Ancient Rome Part 3

[Ill.u.s.tration: GREAT ST. BERNARD Pa.s.s]

In Rome men were anxious and excited, but not dismayed. There were two main parties among the people and among the soldiers, led by men of very differing type. On one side stood those who believed that the way to treat Hannibal was by a waiting game. If Rome stood fast they could wear him out as they had worn Pyrrhus out. He was far away from his base of supplies. His new troops could not be so good as his old. The Italians would not rise to help him in any great numbers. The centre of Italy was safe, anyhow. So long as he stayed in the north the south would not rise; if he moved south the Gauls would soon tire of fighting. The leader of this party was Quintus Fabius, a member of one of the proudest Roman families, and a man of what was already beginning to be called the old school. That the common people might suffer if the war dragged out for years did not disturb him much.

On the other side stood men like Caius Flaminius and Terentius Varro, younger both in years and in mind, eager, impatient for action.

Caius Flaminius had opposed Fabius before. He had been elected a tribune of the people--one of those magistrates appointed at the time of Coriola.n.u.s to speak for them. He was a man of great ability and warm enthusiasm, a man with more imagination than Fabius. He was as truly devoted to his country, but to his mind the greatness of Rome depended not only on conquest and fine laws and honesty and honour in its leading citizens. These were all good things. But there was another question to ask. Were the ordinary common people happy? Fifteen years before Hannibal's invasion, Flaminius had brought in a Bill intended to help the poorer Romans by making land settlements for small cultivators in the north. Fabius and most of the old patricians were hot against this.

Fabius said to give land to the poor people of Rome encouraged men who could find work in the city but did not take the trouble. They would not cultivate the land if they got it: they would sell it and come back for more. Flaminius denied this. There were men in numbers, he said, men who had served in the armies, who wanted to work but could not do it because they could not get land. To put more men on the land would enrich the whole country. His law was finally carried. Another work done by Flaminius stands to this day as a memorial of him. It, too, shows the imagination of the man. This is the Via Flaminia, a magnificent road that ran right across the Apennine Mountains from sea to sea. It took twenty years to build, but when built it stood for centuries, useful in time of war, even more useful in time of peace.

Flaminius, already popular on account of these achievements, dreamed of doing yet more striking things as a soldier. This was his danger. In the year after the battle of the Trebia he was put in command of one of the two new Roman armies. He was all for a bold policy and believed that he could defeat Hannibal and thus add military glory to himself. He did not know Hannibal. Hannibal, however, had made it his business to know his enemies; he did know what Flaminius was like and used that knowledge for his undoing. Flaminius's views and character are given by Livy.

_Flaminius before Trasimene_

Flaminius would not have refrained from action even if his enemy had been inactive; but when the lands of the allies were harried almost before his eyes, he thought it a personal disgrace that Hannibal should range through the heart of Italy and advance unopposed to attack the walls of Rome. In the council all the rest urged a safe rather than an ambitious policy. 'Wait for your colleague,' they exclaimed, 'and then, joining the two armies, carry on the war with a common spirit and purpose; meantime use the cavalry and light-armed infantry to check the reckless plundering of the enemy.' In a rage he flung himself out of the council and, bidding the trumpet give at once the signal for march and battle, he cried, 'Rather let us sit still before the walls of Arretium, for here is our country and our home. Hannibal is to slip away from our hands and devastate Italy and, plundering and burning, to reach the walls of Rome, while we are not to move a step till C. Flaminius is summoned by the Fathers from Arretium, as Camillus of old was summoned from Veii.' Amid these angry words he ordered the standards to be pulled up with all speed and leapt into the saddle, but the horse suddenly fell and threw the consul over his head. While the bystanders were alarmed by this gloomy omen for the beginning of a campaign, a further message arrived that, in spite of all the standard-bearer's exertions, the standard could not be pulled up. Turning to the messenger, he said, 'Do you also bring a dispatch from the Senate forbidding me to fight? Go, tell them to dig out the standard if their hands are so numbed with fear that they cannot pull it up.' Then the advance began; the chief officers, apart from their previous disagreement, were further alarmed by the double portent; the soldiers were delighted with their high-spirited leader, as they thought more about his confidence than any grounds on which it might rest.

Livy, xxii. 3. 7-14.

[Ill.u.s.tration: TRASIMENE]

When Flaminius took the field he found that Hannibal, despite the melting snow that flooded the fields and made them into marshes and the rivers into torrents, had crossed the Apennines. It had been a terrible crossing: men, horses, and animals fell ill and died. Hannibal himself lost an eye. But he had crossed the mountains and marched right past Flaminius, who was not strong enough to attack him, on the road to Rome.

This was done on purpose to lure Flaminius on; for Hannibal knew that he longed to fight before the other consul, Servilius, could join him with his army and share the glory. Hannibal had learned a great deal about the country and he succeeded in misleading Flaminius as to his movements, drawing him on into a deadly trap. Along the high hills standing round the sh.o.r.es of Lake Trasimene he posted his men one night on either side of the pa.s.s that closed the entrance. In the morning the heavy mists concealed them absolutely. Flaminius marched his army right in, unsuspecting. Hannibal's soldiers swept down the slopes and closed the Romans in on every side. They were doomed. There was no escape: they were entrapped between the marshes and the lake; only the vanguard cut their way through, and they were surrounded later. Fifteen thousand men perished, among them Flaminius himself, who died fighting. As many were taken prisoners. Hannibal's losses were far less. Livy comments:

_After Trasimene_

Such was the famous battle of Trasimene, one of the most memorable disasters of the Roman people. Fifteen thousand men were slain on the field; ten thousand, scattered in flight all over Etruria, made for Rome by different ways. Two thousand five hundred of the enemy fell in the battle; many afterwards died of wounds. Hannibal released without ransom the prisoners who belonged to the Latin allies, and threw the Romans into chains. He separated the bodies of his own men from the heaps of the enemy's dead and gave orders for their burial. A long search was made for the body of Flaminius, which he wished to honour with a funeral; but it could not be found.

Livy, xxii. 7. 1-5.

After this disaster old Fabius was called to the helm and he carried out his own totally different policy; a policy of endless waiting. During the whole of the rest of the year Hannibal could not force Fabius to give battle. Hannibal moved gradually south, along the western coast.

But the Italians did not rise in any great numbers. Hannibal believed that a crus.h.i.+ng defeat of Rome would make them do so, and prepared to that end. This is Livy's account of Fabius's plan of campaign, and of some of the difficulties he met with in carrying it out: difficulties not only from Hannibal but from his own captains. Thus Varro, his master of the horse, was constantly stirring up discontent.

_The Strategy of Fabius_

The dictator took over the consul's army from his deputy, Fulvius Fleccus, and marching through the Sabine land came to Tibur on the day which he had fixed for the gathering of the new recruits. From Tibur he moved to Praeneste, and by cross roads to the Latin way.

Thence, after very careful scouting, he led his army against the enemy, determined not to risk an engagement anywhere if he could avoid it. On the day that Fabius first encamped within view of the enemy, not far from Arpi, Hannibal at once formed his army into line and offered battle; but when he saw no movement of troops and no stir in the camp, he retired exclaiming that the ancestral spirit of the Romans was broken, that they were finally conquered, and that they admitted their inferiority in valour and renown. But an unspoken anxiety invaded his mind that he would now have to deal with a general very unlike Flaminius and Semp.r.o.nius, and that the Romans, taught by their disasters, had at last sought out a leader equal to himself.

Thus Hannibal at once saw reason to fear the wariness of the new dictator, but as he had not yet put his determination to the proof, he began to worry and hara.s.s him by constantly moving his camp and pillaging the lands of the allies actually before his eyes. Sometimes he would hurriedly march out of sight, sometimes he would wait concealed beyond a bend of the road, in the hope that he might catch him on the level. Fabius, however, led his troops along the high ground, neither losing touch with his enemy nor giving him battle. The soldiers were kept in the camp unless some necessary service called them out. If fodder and wood were wanted, they went in strong parties that did not scatter. A force of cavalry and light-armed infantry, formed and posted to meet sudden attacks, protected their own comrades and threatened the scattered plunderers of the enemy. The safety of the army was never staked on one pitched battle, while small successes in trivial engagements, begun without risk and with a retreat at hand, taught the soldiers, demoralized by previous disasters, to think better of their own valour and the chances of victory. But he did not find Hannibal such a formidable enemy of this sound strategy as the master of the horse, who was only prevented by his subordinate position from ruining the country, being headstrong and rash in action and unrestrained in speech. First with a few listeners, afterwards openly among the soldiers, he described the deliberation of his commander as indolence and his caution as cowardice, attributing to him faults that were akin to his virtues, and tried to exalt himself by depreciation of his superior, a detestable practice that has become common because it has been too successful.

Livy, xxii. 12.

In the following year, Varro, this same master of the horse, was made consul, sharing the command with Aemilius Paulus. Aemilius was an experienced soldier; but he was on the worst of terms with Varro, and Fabius did not mend matters by warning him that Varro's rashness was likely to be more dangerous to Rome than Hannibal himself.

The Roman army was the largest yet put in the field and especially strong in infantry. The Plain of Cannae, where Hannibal was encamped, was not favourable for infantry, Aemilius therefore wanted to put off battle. Varro was eager for it. They could not agree. In the end they decided to take command alternately. As soon as Varro's day came the soldiers saw, to their delight, the red flag of battle flying from the general's tent.

[Ill.u.s.tration: HELMET found on the field of CANNAE]

The battle of Cannae (216) was Hannibal's greatest victory and the most terrible defeat for Rome in all its history. The Roman charge drove right through the Carthaginian centre: too far, so that the Carthaginians turned and attacked on all sides. The slaughter was terrible. Of 76,000 Romans who fought in the battle the bodies of 70,000 lay upon the field, among them Aemilius himself and the flower of the n.o.blest families in Rome. It was said that a seventh of all the men of military age in Italy perished. Of the higher officers Varro was the only one who escaped; with him was a tiny handful of men, all that was left of the mighty army.

The news of Cannae came to Rome and the city was plunged in mourning.

Yet despite the hideous losses and the extreme danger no one gave way to weakness or despair. The strife of parties died down. Men and women turned from weeping for their dead to working for their country. Rome still stood and to every Roman the city's life was more important than his own. Not a reproach was uttered against Varro, even by those who before had distrusted and blamed him. After the battle he had done well.

With great courage and energy he collected together and inspired with new faith the scattered units that remained, and at their head he marched back to Rome. The Senate and people went in procession to the city gate to meet him and the scattered remnant of travel-worn, bloodstained men who had escaped with him from Cannae. Before them all Varro was thanked because he had not despaired of the Republic. Well might Hannibal feel that even after Cannae Rome was not conquered. It was not conquered because the spirit of its people was unbroken. Rome stood firm. The rich came forward giving or lending all they had to the State; men of all cla.s.ses flocked to the new armies; heavy taxes were put on and no one complained. If the ordinary man was ready to give his life, the least the well-to-do could do was to give his money. The people of Central Italy stood by Rome. In the south rich cities like Capua opened their gates to Hannibal; some of the southern peoples joined him. But there was no big general rising. Nor did the help Hannibal needed come from home, Carthage, or from his other allies in Sicily and Macedonia. The people of Carthage were not like those of Rome. They were sluggish and a big party there was jealous of Hannibal and would do nothing to support him.

Marcellus, the general who took the field after Cannae, was a fine soldier who believed with Fabius that the way to defeat Hannibal was to wear him down. In Marcellus Hannibal found an enemy he must respect.

When Marcellus was killed at last and brought into the Carthaginian camp Hannibal stood for a long time silent, looking at his dead enemy's face.

Then he ordered the body to be clothed in splendid funeral garments and burned with all the honours of war. He had the ashes placed in a silver urn and sent to Marcellus's son. He had in the same way buried Aemilius with all honourable ceremony.

Time was on the Roman side. Yet for eleven years Hannibal, with a small army, kept the whole might of Rome at bay. He was driven further south, that was all. His great hope was that though the Carthaginians would not stir, his brothers Hasdrubal and Mago would send him help from Spain. In Spain after his own departure the Romans had reconquered most of the country, but four years after Cannae Publius Scipio (defeated on the Ticinus) and his brother Cneus were both defeated and killed, and during the next few years Hasdrubal won nearly the whole of Spain. In 208 he was able to move north. He crossed the Pyrenees; spent the winter in Gaul; and in the spring, as soon as the snows melted, crossed the Alps by an easier pa.s.s than that taken by his great brother. Before any one expected him he was in Italy. The danger, if he could join Hannibal, was extreme. So serious was it indeed that Fabius, now a very old man, went to the two consuls, Livius and Claudius Nero, and begged them to act together. They hated one another. Fabius had learned how dangerous such quarrels might be to the State, and what harm his own advice had done between Varro and Aemilius Paulus; he now used all his great influence to get the consuls to put an end to personal strife. They agreed and joined their armies. Together they were much stronger than Hasdrubal. On the river Metaurus he was defeated (207). There Hasdrubal himself, fighting like a lion, was killed with ten thousand of his men.

Unhappily the victorious Nero showed in his treatment of his dead enemy a spirit very different from that of Hannibal. He threw the b.l.o.o.d.y head of Hasdrubal in front of Hannibal's lines. It was the first news he had of the fate of his brother. He had lost not only a man dearer to him than any on earth but, with him, his last hope of success. He knew that all was over; the fortune of Carthage was at an end. For a moment he hid his face in his mantle. What deep bitterness and pain held his heart in that moment none may guess.

Two later Roman writers, Livy and Horace, have described the battle of the Metaurus, which was, indeed, the turning-point of the war: for Hannibal a fatal turning.

_Metaurus, and After_

Hasdrubal had often shown himself a great leader, but never so great as in this, his last battle. It was he who supported his men in the fight by words of encouragement and by meeting danger at their side; it was he who, with mingled entreaty and rebuke, fired the spirit of his troops, weary and despairing of a hopeless struggle; it was he who called back the fugitives and in many places restored the broken ranks. At last, when fortune declared itself in favour of the enemy, he would not survive the great host that had followed him, but spurred his horse into the thickest of the Roman legionaries. There he fell fighting, as became the son of Hamilcar and the brother of Hannibal.

The consul, C. Claudius, on his return to the camp ordered the head of Hasdrubal, which he had carefully brought with him, to be thrown down in front of the enemy's sentries, and he exhibited African prisoners in chains. Two of them he freed and sent to Hannibal to inform him of everything that had happened. Hannibal, stricken with grief at such public and personal loss, exclaimed, as we are told, 'I recognize the doom of Carthage.' Then he withdrew to Bruttium in the southern corner of Italy, with the intention of concentrating there all the allies, whom he could not protect if they were scattered.

Livy, xxvii. 49, 51.

_Despair_

What thou owest, Rome, to the house of Nero, let the Metaurus be our witness, and Hasdrubal's overthrow, and that bright day that scattered the gloom of Latium, the first to smile with cheering victory since the dread African careered through the cities of Italy, like fire through a pine forest or Eurus over Sicilian waves. After this the manhood of Rome gained strength from continued and successful effort, and temples desecrated by the unhallowed violence of the Carthaginian saw their G.o.ds restored.

And the treacherous Hannibal at length exclaimed 'Like stags, the prey of ravening wolves, we essay to pursue those whom it is a rare triumph to elude and escape.... No more shall I send triumphant messages to Carthage; fallen, yea fallen, is all the hope and greatness of our name with the loss of Hasdrubal. Naught is there that the hands of the Claudii will fail to perform, for Jupiter protects them with beneficent power, and prudent forethought brings them safe through the perils of war.'

Horace, Od. iv. 4. 36-76.

For four more years Hannibal stood at bay in South Italy. No Roman general drove him out, no Roman army could defeat him or the soldiers who stood by him with a matchless devotion only given to men who have, as Hannibal had, what we call the divine spark burning within them. When at last, after fourteen years in Italy, he sailed home, it was to try to save Carthage, the city which had betrayed him, and now called him to save them from the war the Romans had carried into their own country. He knew that he could not do it. The Carthaginians had signed their own doom when they failed to send him help. When they in their turn called to Hannibal the enemy was at their gates. In the great battle of Zama, outside Carthage, Scipio defeated Hannibal. This defeat was the end of Carthage as a great power. The Roman terms had to be accepted. The power and might of Carthage was over. The city still stood: but its empire was gone. All its overseas possessions were added to the Roman dominions.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A COIN OF VICTORY]

Six years after Zama Hannibal was banished from Carthage at the bidding of Rome, although Scipio protested in the Senate, declaring it to be unworthy of Rome to fear one man in a ruined state. Hannibal took refuge in the East. There, some years later, he and Scipio met. Of the conversation between them many stories were told. Scipio asked Hannibal whom he thought the greatest general in the world. Hannibal replied that he put Alexander first, then Pyrrhus, then himself.

'And where would you have placed yourself had I not defeated you?'

'Oh, Scipio, then I should have placed myself not third but first.'

In saying this Hannibal put his thought in words that might give pleasure to his listener but were not quite true. Scipio had defeated him at Zama; but no one knew better than the victor that the real triumph was not his. The forces that had defeated Hannibal were greater than those in the hand of any one man.

Had Hannibal defeated the Romans, the whole course of the world's history might have been changed. Looking back now it seems impossible that he could ever have thought he could do so. But part of the secret of a truly great man is that he believes nothing to be impossible on which he has set his will. The power to set the will firmly, clearly, with knowledge, on some action to be done, of whatever kind it be; to sacrifice, for that end, one's own wishes; to crush down the desire every human being feels for rest, enjoyment, comfort at the moment, and go on when the chance of success seems far away; this power is the instrument by which extraordinary things are brought about. Because of this power behind him Hannibal was a real danger to Rome, and Rome knew it. If he could have made the people of Carthage feel as he did, he would have conquered. But he could not. His will was set on defeating Rome: the will of the Carthaginians was set, not on this, but on a life of ease and comfort for themselves. And because the Carthaginians were built thus, and not like Hannibal, and he could not, by his single force, make them like himself, it would have been a disaster for the world if Hannibal had won. The Romans defeated him because they, and not the Carthaginians, had in them something of the force that moved Hannibal: they, as Polybius said of them, 'believed nothing impossible upon which their minds were set'.