of enabling the reader to grasp the general scope of my history as well as the arrangement of its several parts, I must now, remembering my original plan, go back to the point at which my history starts.
6. Some historians of the Hannibalian war, when they wish to point out to us the causes of this contest ‸between Rome and Carthage, allege first the siege of Saguntum by the Carthaginians, and, secondly, their breach of treaty by crossing the river called by the natives the Iber. But though I should call these the first actions in the war, ‸I cannot admit them to be its causes. One might just as well say ‸that the crossing of Alexander the Great into Asia was the cause of the Persian war, and the descent of Antiochus upon Demetrias the cause of his war with Rome. In neither would it be a probable or true statement. In the first case, this action of Alexander’s could not be called the cause of a war, for which both he and his father Philip in his lifetime had made elaborate preparations: and in the second case, we know that the Aetolian league had done the same, with a view to a war with Rome, before Antiochus came upon the scene. Such definitions are only worthy of men who cannot distinguish between a first overt act and a cause or pretext; and who do not perceive that a cause is the first in a series of events of which such an overt act is the last. I shall therefore regard the first attempt to put into execution what had already been determined as a “beginning,” but I shall look for “causes” in the motives which suggested such action and the policy which dictated it; for it is by these, and the calculations to which they give rise, that men are led to decide upon a particular line of conduct. The soundness of this method will be proved by the following considerations. The true causes and origin of the invasion of Persia by Alexander are patent to everybody. They were, B.C. 401-400,first, the return march of the Greeks under Xenophon through the country from the upper Satrapies; in the course of which, though throughout Asia all the populations were hostile, not a single barbarian ventured to face them: B.C. 396-394,secondly, the invasion of Asia by the Spartan king Agesilaus, in which, though he was obliged by troubles in Greece to return in the middle of his expedition without effecting his object, he yet found no resistance of any importance or adequacy. It was these circumstances which convinced Philip of the cowardice and inefficiency of the Persians;
and comparing them with his own high state of efficiency for war, and that of his Macedonian subjects, and placing before his eyes the splendour of the rewards to be gained by such a war, and the popularity which it would bring him in Greece, he seized on the pretext of avenging the injuries done by Persia to Greece, and determined with great eagerness to undertake this war; and was in fact at the time of his death engaged in making every kind of preparation for it.
Here we have the cause and the pretext of the Persian war. Alexander’s expedition into Asia was the first action in it.
7. So too of the war of Antiochus with Rome. The cause was evidently the exasperation of the Aetolians, ‸who, thinking that they had been slighted in a number of instances at the end of the war with Philip, not only called in the aid of Antiochus, but resolved to go to every extremity in satisfying the anger which the events of that time had aroused in them. This was the cause. As for the pretext, it was the liberation of Greece, which they went from city to city with Antiochus proclaiming, without regard to reason or truth; while the first act in the war was the descent of Antiochus upon Demetrias.
My object in enlarging upon this distinction is not to attack the historians in question, but to rectify the ideas of the studious. A physician can do no good to the sick who does not know the causes of their ailments; nor can a statesman do any good who is unable to conceive the manner, cause, and source of the events with which he has from time to time to deal. Surely the former could not be expected to institute a suitable system of treatment for the body; nor the latter to grapple with the exigencies of the situation, without possessing this knowledge of its elements. There is nothing, therefore, which we ought to be more alive to, and to seek for, than the causes of every event which occurs. For the most important results are often produced by trifles; and it is invariably easier to apply remedial measures at the beginning, before things have got beyond the stage of conception and intention.
8. Now the Roman annalist Fabius asserts that the cause of the Hannibalian war, besides the injury inflicted upon Saguntum, ‸was the encroaching and ambitious spirit of Hasdrubal. “Having secured great power in Iberia, he returned to Libya with the design of destroying the constitution and reducing Carthage to a despotism. But the leading statesmen, getting timely warning of his intention, banded themselves together and successfully opposed him. Suspecting this Hasdrubal retired from Libya, and thenceforth governed Iberia entirely at his own will without taking any account whatever of the Carthaginian Senate. This policy had had in Hannibal from his earliest youth a zealous supporter and imitator; and when he succeeded to the command in Iberia he continued it: and accordingly, even in the case of this war with Rome, was acting on his own authority and contrary to the wish of the Carthaginians; for none of the men of note in Carthage approved of his attack upon Saguntum.” This is the statement of Fabius, who goes on to say, that “after the capture of that city an embassy arrived in Carthage from Rome demanding that Hannibal should be given up on pain of a declaration of war.”
Now what answer could Fabius have given if we had put the following question to him? “What better chance or opportunity could the Carthaginians have had of combining justice and interest? According to your own account they disliked the proceeding of Hannibal: why did they not submit to the demands of Rome by surrendering the author of the injury; and thus get rid of the common enemy of the state without the odium of doing it themselves, and secure the safety of their territory by ridding themselves of the threatened war—all of which they could have effected by merely passing a decree?” If this question were put, I say, it would admit of no answer. The fact is that, so far from doing anything of the sort, they maintained the war in accordance with Hannibal’s policy for seventeen years; and refused to make terms until, at the end of a most determined struggle, they found their own city and persons in imminent danger of destruction.
9. I do not allude to Fabius and his annals from any fear of their wearing such an air of probability in themselves as to gain any credit,—for the fact is that his assertions are so contrary to reason, that it does not need any argument of mine to help his readers to perceive it,—but I wished to warn those who take up his books not to be misled by the authority of his name, but to be guided by facts. For there is a certain class of readers in whose eyes the personality of the writer is of more account than what he says. They look to the fact that Fabius was a contemporary and a member of the Senate, and assume without more ado that everything he says may be trusted. My view, however, is that we ought not to hold the authority of this writer lightly: yet at the same time that we should not regard it as all-sufficient; but in reading his writings should test them by a reference to the facts themselves.
This is a digression from my immediate subject, which is the war between Carthage and Rome. ‸The cause of this war we must reckon to be the exasperation of Hamilcar, surnamed Barcas, the father of Hannibal. The result of the war in Sicily had not broken the spirit of that commander. He regarded himself as unconquered; for the troops at Eryx which he commanded were still sound and undismayed: and though he yielded so far as to make a treaty, it was a concession to the exigencies of the times brought on by the defeat of the Carthaginians at sea. But he never relaxed in his determined purpose of revenge; and, had it not been for the mutiny of the mercenaries at Carthage, he would at once have sought and made another occasion for bringing about a war, as far as he was able to do so: as it was, he was preoccupied by the domestic war, and had to give his attention entirely to that.
10. When the Romans, at the conclusion of this mercenary war, proclaimed war with Carthage, the latter at first was inclined to resist at all hazards, ‸because the goodness of her cause gave her hopes of victory,—as I have shown in my former book, without which it would be impossible to understand adequately either this or what is to follow. The Romans, however, would not listen to anything: and the Carthaginians therefore yielded to the force of circumstances; and though feeling bitterly aggrieved, yet being quite unable to do anything, evacuated Sardinia, and consented to pay a sum of twelve hundred talents, in addition to the former indemnity paid them, on condition of avoiding the war at that time. This is the second and the most important cause of the subsequent war. For Hamilcar, having this public grievance in addition to his private feelings of anger, as soon as he had secured his country’s safety by reducing the rebellious mercenaries, set at once about securing the Carthaginian power in Iberia with the intention of using it as a base of operations against Rome. ‸So that I record as a third cause of the war the Carthaginian success in Iberia: for it was the confidence inspired by their forces there which encouraged them to embark upon it. It would be easy to adduce other facts to show that Hamilcar, though he had been dead ten years at its commencement, largely contributed to bring about the second Punic war, but what I am about to say will be sufficient to establish the fact.
11. When, after his final defeat by the Romans, Hannibal had at last quitted his country and was staying at the court of Antiochus, ‸the warlike attitude of the Aetolian league induced the Romans to send ambassadors to Antiochus, that they might be informed of the king’s intentions. These ambassadors found that Antiochus was inclined to the Aetolian alliance, and was eager for war with Rome; ‸they accordingly paid great court to Hannibal with a view of bringing him into suspicion with the king. And in this they entirely succeeded. As time went on the king became ever more and more suspicious of Hannibal, until at length an opportunity occurred for an explanation of the alienation that had been thus secretly growing up between them. Hannibal then defended himself at great length, but without success, until at last he made the following statement: “When my father was about to go on his Iberian expedition I was nine years old: and as he was offering the sacrifice to Zeus I stood near the altar. The sacrifice successfully performed, my father poured the libation and went through the usual ritual. He then bade all the other worshippers stand a little back, and calling me to him asked me affectionately whether I wished to go with him on his expedition. Upon my eagerly assenting, and begging with boyish enthusiasm to be allowed to go, he took me by the right hand and led me up to the altar, and bade me lay my hand upon the victim and swear that I would never be friends with Rome. So long, then, Antiochus, as your policy is one of hostility to Rome, you may feel quite secure of having in me a most thorough-going supporter. But if ever you make terms or friendship with her, then you need not wait for any slander to make you distrust me and be on your guard against me; for there is nothing in my power that I would not do against her.”
12. Antiochus listened to this story, and being convinced that it was told with genuine feeling and sincerity, gave up all his suspicions. And we, too, must regard this as an unquestionable proof of the animosity of Hamilcar and of the aim of his general policy; which, indeed, is also proved by facts. For he inspired his son-in-law Hasdrubal and his son Hannibal with a bitterness of resentment against Rome which nothing could surpass. Hasdrubal, indeed, was prevented by death from showing the full extent of his purpose; but time gave Hannibal abundant opportunity to manifest the hatred of Rome which he had inherited from his father.
The most important thing, then, for statesmen to observe is the motives of those who lay aside old enmities or form new friendships; and to ascertain when their consent to treaties is a mere concession to the necessities of the hour, and when it is the indication of a real consciousness of defeat. In the former case they must be on their guard against such people lying in wait for an opportunity; while in the latter they may unhesitatingly impose whatever injunctions are necessary, in full reliance on the genuineness of their feelings whether as subjects or friends. So much for the causes of the war. I will now relate the first actions in it.
13. The Carthaginians were highly incensed by their loss of Sicily, but their resentment was heightened still more, as I have said, by the transaction as to Sardinia, and by the addition recently made to their tribute. Accordingly, when the greater part of Iberia had fallen into their power, they were on the alert to seize any opportunity that presented itself of retaliating upon Rome. At the death of Hasdrubal, to whom they had committed the command in Iberia after the death of Hamilcar, they waited at first to ascertain ‸the feelings of the army; but when news came from thence that the troops had elected Hannibal as commander-in-chief, a popular assembly was at once held, and the choice of the army confirmed by a unanimous vote. As soon as he had taken over the command, Hannibal ‸set out to subdue the tribe of the Olcades; and, having arrived before their most formidable city Althaea, he pitched his camp under its walls; and by a series of energetic and formidable assaults succeeded before long in taking it: by which the rest of the tribe were overawed into submission to Carthage. Having imposed a contribution upon the towns, and thus become possessed of a large sum of money, he went to the New Town to winter. There, by a liberal treatment of the forces under his command, giving them an instalment of their pay at once and promising the rest, he established an excellent feeling towards himself in the army, as well as great hopes for the future.
14. Next summer he set out on another expedition against the Vaccaei, in which he took Salmantica by ‸assault, but only succeeded in storming Arbucala, owing to the size of the town and the number and valour of its inhabitants, after a laborious siege. After this he suddenly found himself in a position of very great danger on his return march: being set upon by the Carpesii, the strongest tribe in those parts, who were joined also by neighbouring tribes, incited principally by refugees of the Olcades, but roused also to great wrath by those who escaped from Salmantica. If the Carthaginians had been compelled to give these people regular battle, there can be no doubt that they would have been defeated: but as it was, Hannibal, with admirable skill and caution, slowly retreated until he had put the Tagus between himself and the enemy; and thus giving battle at the crossing of the stream, supported by it and the elephants, of which he had about forty, he gained, to every one’s surprise, a complete success. For when the barbarians attempted to force a crossing at several points of the river at once, the greater number of them were killed as they left the water by the elephants, who marched up and down along the brink of the river and caught them as they were coming out. Many of them also were killed in the river itself by the cavalry, because the horses were better able than the men to stand against the stream, and also because the cavalry were fighting on higher ground than the infantry which they were attacking. At length Hannibal turned the tables on the enemy, and, recrossing the river, attacked and put to flight their whole army, to the number of more than a hundred thousand men. After the defeat of this host, no one south of the Iber rashly ventured to face him except the people of Saguntum. From that town Hannibal tried his best to keep aloof; because, acting on the suggestions and advice of his father Hamilcar, he did not wish to give the Romans an avowed pretext for war until he had thoroughly secured the rest of the country.
15. But the people of Saguntum kept sending ambassadors to Rome, partly because they foresaw what was coming, Saguntum appeals to Rome. Winter of B.C. 220-219.and trembled for their own existence, and partly that the Romans might be kept fully aware of the growing power of the Carthaginians in Iberia. For a long time the Romans disregarded their words: but now they sent out some commissioners to see what was going on. Just at that time Hannibal had finished the conquests which he intended for that season, and was going into winter quarters at the New Town again, which was in a way the chief glory and capital town of the Carthaginians in Iberia. He found there the embassy from Rome, granted them an interview, and listened to the message with which they were charged. It was a strong injunction to him to leave Saguntum alone, as being under the protection of Rome; and not to cross the Iber, in accordance with the agreement come to in the time of Hasdrubal. To this Hannibal answered with all the heat of youth, inflamed by martial ardour, ‸recent success, and his long-standing hatred of Rome. He charged the Romans with having a short time before, when on some political disturbances arising in the town they had been chosen to act as arbitrators, seized the opportunity to put some of the leading citizens to death; and he declared that the Carthaginians would not allow the Saguntines to be thus treacherously dealt with, for it was the traditional policy of Carthage to protect all persons so wronged. At the same time he sent home for instructions as to what he was to do “in view of the fact that the Saguntines were injuring certain of their subject allies.” And altogether he was in a state of unreasoning anger and violent exasperation, which prevented him from availing himself of the real causes for war, and made him take refuge in pretexts which would not admit of justification, after the manner of men whose passions master all considerations of equity. How much better it would have been to demand of Rome the restoration of Sardinia, and the remission of the tribute, which she had taken an unfair opportunity to impose on pain of a declaration of war. As it was, he said not a word of the real cause, but alleged the fictitious one of the matter of Saguntum; and so got the credit of beginning the war, not only in defiance of reason, but still more in defiance of justice. The Roman ambassadors, finding that there must undoubtedly be a war, sailed to Carthage to enter the same protest before the people there.
They expected, however, that they would have to fight not in Italy, but in Iberia, and that they would have Saguntum as a base of operations.
16. Wherefore the Senate, by way of preparing to undertake this business, and foreseeing that the war would be severe and protracted, and at a long distance from the mother country, determined to make Illyria safe. For it happened that, just at this time, Demetrius of Pharos was sacking and subduing to his authority the cities of Illyria which were subject to Rome, and had sailed beyond Lissus, in violation of the treaty, with fifty galleys, and had ravaged many of the Cyclades. For he had quite forgotten the former kindnesses done him by Rome, and had conceived a contempt for its power, when he saw it threatened first by the Gauls and then by Carthage; and he now rested all his hopes on the royal family of Macedonia, because he had fought on the side of Antigonus, and shared with him the dangers of the war against Cleomenes. These transactions attracted the observation of the Romans; who, seeing that the royal house of Macedonia was in a flourishing condition, were very anxious to secure the country east of Italy, feeling convinced that they would have ample time to correct the rash folly of the Illyrians, and rebuke and chastise the ingratitude and temerity of Demetrius. But they were deceived in their calculations. For Hannibal anticipated their measures by the capture of Saguntum: the result of which was that the war took place not in Iberia, but close ‸to Rome itself, and in various parts throughout all Italy. However, with these ideas fixed in their minds, the Romans despatched Lucius Aemilius just before summer to conduct the Illyrian campaign in the first year of the 140th Olympiad.
17. But Hannibal had started from New Carthage and was leading his army straight against Saguntum. ‸This city is situated on the seaward foot of the mountain chain on which the frontiers of Iberia and Celtiberia converge, and is about seven stades from the sea. The district cultivated by its inhabitants is exceedingly productive, and has a soil superior to any in all Iberia. Under the walls of this town Hannibal pitched his camp and set energetically to work on the siege, foreseeing many advantages that would accrue if he could take it. Of these the first was that he would thereby disappoint the Romans in their expectation of making Iberia the seat of war: a second was that he would thereby strike a general terror, which would render the already obedient tribes more submissive, and the still independent ones more cautious of offending him: but the greatest advantage of all was that thereby he would be able to push on his advance, without leaving an enemy on his rear. Besides these advantages, he calculated that the possession of this city would secure him abundant supplies for his expedition, and create an enthusiasm in the troops excited by individual acquisitions of booty; while he would conciliate the goodwill of those who remained at Carthage by the spoils which would be sent home. With these ideas he pressed on the siege with energy: sometimes setting an example to his soldiers by personally sharing in the fatigues of throwing up the siege works; and sometimes cheering on his men and recklessly exposing himself to danger.
After a siege extending to the eighth month, in the course of which he endured every kind of suffering and ‸anxiety, he finally succeeded in taking the town. An immense booty in money, slaves, and property fell into his hands, which he disposed of in accordance with his original design. The money he reserved for the needs of his projected expedition; the slaves were distributed according to merit among his men; while the property was at once sent entire to Carthage. The result answered his expectations: the army was rendered more eager for action; the home populace more ready to grant whatever he asked; and he himself was enabled, by the possession of such abundant means, to carry out many measures that were of service to his expedition.
18. While this was taking place, Demetrius, discovering the intentions of Rome, threw a sufficient garrison into Dimale and victualled it in proportion. In the other towns he put those who were opposed to him to death, and placed the chief power in the hands of his own partisans; and selecting six thousand of the bravest of his subjects, quartered them in Pharos. When the Consul arrived in Illyria with his army, he found the enemies of Rome confident in the strength of Dimale and the elaborate preparations in it, and encouraged to resistance by their belief in its impregnability; he determined, therefore, to attack that town first, in order to strike terror into the enemy. Accordingly, after addressing an exhortation to the several officers of the legions, and throwing up siege works at several points, he began the siege in form. In seven days he took the town by assault, which so dismayed the enemy, that envoys immediately appeared from all the towns, surrendering themselves unconditionally to the protection of Rome. The Consul accepted their submission: and after imposing such conditions as appeared suitable to the several cases, he sailed to Pharos to attack Demetrius himself. Being informed that the city there was strongly fortified, thronged with excellent soldiers, and well-furnished with provisions and all other munitions of war, he began to entertain misgivings that the siege would be long and difficult; and therefore, with a view to these difficulties, he adopted on the spur of the moment the following stratagem. He crossed to the island by night with his whole army. The greater part of it he disembarked at a spot where the ground was well-wooded and low; while with only twenty ships he sailed at daybreak to the harbour nearest the town. The smallness of the number of the ships moved only the contempt of Demetrius when he saw them, and he immediately marched out of the town down to the harbour to oppose the landing of the enemy.
19. A violent struggle at once began: and, as it went on, division after division of the troops in the city ‸came down to support him, until at length the whole force had poured out to take part in the engagement. The Romans who had landed in the night arrived at the critical moment, after a march by an obscure route; and seizing a strong position on some rising ground between the city and the harbour, efficiently cut off from the city the troops that had sallied out. When Demetrius became aware of what had taken place, he desisted from opposing the disembarkation; and having rallied his men and addressed the ranks, he put them in motion, with the resolution of fighting a pitched battle with the troops on the hill. When the Romans saw the Illyrian advance being made in good order and with great spirit, they formed their ranks and charged furiously. At the same moment the Roman troops which had just effected their landing, seeing what was going on, charged the enemy on the rear, who being thus attacked on both sides, were thrown into great disorder and confusion. The result was that, finding both his van and his rear in difficulties, Demetrius fled. Some of his men retreated towards the city; but most of them escaped by bye-paths into various parts of the island. Demetrius himself made his way to some galleys which he kept at anchor at a solitary point on the coast, with a view to every contingency; and going on board, he sailed away at nightfall, and arrived unexpectedly at the court of King Philip, where he passed the remainder of his life:—a man whose undoubted boldness and courage were unsupported by either prudence or judgment. His end was of a piece with the whole tenor of his life; for while endeavouring at the instigation of Philip to seize Messene, he exposed himself during the battle with a careless rashness which cost him his life; of which I shall speak in detail when I come to that period.
The Consul Aemilius having thus taken Pharos at a blow, levelled the city to the ground; and then having become master of all Illyria, and having ordered all its affairs as he thought right, returned towards the end of the summer to Rome, where he celebrated a triumph amid expressions of unmixed approval; for people considered that he had managed this business with great prudence and even greater courage.
20. But when news came to Rome of the fall of Saguntum, there was indeed no debate on the question of war, ‸as some historians assert; who even add the speeches delivered on either side. But nothing could be more ridiculous. For is it conceivable that the Romans should have a year before proclaimed war with the Carthaginians in the event of their entering the territory of Saguntum, and yet, when the city itself had been taken, should have debated whether they should go to war or no? Just as absurd are the wonderful statements that the senators put on mourning, and that the fathers introduced their sons above twelve years old into the Senate House, who, being admitted to the debate, refrained from divulging any of its secrets even to their nearest relations. All this is as improbable as it is untrue; unless we are to believe that Fortune, among its other bounties, granted the Romans the privilege of being men of the world from their cradles. I need not waste any more words upon such compositions as those of Chaereas and Sosilus;165 which, in my judgment, are more like the gossip of the barber’s shop and the pavement than history.
The truth is that, when the Romans heard of the disaster at Saguntum, they at once elected envoys, whom ‸they despatched in all haste to Carthage with the offer of two alternatives, one of which appeared to the Carthaginians to involve disgrace as well as injury if they accepted it, while the other was the beginning of a great struggle and of great dangers. For one of these alternatives was the surrender of Hannibal and his staff to Rome, the other was war. When the Roman envoys arrived and declared their message to the Senate, the choice proposed to them between these alternatives was listened to by the Carthaginians with indignation. Still they selected the most capable of their number to state their case, which was grounded on the following pleas.
21. Passing over the treaty made with Hasdrubal, as not having ever been made, and, if it had, as not being binding on them because made without their consent (and on this point they quoted the precedent of the Romans themselves, who in the Sicilian war repudiated the terms agreed upon and accepted by Lutatius, as having been made without their consent)—passing over this, they pressed with all the vehemence they could, throughout the discussion, the last treaty made in the Sicilian war; in which they affirmed that there was no clause relating to Iberia, but one expressly providing security for the allies of both parties to the treaty. Now, they pointed out that the Saguntines at that time were not allies of Rome, and therefore were not protected by the clause. To prove their point, they read the treaty more than once aloud. On this occasion the Roman envoys contented themselves with the reply that, while Saguntum was intact, the matter in dispute admitted of pleadings and of a discussion on its merits; but that, that city having been treacherously seized, they had only two alternatives,—either to deliver the persons guilty of the act, and thereby make it clear that they had no share in their crime, and that it was done without their consent; or, if they were not willing to do that, and avowed their complicity in it, to take the consequences.
The question of treaties between Rome and Carthage was referred to in general terms in the course of this debate: but I think a more particular examination of it will be useful both to practical statesmen, who require to know the exact truth of the matter, in order to avoid mistakes in any critical deliberation; and to historical students, that they may not be led astray by the ignorance or partisan bias of historians; but may have before them a conspectus, acknowledged to be accurate, of the various compacts which have been made between Rome and Carthage from the earliest times to our own day.
22. The first treaty between Rome and Carthage was made in the year of Lucius Junius Brutus and Marcus Horatius, ‸the first Consuls appointed after the expulsion of the kings, by which men also the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus was consecrated. This was twenty-eight years before the invasion of Greece by Xerxes. Of this treaty I append a translation, The first treaty, B.C. 509-508.as accurate as I could make it,—for the fact is that the ancient language differs so much from that at present in use, that the best scholars among the Romans themselves have great difficulty in interpreting some points in it, even after much study. The treaty is as follows:—
“There shall be friendship between the Romans and their allies, and the Carthaginians and their allies, on these conditions:
“Neither the Romans nor their allies are to sail beyond the Fair Promontory, unless driven by stress of weather or the fear of enemies. If any one of them be driven ashore he shall not buy or take aught for himself save what is needful for the repair of his ship and the service of the gods, and he shall depart within five days.
“Men landing for traffic shall strike no bargain save in the presence of a herald or town-clerk. Whatever is sold in the presence of these, let the price be secured to the seller on the credit of the state—that is to say, if such sale be in Libya or Sardinia.
“If any Roman comes to the Carthaginian province in Sicily he shall enjoy all rights enjoyed by others. The Carthaginians shall do no injury to the people of Ardea, Antium, Laurentium, Circeii, Tarracina, nor any other people of the Latins that are subject to Rome.
“From those townships even which are not subject to Rome166 they shall hold their hands; and if they take one shall deliver it unharmed to the Romans. They shall build no fort in Latium; and if they enter the district in arms, they shall not stay a night therein.”
23. The “Fair Promontory” here referred to is that which lies immediately to the north of Carthage; south of which the Carthaginians stipulated that the Romans should not sail with ships of war, because, as I imagine, they did not wish them to be acquainted with the coast near Byzacium, or the lesser Syrtis, which places they call Emporia, owing to the productiveness of the district. The treaty then goes on to say that, if any one of them is driven thither by stress of weather or fear of an enemy, and stands in need of anything for the worship of the gods and the repair of his vessel, this and no more he may take; and all those who have come to anchor there must necessarily depart within five days. To Carthage, and all the country on the Carthaginian side of the Fair Promontory in Libya, to Sardinia, and the Carthaginian province of Sicily, the treaty allows the Romans to sail for mercantile purposes; and the Carthaginians engage their public credit that such persons shall enjoy absolute security.
It is clear from this treaty that the Carthaginians speak of Sardinia and Libya as belonging to them entirely; but, on the other hand, make a distinction in the case of Sicily, and only stipulate for that part of it which is subject to Carthage. Similarly, the Romans also only stipulate concerning Latium; the rest of Italy they do not mention, as not being under their authority.
24. After this treaty there was a second, in which we find that the Carthaginians have included the ‸Tyrians and the township of Utica in addition to their former territory; and to the Fair Promontory Mastia and Tarseium are added, as the points east of which the Romans are not to make marauding expeditions or found a city. The treaty is as follows: “There shall be friendship between the Romans and their allies, and the Carthaginians, Tyrians, and township of Utica, on these terms: The Romans shall not maraud, nor traffic, nor found a city east of the Fair Promontory, Mastia, Tarseium. If the Carthaginians take any city in Latium which is not subject to Rome, they may keep the prisoners and the goods, but shall deliver up the town. If the Carthaginians take any folk, between whom and Rome a peace has been made in writing, though they be not subject to them, they shall not bring them into any harbours of the Romans; if such an one be so brought ashore, and any Roman lay claim to him,167 he shall be released. In like manner shall the Romans be bound towards the Carthaginians.
“If a Roman take water or provisions from any district within the jurisdiction of Carthage, he shall not injure, while so doing, any between whom and Carthage there is peace and friendship. Neither shall a Carthaginian in like case. If any one shall do so, he shall not be punished by private vengeance, but such action shall be a public misdemeanour.
“In Sardinia and Libya no Roman shall traffic nor found a city; he shall do no more than take in provisions and refit his ship. If a storm drive him upon those coasts, he shall depart within five days.
“In the Carthaginian province of Sicily and in Carthage he may transact business and sell whatsoever it is lawful for a citizen to do. In like manner also may a Carthaginian at Rome.”
Once more in this treaty we may notice that the Carthaginians emphasise the fact of their entire possession of Libya and Sardinia, and prohibit any attempt of the Romans to land in them at all; and on the other hand, in the case of Sicily, they clearly distinguish their own province in it. So, too, the Romans, in regard to Latium, stipulate that the Carthaginians shall do no wrong to Ardea, Antium, Circeii, Tarracina, all of which are on the seaboard of Latium, to which alone the treaty refers.
25. A third treaty again was made by Rome at the time of the invasion of Pyrrhus into Sicily, before the ‸Carthaginians undertook the war for the possession of Sicily. This treaty contains the same provisions as the two earlier treaties with these additional clauses:—
“If they make a treaty of alliance with Pyrrhus, the Romans or Carthaginians shall make it on such terms as not to preclude the one giving aid to the other, if that one’s territory is attacked.
“If one or the other stand in need of help, the Carthaginians shall supply the ships, whether for transport or war; but each people shall supply the pay for its own men employed on them.
“The Carthaginians shall also give aid by sea to the Romans if need be; but no one shall compel the crews to disembark against their will.”
Provision was also made for swearing to these treaties. In the case of the first, the Carthaginians were to swear by the gods of their ancestors, the Romans by Jupiter Lapis, in accordance with an ancient custom; in the case of the last treaty, by Mars and Quirinus.
The form of swearing by Jupiter Lapis was this. The commissioner for swearing to the treaty took a stone in his hand, and, having taken the oath in the name of his country, added these words, “If I abide by this oath may he bless me; but if I do otherwise in thought or act, may all others be kept safe each in his own country, under his own laws, in enjoyment of his own goods, household gods, and tombs,—may I alone be cast out, even as this stone is now.” And having uttered these words he throws the stone from his hand.
26. Seeing that such treaties exist and are preserved to this day, engraved on brass in the treasury of ‸the Aediles in the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus, the historian Philinus certainly does give us some reason to be surprised at him. Not at his ignorance of their existence: for even in our own day those Romans and Carthaginians, whose age placed them nearest to the times, and who had the reputation of taking the greatest interest in public affairs, were unaware of it. But what is surprising is, that he should have ventured on a statement exactly opposite: “That there was a treaty between Rome and Carthage, in virtue of which the Romans were bound to keep away from the whole of Sicily, the Carthaginians from the whole of Italy; and that the Romans broke the treaty and their oath when they first crossed over to Sicily.” Whereas there does not exist, nor ever has existed, any such written compact at all. Yet this assertion he makes in so many words in his second book. I referred to this in the preface of my work, but reserved a more detailed discussion of it to this place; which was necessary, because the assertion of Philinus has misled a considerable number of people on this point. I have nothing to say if a man chooses to attack the Romans for crossing into Sicily, on the grounds of their having taken the Mamertines into alliance at all; or in having thus acted in answer to their request, after these men’s treachery to Rhegium as well as Messene: but if any one supposes that in so crossing they broke oaths or treaties, he is manifestly ignorant of the truth.
27. At the end of the first Punic war another treaty was made, of which the chief provisions were these: ‸“The Carthaginians shall evacuate Sicily and all islands lying between Italy and Sicily.
“The allies of neither of the parties to the treaty shall be attacked by the other.
“Neither party shall impose any contribution, nor erect any public building, nor enlist soldiers in the dominions of the other, nor make any compact of friendship with the allies of the other.
“The Carthaginians shall within ten years pay to the Romans two-thousand two-hundred talents, and a thousand on the spot; and shall restore all prisoners, without ransom, to the Romans.”
Afterwards, at the end of the Mercenary war in Africa, the Romans went so far as to pass a decree for war ‸with Carthage, but eventually made a treaty to the following effect: “The Carthaginians shall evacuate Sardinia, and pay an additional twelve hundred talents.”
Finally, in addition to these treaties, came that negotiated with Hasdrubal in Iberia, in which it was ‸stipulated that “the Carthaginians should not cross the Iber with arms.”
Such were the mutual obligations established between Rome and Carthage from the earliest times to that of Hannibal.
28. As we find then that the Roman invasion of Sicily was not in contravention of their oaths, so we must acknowledge in the case of the second proclamation of war, ‸in consequence of which the treaty for the evacuation of Sardinia was made, that it is impossible to find any reasonable pretext or ground for the Roman action. The Carthaginians were beyond question compelled by the necessities of their position, contrary to all justice, to evacuate Sardinia, and to pay this enormous sum of money. For as to the allegation of the Romans, that they had during the Mercenary war been guilty of acts of hostility to ships sailing from Rome,—that was barred by their own act in restoring, without ransom, the Carthaginian prisoners, in gratitude for similar conduct on the part of Carthage to Romans who had landed on their shores; a transaction which I have spoken of at length in my previous book.168
These facts established, it remains to decide by a thorough investigation to which of the two nations the origin of the Hannibalian war is to be imputed.
29. I have explained the pleas advanced by the Carthaginians; I must now state what is alleged on the contrary by the Romans. For though it is true that in this particular interview, owing to their anger at the fall of Saguntum, they did not use these arguments, yet they were appealed to on many occasions, and by many of their citizens. ‸First, they argued that the treaty of Hasdrubal could not be ignored, as the Carthaginians had the assurance to do: for it did not contain the clause, which that of Lutatius did, making its validity conditional on its ratification by the people of Rome; but Hasdrubal made the agreement absolutely and authoritatively that “the Carthaginians should not cross the Iber in arms.”
Next they alleged that the clause in the treaty respecting Sicily, which by their own admission stipulated that “the allies of neither party should be attacked by the other,” did not refer to then existing allies only, as the Carthaginians interpreted it; for in that case a clause would have been added, disabling either from making new alliances in addition to those already existing, or excluding allies, taken subsequently to the making of the treaty, from its benefits. But since neither of these provisions was made, it was plain that both the then existing allies, and all those taken subsequently on either side, were entitled to reciprocal security. And this was only reasonable. For it was not likely that they would have made a treaty depriving them of the power, when opportunity offered, of taking on such friends or allies as seemed to their interest; nor, again, if they had taken any such under their protection, was it to be supposed that they would allow them to be injured by any persons whatever. But, in fact, the main thing present in the minds of both parties to the treaty was, that they should mutually agree to abstain from attacking each other’s allies, and on no account admit into alliance with themselves the allies of the other: and it was to subsequent allies that this particular clause applied, “Neither shall enlist soldiers, or impose contributions on the provinces or allies of the other; and all shall be alike secure of attack from the other side.”
30. These things being so, they argued that it was beyond controversy that Saguntum had accepted the protection of Rome, several years before the time of Hannibal. The strongest proof of this, and one which would not be contested by the Carthaginians themselves, was that, when political disturbances broke out at Saguntum, the people chose the Romans, and not the Carthaginians, as arbitrators to settle the dispute and restore their constitution, although the latter were close at hand and were already established in Iberia.
I conclude, then, that if the destruction of Saguntum is to be regarded as the cause of this war, the Carthaginians must be acknowledged to be in ‸the wrong, both in view of the treaty of Lutatius, which secured immunity from attack for the allies of both parties, and in view of the treaty of Hasdrubal, which disabled the Carthaginians from passing the Iber with arms.169 If on the other hand the taking Sardinia from them, and imposing the heavy money fine which accompanied it, are to be regarded as the causes, we must certainly acknowledge that the Carthaginians had good reason for undertaking the Hannibalian war: for as they had only yielded to the pressure of circumstances, so they seized a favourable turn in those circumstances to revenge themselves on their injurers.
31. Some uncritical readers may perhaps say that such minute discussion on points of this kind is unnecessary. And if any man were entirely self-sufficing in every event, I might allow that the accurate knowledge of the past, though a graceful accomplishment, was perhaps not essential: but as long as it is not in mere mortals to say this, either in public or private affairs,—seeing that no man of sense, even if he is prosperous for the moment, will ever reckon with certainty on the future,—then I say that such knowledge is essential, and not merely graceful. For take the three commonest cases. Suppose, first, a statesman to be attacked either in his own person or in that of his country: or, secondly, suppose him to be anxious for a forward policy and to anticipate the attack of an enemy: or, lastly, suppose him to desire to maintain the status quo. In all these cases it is history alone that can supply him with precedents, and teach him how, in the first case, to find supporters and allies; in the second, to incite co-operation; and in the third, to give vigour to the conservative forces which tend to maintain, as he desires, the existing state of things. In the case of contemporaries, it is difficult to obtain an insight into their purposes; because, as their words and actions are dictated by a desire of accommodating themselves to the necessity of the hour, and of keeping up appearances, the truth is too often obscured. Whereas the transactions of the past admit of being tested by naked fact; and accordingly display without disguise the motives and purposes of the several persons engaged; and teach us from what sort of people to expect favour, active kindness, and assistance, or the reverse. They give us also many opportunities of distinguishing who would be likely to pity us, feel indignation at our wrongs, and defend our cause,—a power that contributes very greatly to national as well as individual security. Neither the writer nor the reader of history, therefore, should confine his attention to a bare statement of facts: he must take into account all that preceded, accompanied, or followed them. For if you take from history all explanation of cause, principle, and motive, and of the adaptation of the means to the end, what is left is a mere panorama without being instructive; and, though it may please for the moment, has no abiding value.
32. Another mistake is to look upon my history as difficult to obtain or master, because of the number and size of the books. Compare it in these particulars with the various writings of the episodical historians. Is it not much easier to purchase and read my forty books, which are as it were all in one piece, and so to follow with a comprehensive glance the events in Italy, Sicily, and Libya from the time of Pyrrhus to the fall of Carthage, and those in the rest of the world from the flight of Cleomenes of Sparta, continuously, to the battle between the Achaeans and Romans at the Isthmus? To say nothing of the fact that the compositions of these historians are many times as numerous as mine, it is impossible for their readers to get any certain information from them: first, because most of them differ in their account of the same transactions; and secondly, because they omit contemporary history,—the comparative review of which would put a very different complexion upon events to that derived from isolated treatment,—and are unable to touch upon the most decisive events at all. For, indeed, the most important parts of history are those which treat the events which follow or accompany a certain course of conduct, and pre-eminently so those which treat of causes. For instance, we see that the war with Antiochus took its rise from that with Philip; that with Philip from the Hannibalian; and the Hannibalian from the Sicilian war: and though between these wars there were numerous events of various character, they all converged upon the same consummation. Such a comprehensive view may be obtained from universal history, but not from the histories of particular wars, such as those with Perseus or Philip; unless we fondly imagine that, by reading the accounts contained in them of the pitched battles, we gain a knowledge of the conduct and plan of the whole war. This of course is not the case; and in the present instance I hope that there will be as wide a difference between my history and such episodical compositions, as between real learning and mere listening.
33. To resume the story of the Carthaginians and the Roman deputies.170 To the arguments of the former the ‸ambassadors made no answer, except that the senior among them, in the presence of the assembly, pointed to the folds of his toga and said that in them he carried peace and war, and that he would bring out and leave with them whichever they bade him. The Carthaginian Suffete171 bade him bring out whichever of the two he chose: and upon the Roman saying that it should be war, a majority of the senators cried out in answer that they accepted it. It was on these terms that the Senate and the Roman ambassadors parted.
Meanwhile Hannibal, upon going into winter quarters at New Carthage, first of all dismissed the Iberians to their various cities, with the view of their being prepared and vigorous for the next campaign. Winter of 219-218 B.C. Hannibal’s arrangements for the coming campaign.Secondly, he instructed his brother Hasdrubal in the management of his government in Iberia, and of the preparations to be made against Rome, in case he himself should be separated from him. Thirdly, he took precautions for the security of Libya, by selecting with prudent skill certain soldiers from the home army to come over to Iberia, and certain from the Iberian army to go to Libya; by which interchange he secured cordial feeling of confidence between the two armies. The Iberians sent to Libya were the Thersitae, the Mastiani, as well as the Oretes and Olcades, mustering together twelve hundred cavalry and thirteen thousand eight hundred and fifty foot. Besides these there were eight hundred and seventy slingers from the Balearic Isles, whose name, as that of the islands they inhabit, is derived from the word ballein, “to throw,” because of their peculiar skill with the sling. Most of these troops he ordered to be stationed at Metagonia in Libya, and the rest in Carthage itself. And from the cities in the district of Metagonia he sent four thousand foot also into Carthage, to serve at once as hostages for the fidelity of their country, and as an additional guard for the city. With his brother Hasdrubal in Iberia he left fifty quinqueremes, two quadriremes, and five triremes, thirty-two of the quinqueremes being furnished with crews, and all five of the triremes; also cavalry consisting of four hundred and fifty Libyophenicians and Libyans, three hundred Lergetae, eighteen hundred Numidians of the Massolian, Massaesylian, Maccoeian, and Maurian tribes, who dwell by the ocean; with eleven thousand eight hundred and fifty Libyans, three hundred Ligures, five hundred of the Balearic Islanders, and twenty-one elephants.
The accuracy of this enumeration of Hannibal’s Iberian establishment need excite no surprise, though ‸it is such as a commander himself would have some difficulty in displaying; nor ought I to be condemned at once of imitating the specious falsehoods of historians: for the fact is that I myself found on Lacinium172 a bronze tablet, which Hannibal had caused to be inscribed with these particulars when he was in Italy; and holding it to be an entirely trustworthy authority for such facts, I did not hesitate to follow it.
34. Though Hannibal had taken every precaution for the security of Libya and Iberia, he yet waited for the messengers whom he expected to arrive from the Celts. He had thoroughly acquainted himself with the fertility and populousness of the districts at the foot of the Alps and in the valley of the Padus, as well as with the warlike courage of the men; but most important of all, with their hostile feelings to Rome derived from the previous war, which I described in my last book, with the express purpose of enabling my readers to follow my narrative. He therefore reckoned very much on the chance of their co-operation; and was careful to send messages to the chiefs of the Celts, whether dwelling actually on the Alps or on the Italian side of them, with unlimited promises; because he believed that he would be able to confine the war against Rome to Italy, if he could make his way through the intervening difficulties to these parts, and avail himself of the active alliance of the Celts. When his messengers returned with a report that the Celts were ready to help him and all eagerness for his approach; and that the passage of the Alps, though laborious and difficult, was not, however, impossible, he collected his forces from their winter quarters at the approach of spring. Just before receiving this report he had learnt the circumstances attending the Roman embassy at Carthage. Encouraged by the assurance thus given him, that he would be supported by the popular sentiment at home, he no longer disguised from his army that the object of the forthcoming campaign was Rome; and tried to inspire them with courage for the undertaking. He explained to them how the Romans had demanded the surrender of himself and all the officers of the army: and pointed out the fertility of the country to which they were going, and the goodwill and active alliance which the Celts were prepared to offer them. When the crowd of soldiers showed an enthusiastic readiness to accompany him, he dismissed the assembly, after thanking them, and naming the day on which he intended to march.
35. These measures satisfactorily accomplished while he was in winter quarters, and the security of Libya ‸and Iberia being sufficiently provided for; when the appointed day arrived, Hannibal got his army in motion, which consisted of ninety thousand infantry and about twelve thousand cavalry. After crossing the Iber, he set about subduing the tribes of the Ilurgetes and Bargusii, as well as the Aerenosii and Andosini, as far as the Pyrenees. When he had reduced all this country under his power, and taken certain towns by storm, which he did with unexpected rapidity, though not without severe fighting and serious loss; he left Hanno in chief command of all the district north of the Iber, and with absolute authority over the Burgusii, who were the people that gave him most uneasiness on account of their friendly feeling towards Rome. He then detached from his army ten thousand foot and a thousand horse for the service of Hanno,—to whom also he entrusted the heavy baggage of the troops that were to accompany himself,—and the same number to go to their own land. The object of this last measure was twofold: he thereby left a certain number of well-affected persons behind him; and also held out to the others a hope of returning home, both to those Iberians who were to accompany him on his march, and to those also who for the present were to remain at home, so that there might be a general alacrity to join him if he were ever in want of a reinforcement. He then set his remaining troops in motion unencumbered by heavy baggage, fifty thousand infantry and nine thousand cavalry, and led them through the Pyrenees to the passage of the river Rhone. The army was not so much numerous, as highly efficient, and in an extraordinary state of physical training from their continuous battles with the Iberians.
36. But as a knowledge of topography is necessary for the right understanding of my narrative, ‸I must state the places from which Hannibal started, through which he marched, and into which he descended when he arrived in Italy. Nor must I, like some historians, content myself with mentioning the mere names of places and rivers, under the idea that that is quite sufficient to give a clear knowledge. My opinion is that, in the case of well-known places, the mention of names is of great assistance, but that, in the case of unknown countries, names are no better than unintelligible and unmeaning sounds: for the understanding having nothing to go upon, and being unable by referring to something known to translate the words into thought, the narrative becomes confused and vague, and conveys no clear idea. A plan therefore must be discovered, whereby it shall be possible, while speaking of unknown countries, to convey real and intelligible notions.
The first, most important, and most general conception is that of the division of the heaven into four quarters, which all of us that are capable of a general idea at all know as east, west, south, and north. The next is to arrange the several parts of the globe according to these points, and always to refer in thought any place mentioned to one or other of them. We shall thus get an intelligible and familiar conception of places which we do not know or have never seen.
37. This principle established as universally applicable to the world, the next point will be to make the ‸geography of our own part of it intelligible by a corresponding division.
It falls, then, into three divisions, each distinguished by a particular name,—Asia, Libya, Europe.173 The boundaries are respectively the Don, the Nile, and the Straits of the Pillars of Hercules. Asia lies between the Don and the Nile, and lies under that portion of the heaven which is between the north-east and the south. Libya lies between the Nile and the Pillars of Hercules, and falls beneath the south portion of the heaven, extending to the south-west without a break, till it reaches the point of the equinoctial sunset, which corresponds with the Pillars of Hercules. These two divisions of the earth, therefore, regarded in a general point of view, occupy all that part which is south of the Mediterranean from east to west. Europe with respect to both of these lies to the north facing them, and extending continuously from east to west. Its most important and extensive part lies under the northern sky between the river Don and the Narbo, which is only a short distance west of Marseilles and the mouths by which the Rhone discharges itself into the Sardinian Sea. From Narbo is the district occupied by the Celts as far as the Pyrenees, stretching continuously from the Mediterranean to the Mare Externum. The rest of Europe south of the Pyrenees, to the point where it approaches the Pillars of Hercules, is bounded on one side by the Mediterranean, on the other by the Mare Externum; and that part of it which is washed by the Mediterranean as far as the Pillars of Hercules is called Iberia, while the part which lies along the Outer or Great Sea has no general name, because it has but recently been discovered, and is inhabited entirely by barbarous tribes, who are very numerous, and of whom I will speak in more detail hereafter.
38. But as no one up to our time has been able to settle in regard to those parts of Asia and Libya, where they approach each other in the neighbourhood of Ethiopia, whether the continent is continuous to the south, ‸or is surrounded by the sea, so it is in regard to the part between Narbo and the Don: none of us as yet knows anything of the northern extent of this district, and anything we can ever know must be the result of future exploration; and those who rashly venture by word of mouth or written statements to describe this district must be looked upon as ignorant or romancing.
My object in these observations was to prevent my narrative being entirely vague to those who were unacquainted with the localities. I hoped that, by keeping these broad distinctions in mind, they would have some definite standard to which to refer every mention of a place, starting from the primary one of the division of the sky into four quarters. For, as in the case of physical sight, we instinctively turn our faces to any object pointed at; so in the case of the mind, our thoughts ought to turn naturally to localities as they are mentioned from time to time.
It is time now to return to the story we have in hand.
39. At this period the Carthaginians were masters of the whole Mediterranean coast of Libya from the Altars of Philaenus,174 opposite the Great Syrtis, to the Pillars of Hercules, a seaboard of over sixteen thousand stades. They had also crossed the strait of the Pillars of Hercules, and got possession of the whole seaboard of Iberia on the Mediterranean as far as the Pyrenees, which separate the Iberes from the Celts—that is, for a distance of about eight thousand stades: for it is three thousand from the Pillars to New Carthage, from which Hannibal started for Italy; two thousand six hundred from thence to the Iber; and from that river to ‸Emporium again sixteen hundred; from which town, I may add, to the passage of the Rhone is a distance of about sixteen hundred stades; for all these distances have now been carefully measured by the Romans and marked with milestones at every eighth stade.175 After crossing the river there was a march up stream along its bank of fourteen hundred stades, before reaching the foot of the pass over the Alps into Italy. The pass itself was about twelve hundred stades, which being crossed would bring him into the plains of the Padus in Italy. So that the whole length of his march from New Carthage was about nine thousand stades, or 1125 Roman miles. Of the country he had thus to traverse he had already passed almost half in mere distance, but in the difficulties the greater part of his task was still before him.
40. While Hannibal was thus engaged in effecting a passage over the Pyrenees, where he was greatly alarmed ‸at the extraordinary strength of the positions occupied by the Celts; the Romans, having heard the result of the embassy to Carthage, and that Hannibal had crossed the Iber earlier than they expected, at the head of an army, voted to send Publius Cornelius Scipio with his legions into Iberia, and Tiberius Sempronius Longus into Libya. And while the Consuls were engaged in hastening on the enrolment of their legions and other military preparations, the people were active in bringing to completion the colonies which they had already voted to send into Gaul. They accordingly caused the fortification of these towns to be energetically pushed on, and ordered the colonists to be in residence within thirty days: six thousand having been assigned to each colony. One of these colonies was on the south bank of the Padus, and was called Placentia; ‸the other on the north bank, called Cremona. But no sooner had these colonies been formed, than the Boian Gauls, who had long been lying in wait to throw off their loyalty to Rome, but had up to that time lacked an opportunity, encouraged by the news that reached them of Hannibal’s approach, revolted; thus abandoning the hostages which they had given at the end of the war described in my last book. The ill-feeling still remaining towards Rome enabled them to induce the Insubres to join in the revolt; and the united tribes swept over the territory recently allotted by the Romans, and following close upon the track of the flying colonists, laid siege to the Roman colony of Mutina, in which the fugitives had taken refuge. Among them were the triumviri or three commissioners who had been sent out to allot the lands, of whom one—Gaius Lutatius—was an ex-consul, the other two ex-praetors. ‸These men having demanded a parley with the enemy, the Boii consented: but treacherously seized them upon their leaving the town, hoping by their means to recover their own hostages. The praetor Lucius Manlius was on guard in the district with an army, and as soon as he heard what had happened, he advanced with all speed to the relief of Mutina. But the Boii, having got intelligence of his approach, prepared an ambuscade; and as soon as his army had entered a certain wood, they rushed out upon it from every side and killed a large number of his men. The survivors at first fled with precipitation:
but having gained some higher ground, they rallied sufficiently to enable them with much difficulty to effect an honourable retreat. Even so, the Boii followed close upon their heels, and besieged them in a place called the village of Tannes.176 When the news arrived at Rome, that the fourth legion was surrounded and closely besieged by the Boii, the people in all haste despatched the legions which had been voted to the Consul Publius, to their relief, under the command of a Praetor, and ordered the Consul to enrol two more legions for himself from the allies.
41. Such was the state of Celtic affairs from the beginning to the arrival of Hannibal; thus completing the course of events which I have already had occasion to describe.
Meanwhile the Consuls, having completed the necessary preparations for their respective missions, set sail at the beginning ‸of summer—Publius to Iberia, with sixty ships, and Tiberius Sempronius to Libya, with a hundred and sixty quinqueremes. The latter thought by means of this great fleet to strike terror into the enemy; and made vast preparations at Lilybaeum, collecting fresh troops wherever he could get them, as though with the view of at once blockading Carthage itself.
Publius Cornelius coasted along Liguria, and crossing in five days from Pisae to Marseilles, dropped ‸anchor at the most eastern mouth of the Rhone, called the Mouth of Marseilles,177 and began disembarking his troops. For though he heard that Hannibal was already crossing the Pyrenees, he felt sure that he was still a long way off, owing to the difficulty of his line of country, and the number of the intervening Celtic tribes. But long before he was expected, Hannibal had arrived at the crossing of the Rhone, keeping the Sardinian Sea on his right as he marched, and having made his way through the Celts partly by bribes and partly by force. Being informed that the enemy were at hand, Publius was at first incredulous of the fact, because of the rapidity of the advance; but wishing to know the exact state of the case,—while staying behind himself to refresh his troops after their voyage, and to consult with the Tribunes as to the best ground on which to give the enemy battle,—he sent out a reconnoitring party, consisting of three hundred of his bravest horse; joining with them as guides and supports some Celts, who chanced to be serving as mercenaries at the time in Marseilles.
42. Meanwhile Hannibal had reached the river and was trying to get across it where the stream was single, ‸at a distance of four days’ march from the sea. He did all he could to make the natives living by the river friendly to him, and purchased from them all their canoes of hollow trunks, and wherries, of which there were a large number, owing to the extensive sea traffic of the inhabitants of the Rhone valley. He got from them also the timber suited to the construction of these canoes; and so in two days had an innumerable supply of transports, every soldier seeking to be independent of his neighbour, and to have the means of crossing in his own hands. But now a large multitude of barbarians collected on the other side of the stream to hinder the passage of the Carthaginians. When Hannibal saw them, he came to the conclusion that it would be impossible either to force a passage in the face of so large a body of the enemy, or to remain where he was, for fear of being attacked on all sides at once: and he accordingly, on the third night, sent forward a detachment of his army with native guides, under the command of Hanno, the son of the Suffete178 Bomilcar. ‸This force marched up stream along the bank for two hundred stades, until they arrived at a certain spot where the stream is divided by an eyot, and there halted. They found enough wood close at hand to enable them, by nailing or tying it together, to construct within a short time a large number of rafts good enough for temporary use; and on these they crossed in safety, without any one trying to stop them. Then, seizing upon a strong position, they kept quiet for the rest of the day: partly to refresh themselves after their fatigues, and at the same time to complete their preparations for the service awaiting them, as they had been ordered to do. Hannibal was preparing to proceed much in the same way with the forces left behind with himself; but his chief difficulty was in getting the elephants across, of which he had thirty-seven.
43. When the fifth night came, however, the division which had crossed first started before daybreak ‸to march down the opposite bank of the river and attack the barbarians; while Hannibal, having his men in readiness, began to attempt the passage of the river. He had filled the wherries with the heavy-armed cavalry, and the canoes with the most active of his foot; and he now arranged that the wherries should cross higher up the stream, and the canoes below them, that the violence of the current might be broken by the former, and the canoes cross more safely. The plan for the horses was that they should swim at the stern of the wherries, one man on each side of the stern guiding three or four with leading reins: so that a considerable number of horses were brought over at once with the first detachment. When they saw what the enemy meant to do, the barbarians, without forming their ranks, poured out of their entrenchments in scattered groups, feeling no doubt of being able to stop the crossing of the Carthaginians with ease. As soon as Hannibal saw by the smoke, which was the signal agreed upon, that the advanced detachment on the other side was approaching, he ordered all to go on board, and the men in charge of the transports to push out against the stream. This was promptly done: and then began a most anxious and exciting scene. Cheer after cheer rose from the men who were working the boats, as they struggled to outstrip each other, and exerted themselves to the utmost to overcome the force of the current. On the edge of either bank stood the two armies: the one sharing in the struggles of their comrades by sympathy, and shouting encouragement to them as they went; while the barbarians in front of them yelled their war-cries and challenged them to battle. While this was going on the barbarians had abandoned their tents, which the Carthaginians on that side of the river suddenly and unexpectedly seized. Some of them proceeded to set fire to the camp, while the greater number went to attack the men who were standing ready to resist the passage. Surprised by this unlooked-for event, some of the barbarians rushed off to save their tents, while others prepared to resist the attack of the enemy, and were now actually engaged. Seeing that everything was going as he had intended, Hannibal at once formed the first division as it disembarked:
and after addressing some encouraging words to it, closed with the barbarians, who, having no time to form their ranks, and being taken by surprise, were quickly repulsed and put to flight.
44. Being thus master of the passage of the river, and victorious over those who opposed him, Completedthe first care of the Carthaginian leader was to bring his whole army across. This being expeditiously accomplished, he pitched his camp for that night by the river-side, and on the morrow, when he was told that the Roman fleet was anchored off the mouths of the river, he detached five hundred Numidian horsemen to reconnoitre the enemy and find out their position, their numbers, and what they were going to do; and at the same time selected suitable men to manage the passage of the elephants. These arrangements made, he summoned a meeting of his army and introduced Magilus and the other chiefs who had come to him from the valley of the Padus, and caused them to declare to the whole army, ‸by means of an interpreter, the resolutions passed by their tribes. The points which were the strongest encouragement to the army were, first, the actual appearance of envoys inviting them to come, and promising to take part in the war with Rome; secondly, the confidence inspired by their promise of guiding them by a route where they would be abundantly supplied with necessaries, and which would lead them with speed and safety into Italy; and, lastly, the fertility and vast extent of the country to which they were going, and the friendly feelings of the men with whose assistance they were about to fight the armies of Rome.
Such was the substance of the speeches of the Celts. When they had withdrawn, Hannibal himself rose, and after reminding the soldiers of what they had already achieved, and pointing out that, though they had under his counsel and advice engaged in many perilous and dangerous enterprises, they had never failed in one, he bade them “not lose courage now that the most serious part of their undertaking was accomplished. The Rhone was crossed: they had seen with their own eyes the display of goodwill and zeal of their allies. Let this convince them that they should leave the rest to him with confidence; and while obeying his orders show themselves men of courage and worthy of their former deeds.” These words being received with shouts of approval, and other manifestations of great enthusiasm, on the part of the soldiers, Hannibal dismissed the assembly with words of praise to the men and a prayer to the gods on their behalf; after giving out an order that they should refresh themselves, and make all their preparations with despatch, as the advance must begin on the morrow.
45. When the assembly had been dismissed, the reconnoitring party of Numidians returned in headlong flight, ‸after losing more than half their numbers. Not far from the camp they had fallen in with a party of Roman horse, who had been sent out by Publius on the same errand; and an engagement took place with such fury on either side, that the Romans and Celts lost a hundred and forty men, and the Numidians more than two hundred. After this skirmish, the Romans pursued them up to the Carthaginian entrenchments: and having surveyed it, they hastened back to announce to the Consul the presence of the enemy. As soon as they arrived at the Roman camp with this intelligence, Publius put his baggage on board ship, and marched his men up the bank of the river, with the earnest desire of forcing the enemy to give him battle.
But at sunrise on the day after the assembly, Hannibal having stationed his whole cavalry on the rear, in the direction of the sea, so as to cover the advance, ordered his infantry to leave the entrenchment and begin their march; while he himself waited behind for the elephants, and the men who had not yet crossed the river.
46. The mode of getting the elephants across was as follows. They made a number of rafts strongly compacted, ‸which they lashed firmly two and two together, so as to form combined a breadth of about fifty feet, and brought them close under the bank at the place of crossing. To the outer edge of these they lashed some others and made them join exactly; so that the whole raft thus constructed stretched out some way into the channel, while the edges towards the stream were made fast to the land with ropes tied to trees which grew along the brink, to secure the raft keeping its place and not drifting down the river. These combined rafts stretching about two hundred feet across the stream, they joined two other very large ones to the outer edges, fastened very firmly together, but connected with the others by ropes which admitted of being easily cut. To these they fastened several towing lines, that the wherries might prevent the rafts drifting down stream, and might drag them forcibly against the current and so get the elephants across on them. Then they threw a great deal of earth upon all the rafts, until they had raised the surface to the level of the bank, and made it look like the path on the land leading down to the passage. The elephants were accustomed to obey their Indian riders until they came to water, but could never be induced to step into water: they therefore led them upon this earth, putting two females in front whom the others obediently followed. When they had set foot on the rafts that were farthest out in the stream, the ropes were cut which fastened these to the other rafts, the towing lines were pulled taut by the wherries, and the elephants, with the rafts on which they stood, were quickly towed away from the mound of earth. When this happened, the animals were terror-stricken; and at first turned round and round, and rushed first to one part of the raft and then to another, but finding themselves completely surrounded by the water, they were too frightened to do anything, and were obliged to stay where they were. And it was by repeating this contrivance of joining a pair of rafts to the others, that eventually the greater part of the elephants were got across. Some of them, however, in the middle of the crossing, threw themselves in their terror into the river: but though their Indian riders were drowned, the animals themselves got safe to land, saved by the strength and great length of their probosces;
for by raising these above the water, they were enabled to breathe through them, and blow out any water that got into them, while for the most part they got through the river on their feet.
47. The elephants having been thus got across, Hannibal formed them and the cavalry into a rear-guard, and marched up the river bank away from the sea in an easterly direction, as though making for the central district of Europe.
The Rhone rises to the north-west of the Adriatic Gulf on the northern slopes of the Alps,179 and flowing westward, eventually discharges itself into the Sardinian Sea. It flows for the most part through a deep valley, to the north of which lives the Celtic tribe of the Ardyes; while its southern side is entirely walled in by the northern slopes of the Alps, the ridges of which, beginning at Marseilles and extending to the head of the Adriatic, separate it from the valley of the Padus, of which I have already had occasion to speak at length. It was these mountains that Hannibal now crossed from the Rhone valley into Italy.
Some historians of this passage of the Alps, in their desire to produce a striking effect by their descriptions of the wonders of this country, have fallen into two errors which are more alien than anything else to the spirit of history,—perversion of fact and inconsistency. Introducing Hannibal as a prodigy of strategic skill and boldness, they yet represent him as acting with the most conspicuous indiscretion; and then, finding themselves involved in an inextricable maze of falsehood, they try to cut the knot by the introduction of gods and heroes into what is meant to be genuine history. They begin by saying that the Alps are so precipitous and inaccessible that, so far from horses and troops, accompanied too by elephants, being able to cross them, it would be very difficult for even active men on foot to do so: and similarly they tell us that the desolation of this district is so complete, that, had not some god or hero met Hannibal’s forces and showed them the way, they would have been hopelessly lost and perished to a man.
Such stories involve both the errors I have mentioned,—they are both false and inconsistent.
48. For could a more irrational proceeding on the part of a general be imagined than that of Hannibal, if, when in command of so numerous an army, on whom the success of his expedition entirely depended, he allowed himself to remain in ignorance of the roads, the lie of the country, the route to be taken, and the people to which it led, and above all as to the practicability of what he was undertaking to do? They, in fact, represent Hannibal, when at the height of his expectation of success, doing what those would hardly do who have utterly failed and have been reduced to despair,—that is, to entrust themselves and their forces to an unknown country. And so, too, what they say about the desolation of the district, and its precipitous and inaccessible character, only serves to bring their untrustworthiness into clearer light. For first, they pass over the fact that the Celts of the Rhone valley had on several occasions before Hannibal came, and that in very recent times, crossed the Alps with large forces, and fought battles with the Romans in alliance with the Celts of the valley of the Padus, as I have already stated. And secondly, they are unaware of the fact that a very numerous tribe of people inhabit the Alps. Accordingly in their ignorance of these facts they take refuge in the assertion that a hero showed Hannibal the way. They are, in fact, in the same case as tragedians, who, beginning with an improbable and impossible plot, are obliged to bring in a deus ex machina to solve the difficulty and end the play. The absurd premises of these historians naturally require some such supernatural agency to help them out of the difficulty: an absurd beginning could only have an absurd ending. For of course Hannibal did not act as these writers say he did; but, on the contrary, conducted his plans with the utmost prudence. He had thoroughly informed himself of the fertility of the country into which he designed to descend, and of the hostile feelings of its inhabitants towards Rome, and for his journey through the difficult district which intervened he employed native guides and pioneers, whose interests were bound up with his own. I speak with confidence on these points, because I have questioned persons actually engaged on the facts, and have inspected the country, and gone over the Alpine pass myself, in order to inform myself of the truth and see with my own eyes.
49. Three days after Hannibal had resumed his march, the Consul Publius arrived at the passage of the river. ‸He was in the highest degree astonished to find the enemy gone: for he had persuaded himself that they would never venture to take this route into Italy, on account of the numbers and fickleness of the barbarians who inhabited the country. But seeing that they had done so, he hurried back to his ships and at once embarked his forces. He then despatched his brother Gnaeus to conduct the campaign in Iberia, while he himself turned back again to Italy by sea, being anxious to anticipate the enemy by marching through Etruria to the foot of the pass of the Alps.
Meanwhile, after four days’ march from the passage of the Rhone, Hannibal arrived at the place called the Island, ‸a district thickly inhabited and exceedingly productive of corn. Its name is derived from its natural features: for the Rhone and Isara flowing on either side of it make the apex of a triangle where they meet, very nearly of the same size and shape as the delta of the Nile, except that the base of the latter is formed by the sea into which its various streams are discharged, while in the case of the former this base is formed by mountains difficult to approach or climb, and, so to speak, almost inaccessible. When Hannibal arrived in this district he found two brothers engaged in a dispute for the royal power, and confronting each other with their armies. The elder sought his alliance and invited his assistance in gaining the crown: and the advantage which such a circumstance might prove to him at that juncture of his affairs being manifest, he consented; and having joined him in his attack upon his brother, and aided in expelling him, he obtained valuable support from the victorious chieftain. For this prince not only liberally supplied his army with provisions, but exchanged all their old and damaged weapons for new ones, and thus at a very opportune time thoroughly restored the efficiency of the troops: he also gave most of the men new clothes and boots, which proved of great advantage during their passage of the mountains. But his most essential service was that, the Carthaginians being greatly alarmed at the prospect of marching through the territory of the Allobroges, he acted with his army as their rear-guard, and secured them a safe passage as far as the foot of the pass.
50. Having in ten days’ march accomplished a distance of eight hundred stades along the river bank, ‸Hannibal began the ascent of the Alps,180 and immediately found himself involved in the most serious dangers. For as long as the Carthaginians were on the plains, the various chiefs of the Allobroges refrained from attacking them from fear of their cavalry, as well as of the Gauls who were escorting them. But when these last departed back again to their own lands, and Hannibal began to enter the mountainous region, the chiefs of the Allobroges collected large numbers of their tribe and occupied the points of vantage in advance, on the route by which Hannibal’s troops were constrained to make their ascent. If they had only kept their design secret, the Carthaginian army would have been entirely destroyed: as it was, their plans became known, and though they did much damage to Hannibal’s army, they suffered as much themselves. For when that general learnt that the natives were occupying the points of vantage, he halted and pitched his camp at the foot of the pass, and sent forward some of his Gallic guides to reconnoitre the enemy and discover their plan of operations. The order was obeyed: and he ascertained that it was the enemy’s practice to keep under arms, and guard these posts carefully, during the day, but at night to retire to some town in the neighbourhood. Hannibal accordingly adapted his measures to this strategy of the enemy. He marched forward in broad daylight, and as soon as he came to the mountainous part of the road, pitched his camp only a little way from the enemy. At nightfall he gave orders for the watch-fires to be lit; and leaving the main body of his troops in the camp, and selecting the most suitable of his men, he had them armed lightly, and led them through the narrow parts of the road during the night, and seized on the spots which had been previously occupied by the enemy: they having, according to their regular custom, abandoned them for the nearest town.
51. When day broke the natives saw what had taken place, and at first desisted from their attempts; ‸but presently the sight of the immense string of beasts of burden, and of the cavalry, slowly and painfully making the ascent, tempted them to attack the advancing line. Accordingly they fell upon it at many points at once; and the Carthaginians sustained severe losses, not so much at the hands of the enemy, as from the dangerous nature of the ground, which proved especially fatal to the horses and beasts of burden. For as the ascent was not only narrow and rough, but flanked also with precipices, at every movement which tended to throw the line into disorder, large numbers of the beasts of burden were hurled down the precipices with their loads on their backs. And what added more than anything else to this sort of confusion were the wounded horses; for, maddened by their wounds, they either turned round and ran into the advancing beasts of burden, or, rushing furiously forward, dashed aside everything that came in their way on the narrow path, and so threw the whole line into disorder. Hannibal saw what was taking place, and knowing that, even if they escaped this attack, they could never survive the loss of all their baggage, he took with him the men who had seized the strongholds during the night and went to the relief of the advancing line. Having the advantage of charging the enemy from the higher ground he inflicted a severe loss upon them, but suffered also as severe a one in his own army; for the commotion in the line now grew worse, and in both directions at once—thanks to the shouting and struggling of these combatants: and it was not until he had killed the greater number of the Allobroges, and forced the rest to fly to their own land, that the remainder of the beasts of burden and the horses got slowly, and with difficulty, over the dangerous ground. Hannibal himself rallied as many as he could after the fight, and assaulted the town from which the enemy had sallied; and finding it almost deserted, because its inhabitants had been all tempted out by the hope of booty, he got possession of it: from which he obtained many advantages for the future as well as for the present. The immediate gain consisted of a large number of horses and beasts of burden, and men taken with them; and for future use he got a supply of corn and cattle sufficient for two or three days:
but the most important result of all was the terror inspired in the next tribes, which prevented any one of those who lived near the ascent from lightly venturing to meddle with him again.
52. Here he pitched a camp and remained a day, and started again. For the next three days ‸he accomplished a certain amount of his journey without accident. But on the fourth he again found himself in serious danger. For the dwellers along his route, having concerted a plan of treachery, met him with branches and garlands, which among nearly all the natives are signs of friendship, as the herald’s staff is among the Greeks. Hannibal was cautious about accepting such assurances, and took great pains to discover what their real intention and purpose were. The Gauls however professed to be fully aware of the capture of the town, and the destruction of those who had attempted to do him wrong; and explained that those events had induced them to come, because they wished neither to inflict nor receive any damage; and finally promised to give him hostages. For a long while Hannibal hesitated and refused to trust their speeches. But at length coming to the conclusion that, if he accepted what was offered, he would perhaps render the men before him less mischievous and implacable; but that, if he rejected them, he must expect undisguised hostility from them, he acceded to their request, and feigned to accept their offer of friendship. The barbarians handed over the hostages, supplied him liberally with cattle, and in fact put themselves unreservedly into his hands; so that for a time Hannibal’s suspicions were allayed, and he employed them as guides for the next difficulty that had to be passed. They guided the army for two days: and then these tribes collected their numbers, and keeping close up with the Carthaginians, attacked them just as they were passing through a certain difficult and precipitous gorge.
53. Hannibal’s army would now have certainly been utterly destroyed, had it not been for the fact that his ‸fears were still on the alert, and that, having a prescience of what was to come, he had placed his baggage and cavalry in the van and his hoplites in the rear. These latter covered his line, and were able to stem the attack of the enemy, and accordingly the disaster was less than it would otherwise have been. As it was, however, a large number of beasts of burden and horses perished; for the advantage of the higher ground being with the enemy, the Gauls moved along the slopes parallel with the army below, and by rolling down boulders, or throwing stones, reduced the troops to a state of the utmost confusion and danger; so that Hannibal with half his force was obliged to pass the night near a certain white rock,181 which afforded them protection, separated from his horses and baggage which he was covering; until after a whole night’s struggle they slowly and with difficulty emerged from the gorge.
Next morning the enemy had disappeared: and Hannibal, having effected a junction with his cavalry and baggage, led his men towards the head of the pass, without falling in again with any important muster of the natives, ‸though he was harassed by some of them from time to time; who seized favourable opportunities, now on his van and now on his rear, of carrying off some of his baggage. His best protection was his elephants; on whatever parts of the line they were placed the enemy never ventured to approach, being terrified at the unwonted appearance of the animals. The ninth day’s march brought him to the head of the pass: and there he encamped for two days, partly to rest his men and partly to allow stragglers to come up. Whilst they were there, many of the horses who had taken fright and run away, and many of the beasts of burden that had got rid of their loads, unexpectedly appeared: they had followed the tracks of the army and now joined the camp.
54. But by this time, it being nearly the period of the setting of the Pleiads, the snow was beginning ‸to be thick on the heights; and seeing his men in low spirits, owing both to the fatigue they had gone through, and that which still lay before them, Hannibal called them together and tried to cheer them by dwelling on the one possible topic of consolation in his power, namely the view of Italy: which lay stretched out in both directions below those mountains, giving the Alps the appearance of a citadel to the whole of Italy. By pointing therefore to the plains of the Padus, and reminding them of the friendly welcome which awaited them from the Gauls who lived there, and at the same time indicating the direction of Rome itself, he did somewhat to raise the drooping spirits of his men.
Next day he began the descent, in which he no longer met with any enemies, except some few secret pillagers; ‸but from the dangerous ground and the snow he lost almost as many men as on the ascent. For the path down was narrow and precipitous, and the snow made it impossible for the men to see where they were treading, while to step aside from the path, or to stumble, meant being hurled down the precipices. The troops however bore up against the fatigue, having now grown accustomed to such hardships; but when they came to a place where the path was too narrow for the elephants or beasts of burden to pass,—and which, narrowed before by landslips extending about a stade and a half, had recently been made more so by another landslip,—then once more despondency and consternation fell upon the troops. Hannibal’s first idea was to avoid this mauvais pas by a detour, but this route too being made impossible by a snow-storm, he abandoned the idea.
55. The effect of the storm was peculiar and extraordinary. For the present fall of snow coming ‸upon the top of that which was there before, and had remained from the last winter, it was found that the former, being fresh, was soft and offered no resistance to the foot; but when the feet reached the lower frozen snow, they could no longer make any impression upon it, but the men found both their feet slipping from under them, as though they were on hard ground with a layer of mud on the top. And a still more serious difficulty followed: for not being able to get a foothold on the lower snow, when they fell and tried to get themselves up by their hands and knees, the men found themselves plunging downwards quicker and quicker, along with everything they laid hold of, the ground being a very steep decline. The beasts, however, when they fell did break through this lower snow as they struggled to rise, and having done so were obliged to remain there with their loads, as though they were frozen to it, both from the weight of these loads and the hardness of the old snow. Giving up, therefore, all hope of making this detour, he encamped upon the ridge after clearing away the snow upon it. He then set large parties of his men to work, and, with infinite toil, began constructing a road on the face of the precipice. One day’s work sufficed to make a path practicable for beasts of burden and horses; and he accordingly took them across at once, and having pitched his camp at a spot below the snow line, he let them go in search of pasture; while he told off the Numidians in detachments to proceed with the making of the road; and after three days’ difficult and painful labour he got his elephants across, though in a miserable condition from hunger. For the tops of the Alps, and the parts immediately below them, are completely treeless and bare of vegetation, because the snow lies there summer and winter; but about half-way down the slopes on both sides they produce trees and shrubs, and are, in fact, fit for human habitation.
56. So Hannibal mustered his forces and continued the descent; and on the third day after passing ‸the precipitous path just described he reached the plains. From the beginning of his march he had lost many men by the hands of the enemy, and in crossing rivers, and many more on the precipices and dangerous passes of the Alps; and not only men in this last way, but horses and beasts of burden in still greater numbers. The whole march from New Carthage had occupied five months, the actual passage of the Alps fifteen days; and he now boldly entered the valley of the Padus, and the territory of the Insubres, with such of his army as survived, consisting of twelve thousand Libyans and eight thousand Iberians, and not more than six thousand cavalry in all, as he himself distinctly states on the column erected on the promontory of Lacinium to record the numbers.
At the same time, as I have before stated, Publius having left his legions under the command of his brother Gnaeus, with orders to prosecute the Iberian campaign and offer an energetic resistance to Hasdrubal, landed at Pisae with a small body of men. Thence he marched through Etruria, and taking over the army of the Praetors which was guarding the country against the Boii, he arrived in the valley of the Padus; and, pitching his camp there, waited for the enemy with an eager desire to give him battle.
57. Having thus brought the generals of the two nations and the war itself into Italy, before beginning ‸the campaign, I wish to say a few words about what I conceive to be germane or not to my history.
I can conceive some readers complaining that, while devoting a great deal of space to Libya and Iberia, I have said little or nothing about the strait of the Pillars of Hercules, the Mare Externum, or the British Isles, and the manufacture of tin in them, or even of the silver and gold mines in Iberia itself, of which historians give long and contradictory accounts. It was not, let me say, because I thought these subjects out of place in history that I passed them over; but because, in the first place, I did not wish to be diffuse, or distract the attention of students from the main current of my narrative; and, in the next place, because I was determined not to treat of them in scattered notices or casual allusions, but to assign them a distinct time and place, and at these, to the best of my ability, to give a trustworthy account of them. On the same principle I must deprecate any feeling of surprise if, in the succeeding portions of my history, I pass over other similar topics, which might seem naturally in place, for the same reasons. Those who ask for dissertations in history on every possible subject, are somewhat like greedy guests at a banquet, who, by tasting every dish on the table, fail to really enjoy any one of them at the time, or to digest and feel any benefit from them afterwards. Such omnivorous readers get no real pleasure in the present, and no adequate instruction for the future.
58. There can be no clearer proof, than is afforded by these particular instances, that this department of historical writing stands above all others in need of study and correction. For as all, or at least the greater number of writers, have endeavoured to describe the peculiar features and positions of the countries on the confines of the known world, and in doing so have, in most cases, made egregious mistakes, it is impossible to pass over their errors without some attempt at refutation; and that not in scattered observations or casual remarks, but deliberately and formally. But such confutation should not take the form of accusation or invective. While correcting their mistakes we should praise the writers, feeling sure that, had they lived to the present age, they would have altered and corrected many of their statements. The fact is that, in past ages, we know of very few Greeks who undertook to investigate these remote regions, owing to the insuperable difficulties of the attempt. The dangers at sea were then more than can easily be calculated, and those on land more numerous still. And even if one did reach these countries on the confines of the world, whether compulsorily or voluntarily, the difficulties in the way of a personal inspection were only begun: for some of the regions were utterly barbarous, others uninhabited; and a still greater obstacle in way of gaining information as to what he saw was his ignorance of the language of the country. And even if he learnt this, a still greater difficulty was to preserve a strict moderation in his account of what he had seen, and despising all attempts to glorify himself by traveller’s tales of wonder, to report for our benefit the truth and nothing but the truth.
59. All these impediments made a true account of these regions in past times difficult, if not impossible. Nor ought we to criticise severely the omissions or mistakes of these writers: rather they deserve our praise and admiration for having in such an age gained information as to these places, which distinctly advanced knowledge. In our own age, however, the Asiatic districts have been opened up both by sea and land owing to the empire of Alexander, and the other places owing to the supremacy of Rome. Men too of practical experience in affairs, being released from the cares of martial or political ambition, have thereby had excellent opportunities for research and inquiry into these localities; and therefore it will be but right for us to have a better and truer knowledge of what was formerly unknown. And this I shall endeavour to establish, when I find a fitting opportunity in the course of my history. I shall be especially anxious to give the curious a full knowledge on these points, because it was with that express object that I confronted the dangers and fatigues of my travels in Libya, Iberia, and Gaul, as well as of the sea which washes the western coasts of these countries; that I might correct the imperfect knowledge of former writers, and make the Greeks acquainted with these parts of the known world.
After this digression, I must go back to the pitched battles between the Romans and Carthaginians in Italy.
60. After arriving in Italy with the number of troops which I have already stated, ‸Hannibal pitched his camp at the very foot of the Alps, and was occupied, to begin with, in refreshing his men. For not only had his whole army suffered terribly from the difficulties of transit in the ascent, and still more in the descent of the Alps, but it was also in evil case from the shortness of provisions, and the inevitable neglect of all proper attention to physical necessities. Many had quite abandoned all care for their health under the influence of starvation and continuous fatigue; for it had proved impossible to carry a full supply of food for so many thousands over such mountains, and what they did bring was in great part lost along with the beasts that carried it. So that whereas, when Hannibal crossed the Rhone, he had thirty-eight thousand infantry, and more than eight thousand cavalry, he lost nearly half in the pass, as I have shown above; while the survivors had by these long continued sufferings become almost savage in look and general appearance. Hannibal therefore bent his whole energies to the restoration of the spirits and bodies of his men, and of their horses also. When his army had thus sufficiently recovered, finding the Taurini, ‸who live immediately under the Alps, at war with the Insubres and inclined to be suspicious of the Carthaginians, Hannibal first invited them to terms of friendship and alliance; and, on their refusal, invested their chief city and carried it after a three day’s siege. Having put to the sword all who had opposed him, he struck such terror into the minds of the neighbouring tribes, that they all gave in their submission out of hand. The other Celts inhabiting these plains were also eager to join the Carthaginians, according to their original purpose; but the Roman legions had by this time advanced too far, and had intercepted the greater part of them: they were therefore unable to stir, and in some cases were even obliged to serve in the Roman ranks. This determined Hannibal not to delay his advance any longer, but to strike some blow which might encourage those natives who were desirous of sharing his enterprise.
61. When he heard, while engaged on this design, that Publius had already crossed the Padus with his army, ‸and was at no great distance, he was at first inclined to disbelieve the fact, reflecting that it was not many days since he had left him near the passage of the Rhone, and that the voyage from Marseilles to Etruria was a long and difficult one. He was told, moreover, that from the Tyrrhenian Sea to the Alps through Italian soil was a long march, without good military roads. But when messenger after messenger confirmed the intelligence with increased positiveness, he was filled with amazement and admiration at the Consul’s plan of campaign, and promptness in carrying it out. The feelings of Publius were much the same: for he had not expected that Hannibal would even attempt the passage of the Alps with forces of different races, or, if he did attempt it, that he could escape utter destruction. Entertaining such ideas he was immensely astonished at his courage and adventurous daring, when he heard that he had not only got safe across, but was actually besieging certain towns in Italy. Similar feelings were entertained at Rome when the news arrived there. For scarcely had the last rumour about the taking of Saguntum by the Carthaginians ceased to attract attention, and scarcely had the measures adopted in view of that event been taken,—namely the despatch of one Consul to Libya to besiege Carthage, and of the other to Iberia to meet Hannibal there,—than news came that Hannibal had arrived in Italy with his army, and was already besieging certain towns in it. Thrown into great alarm by this unexpected turn of affairs, the Roman government sent at once to Tiberius at Lilybaeum, telling him of the presence of the enemy in Italy, ‸and ordering him to abandon the original design of his expedition, and to make all haste home to reinforce the defences of the country. Tiberius at once collected the men of the fleet and sent them off, with orders to go home by sea; while he caused the Tribunes to administer an oath to the men of the legions that they would all appear at a fixed day at Ariminum by bedtime. Ariminum is a town on the Adriatic, situated at the southern boundary of the valley of the Padus. In every direction there was stir and excitement: and the news being a complete surprise to everybody, there was everywhere a great and irrepressible anxiety as to the future.
62. The two armies being now within a short distance of each other, Hannibal and Publius both thought ‸it necessary to address their men in terms suitable to the occasion.
The manner in which Hannibal tried to encourage his army was this. He mustered the men, and caused some youthful prisoners whom he had caught when they were attempting to hinder his march on the Alpine passes, to be brought forward. They had been subjected to great severities with this very object, loaded with heavy chains, half-starved, and their bodies a mass of bruises from scourging. Hannibal caused these men to be placed in the middle of the army, and some suits of Gallic armour, such as are worn by their kings when they fight in single combat, to be exhibited; in addition to these he placed there some horses, and brought in some valuable military cloaks. He then asked these young prisoners, which of them were willing to fight with each other on condition of the conqueror taking these prizes, and the vanquished escaping all his present miseries by death. Upon their all answering with a loud shout that they were desirous of fighting in these single combats, he bade them draw lots; and the pair, on whom the first lot fell, to put on the armour and fight with each other. As soon as the young men heard these orders, they lifted up their hands, and each prayed the gods that he might be one of those to draw the lot. And when the lots were drawn, those on whom they fell were overjoyed, and the others in despair. When the fight was finished, too, the surviving captives congratulated the one who had fallen no less than the victor, as having been freed from many terrible sufferings, while they themselves still remained to endure them. And in this feeling the Carthaginian soldiers were much disposed to join, all pitying the survivors and congratulating the fallen champion.
63. Having by this example made the impression he desired upon the minds of his troops, ‸Hannibal then came forward himself and said, “that he had exhibited these captives in order that they might see in the person of others a vivid representation of what they had to expect themselves, and might so lay their plans all the better in view of the actual state of affairs. Fortune had summoned them to a life and death contest very like that of the two captives, and in which the prize of victory was the same. For they must either conquer, or die, or fall alive into the hands of their enemies; and the prize of victory would not be mere horses and military cloaks, but the most enviable position in the world if they became masters of the wealth of Rome: or if they fell in battle their reward would be to end their life fighting to their last breath for the noblest object, in the heat of the struggle, and with no sense of pain; while if they were beaten, or from desire of life were base enough to fly, or tried to prolong that life by any means except victory, every sort of misery and misfortune would be their lot: for it was impossible that any one of them could be so irrational or senseless, when he remembered the length of the journey he had performed from his native land, and the number of enemies that lay between him and it, and the size of the rivers he had crossed, as to cherish the hope of being able to reach his home by flight. They should therefore cast away such vain hopes, and regard their position as being exactly that of the combatants whom they had but now been watching. For, as in their case, all congratulated the dead as much as the victor, and commiserated the survivors; so they should think of the alternatives before themselves, and should, one and all, come upon the field of battle resolved, if possible, to conquer, and, if not, to die. Life with defeat was a hope that must by no means whatever be entertained. If they reasoned and resolved thus, victory and safety would certainly attend them: for it never happened that men who came to such a resolution, whether of deliberate purpose or from being driven to bay, were disappointed in their hope of beating their opponents in the field.
And when it chanced, as was the case with the Romans, that the enemy had in most cases a hope of quite an opposite character, from the near neighbourhood of their native country making flight an obvious means of safety, then it was clear that the courage which came of despair would carry the day.”
When he saw that the example and the words he had spoken had gone home to the minds of the rank and file, and that the spirit and enthusiasm which he aimed at inspiring were created, he dismissed them for the present with commendations, and gave orders for an advance at daybreak on the next morning.
64. About the same day Publius Scipio, having now crossed the Padus, and being resolved to make ‸a farther advance across the Ticinus, ordered those who were skilled in such works to construct a bridge across this latter river; and then summoned a meeting of the remainder of his army and addressed them: dwelling principally on the reputation of their country and of the ancestors’ achievements. But he referred particularly to their present position, saying, “that they ought to entertain no doubt of victory, though they had never as yet had any experience of the enemy; and should regard it as a piece of extravagant presumption of the Carthaginians to venture to face Romans, by whom they had been so often beaten, and to whom they had for so many years paid tribute and been all but slaves. And when in addition to this they at present knew thus much of their mettle,—that they dared not face them, what was the fair inference to be drawn for the future? Their cavalry, in a chance encounter on the Rhone with those of Rome, had, so far from coming off well, lost a large number of men, and had fled with disgrace to their own camp; and the general and his army, as soon as they knew of the approach of his legions, had beat a retreat, which was exceedingly like a flight, and, contrary to their original purpose, had in their terror taken the road over the Alps. And it was evident that Hannibal had destroyed the greater part of his army; and that what he had left was feeble and unfit for service, from the hardships they had undergone: in the same way he had lost the majority of his horses, and made the rest useless from the length and difficult nature of the journey. They had, therefore, only to show themselves to the enemy.” But, above all, he pointed out that “his own presence at their head ought to be special encouragement to them: for that he would not have left his fleet and Spanish campaign, on which he had been sent, and have come to them in such haste, if he had not seen on consideration that his doing so was necessary for his country’s safety, and that a certain victory was secured to him by it.”
The weight and influence of the speaker, as well as their belief in his words, roused great enthusiasm among the men; which Scipio acknowledged, and then dismissed them with the additional injunction that they should hold themselves in readiness to obey any order sent round to them.
65. Next day both generals led their troops along the river Padus, on the bank nearest the Alps, ‸the Romans having the stream on their left, the Carthaginians on their right; and having ascertained on the second day, by means of scouts, that they were near each other, they both halted and remained encamped for that day: but on the next, both taking their cavalry, and Publius his sharp-shooters also, they hurried across the plain to reconnoitre each other’s forces. As soon as they came within distance, and saw the dust rising from the side of their opponents, they drew up their lines for battle at once. Publius put his sharp-shooters and Gallic horsemen in front, and bringing the others into line, advanced at a slow pace. Hannibal placed his cavalry that rode with bridles, and was most to be depended on, in his front, and led them straight against the enemy; having put the Numidian cavalry on either wing to take the enemy on the flanks. The two generals and the cavalry were in such hot haste to engage, that they closed with each other before the sharp-shooters had an opportunity of discharging their javelines at all. Before they could do so, they left their ground, and retreated to the rear of their own cavalry, making their way between the squadrons, terrified at the approaching charge, and afraid of being trampled to death by the horses which were galloping down upon them. The cavalry charged each other front to front, and for a long time maintained an equal contest; and a great many men dismounting on the actual field, there was a mixed fight of horse and foot. The Numidian horse, however, having outflanked the Romans, charged them on the rear: and so the sharp-shooters, who had fled from the cavalry charge at the beginning, were now trampled to death by the numbers and furious onslaught of the Numidians; while the front ranks originally engaged with the Carthaginians, after losing many of their men and inflicting a still greater loss on the enemy, finding themselves charged on the rear by the Numidians, broke into flight: most of them scattering in every direction, while some of them kept closely massed round the Consul.
66. Publius then broke up his camp, and marched through the plains to the bridge over the Padus, in haste to get ‸his legions across before the enemy came up. He saw that the level country where he was then was favourable to the enemy with his superiority in cavalry. He was himself disabled by a wound;182 and he decided that it was necessary to shift his quarters to a place of safety. For a time Hannibal imagined that Scipio would give him battle with his infantry also: but when he saw that he had abandoned his camp, he went in pursuit of him as far as the bridge over the Ticinus; but finding that the ‸greater part of the timbers of this bridge had been torn away, while the men who guarded the bridge were left still on his side of the river, he took them prisoners to the number of about six hundred, and being informed that the main army was far on its way, he wheeled round and again ascended the Padus in search of a spot in it which admitted of being easily bridged. After two days’ march he halted and constructed a bridge over the river by means of boats. He committed the task of bringing over the army to Hasdrubal;183 while he himself crossed at once, and busied himself in receiving the ambassadors who arrived from the neighbouring districts. For no sooner had he gained the advantage in the cavalry engagement, than all the Celts in the vicinity hastened to fulfil their original engagement by avowing themselves his friends, supplying him with provisions, and joining the Carthaginian forces. After giving these men a cordial reception, and getting his own army across the Padus, he began to march back again down stream, with an earnest desire of giving the enemy battle. Publius, too, had crossed the river and was now encamped under the walls of the Roman colony Placentia. There he made no sign of any intention to move; for he was engaged in trying to heal his own wound and those of his men, and considered that he had a secure base of operations where he was. A two days’ march from the place where he had crossed the Padus brought Hannibal to the neighbourhood of the enemy; and on the third day he drew out his army for battle in full view of his opponents: but as no one came out to attack, he pitched his camp about fifty stades from them.
67. But the Celtic contingent of the Roman army, seeing that Hannibal’s prospects looked the brighter of the two, ‸concerted their plans for a fixed time, and waited in their several tents for the moment of carrying them out. When the men within the rampart of the camp had taken their supper and were gone to bed, the Celts let more than half the night pass, and just about the time of the morning watch armed themselves and fell upon the Romans who were quartered nearest to them; killed a considerable number, and wounded not a few; and, finally, cutting off the heads of the slain, departed with them to join the Carthaginians, to the number of two thousand infantry and nearly two hundred cavalry. They were received with great satisfaction by Hannibal; who, after addressing them encouragingly, and promising them all suitable rewards, sent them to their several cities, to declare to their compatriots what they had done, and to urge them to make alliance with him: for he knew that they would now all feel compelled to take part with him, when they learnt the treachery of which their fellow-countrymen had been guilty to the Romans. Just at the same time the Boii came in, and handed over to him the three Agrarian Commissioners, sent from Rome to divide the lands; whom, as I have already related, they had seized by a sudden act of treachery at the beginning of the war. Hannibal gratefully acknowledged their good intention, and made a formal alliance with those who came: but he handed them back their prisoners, bidding them keep them safe, in order to get back their own hostages from Rome, as they intended at first.
Publius regarded this treachery as of most serious importance; and feeling sure that the Celts in the ‸neighbourhood had long been ill-disposed, and would, after this event, all incline to the Carthaginians, he made up his mind that some precaution for the future was necessary. The next night, therefore, just before the morning watch, he broke up his camp and marched for the river Trebia, and the high ground near it, feeling confidence in the protection which the strength of the position and the neighbourhood of his allies would give him.
68. When Hannibal was informed of Scipio’s change of quarters, he sent the Numidian horse in pursuit at once, ‸and the rest soon afterwards, following close behind with his main army. The Numidians, finding the Roman camp empty, stopped to set fire to it: which proved of great service to the Romans; for if they had pushed on and caught up the Roman baggage, a large number of the rear-guard would have certainly been killed by the cavalry in the open plains. But as it was, the greater part of them got across the River Trebia in time; while those who were after all too far in the rear to escape, were either killed or made prisoners by the Carthaginians.
Scipio, however, having crossed the Trebia occupied the first high ground; and having strengthened ‸his camp with trench and palisade, waited the arrival of his colleague, Tiberius Sempronius, and his army; and was taking the greatest pains to cure his wound, because he was exceedingly anxious to take part in the coming engagement. Hannibal pitched his camp about forty stades from him. While the numerous Celts inhabiting the plains, excited by the good prospects of the Carthaginians, supplied his army with provisions in great abundance, and were eager to take their share with Hannibal in every military operation or battle.
When news of the cavalry engagement reached Rome, the disappointment of their confident expectations caused a feeling of consternation in the minds of the people. Not but that plenty of pretexts were found to prove to their own satisfaction that the affair was not a defeat. Some laid the blame on the Consul’s rashness, and others on the treacherous lukewarmness of the Celts, which they concluded from their recent revolt must have been shown by them on the field. But, after all, as the infantry was still unimpaired, they made up their minds that the general result was still as hopeful as ever. Accordingly, when Tiberius and his legions arrived at Rome, and marched through the city, they believed that his mere appearance at the seat of war would settle the matter.
His men met Tiberius at Ariminum, according to their oath, and he at once led them forward in all ‸haste to join Publius Scipio. The junction effected, and a camp pitched by the side of his colleague, he was naturally obliged to refresh his men after their forty days’ continuous march between Ariminum and Lilybaeum: but he went on with all preparations for a battle; and was continually in conference with Scipio, asking questions as to what had happened in the past, and discussing with him the measures to be taken in the present.
69. Meanwhile Hannibal got possession of Clastidium, by the treachery of a certain Brundisian, ‸to whom it had been entrusted by the Romans. Having become master of the garrison and the stores of corn he used the latter for his present needs; but took the men whom he had captured with him, without doing them any harm, being desirous of showing by an example the policy he meant to pursue; that those whose present position towards Rome was merely the result of circumstances should not be terrified, and give up hope of being spared by him. The man who betrayed Clastidium to him he treated with extraordinary honour, by way of tempting all men in similar situations of authority to share the prospects of the Carthaginians. But afterwards, finding that certain Celts who lived in the fork of the Padus and the Trebia, while pretending to have made terms with him, were sending messages to the Romans at the same time, believing that they would thus secure themselves from being harmed by either side, he sent two thousand infantry with some Celtic and Numidian cavalry with orders to devastate their territory. This order being executed, and a great booty obtained, the Celts appeared at the Roman camp beseeching their aid. Tiberius had been all along looking out for an opportunity of striking a blow: ‸and once seized on this pretext for sending out a party, consisting of the greater part of his cavalry; and a thousand sharp-shooters of his infantry along with them; who having speedily come up with the enemy on the other side of the Trebia, and engaged them in a sharp struggle for the possession of the booty, forced the Celts and Numidians to beat a retreat to their own camp. Those who were on duty in front of the Carthaginian camp quickly perceived what was going on, and brought some reserves to support the retreating cavalry; then the Romans in their turn were routed, and had to retreat to their camp. At this Tiberius sent out all his cavalry and sharp-shooters; whereupon the Celts again gave way, and sought the protection of their own camp. The Carthaginian general being unprepared for a general engagement, and thinking it a sound rule not to enter upon one on every casual opportunity, or except in accordance with a settled design, acted, it must be confessed, on this occasion with admirable generalship. He checked their flight when his men were near the camp, and forced them to halt and face about;
but he sent out his aides and buglers to recall the rest, and prevented them from pursuing and engaging the enemy any more. So the Romans after a short halt went back, having killed a large number of the enemy, and lost very few themselves.
70. Excited and overjoyed at this success Tiberius was all eagerness for a general engagement. Now, it was in his power to administer the war for the present as he chose, ‸owing to the ill-health of Publius Scipio; yet wishing to have his colleague’s opinion in support of his own, he consulted him on this subject. Publius however took quite an opposite view of the situation. He thought his legions would be all the better for a winter under arms; and that the fidelity of the fickle Celts would never stand the test of want of success and enforced inactivity on the part of the Carthaginians: they would be certain, he thought, to turn against them once more. Besides, when he had recovered from his wound, he hoped to be able to do good service to his country himself. With these arguments he tried to dissuade Tiberius from his design. The latter felt that every one of these arguments were true and sound; but, urged on by ambition and a blind confidence in his fortune, he was eager to have the credit of the decisive action to himself, before Scipio should be able to be present at the battle, or the next Consuls arrive to take over the command; for the time for that to take place was now approaching. As therefore he selected the time for the engagement from personal considerations, rather than with a view to the actual circumstances of the case, he was bound to make a signal failure.
Hannibal took much the same view of the case as Scipio, and was therefore, unlike him, eager for a battle; because, in the first place, he wished to avail himself of the enthusiasm of the Celts before it had at all gone off: in the second place, he wished to engage the Roman legions while the soldiers in them were raw recruits without practice in war: and, in the third place, because he wished to fight the battle while Scipio was still unfit for service: but most of all because he wanted to be doing something and not to let the time slip by fruitlessly; for when a general leads his troops into a foreign country, and attempts what looks like a desperate undertaking, the one chance for him is to keep the hopes of his allies alive by continually striking some fresh blow.
Such were Hannibal’s feelings when he knew of the intended attack of Tiberius.
71. Now he had some time before remarked a certain piece of ground which was flat and treeless, ‸and yet well suited for an ambush, because there was a stream in it with a high overhanging bank thickly covered with thorns and brambles. Here he determined to entrap the enemy. The place was admirably adapted for putting them off their guard; because the Romans were always suspicious of woods, from the fact of the Celts invariably choosing such places for their ambuscades, but felt no fear at all of places that were level and without trees: not knowing that for the concealment and safety of an ambush such places are much better than woods; because the men can command from them a distant view of all that is going on: while nearly all places have sufficient cover to make concealment possible,—a stream with an overhanging bank, reeds, or ferns, or some sort of bramble-bushes,—which are good enough to hide not infantry only, but sometimes even cavalry, if the simple precaution is taken of laying conspicuous arms flat upon the ground and hiding helmets under shields. Hannibal had confided his idea to his brother Mago and to his council, who had all approved of the plan. Accordingly, when the army had supped, he summoned this young man to his tent, who was full of youthful enthusiasm, and had been trained from boyhood in the art of war, and put under his command a hundred cavalry and the same number of infantry. These men he had himself earlier in the day selected as the most powerful of the whole army, and had ordered to come to his tent after supper. Having addressed and inspired them with the spirit suitable to the occasion, he bade each of them select ten of the bravest men of their own company, and to come with them to a particular spot in the camp. The order having been obeyed, he despatched the whole party, numbering a thousand cavalry and as many infantry, with guides, to the place selected for the ambuscade; and gave his brother directions as to the time at which he was to make the attempt. At daybreak he himself mustered the Numidian cavalry, who were conspicuous for their powers of endurance; and after addressing them, and promising them rewards if they behaved with gallantry, he ordered them to ride up to the enemy’s lines, and then quickly cross the river, and by throwing showers of darts at them tempt them to come out: his object being to get at the enemy before they had had their breakfast, or made any preparations for the day.
The other officers of the army also he summoned, and gave them similar instructions for the battle, ordering all their men to get breakfast and to see to their arms and horses.
72. As soon as Tiberius saw the Numidian horse approaching, he immediately sent out his cavalry by itself ‸with orders to engage the enemy, and keep them in play, while he despatched after them six thousand foot armed with javelins, and got the rest of the army in motion, with the idea that their appearance would decide the affair: for his superiority in numbers, and his success in the cavalry skirmish of the day before, had filled him with confidence. But it was now mid-winter and the day was snowy and excessively cold, and men and horses were marching out almost entirely without having tasted food; and accordingly, though the troops were at first in high spirits, yet when they had crossed the Trebia, swollen by the floods which the rain of the previous night had brought down from the high ground above the camp, wading breast deep through the stream, they were in a wretched state from the cold and want of food as the day wore on. While the Carthaginians on the contrary had eaten and ‸drunk in their tents, and got their horses ready, and were all anointing and arming themselves round the fires. Hannibal waited for the right moment to strike, and as soon as he saw that the Romans had crossed the Trebia, throwing out eight thousand spearmen and slingers to cover his advance, he led out his whole army. When he had advanced about eight stades from the camp, he drew up his infantry, consisting of about twenty thousand Iberians, Celts, and Libyans, in one long line, while he divided his cavalry and placed half on each wing, amounting in all to more than ten thousand, counting the Celtic allies; his elephants also he divided between the two wings, where they occupied the front rank. Meanwhile Tiberius ‸had recalled his cavalry because he saw that they could do nothing with the enemy. For the Numidians when attacked retreated without difficulty, scattering in every direction, and then faced about again and charged, which is the peculiar feature of their mode of warfare. But he drew up his infantry in the regular Roman order, consisting of sixteen thousand citizens and twenty thousand allies; for that is the complete number of a Roman army in an important campaign, when the two Consuls are compelled by circumstances to combine forces.184 He then placed the cavalry on either wing, numbering four thousand, and advanced against the enemy in gallant style, in regular order, and at a deliberate pace.
73. When the two forces came within distance, the light-armed troops in front of the two armies ‸closed with each other. In this part of the battle the Romans were in many respects at a disadvantage, while the Carthaginians had everything in their favour. For the Roman spearmen had been on hard service ever since daybreak, and had expended most of their weapons in the engagement with the Numidians, while those weapons which were left had become useless from being long wet. Nor were the cavalry, or indeed the whole army, any better off in these respects. The case of the Carthaginians was exactly the reverse: they had come on the field perfectly sound and fresh, and were ready and eager for every service required of them. As soon, therefore, as their advanced guard had retired again within their lines, and the heavy-armed soldiers were engaged, the cavalry on the two wings of the Carthaginian army at once charged the enemy with all the effect of superiority in numbers, and in the condition both of men and horses secured by their freshness when they started. The Roman cavalry on the contrary retreated: and the flanks of the line being thus left unprotected, the Carthaginian spearmen and the main body of the Numidians, passing their own advanced guard, charged the Roman flanks: and, by the damage which they did them, prevented them from keeping up the fight with the troops on their front. The heavy-armed soldiers, however, who were in the front rank of both armies, and in the centre of that, maintained an obstinate and equal fight for a considerable time.
74. Just then the Numidians, who had been lying in ambush, left their hiding-place, ‸and by a sudden charge on the centre of the Roman rear produced great confusion and alarm throughout the army. Finally both the Roman wings, being hard pressed in front by the elephants, and on both flanks by the light-armed troops of the enemy, gave way, and in their flight were forced upon the river behind them. After this, while the centre of the Roman rear was losing heavily, and suffering severely from the attack of the Numidian ambuscade, their front, thus driven to bay, defeated the Celts and a division of Africans, and, after killing a large number of them, succeeded in cutting their way through the Carthaginian line. Then seeing that their wings had been forced off their ground, they gave up all hope of relieving them or getting back to their camp, partly because of the number of the enemy’s cavalry, and partly because they were hindered by the river and the pelting storm of rain which was pouring down upon their heads. They therefore closed their ranks, ‸and made their way safely to Placentia, to the number of ten thousand. Of the rest of the army the greater number were killed by the elephants and cavalry on the bank of the Trebia; while those of the infantry who escaped, and the greater part of the cavalry, managed to rejoin the ten thousand mentioned above, and arrived with them at Placentia. Meanwhile the Carthaginian army pursued the enemy as far as the Trebia; but being prevented by the storm from going farther, returned to their camp. They regarded the result of the battle with great exultation, as a complete success; for the loss of the Iberians and Africans had been light, the heaviest having fallen on the Celts. But from the rain and the snow which followed it, they suffered so severely, that all the elephants except one died, and a large number of men and horses perished from the cold.
75. Fully aware of the nature of his disaster, but wishing to conceal its extent as well as he could from the people at home, Tiberius sent messengers to announce that a battle had taken place, but that the storm had deprived them of the victory. For the moment this news was believed at Rome; but when soon afterwards it became known that the Carthaginians were in possession of the Roman camp, and that all the Celts had joined them: while their own troops had abandoned their camp, and, after retiring from the field of battle, were all collected in the neighbouring cities; and were besides being supplied with necessary provisions by sea up the Padus, the Roman people became only too certain of what had really happened in the battle. Winter of B.C. 118-117. Great exertions at Rome to meet the danger.It was a most unexpected reverse, and it forced them at once to urge on with energy the remaining preparations for the war. They reinforced those positions which lay in the way of the enemy’s advance; sent legions to Sardinia and Sicily, as well as garrisons to Tarentum, and other places of strategical importance; and, moreover, fitted out a fleet of sixty quinqueremes. The Consuls designate, Gnaeus Servilius and Gaius Flaminius, were collecting the allies and enrolling the citizen legions, and sending supplies to Ariminum and Etruria, with a view of going to the seat of war by those two routes. They sent also to king Hiero asking for reinforcements, who sent them five hundred Cretan archers and a thousand peltasts. In fact they pushed on their preparations in every direction with energy. For the Roman people are most formidable, collectively and individually, when they have real reason for alarm.
76. While these events were happening in Italy, Gnaeus Cornelius Scipio, who had been left by his ‸brother Publius in command of the fleet, setting sail from the mouth of the Rhone, came to land with his whole squadron at a place in Iberia called Emporium. Starting from this town, he made descents upon the coast, landing and besieging those who refused to submit to him along the seaboard as far as the Iber; and treating with every mark of kindness those who acceded to his demands, and taking all the precautions he could for their safety. When he had garrisoned those towns on the coast that submitted, he led his whole army inland, having by this time a not inconsiderable contingent of Iberian allies; and took possession of the towns on his line of march, some by negotiation and some by force of arms. The Carthaginian troops which Hannibal had left in that district under the command of Hanno, lay entrenched to resist him under the walls of a town called Cissa.
Defeating this army in a pitched battle, Gnaeus not only got possession of a rich booty, for the whole baggage of the army invading Italy had been left under its charge, but secured the friendly alliance of all the Iberian tribes north of the Iber, and took both Hanno, the general of the Carthaginians, and Andobales, the general of the Iberians, prisoners. The latter was despot of central Iberia, and had always been especially inclined to the side of Carthage.
Immediately he learnt what had happened, Hasdrubal crossed the Iber to bring aid. There he ascertained that the Roman troops left in charge of the fleet had abandoned all precautions, and were trading on the success of the land forces to pass their time in ease. He therefore took with him eight thousand infantry and one thousand cavalry of his own army, and finding the men of the fleet scattered about the country, he killed a great many of them and forced the rest to fly for refuge to their ships. He then retired across the Iber again, and employed himself in fortifying and garrisoning the posts south of the river, taking up his winter quarters at New Carthage. When Gnaeus rejoined his fleet, he punished the authors of the disaster according to the Roman custom; and then collected his land and sea forces together in Tarraco, and there took up his winter quarters; and by dividing the booty equally between his soldiers, inspired them at once with affection towards himself and eagerness for future service. Such was the course of the Iberian campaign.
77. At the beginning of the following spring, Gaius Flaminius marched his army through Etruria, and pitched his camp at Arretium; while his colleague Gnaeus Servilius on the other hand went to Ariminum, to await the advance of the enemy in that direction.
Passing the winter in the Celtic territory, Hannibal kept his Roman prisoners in close confinement, ‸supplying them very sparingly with food; while he treated their allies with great kindness from the first, and finally called them together and addressed them, alleging, “that he had not come to fight against them, but against Rome in their behalf; and that, therefore, if they were wise, they would attach themselves to him: because he had come to restore freedom to the Italians, and to assist them to recover their cities and territory which they had severally lost to Rome.” With these words he dismissed them without ransom to their own homes: wishing by this policy to attract the inhabitants of Italy to his cause, and to alienate their affections from Rome, and to awaken the resentment of all those who considered themselves to have suffered by the loss of harbours or cities under the Roman rule.
78. While he was in these winter quarters also he practised a ruse truly Punic. Being apprehensive that from the fickleness of their character, and the newness of the tie between himself and them, the Celts might lay plots against his life, he caused a number of wigs to be made for him, suited in appearance to men of various ages; and these he constantly varied, changing at the same time his clothes also to harmonise with the particular wig which he wore. He thus made it hard to recognise him, not only for those who met him suddenly, but even for his intimates. But seeing that the Celts were discontented at the lengthened continuance of the war within their borders, and were in a state of restless hurry to invade the enemy’s territory,—on the pretence of hatred for Rome, but in reality from love of booty,—he determined to break up his camp as soon as possible, and satisfy the desires of his army. Accordingly as soon as the change of season set in, by questioning those who were reputed to know the country best, he ascertained that the other roads leading into Etruria were long and well known to the enemy, but that the one which led through the marshes was short, and would bring them upon Flaminius as a surprise.185 This was what suited his peculiar genius, and he therefore decided to take this route. But when the report was spread in his army that the general was going to lead them through some marshes, every soldier felt alarmed at the idea of the quagmires and deep sloughs which they would find on this march.
79. But after a careful inquiry as to what part of the road was firm or boggy, Hannibal broke up his camp and marched out. ‸He placed the Libyans and Iberians and all his best soldiers in the van, and the baggage within their lines, that there might be plenty of provisions for their immediate needs. Provisions for the future he entirely neglected. Because he calculated that on reaching the enemy’s territory, if he were beaten he should not require them, and if he were victorious he would find abundance in the open country. Behind this vanguard he placed the Celts, and in the rear of all the cavalry. He entrusted the command of the rear-guard to his brother Mago, that he might see to the security of all, and especially to guard against the cowardice and impatience of hard labour which characterised the Celts; in order that, if the difficulty of the route should induce them to turn back, he might intercept them by means of the cavalry and force them to proceed. In point of fact, the Iberians and Libyans, having great powers of endurance and being habituated to such fatigues, and also because when they marched through them the marshes186 were fresh and untrodden, accomplished their march with a moderate amount of distress: but the Celts advanced with great difficulty, because the marshes were now disturbed and trodden into a deep morass: and being quite unaccustomed to such painful labours, they bore the fatigue with anger and impatience; but were hindered from turning back by the cavalry in their rear. All however suffered grievously, especially from the impossibility of getting sleep on a continuous march of four days and three nights through a route which was under water: but none suffered so much, or lost so many men, as the Celts. Most of his beasts of burden also slipping in the mud fell and perished, and could then only do the men one service: they sat upon their dead bodies, and piling up baggage upon them so as to stand out above the water, they managed to get a snatch of sleep187 for a short portion of the night. Another misfortune was that a considerable number of the horses lost their hoofs by the prolonged march through bog. Hannibal himself was with difficulty and much suffering got across riding on the only elephant left alive, enduring great agony from a severe attack of ophthalmia, by which he eventually lost the sight of one eye, because the time and the difficulties of the situation did not admit of his waiting or applying any treatment to it.
80. Having crossed the marshes in this unexpected manner, Hannibal found Flaminius in Etruria encamped under the walls of Arretium. ‸For the present he pitched his camp close to the marshes, to refresh his army, and to investigate the plans of his enemies and the lie of the country in his front. And being informed that the country before him abounded in wealth, and that Flaminius was a mere mob-orator and demagogue, with no ability for the actual conduct of military affairs, and was moreover unreasonably confident in his resources; he calculated that, if he passed his camp and made a descent into the district beyond, partly for fear of popular reproach and partly from a personal feeling of irritation, Flaminius would be unable to endure to watch passively the devastation of the country, and would spontaneously follow him wherever he went; and being eager to secure the credit of a victory for himself, without waiting for the arrival of his colleague, would give him many opportunities for an attack.
81. And in making these calculations Hannibal showed his consummate prudence and strategical ability. ‸For it is mere blind ignorance to believe that there can be anything of more vital importance to a general than the knowledge of his opponent’s character and disposition. As in combats between individuals or ranks, he who would conquer must observe carefully how it is possible to attain his object, and what part of his enemy appears unguarded or insufficiently armed,—so must a commander of an army look out for the weak place, not in the body, but in the mind of the leader of the hostile force. For it has often happened before now that from mere idleness and lack of energy, men have let not only the welfare of the state, but even their private fortunes fall to ruin: some are so addicted to wine that they cannot sleep without bemusing their intellects with drink; and others so infatuated in their pursuit of sensual pleasures, that they have not only been the ruin of their cities and fortunes, but have forfeited life itself with disgrace. In the case of individuals, however, cowardice and sloth bring shame only on themselves; but when it is a commander-in-chief that is concerned, the disaster affects all alike and is of the most fatal consequence. It not only infects the men under him with an inactivity like his own; but it often brings absolute dangers of the most serious description upon those who trust such a general. For rashness, temerity, and uncalculating impetuosity, as well as foolish ambition and vanity, give an easy victory to the enemy. And are the source of numerous dangers to one’s friends: for a man who is the prey of such weaknesses falls the easiest victim to every stratagem, ambush or ruse. The general then who can gain a clear idea of his opponent’s weaknesses, and direct his attack on the point where he is most open to it, will very soon be the victor in the campaign. For as a ship, if you deprive it of its steerer, falls with all its crew into the hands of the enemy; so, in the case of an army in war, if you outwit or out-manœuvre its general, the whole will often fall into your hands.
82. Nor was Hannibal mistaken in his calculations in regard to Flaminius. For no sooner had he ‸left the neighbourhood of Faesulae, and, advancing a short way beyond the Roman camp, made a raid upon the neighbouring country, than Flaminius became excited, and enraged at the idea that he was despised by the enemy: and as the devastation of the country went on, and he saw from the smoke that rose in every direction that the work of destruction was proceeding, he could not patiently endure the sight. Some of his officers advised that they should not follow the enemy at once nor engage him, but should act on the defensive, in view of his great superiority in cavalry; and especially that they should wait for the other Consul, and not give battle until the two armies were combined. But Flaminius, far from listening to their advice, was indignant at those who offered it; and bade them consider what the people at home would say at the country being laid waste almost up to the walls of Rome itself, while they remained encamped in Etruria on the enemy’s rear. Finally, with these words, he set his army in motion, without any settled plan of time or place; but bent only on falling in with the enemy, as though certain victory awaited him. For he had managed to inspire the people with such confident expectations, that the unarmed citizens who followed his camp in hope of booty, bringing chains and fetters and all such gear, were more numerous than the soldiers themselves.
Meanwhile Hannibal was advancing on his way to Rome through Etruria, keeping the city of Cortona and its hills on his left, and the Thrasymene lake on his right; and as he marched, he burned and wasted the country with a view of rousing the wrath of the enemy and tempting him to come out. And when he saw Flaminius get well within distance, and observed that the ground he then occupied was suited to his purpose, he bent his whole energies on preparing for a general engagement.
83. The route which he was following led through a low valley enclosed on both sides by long lines of lofty hills. ‸Of its two ends, that in front was blocked by an abrupt and inaccessible hill, and that on the rear by the lake, between which and the foot of the cliff there is only a very narrow defile leading into this valley. Making his way to the end of the valley along the bank of the lake, Hannibal posted himself with the Spanish and Libyan troops on the hill immediately in front of him as he marched, and pitched a camp on it; but sent his Balearic slingers and light-armed troops by a détour, and stationed them in extended order under the cover of the hills to the right of the valley; and by a similar détour placed the Gauls and cavalry under the cover of hills to the left, causing them also to extend their line so far as to cover the entrance of the defile running between the cliff and lake into the valley.188
Having made these preparations during the night, and having thus enclosed the valley with ambuscades, Hannibal remained quiet. In pursuit of him came Flaminius, in hot haste to close with the enemy. It was late in the evening before he pitched his camp on the border of the lake; and at daybreak next morning, just before the morning watch, he led his front maniples forward along the borders of the lake into the valley with a view of engaging the enemy.
84. The day was exceedingly misty: and as soon as the greater part of the Roman line was in the valley, ‸and the leading maniples were getting close to him, Hannibal gave the signal for attack; and at the same time sent orders to the troops lying in ambush on the hills to do the same, and thus delivered an assault upon the enemy at every point at once. Flaminius was taken completely by surprise: the mist was so thick, and the enemy were charging down from the upper ground at so many points at once, that not only were the Centurions and Tribunes unable to relieve any part of the line that was in difficulties, but were not even able to get any clear idea of what was going on: for they were attacked simultaneously on front, rear, and both flanks. The result was that most of them were cut down in the order of march, without being able to defend themselves: exactly as though they had been actually given up to slaughter by the folly of their leader. Flaminius himself, in a state of the utmost distress and despair, was attacked and killed by a company of Celts. As many as fifteen thousand Romans fell in the valley, who could neither yield nor defend themselves, being habituated to regard it as their supreme duty not to fly or quit their ranks. But those who were caught in the defile between the lake and the cliff perished in a shameful, or rather a most miserable, manner: for being thrust into the lake, some in their frantic terror endeavoured to swim with their armour on, and presently sank and were drowned; while the greater number, wading as far as they could into the lake, remained there with their heads above water; and when the cavalry rode in after them, and certain death stared them in the face, they raised their hands and begged for quarter, offering to surrender, and using every imaginary appeal for mercy; but were finally despatched by the enemy, or, in some cases, begged the favour of the fatal blow from their friends, or inflicted it on themselves. A number of men, however, amounting perhaps to six thousand, who were in the valley, defeated the enemy immediately in front of them; but though they might have done much to retrieve the fortune of the day, they were unable to go to the relief of their comrades, or get to the rear of their opponents, because they could not see what was going on. They accordingly pushed on continually to the front, always expecting to find themselves engaged with some of the enemy:
until they discovered that, without noticing it, they were issuing upon the higher ground. But when they were on the crest of the hills, the mist broke and they saw clearly the disaster which had befallen them; and being no longer able to do any good, since the enemy was victorious all along the line, and in complete possession of the ground, they closed their ranks and made for a certain Etrurian village. After the battle Maharbal was sent by Hannibal with the Iberians and light-armed troops to besiege the village; and seeing themselves surrounded by a complication of dangers, they laid down their arms and surrendered on condition of their lives being spared. Such was the end of the final engagement between the Romans and Carthaginians in Etruria.
85. When the prisoners who had surrendered on terms were with the other prisoners brought to Hannibal, ‸he had them all collected together to the number of more than fifteen thousand, and began by saying that Maharbal had no authority to grant them their lives without consulting him. He then launched out into an invective against Rome: and when he had finished that, he distributed all the prisoners who were Romans among the companies of his army to be held in safe keeping; but allowed all the allies to depart without ransom to their own country, with the same remark as he had made before, that “he was not come to fight against Italians, but in behalf of Italians against Rome.” He then gave his army time to refresh themselves after their fatigue, and buried those of highest rank who had fallen in his army, amounting to about thirty; the total number of his loss being fifteen hundred, most of whom were Celts. He then began considering, in conjunction with his brother and friends, where and how he should continue his attack, for he now felt confident of ultimate success.
When the news of this disaster reached Rome, the chief men of the state could not, ‸in view of the gravity of the blow, conceal its extent or soften it down, but were forced to assemble the people and tell them the truth. When the Praetor, therefore, from the Rostra said, “We have been beaten in a great battle,” there was such a consternation, that those who had been present at the battle as well as at this meeting, felt the disaster to be graver than when they were on the field of battle itself. And this feeling of the people was not to be wondered at. For many years they had been unaccustomed to the word or the fact of defeat, and they could not now endure reverse with patience or dignity. The Senate, however, rose to the occasion, and held protracted debates and consultations as to the future, anxiously considering what it was the duty of all classes to do, and how they were to do it.
86. About the same time as the battle of Thrasymene, the Consul Gnaeus Servilius, ‸who had been stationed on duty at Ariminum,—which is on the coast of the Adriatic, where the plains of Cis-Alpine Gaul join the rest of Italy, not far from the mouths of the Padus,—having heard that Hannibal had entered Etruria and was encamped near Flaminius, designed to join the latter with his whole army. But finding himself hampered by the difficulty of transporting so heavy a force, he sent Gaius Centenius forward in haste with four thousand horse, intending that he should be there before himself in case of need. But Hannibal, getting early intelligence after the battle of Thrasymene of this reinforcement of the enemy, sent Maharbal with his light-armed troops, and a detachment of cavalry, who falling in with Gaius, killed nearly half his men at the first encounter; and having pursued the remainder to a certain hill, on the very next day took them all prisoners. The news of the battle of Thrasymene was three days’ old at Rome, and the sorrow caused by it was, so to speak, at its hottest, when this further disaster was announced. The consternation caused by it was no longer confined to the people. The Senate now fully shared in it; and it was resolved that the usual annual arrangements for the election of magistrates should be suspended, and a more radical remedy be sought for the present dangers; for they came to the conclusion that their affairs were in such a state, as to require a commander with absolute powers.
Feeling now entirely confident of success, Hannibal rejected the idea of approaching Rome for the present; but traversed the country plundering it without resistance, ‸and directing his march towards the coast of the Adriatic. Having passed through Umbria and Picenum, he came upon the coast after a ten days’ march with such enormous booty, that the army could neither drive nor carry all the wealth which they had taken, and after killing a large number of people on his road. For the order was given, usual in the storming of cities, to kill all adults who came in their way: an order which Hannibal was prompted to give now by his deep-seated hatred of Rome.189
87. Pitching his camp on the shore of the Adriatic, in a district extraordinarily rich in every kind of produce, he took great pains to refresh his men and restore their health, and no less so that of the horses. For the cold and squalor of a winter spent in Gallia Cis-Alpina without the protection of a roof, and then the painful march through the marshes, had brought upon most of the horses, and the men as well, an attack of scurvy and all its consequences. Having therefore now got possession of a rich country, he got his horses into condition again, and restored the bodies and spirits of his soldiers; and made the Libyans change their own for Roman arms selected for the purpose, which he could easily do from being possessed of so many sets stripped from the bodies of the enemy. He now sent messengers, too, to Carthage by sea, to report what had taken place, for this was the first time he had reached the sea since he entered Italy. The Carthaginians were greatly rejoiced at the news: and took measures with enthusiasm for forwarding supplies to their armies, both in Iberia and Italy.
Meanwhile the Romans had appointed Quintus Fabius Dictator,190 a man distinguished no less for his wisdom than his high birth; as is still commemorated by the fact that the members of his family are even now called Maximi, ‸that is “Greatest,” in honour of his successful achievements. A Dictator differs from the Consuls in this, that each Consul is followed by twelve lictors, the Dictator by twenty-four. Again, the Consuls have frequently to refer to the Senate to enable them to carry out their proposed plans, but the Dictator is absolute, and when he is appointed all other magistrates in Rome are at once deprived of power, except the Tribunes of the People.191 I shall, however, take another opportunity of speaking in more detail about these officers. With the Dictator they appointed Marcus Minucius master of the horse; this is an officer under the Dictator, and takes his place when engaged elsewhere.
88. Though Hannibal shifted his quarters from time to time for short distances in one direction or another, he remained in the neighbourhood of the Adriatic; and by bathing his horses with old wine, of which he had a great store, cured them of the scab and got them into condition again. By a similar treatment he cured his men of their wounds, and got the others into a sound state of health and spirits for the service before them. After traversing with fire and sword the territories of Praetutia,192 Hadriana, Marrucina, and Frentana, he started on his road to Iapygia. This district is divided among three peoples, each with a district name, Daunii, Peucetii, and Messapii. Hannibal first invaded the territory of the Daunii, beginning from Luceria, a Roman colony, and laid the country waste. He next encamped near Vibo, and overran the territory of Arpi, and plundered all Daunia without resistance.
Meanwhile Fabius, after offering the usual sacrifice to the gods upon his appointment, started with his ‸master of the horse and four legions which had been enrolled for the purpose; and having effected a junction near Daunia with the troops that had come to the rescue from Ariminum, he relieved Gnaeus of his command on shore and sent him with an escort to Rome, with orders to be ready with help for any emergency, in case the Carthaginians made any movement by sea. Fabius himself, with his master of the horse, took over the command of the whole army and pitched his camp opposite the Carthaginians, near a place called Aecae,193 about six miles from the enemy.