Livy

From the Foundation of the City

Book 21 Chapters 32-63

32 Publius Cornelius the consul, some three days after Hannibal had left the bank of the Rhone, marched in fighting order to the enemy's camp, intending to offer battle without delay. 2 But finding the works deserted, and perceiving that he could not readily overtake the enemy, who had got so long a start of him, he returned to the sea, where he had left his ships, thinking that he would thus be more safely and easily enabled to confront Hannibal as he descended from the Alps. 3 Still, that he might not leave Spain stripped of Roman defenders —for the lot had assigned it to him as his province 4 —he sent Gnaeus Scipio, his brother, with the chief part of his troops, to deal with Hasdrubal, with the object not merely of protecting the allies and of winning over new ones, but also of driving Hasdrubal out of Spain. 5 He himself, with extremely scanty forces, sailed back to Genoa, proposing to safeguard Italy with the army which lay in the valley of the Po.

6 Hannibal, leaving the Druentia, and advancing for the most part through a champaign country, reached the Alps without being molested by the Gauls who inhabited those regions. 7 Then, though report, which is wont to exaggerate uncertain dangers, had already taught them what to expect, still, the near view of the lofty mountains, with their snows almost merging in the sky; the shapeless hovels perched on crags; the frost-bitten flocks and beasts of burden; the shaggy, unkempt men; animals and inanimate objects alike stiff with cold, and all more dreadful to look upon than words can tell, renewed their consternation. 8 As their column began to mount the first slopes, mountaineers were discovered posted on the heights above, who, had they lain concealed in hidden valleys, might have sprung out suddenly and attacked them with great rout and slaughter. Hannibal gave the command to halt, and sent forward some Gauls to reconnoitre. 9 When informed by them that there was no getting by that way, he encamped in the most extensive valley to be found in a wilderness of rocks and precipices. 10 He then employed these same Gauls, whose speech and customs did not differ greatly from those of the mountaineers, to mingle in their councils, and in this way learned that his enemies guarded the pass only by day, and at night dispersed, every man to his own home. As soon as it was light, he advanced up the hills, as though lie hoped to rush the defile by an open attack in the daytime. 11 Then having spent the day in feigning a purpose other than his real one, he entrenched a camp on the spot where he had halted. 12 But no sooner did he perceive that the mountaineers had dispersed from the heights and relaxed their vigilance, than, leaving for show more fires than the numbers of those who remained in camp demanded; leaving, too, the baggage and the cavalry and a great part of the infantry, he put himself at the head of some light-armed soldiers —all 13 his bravest men —and, marching swiftly to the head of the defile, occupied those very heights which the enemy had held.

33 With the ensuing dawn the Carthaginians broke camp and the remainder of their army began to move. 2 The natives, on a signal being given, were already coming in from their fastnesses to occupy their customary post, when they suddenly perceived that some of their enemies were in possession of the heights and threatened them from above, and that others were marching through the pass. 3 Both facts presenting themselves at the same time to their eyes and minds kept them for a moment rooted to the spot. Then, when they saw the helter-skelter in the pass and the column becoming embarrassed by its own confusion, the horses especially being frightened and unmanageable, 4 they thought that whatever they could add themselves to the consternation of the troops would be sufficient to destroy them, and rushed down from the cliffs on either side, over trails and trackless ground alike, with all the ease of habit. 5 Then indeed the Phoenicians had to contend at one and the same time against their foes and the difficulties of the ground, and the struggle amongst themselves, as each endeavoured to outstrip the rest in escaping from the danger, was greater than the struggle with the enemy. 6 The horses occasioned the greatest peril to the column. Terrified by the discordant yells, which the woods and ravines redoubled with their echoes, they quaked with fear; and if they happened to be hit or wounded, were so maddened that they made enormous havoc not only of men but of every sort of baggage. 7 Indeed the crowding in the pass, which was steep and precipitous on both sides, caused many —some of them armed men —to be flung down to a great depth; but when beasts of burden with their packs went hurtling down, it was just like the crash of falling walls. 8 Dreadful as these sights were, still Hannibal halted for a little while and held back his men, so as not to augment the terror and confusion. 9 Then, when he saw that the column was being broken in two, and there was danger lest he might have got his army over to no avail, if it were stripped of its baggage, he charged down from the higher ground and routed the enemy by the very impetus of the attack, though he added to the disorder amongst his own troops. 10 But the flurry thus occasioned quickly subsided, as soon as the roads were cleared by the flight of the mountaineers; and the whole army was presently brought over the pass, not only without molestation but almost in silence. 11 Hannibal then seized a stronghold which was the chief place in that region, together with the outlying hamlets, and with the captured food and flocks supported his troops for three days. And in those three days, being hindered neither by the natives, who had been utterly cowed at the outset, nor very greatly by the nature of the country, he covered a good deal of ground.

34 They came next to another canton, thickly settled for a mountain district. There, not by open fighting, but by his own devices, trickery and deception, Hannibal was all but circumvented. 2 The elder headmen of the strongholds waited on him, as a deputation, and said that, taught by other men's misfortunes —a useful warning —they preferred to experience the friendship of the Phoenicians rather than their might; 3 they were ready, therefore, to carry out his orders, and they requested him to accept provisions and guides and also hostages as a guarantee of good faith. 4 Hannibal, neither blindly trusting nor yet repulsing them, lest, being spurned, they might become openly hostile, returned a friendly answer, accepted the proffered hostages, and used the supplies, which they had brought down, themselves, to the road. But he drew up his column, before following their guides, by no means as though for a march through a friendly country. 5 The van was made up of elephants and cavalry; he himself, with the main strength of the infantry, came next, looking warily about him and watching everything. 6 When they had got to a narrow place, which was overhung on one side by a ridge, the tribesmen rose up on every quarter from their ambush and assailed them, front and rear, fighting hand to hand and at long range, and rolling down huge boulders on the marching troops. 7 The rear-guard bore the brunt of the attack, and as the infantry faced about to meet it, it was very evident that if the column had not been strengthened at that point, it must have suffered a great disaster in this pass. 8 Even so, they were in the utmost peril and came near destruction. For while Hannibal was hesitating to send his division down into the defile, since he had no troops left to secure the rear of the infantry, as he himself secured that of the horse, the mountaineers rushed in on his flank, 9 and breaking through the column, established themselves in the road, so that Hannibal spent one night without cavalry or baggage.

35 On the following day, since by now the barbarians were attacking with less vigour, his forces were re-united and surmounted the pass; and though they suffered some casualties, still they lost more baggage animals than men. 2 From this point on the mountaineers appeared in smaller numbers, and, more in the manner of brigandage than warfare, attacked sometimes the van, sometimes the rear, whenever the ground afforded an advantage, or the invaders, pushing on too far ahead or lagging behind, gave opportunity. 3 The elephants could be induced to move but very slowly along the steep and narrow trails; but wherever they went they made the column safe from its enemies, who were unaccustomed to the beasts and afraid of venturing too near them.

4 On the ninth day they arrived at the summit of the Alps, having come for the most part over trackless wastes and by roundabout routes, owing either to the dishonesty of their guides, or —when they would not trust the guides —to their blindly entering some valley, guessing at the way. For two days they lay encamped on the summit. 5 The soldiers, worn with toil and fighting, were permitted to rest; and a number of baggage animals which had fallen among the rocks made their way to the camp by following the tracks of the army. 6 Exhausted and discouraged as the soldiers were by many hardships, a snow-storm —for the constellation of the Pleiades was now setting—threw them into a great fear. 7 The ground was everywhere covered deep with snow when at dawn they began to march, and as the column moved slowly on, dejection and despair were to be read in every countenance. 8 Then Hannibal, who had gone on before the standards, made the army halt on a certain promontory which commanded an extensive prospect, and pointing out Italy to them, and just under the Alps the plains about the Po, he told them that they were now scaling the ramparts not only of Italy, but of Rome itself; the rest of the way would be level or downhill; 9 and after one, or, at the most, two battles, they would have in their hands and in their power the citadel and capital of Italy.

10 The column now began to make some progress, and even the enemy had ceased to annoy them, except to make a stealthy raid, as occasion offered. 11 But the way was much more difficult than the ascent had been, as indeed the slope of the Alps on the Italian side is in general more precipitous in proportion as it is shorter. 12 For practically every road was steep, narrow, and treacherous, so that neither could they keep from slipping, nor could those who had been thrown a little off their balance retain their footing, but came down, one on top of the other, and the beasts on top of the men.

36 They then came to a much narrower cliff, and with rocks so perpendicular that it was difficult for an unencumbered soldier to manage the descent, though he felt his way and clung with his hands to the bushes and roots that projected here and there. 2 The place had been precipitous before, and a recent landslip had carried it away to the depth of a good thousand feet. 3 There the cavalry came to a halt, as though they had reached the end of the road, and as Hannibal was wondering what it could be that held the column back, word was brought to him that the cliff was impassable. 4 Going then to inspect the place himself, he thought that there was nothing for it but to lead the army round, over trackless and untrodden steeps, however circuitous the detour might be. 5 But that way proved to be insuperable; for above the old, untouched snow lay a fresh deposit of moderate depth, through which, as it was soft and not very deep, the men in front found it easy to advance; 6 but when it had been trampled down by the feet of so many men and beasts, the rest had to make their way over the bare ice beneath and the slush of the melting snow. 7 Then came a terrible struggle on the slippery surface, for it afforded them no foothold, while the downward slope made their feet the more quickly slide from under them; so that whether they tried to pull themselves up with their hands, or used their knees, these supports themselves would slip, and down they would come again! Neither were there any stems or roots about, by which a man could pull himself up with foot or hand —only smooth ice and thawing snow, on which they were continually rolling. 8 But the baggage animals, as they went over the snow, would sometimes even cut into the lowest crust, and pitching forward and striking out with their hoofs, as they struggled to rise, would break clean through it, so that numbers of them were caught fast, as if entrapped, in the hard, deep-frozen snow.

37 At last, when men and beasts had been worn out to no avail, they encamped upon the ridge, after having, with the utmost difficulty, cleared enough ground even for this purpose, so much snow were they obliged to dig out and remove. 2 The soldiers were then set to work to construct a road across the cliff-their only possible way. Since they had to cut through the rock, they felled some huge trees that grew near at hand, and lopping off their branches, made an enormous pile of logs. This they set on fire, as soon as the wind blew fresh enough to make it burn, and pouring vinegar over the glowing rocks, caused them to crumble. 3 After thus heating the crag with fire, they opened a way in it with iron tools, and relieved the steepness of the slope with zigzags of an easy gradient, so that not only the baggage animals but even the elephants could be led down. 4 Four days were consumed at the cliff, and the animals nearly perished of starvation; for the mountain tops are all practically bare, and such grass as does grow is buried under snow. 5 Lower down one comes to valleys and sunny slopes and rivulets, and near them woods, and places that begin to be fitter for man's habitation. 6 There the beasts were turned out to graze, and the men, exhausted with toiling at the road, were allowed to rest. Thence they descended in three days' time into the plain, through a region now that was less forbidding, as was the character of its inhabitants.

38 Such were the chief features of the march to Italy, which they accomplished five months after leaving New Carthage —as certain authorities state —having crossed the Alps in fifteen days. 2 The strength of Hannibal's forces on his entering Italy is a point on which historians are by no means agreed. Those who put the figures highest give him a hundred thousand foot and twenty thousand horse; the lowest estimate is twenty thousand foot and six thousand horse. 3 Lucius Cincius Alimentus, who says that he was taken prisoner by Hannibal, would be our weightiest authority, did he not confuse the reckoning by adding in Gauls and Ligurians: including these, he says that Hannibal brought eighty thousand foot and ten thousand horse 4 —but  it is more probable, and certain historians so hold, that these people joined his standard in Italy; he says, moreover, that he had learned from Hannibal's own lips that after crossing the Rhone he lost thirty-six thousand men and a vast number of horses and other animals. 5 The Taurine Gauls were the first people he encountered on descending into Italy. 6 Since all are agreed on this point, I am the more astonished at the difference of opinion in regard to his route over the Alps, and that it should be commonly held that he crossed by the Poenine Pass and that from this circumstance that ridge of the Alps derived its name 7 —and that Coelius should state that he crossed by the ridge of Cremo; for both these passes would have brought him down, not amongst the Taurini but through the Salassi Montani to the Libuan Gauls. 8 Neither is it probable that these routes to Gaul were open at that time; those leading to the Poenine Pass, at any rate, would have been blocked by tribes of half-German stock. 9 Nor for that matter —if anyone happens to consider this point of consequence —do the Seduni Veragri, who inhabit those mountains, know of their having been named from any passage of the Phoenicians (or Poeni) but from that deity whose sanctuary is established on their very summit and whom the mountaineers call Poeninus.

39 Quite opportunely for the opening of the campaign, the Taurini, the nearest tribe, had begun a war against the Insubres. But Hannibal was unable to put an army in the field to aid the Insubres, as the soldiers while convalescing felt more keenly than ever the distress arising from the hardships they had undergone; 2 for rest coming after toil, plenty after want, comfort after filth and wet, produced all manner of disorders in their squalid and well-nigh brutalized bodies. 3 This was the reason why the consul Publius Cornelius, who had come by sea to Pisa, though the army which he received from Manlius and Atilius was made up of raw recruits, still quaking from their recent defeats, yet marched in all haste towards the Po, that he might join battle with an enemy not yet restored to vigour. 4 But when the consul reached Placentia, Hannibal had already broken camp and taken the capital city of the Taurini by assault, because they would not freely come into his friendship. 5 On the other hand, he would have brought the Gauls who dwell along the Po to join him, not alone from fear but even of their own free choice, had not the consul taken them by surprise, appearing unexpectedly whilst they were looking about them for a pretext to revolt. 6 Hannibal, too, moved forward from the Taurini, being persuaded that the Gauls, uncertain which side they had best adhere to, would attach themselves to those who were on the spot.

7 The armies were now almost within sight of each other, and the opposing generals, though as yet they did not know one another well, had yet each been imbued with a kind of admiration for his antagonist. 8 For Hannibal's name had been very renowned amongst the Romans, even before the destruction of Saguntum, and Scipio was a man of mark in the eyes of Hannibal, from the mere fact of his having been selected, in preference to any other, to command against himself. 9 Each had increased the other's good opinion —Scipio, because, though left behind in Gaul, he had confronted Hannibal at his crossing over into Italy; Hannibal by the audacity with which he had conceived and executed his passage of the Alps.

10 Scipio, however, was the first to cross the Po. He brought his army up to the river Ticinus, and in order to put heart into the men before leading them out to fight, harangued them after the following fashion:

40 "Soldiers, if I were leading into battle the army that I had under me in Gaul, I should have deemed it unnecessary to address you. 2 For what point would there have been in exhorting either those horsemen who at the river Rhone had signally defeated the horsemen of the enemy, or those legions with which I pursued this very enemy in his flight, and by the confession implied in his withdrawal and avoidance of a battle, gained a virtual victory? 3 As it is, since that army, enrolled for service in Spain, is campaigning there under my auspices with my brother Gnaeus Scipio, where the senate and the Roman People desired that it should serve, 4 and I myself, that you might have a consul for your leader against Hannibal and the Phoenicians, have of my own choice undertaken the present conflict, it is right that your new commander should say a word or two to his new soldiers.

5 "That you may not be ignorant what manner of war it is, or what your enemies are, you are to fight, my men, with those whom you defeated in the former war, on land and sea; with those from whom you exacted tribute for twenty years; with those from whom you wrested Sicily and Sardinia, which you now hold as the spoils of war. 6 You and they will therefore enter the present struggle with such spirits as usually attend the victors and the vanquished. Nor are they now going to fight because they dare, but because they must; 7 unless you think that those who avoided battle when their strength was unimpaired would, now that they have lost two-thirds of their infantry and cavalry in the passage of the Alps, have become more hopeful! 8 But, you will say, their numbers indeed are small, but their courage and vigour are so great that scarce any force could withstand their might and power. Nay, not so! 9 They are but the semblance, the shadows of men, wasted away with hunger and cold, with filth and squalor; bruised and crippled amongst the rocks and cliffs; moreover, their limbs are frost-bitten, their muscles stiffened by the snow, their bodies numb with cold, their arms shattered and broken, their horses lame and feeble. 10 That is the cavalry, that the infantry with which you are to fight; you have no enemy —only the last relics of an enemy! And I fear nothing more than this, that when you have fought, it may seem to have been the Alps that conquered Hannibal. 11 But perhaps it was right that the gods themselves, without any human aid, should begin and decide a war with a general and a people who break their treaties; and that we, whose injury was second to that of the gods, should add the finishing stroke to a war already so begun and so decided.

41 “I am not afraid that anyone may suppose that I am using these brave words to encourage you, but that in my heart I think otherwise. 2 It was open to me to proceed with my army to my own province, Spain, for which I had already started; I might there have had a brother to share my counsels and my dangers, and Hasdrubal instead of Hannibal for my enemy, and a war undoubtedly less difficult to conduct; 3 nevertheless, when rumours of this enemy reached me, as I sailed along by the coast of Gaul, I landed, and sending my cavalry ahead, moved my camp up to the Rhone. 4 In a cavalry engagement —for this was the arm with which I was given the opportunity of fighting —I put the enemy to rout: his infantry column, marching hastily off as if in flight, I could not overtake by land; returning therefore to my ships I accomplished with all possible expedition so circuitous a voyage and march, and am come to confront this redoubtable enemy almost at the very foot of the Alps. Does it look as though I were avoiding battle and had blundered upon him unawares? 5 or, rather, as though I were in hot haste to encounter him and to provoke and bait him into fighting? 6 I would willingly make trial whether the earth has suddenly produced in the last twenty years another breed of Carthaginians, or whether they are the same who fought at the Aegatian islands and whom you suffered to depart from Eryx at a rating of eighteen denarii a head; 7 and whether our friend Hannibal is a rival, as he himself would have it, of the wandering Hercules, or has been left to the Roman People by his father to be their tributary, tax-payer, and slave. 8 Were he not maddened by the crime he committed at Saguntum, he would surely have regard, if not for his conquered country, yet at least for his house and his father and the treaties written by the hand of Hamilcar, who, under the orders of our consul, withdrew his garrison from Eryx; 9 who submitted with rage and anguish to the heavy terms imposed upon the beaten Carthaginians; who agreed, on withdrawing from Sicily, to pay tribute to the Roman People. 10 And so I could wish you, soldiers, to fight not only with that courage with which you are wont to fight against other enemies, but with a kind of resentful rage, as if you saw your slaves all at once take up arms against you. 11 When we had shut them up at Eryx, we might have killed them by starvation, the worst torment that man can know; we might have dispatched our victorious fleet to Africa, and in a few days' time, without the slightest struggle, have annihilated Carthage. 12 But we gave them the quarter they besought of us; we lifted the siege and let them go; we made peace with them when we had conquered them; and thereafter, when they were hard pressed by the war in Africa, we regarded them as under our protection. 13 In requital of these benefits they are coming in the train of a crazy youth to assail our country! 14 And I would that your honour only and not your very existence were in jeopardy: you have got to fight not for the ownership of Sicily and Sardinia, which were formerly in dispute, but for Italy. 15 There is no second army at our back to stop the enemy, in case we fail to beat him, nor are there other Alps to obstruct his advance while we make ready new defences. Here, soldiers, is the spot where we must make our stand, as though we were fighting before the walls of Rome. 16 Let each and every one of you consider that his arms protect, not his own person, but his wife and little children; nor let him be concerned for his family alone, but remember that ours are the hands to which the senate and the Roman People are now looking, and that even as our might and valour shall prove to be, 17 such henceforward will be the fortune of that City and the Roman empire.” So spoke the consul to the Romans.

42 Hannibal thought it well to encourage his soldiers by an object lesson before haranguing them. He therefore caused the army to gather in a circle for the spectacle, and setting in the midst some captive mountaineers with fetters on them, gave the order to throw some Gallic weapons down at their feet, and bade an interpreter enquire if any were willing to fight for life or death, on condition of being granted freedom, if victorious, and presented with a horse and arms. 2 When the captives, to the last man, called for sword and combat, and lots were being cast to decide amongst them, each hoped that he should be the one whom fortune selected for that contest; 3 and he who had drawn the lot would leap for joy, and dancing about —as their custom is —while the others showered congratulations on him, would eagerly snatch up his weapons. 4 But when they fought, the feeling, not only in the bosoms of the other captives but even amongst the onlookers in general, was such that the fortune of those who conquered was not more praised than that of those who met an honourable death.

43 Having thus, by the exhibition of several pairs, worked on the passions of his troops, he dismissed them. Then, convening an assembly, he addressed them —so it is said —in the following strain: "If that spirit which but now was roused in you by the example of the plight of others shall presently be yours, when you consider your own prospects, then, soldiers, the victory is ours. 2 For that was no mere spectacle, but a kind of picture, as it were, of your own condition. 3 And I incline to think that Fortune has laid you under stronger bonds and heavier necessities than your captives. 4 On the right and on the left two seas encompass you, and you have not a single ship, even to flee in; round you is the river Po —the Po, a greater and more turbulent river than the Rhone; behind you tower the Alps, which you hardly scaled when you were fresh and vigorous. 5 Here, soldiers, you must conquer or die, where for the first time you have faced the enemy. And the same Fortune which has laid upon you the necessity of fighting holds forth the promise of such prizes, in the event of victory, that men are wont to ask not even the immortal gods for greater. 6 If it were only Sicily and Sardinia, wrested from our fathers, that we were going to recover by our valour, these would still be great enough rewards. As it is, whatever the Romans have won and heaped up in the course of all their triumphs, whatever they possess, is all destined —and its owners with it —to be yours. 7 Come then! Arm yourselves, with Heaven helping you, to earn this splendid wage! 8 Long enough have you been chasing flocks on the barren mountains of Lusitania and Celtiberia, without seeing any recompense for all your toil and dangers. 9 It is now time for you to make rich and lucrative campaigns, and reap the large rewards of so long a march over so many mountains and rivers and through so many warlike tribes. Here Fortune has fixed the final goal of your labours; here, when your wars are ended, she will worthily requite you.

10 "Nor must you think that in proportion to the great name of the war will be the difficulty you will have in winning it. 11 It has often happened that even an enemy held cheap has caused a bloody battle, and that nations and princes of renown have been very lightly overcome. Take from your enemies this one glory of the Roman name, and in what particular can they bear comparison with you? 12 To say nothing of your twenty years of service and your far-famed courage and good fortune, 13 you  have come from the Pillars of Hercules, from the Ocean and the uttermost limits of the world, and through so many of the fiercest tribes of Spain and Gaul have fought your way victoriously to this field. 14 You will be pitted against an army of recruits, who have been this very summer cut to pieces, routed, and besieged by Gauls —an army as yet unknown to its general and one that knows not him. 15 Or am I, who if not actually born in the headquarters of my father-most illustrious of commanders —was at least brought up there, am I, the subjugator of Spain and Gaul and conqueror not only of the Alpine tribes, but —what is much more —of the Alps themselves, am I, I ask you, to compare myself to this six-months general, who has deserted his own army? 16 Why, if one were to show him to-day the Phoenicians and Romans without their standards, I am certain he would not know which army he was consul of. 17 For my part, soldiers, I regard it as no slight advantage that there is not one of you in whose sight I have not often myself performed some soldierly feat; not one of whose courage I have not in my turn been a spectator and eye-witness —whose deeds of prowess, noted, together with their times and circumstances, I am not able to rehearse. 18 I shall enter the battle in company with men whom I have praised and decorated a thousand times, and to all of whom I was a foster-son before I was their general. Opposed to me will be men who do not even know each other.

44 “Wherever I turn my eyes I see nothing but eagerness and strength, a veteran infantry, cavalry from the noblest tribes, riding with bridles or without, here  the trustiest and most valiant of allies, 2 there Carthaginians, prepared to fight not only in defence of their native land, but in satisfaction of a most righteous indignation. 3 We are the assailants, and are descending with hostile standards into Italy, where we shall fight with more boldness and courage than our foes in proportion as our hopes are higher and the gallantry of the assailant greater than his who but defends himself. 4 Moreover, our hearts are kindled and pricked by rancour, wrongs, and insults. They called for the punishment of myself first, as your leader, then of all of you who had borne a part in the assault upon Saguntum; had we been given up, they meant to have inflicted upon us the worst of tortures. 5 Most inhuman and most arrogant of nations, they reckon the world as theirs and subject to their pleasure. With whom we are to be at war, with whom at peace, they think it right that they should determine. 6 They circumscribe and hem us in with boundaries of mountains and rivers which we may not cross; yet they do not observe those boundaries which they have set. 7 'Do not cross the Ebro! Have naught to do with the Saguntines!' But Saguntum is free. Do not budge from where you are in any direction!' Is it not enough that you have taken away my ancient provinces of Sicily and Sardinia? Are you taking away Spain as well? If I withdraw from these, shall you cross over into Africa? Shall, do I say? They have dispatched the two consuls of this year, the one into Africa, and the other into Spain! 8 Nothing is left us anywhere, except what we shall defend by force of arms. They can afford to be timid and unenterprising who have something to fall back upon; whom their own country and their own fields will receive as they flee over safe and peaceful roads. As for you, you must be stout-hearted men, and discarding, without vain regrets, all hopes of anything but victory or death, either conquer or, if Fortune falters, sooner perish in battle than in flight. 9 If this idea has been firmly fixed and implanted in your hearts, let me say once more: the victory is already yours. The immortal gods have bestowed on man no sharper weapon for winning victories than contempt of death.”

45 When the spirits of the soldiers on both sides had been whetted for the struggle by these speeches, the Romans threw a bridge over the Ticinus and erected a fort besides for its protection; 2 and the Phoenician, whilst his enemies were engaged in fortification, sent Maharbal with a squadron of Numidians, numbering five hundred horse, to ravage the fields belonging to the allies of the Roman People, with orders to spare the Gauls as much as possible and tempt their leaders to desert. 3 On the completion of the bridge, the Roman army marched over into the country of the Insubres, and took up a position five miles from Victumulae. 4 It was there that Hannibal had his camp, who, quickly recalling Maharbal and his cavalry, when he saw that a battle was imminent, called his troops together —for he never felt that he had done enough in the way of preparing and cheering the men —and held out definite rewards to them to fight for; 5 he would give them land, he said, in Italy, Africa, or Spain, as each might choose, tax-free to the recipient and to his children; those who had rather have money than land he would content with silver; if any of the allies desired to become citizens of Carthage, he would give them the opportunity; 6 as for such as preferred to go back to their homes, he would see to it that they should feel no inclination to change places with any of their countrymen; 7 besides this he promised freedom to the slaves who had come with their masters, and declared that he would make restitution to the latter, at the rate of two for one. 8 And that they might know that these promises would be kept, he held a lamb with his left hand, and with his right a flint, and praying that if he should deceive them, then Jupiter and the other gods might slay him, even as he had slain the lamb, he thereupon smote the lamb's head with the stone. 9 Then indeed they all, as though each had received the blessing of the gods on his own particular hopes, and thought that their fulfillment was being delayed only because they were not yet fighting, cried out with one accord and one voice for battle.

46 On the Roman side there was far less alacrity, for, besides other things, they were also frightened by some recent portents: 2 a wolf had entered the camp and after rending those whom it met, had itself escaped unharmed; and a swarm of bees had settled in a tree that hung over the consul's tent. 3 After averting these omens, Scipio set out with his cavalry and light-armed darters to reconnoitre at close hand the enemy's camp and the size and character of his forces, and encountered Hannibal, who had likewise come out with his cavalry to explore the surrounding country. 4 Neither party descried the other at first; afterwards an increasingly thick cloud of dust, that rose with the advance of so many men and horses, gave them notice that their enemies were approaching. Both bodies halted and began to make ready for battle. 5 Scipio stationed his darters and Gallic horse in front, holding in reserve the Romans and the best of the allies; Hannibal put the cavalry who rode with bridles in the centre, and made his wings strong with Numidians. Hardly had the battle-cry been raised, when the darters fled through their supports to the second line. 6 Then followed a cavalry fight of which the issue was for a time in doubt; but by and by the horses became excited by the presence of the foot-soldiers who were mingled with them, and many riders lost their seats or dismounted on seeing their fellows in distress, and the battle was now fought chiefly on foot; until the Numidians, who were posted on the flanks, rode round in a little circuit and showed themselves on the rear. 7 So alarming a sight filled the Romans with dismay, and, to add to their fear, the consul was wounded and was only saved from danger by the intervention of his son, who was just reaching manhood. 8 This is the youth who will have the glory of finishing this war, and be surnamed Africanus, from his famous victory over Hannibal and the Phoenicians. 9 However, the rout was chiefly amongst the darters, the first to be charged by the Numidians: the cavalry rallied, and receiving the consul into their midst, and shielding him not only with their arms but with their persons also, brought him back to camp without panic or confusion at any point in their retreat. (The credit for saving the consul's life is given by Coelius to a Ligurian slave. 10 I should prefer, for my own part, that the story about his son were the true one, and this is the version which most authorities have handed down and tradition has established.)

47 Such was the first battle fought with Hannibal, in which it was clearly seen that the Phoenician was superior in cavalry and that consequently open plains, like those between the Po and the Alps, were ill-suited to the Romans for campaigning. 2 Accordingly, the next night Scipio gave his men the order to pack up without making any noise, and quitting his camp on the Ticinus, marched swiftly to the Po, intending to use the bridge of boats which he had thrown across the river and had not yet broken up, in order to set his army over without confusion or interruption by the enemy. 3 They were at Placentia before Hannibal was well aware that they were gone from the Ticinus; nevertheless some six hundred men, who were lingering on the northern bank and taking their time about casting off the raft, fell into Hannibal's hands. He was not able to cross the bridge, for when the end was cast off, the whole raft swung down stream with the current.

4 Coelius states that Mago with the cavalry and the Spanish foot immediately swam the river, and that Hannibal himself led his army across the Po by an upper ford, after placing the elephants in a line to break the current of the river. 5 Those who are acquainted with the Po will hardly credit this account; for, in the first place, it is unlikely that the horsemen could have breasted so strong a current without the loss of arms or horses, even if all the Spaniards had swum over on inflated skins, and in the second place it would have needed a circuitous march of many days to reach fords on the Po by which an army encumbered with baggage could get across.

6 Those writers seem to me more worthy of belief who relate that in two days' search a pace was scarcely found where the river could be spanned by a bridge of boats; by this the cavalry and light Spanish infantry were sent forward under Mago. 7 While Hannibal, who had lingered on the northern bank to give a hearing to some Gallic embassies, was bringing over the heavy infantry, Mago and his horsemen advanced a day's march from the crossing of the river towards Placentia and the enemy. 8 A few days later, Hannibal went into camp behind entrenchments, six miles from the town, and on the following day drew up his troops in sight of the enemy and offered battle.

48 The next night there was a bloody affray in the Roman camp, occasioned by some Gallic auxiliaries, though the confusion was greater than the loss of life. 2 Some two thousand foot-soldiers and two hundred horsemen cut down the guards doing duty at the gates and fled to Hannibal, who received them with fair words, and after encouraging them to hope for great rewards, sent them off to their several states to solicit the support of their countrymen. 3 Scipio apprehended that this bloodshed would prove to be a signal for the defection of all the Gauls, and that they would fly to arms, as if maddened by the contagion of this crime. 4 Accordingly, though still troubled with his wound, he marched silently away in the fourth watch of the next night to the river Trebia, and encamped on higher ground, where hills made it more difficult for cavalry to operate. 5 He was less successful than he had been on the Ticinus in eluding the observation of Hannibal, who sent after him first the Numidians and then all his cavalry, and would have thrown the rearguard at least into disorder, had not the Numidians, in their greed for booty, turned aside to plunder the camp which the Romans had abandoned. 6 Whilst they frittered away the time there, rummaging in every nook and cranny without finding anything that really repaid them for the loss of time, they let their enemies slip through their fingers. The Romans had already passed the Trebia and were marking out their camp, when the Numidians caught sight of them and cut down a few loiterers whom they intercepted on the hither side of the stream. 7 Scipio could no longer bear the pain occasioned by the jolting of his wound in traveling, and besides he judged it best to wait for the arrival of his colleague, who was already recalled —so he had heard —from Sicily. He therefore chose what seemed to be the safest place near the river for a permanent camp, and proceeded to entrench it.

8 Hannibal, too, went into camp not far away. Elated as he was at the victory of his horse, he was no less worried by the dearth of food, which increased from day to day, as he advanced through hostile territory without having anywhere arranged beforehand for supplies. 9 In the village of Clastidium the Romans had got together a great quantity of corn. Thither Hannibal dispatched some soldiers, who were making preparations to assault the place, when hopes were held out of its betrayal. The price was not a large one: Dasius of Brundisium, who was in command of the garrison, accepted a bribe of four hundred gold pieces, and turned Clastidium over to Hannibal. 10 This served the Phoenicians as a granary, while they lay encamped on the Trebia. The surrendered garrison were spared, as Hannibal wished to gain at the very outset a reputation for clemency.

49 Though the war on land had come to a standstill at the Trebia, engagements had in the meantime been fought by land and sea off Sicily and the islands near the Italian coast, not only by Sempronius the consul, but even before his coming thither. 2 Twenty quinqueremes with a thousand men at arms had been sent by the Carthaginians to lay waste the coast of Italy; nine of them reached Liparae and eight the Isle of Vulcan; three the current diverted from their course into the Straits. 3 These last were sighted by the people of Messana, and Hiero, king of the Syracusans, who happened to be in Messana at the time, waiting for the Roman consul, dispatched twelve ships, which captured the enemy's ships without a struggle and brought them into the harbour of Messana. 4 It was learned from the prisoners that, besides the fleet of twenty galleys to which they themselves belonged —which had sailed for Italy —five and thirty other quinqueremes were on the way to Sicily to rouse up the old allies; 5 the seizure of Lilybaeum was their prime object; but they supposed that the same storm by which they had themselves been scattered had struck this fleet as well and had driven it out of its course to the Aegatian Islands. 6 The king wrote a full account of these rumours, just as they had come to him, to Marcus Aemilius, the praetor, who was in command in Sicily, 7 and warned him to garrison Lilybaeum strongly. The praetor at once sent out his lieutenants and tribunes to the cities round about, and urged his people to be on their guard. 8 Above all, Lilybaeum was kept in a state of readiness for war, an edict having been published directing the naval allies to bring to their ships cooked rations for ten days, so that, on the signal being given, there might be nothing to delay their embarkation. All along the coast men were sent to keep a look-out from the watch-towers for the coming of the enemy's fleet. 9 And so, notwithstanding that the Carthaginians had delayed their sailing on purpose that they might come up to Lilybaeum in the dark, they were nevertheless perceived, because there was a moon all night and they bore down under a spread of canvas. 10 The signal was at once displayed from the watchtowers, and in the town the call to arms was sounded and the ships were manned; some of the troops were at once on the walls or guarding the gates, some on the ships. 11 And the Carthaginians, seeing that they should have to do with men who were not unprepared, stood off from the harbour until dawn and employed the time in taking down their masts and sails and putting the fleet in fighting trim. 12 When the day broke, they withdrew into the open sea, to give room for the battle and to allow their enemy's ships a ready egress from the harbour. Nor did the Romans shun the encounter. 13 They remembered the victories that had been won in that same vicinity, and relied on the numbers and the bravery of their men. 50 Once at sea, the Romans wanted to join battle and match their strength against the enemy's at close quarters. 2 The Phoenicians, on the contrary, preferred to maneuver; to conduct the affair by strategy, not by force, and to make it a contest rather of ships than of men or arms. 3 For although their fleet was well equipped with rowers, they were short of fighting men; and when a ship was grappled, the men-at-arms in her were greatly outnumbered by their enemies. 4 Perceiving this, the Romans derived a fresh access of courage from their numbers, and the other side were correspondingly disheartened by their fewness. Seven Punic ships were instantly cut out and captured, and the rest took to flight. 5 There were seventeen hundred soldiers and sailors on the captured ships, including three Carthaginian nobles. The Roman fleet returned intact into the harbour: one ship only had been rammed, and even this was brought safely in.

6 After this engagement, but before the people in Messana had got wind of it, the consul Tiberius Sempronius came to that city. 7 As he was entering the straits, King Hiero put out to meet him, with his fleet in fighting order, and passing over from the royal galley to the praetorian, congratulated Sempronius on having arrived in safety with his army and his ships, and prayed that he might have a safe and successful passage to Sicily. 8 He then described conditions in the island and the attempts made by the Carthaginians, and promised that with the same spirit with which, in his youth, he had helped the Roman People in the former war 9 he would help them now, as an old man, and would furnish corn and clothing gratis to the legions of the consul and the naval allies. 10 He added that Lilybaeum and the cities of the coast were in great danger, and that some of them would welcome a revolution. 11 In view of these things, the consul saw fit to sail without delay for Lilybaeum, and the king attended him with the royal fleet. On the voyage they learned of the action that had been fought near that city, and the defeat and capture of the enemy's ships.

51 From Lilybaeum the consul dismissed King Hiero and his fleet, and leaving the praetor to protect the coast of Sicily, set sail for the island of Melita, which was held by the Carthaginians. 2 On his arrival, Hamilcar, Gisgo's son, the commandant of the garrison, surrendered himself and nearly two thousand soldiers, together with the town and island. From Melita Sempronius returned in a few days to Lilybaeum, and consul and praetor sold into slavery the prisoners they had made, with the exception of those who were distinguished by noble birth. When the consul judged that Sicily was in no danger from that quarter, he crossed over to the Isles of Vulcan, where it was rumoured that a Punic fleet was lying; but no single enemy was discovered near those islands. 3 They had already, as it happened, sailed across to ravage the Italian coast, 4 and after pillaging the country about Vibo, were even threatening the town. 5 The consul was returning again to Sicily when tidings reached him of the enemy's raid on the lands of Vibo, and a letter was delivered to him from the senate, apprising him of Hannibal's descent into Italy and bidding him go to the assistance of his colleague at the earliest possible moment. 6 Beset with many cares at once, he immediately embarked his army and dispatched it through the Adriatic to Ariminum; to Sextus Pomponius, his lieutenant, he assigned five and twenty ships of war, with the task of defending the territory of Vibo and the coast of Italy; the fleet under Marcus Aemilius the praetor he increased to fifty sail. 7 He himself, after settling the affairs of Sicily, took ten ships, and skirting the Italian coast, arrived at Ariminum. Thence he marched with his army to the Trebia and effected a junction with his colleague.

52 Now that both the consuls and all the forces which the Romans could muster were opposing Hannibal, it was obvious enough either that the troops there under arms were able to defend Rome's empire or that her case was hopeless. 2 Nevertheless one of the consuls, disheartened by a single cavalry engagement and weak from his wound, preferred to postpone the decision. The other, unwearied and therefore the more impetuous, would put up with no delay.

3 The country between the Trebia and the Po was in those days inhabited by Gauls, who in this struggle of two mighty peoples maintained a neutral attitude and plainly intended to court the good-will of the victor. 4 This policy was agreeable enough to the Romans, if only the Gauls made no disturbance, but was far from acceptable to Hannibal, who declared repeatedly that he had come on the invitation of the Gauls, to set them free. 5 In his resentment at this state of affairs, and in order at the same time to sustain his troops with plunder, he ordered two thousand foot and a thousand horse —chiefly Numidians but with a sprinkling of Gauls — 6 to waste the entire country-side, field after field, right up to the banks of the Po. The helpless Gauls, who had been undecided until then, were compelled to turn from the authors of their wrongs to those who might avenge them; and, sending envoys to the consuls, besought the Romans to come to the aid of a land that was suffering for its inhabitants' too great loyalty to Rome. 7 Cornelius liked neither the occasion nor the time for fighting, and regarded the Gauls with suspicion, both because of many acts of perfidy, and especially —even though time had obliterated those ancient grievances —because of the recent treachery of the Boi. 8 Sempronius, on the contrary, held that the strongest bond for keeping the allies to their obligations was the defence of those who should first stand in need of help. 9 On the present occasion, while his colleague hesitated, Sempronius sent his cavalry, interspersed with about a thousand foot-soldiers, armed with darts, to protect the Gallic lands beyond the Trebia. 10 Falling unexpectedly upon the enemy, who were scattered and disorganized —most of them laden too with spoils —they drove them with great slaughter in a terror-stricken rout to the very outposts of the Carthaginian camp. Thence the enemy poured out in numbers and repulsed the Romans, in their turn; but reserves came up and restored the day. 11 Thereafter the fortune of the battle shifted, as pursuit was followed by retreat; and though in the end the opposing armies were on even terms, still the enemy had lost more men and the Romans got the credit of a victory.

53 But to no one did the victory seem greater or more unequivocal than to Sempronius the consul; he was beside himself with joy that with that arm of the service with which the other consul had been beaten, he himself had been successful. 2 He declared that the spirits of the men were restored and renewed, and that no one but his colleague desired to put off the struggle; Cornelius, he said, was sick in spirit rather than in body, and the recollection of his wound made him dread a battle and its missiles. 3 But they must not droop and languish along with a sick man. Why indeed should they further postpone the conflict, or waste time? What third consul, what other army were they waiting for? 4 The Carthaginians were encamped in Italy and almost within sight of Rome. Their object was, not to get back Sicily and Sardinia, taken from them after their defeat, nor to cross the Ebro and occupy northern Spain, but to expel the Romans from the land of their fathers and from their native soil. 5 “How would our fathers groan,” he cried, “that were wont to wage war about the walls of Carthage, could they see us, their offspring, two consuls and two consular armies, cowering within our camp in the heart of Italy; and the Phoenician in full sway over all the territory between the Alps and the Apennines!” Thus he ran on, as he sat by the bed of his sick colleague; thus he argued in the praetorium, almost as if haranguing the troops. 6 His impatience was increased, too, by the near approach of the elections, lest the war go over to the term of the new consuls and he lose the opportunity of gaining all the glory for himself, while his colleague was laid up. 7 Accordingly, despite the unavailing protests of Cornelius, he commanded the soldiers to make ready for an early battle.

Hannibal, since he saw what was best for the enemy, hardly dared to hope that the consuls would take any rash or ill-considered step; but knowing, as he did —by hearsay first and afterwards by experience —8 that one of them was of a fiery and reckless disposition, and believing that the late successful brush with the Carthaginian raiders would have made him still more headstrong, he was fairly confident that the good fortune of a general engagement was at hand. 9 It was therefore his one concern to let slip no opportunity for bringing this about, while the soldiers of the enemy still lacked experience, while the abler of their generals was incapacitated by his wound, while the courage of the Gauls was up —10 since he knew that their vast multitude would follow the less willingly, the farther they were drawn from home. 11 For these and similar reasons he hoped that a battle would soon be fought, and was eager, should there be any hesitation, to force it on. And so, when his Gallic scouts —who were safer for gathering the information that he wanted because there were men of that nation in both camps —had reported that the Romans were prepared to fight, the Phoenician began to look about for a place in which to lay an ambush.

54 Between the two camps was a water-course, shut in by very high banks on either side and overgrown all round with marsh-grass and the underbrush and brambles with which uncultivated land is usually clothed. When Hannibal, riding over the ground himself, saw that this place afforded sufficient cover even for cavalry, he said to his brother Mago, “This will be the place for you to hold. 2 Choose out a hundred men from all the infantry and a hundred from the cavalry, and come with them to my quarters at the first watch. It is time now to sup and rest.” With that he broke up the council. In a little while Mago presented himself with his picked men. 3 “I see the stoutest of my men,” said Hannibal, “but that your numbers too may be strong to match your bravery, choose, each of you, from the squadrons and the maniples, nine others like yourselves. Mago will point out to you the spot where you are to lie in ambush; you have an enemy who is blind to these stratagems.” 4 Mago and his thousand horse and thousand foot being thus dispatched, Hannibal ordered the Numidian cavalry to cross the Trebia at dawn, and riding up to the enemy's gates and discharging missiles against his outposts, to lure him into battle; and then, when the fight was on, to give ground insensibly and draw him across the river. Such were the orders of the Numidians. 5 The other officers, both of cavalry and of infantry, were instructed to make their men have breakfast, and then, armed and with horses saddled, to await the signal.

6 On the flurry caused by the Numidians, Sempronius, confident where cavalry was concerned, first led out all of this part of his forces; then six thousand of the infantry; and finally all the rest of his troops. He had fully made up his mind beforehand and was eager for the battle. 7 It chanced to be the time of year when the days are shortest, and it was snowing in the region between the Alps and the Apennines, and the proximity of rivers and marshes intensified the bitter cold. 8 Moreover, men and horses had been turned out in haste, without stopping for food or doing anything to guard against becoming chilled; there was no warmth in them, and the nearer they approached the atmosphere of the river the sharper grew the cold wind in their faces. 9 But when, in pursuit of the fleeing Numidians, they entered the water —swollen breast-high with the rain that had fallen in the night —or at any rate when they got out upon the further bank, then indeed their bodies were all so benumbed that they could hardly hold their weapons; and at the same time they were fainting with fatigue, and, as the day wore on, with hunger as well.

55 Hannibal's soldiers had in the meantime made fires before their tents; in each company they had been served with oil to supple their joints, and had breakfasted at leisure. When, therefore, they were told that the enemy had crossed the river, they were eager both in mind and body, as they armed and went out to battle. 2 In front of the standards Hannibal placed the Baliares, light-armed troops numbering about eight thousand, and behind these his heavy infantry, tile strength and flower of his army; the wings he formed of ten thousand horse, and, dividing the elephants, stationed them outside the wings. 3 The consul's troopers were scattered in pursuit of the Numidians, when suddenly the latter made a stand and took them unawares; whereupon he called them back and posted them on either flank of the infantry. 4 There were eighteen thousand Romans and twenty thousand allies of the Latin name, besides the auxiliaries of the Cenomani, the only Gallic tribe that continued loyal. These were the contending forces.

The Baliares began the battle, but those light-armed troops, finding the legions too strong to cope with, were quickly withdrawn and sent to the wings. 5 This maneuver at once caused the Roman cavalry acute distress; for they numbered but four thousand, and, tired as they were, would scarce have been able to hold out any longer against the enemy's ten thousand cavalry alone, who were most of them fresh; 6 and now they were overwhelmed, as it were with a cloud of missiles, by the Baliares. 7 Besides this, the elephants, looming large on the outer extremities of the wings, gave rise to such a panic, particularly among the horses, not only by their strange appearance, but also by their unfamiliar smell, as to bring about a general flight. 8 As for the infantry, they were fairly matched in courage, but not in strength, which was unimpaired in the case of the Phoenicians, who had refreshed themselves shortly before entering the battle, while the Romans were faint with fasting and fatigue, and were stiff and numb with cold. Yet their courage would have enabled them to resist, had they fought against infantry alone. 9 But the Baliares, having put the cavalry to flight, were raining missiles on their flanks; the elephants had now charged the centre of the line; and Mago and his Numidians, as soon as the Roman army had passed their ambuscade without observing it, started up in their rear, and caused the wildest panic and confusion. 10 Nevertheless, amidst all these evils, the line held for a time unshaken, and even —what no one had dared to hope for —against the elephants. 11 Skirmishers, expressly posted to deal with the beasts, would throw darts at them and make them turn away, and then pursuing them would strike them under the tail, where the skin is softest and it is possible to wound them.

56 In their terror they were now on the point of charging their own people, when Hannibal gave orders to drive them from the centre to the extreme left wing, against the Gallic auxiliaries. Here they immediately caused a decided stampede, and the Romans experienced a fresh alarm when they saw their auxiliaries routed. 2 And so, hemmed in as they now were on every side, about ten thousand men, when they found it impossible to escape at any other point, forced a passage, with great slaughter of their enemies, through the Carthaginian centre, which was composed of Gallic auxiliaries, 3 and being cut off by the river  from returning to their camp and so blinded by the rain that they could not well discern where to help their comrades, took the shortest way to Placentia. After that sundry groups broke out at various points. 4 Those who headed for the river were either drowned in its eddies, or, while they hesitated to enter it, were overtaken by the enemy; 5 but those who scattered over the countryside in flight made their way by following the tracks of the retreating column, to Placentia; others, venturing, in their terror of the enemy, to attempt the river, got across, and reached the camp. 6 The mingled rain and snow and the intolerable sharpness of the cold brought death to many men and beasts of burden and to almost all the elephants. 7 The Phoenicians pursued their enemies no further than to the river Trebia, and got back to camp so benumbed and chilled as hardly to feel the joy of victory. Consequently, when, in the night that followed, the garrison of the camp, and such soldiers without arms 8 for the most part-as had survived the rout, were crossing the Trebia on rafts, they either heard nothing, owing to the noise made by the rain, or being unable, for weariness and wounds, to bestir themselves, pretended not to hear; and unmolested, all but one perished from the effects of the rain and snow that followed the battle. 9 by the enemy Scipio led his army in silence to Placentia, and thence-after crossing the Po-to Cremona, so that that one town might not be overburdened with furnishing winter quarters for two armies.

57 To Rome the news of this disaster brought such consternation that people looked for the immediate appearance of the hostile army before their very City, and knew not which way to turn for any hope or help in defending their gates and walls against its onset. 2 When one consul had been defeated on the Ticinus, the other had been summoned back from Sicily; but now that two consuls and two consular armies had been beaten, what other generals, what other legions had they to call upon? 3 In the midst of this alarm the consul Sempronius arrived. He had made his way, taking tremendous risks, through the enemy's cavalry —which was widely dispersed in quest of booty —relying more on audacity than calculation or the prospect of eluding his enemies, or of resisting, should he be unable to elude them. 4 The election of consuls was the one crying need of the hour. This Sempronius accomplished and returned forthwith to his winter quarters. 5 The choice had fallen on Gnaeus Servilius and —for the second time—on Gaius Flaminius.

For the rest, the Romans were given no peace even in their winter quarters. The Numidian cavalry ranged far and wide, and any ground that was too rough for them was covered by the Celtiberians and Lusitani. 6 The result was the cutting off of all supplies from every quarter, save such as were brought up the Po in ships. Their magazine, which was near Placentia, was elaborately fortified and strongly garrisoned. This place Hannibal hoped to capture by assault, and set out thither with his cavalry and light infantry. 7 He had counted mainly on the concealment of his movements for their effectiveness; but his night attack failed to catch the sentries off their guard, and the defenders at once set up so loud an outcry that it was heard even in Placentia. And so at break of day the consul was on the spot with his cavalry, having ordered the legions to follow him in fighting column. 8 Meanwhile, a cavalry engagement took place, in which Hannibal was wounded and withdrew from the fight, 9 and the enemy were so alarmed by this that the post was successfully defended. 10 After this Hannibal, when he had rested only a few days and his wound was scarce healed over, set out to attack Victumulae. This had been a Roman magazine in the Gallic war, and having then been fortified had since attracted numerous settlers from the various peoples dwelling in the neighbourhood; 11 and just then the fear of raids had caused large numbers to flock in from the countryside. 12 Such was the character of the population, which, fired by the story of the stout defence of the fortress near Placentia, flew to arms and went out to meet Hannibal. More like marching columns than embattled armies they encountered each other in the road; and since on one side there was only an undisciplined rabble, and on the other a general who relied upon his soldiers, and soldiers who confided in their general, some thirty-five thousand men were routed by a very few. 13 The next day they surrendered and received a garrison within their walls. Being commanded to give up their weapons they complied: whereupon a signal was suddenly given to the victors to sack the town, as if they had taken it by storm. 14 Nor was any cruelty omitted which historians generally deem worth noting on such an occasion; but every species of lust and outrage and inhuman insolence was visited upon the wretched inhabitants. Such were Hannibal's winter expeditions.

58 For no long time thereafter, while the cold was still unbearable, he allowed his men to rest, and on the first doubtful  signs of spring broke up his winter quarters and marched towards Etruria, 2 with the object of drawing that nation also to his standards, either by force or with their own consent, as he had done with the Gauls and the Ligurians. 3 In attempting to cross the Apennines he was assailed by a storm so terrible as almost to surpass the horrors of the Alps. With the wind and rain blowing full in their faces, at first —because they must either have dropped their arms or else, if they struggled against it, be caught by the hurricane and hurled to the ground —4 they halted; then, when it actually stopped their breath and would not allow them to respire, they turned their backs on the gale and for a time huddled together on the ground. 5 And now the heavens resounded with a frightful tumult, and between the terrific crashes the lightning flashed. 6 Deafened and blinded, they were all stunned with fear. At length the downpour ceased, but the wind only blew the more furiously, and there seemed to be nothing to do but to pitch camp on the very spot where they had been caught. 7 This, however, was but a fresh beginning of their troubles, for they could neither spread nor set up a tent, nor, once set up, would it stay in place, for the wind rent everything to shreds and swept it away; 8 and when presently the moisture taken up by the wind had been congealed over the cold mountain ridges, it descended in such a storm of sleet that the men let go of everything and threw themselves on their faces on the ground, overwhelmed by their shelters rather than protected by them; 9 and the cold that ensued was so severe that when anyone sought to rise and lift himself from out that pitiful heap of men and beasts, for a long time he would be unable, because his sinews were so stiff and tense that he could hardly bend his joints. 10 Afterwards, when at last by exerting themselves they had recovered the power of motion and regained their courage, and had begun here and there to kindle fires, each, in his helplessness, applied to someone else for help. 11 For two days they remained on that spot as if beleaguered. Many men and many horses perished, and seven of the elephants that had survived the battle on the Trebia.

59 Descending from the Apennines, Hannibal turned back once more towards Placentia, and after marching about ten miles went into camp. The next day he advanced against the enemy with twelve thousand foot and five thousand horse. 2 Nor did the consul Sempronius, who had now returned from Rome, decline the combat. That day there were only three miles between the two encampments. On the following day they fought, with great spirit and with shifting fortunes. 3 At the first encounter the Romans had so far the best of it that not only were they victorious in the battle, but they pursued the beaten enemy to his camp, and were soon attacking the camp itself. 4 Hannibal stationed a few defenders on the rampart and at the gates and received the rest in a crowded throng within the enclosure, where he bade them watch intently for the signal to sally forth. 5 It was now about the ninth hour of the day, when the Roman general, who had worn out his men to no avail and saw no prospect of capturing the camp, bade sound the recall. 6 When Hannibal heard this and perceived that the fighting had grown lax and that the enemy had retired from his rampart, he suddenly sent his cavalry against them from the right and left and rushed out himself with the strength of his infantry from the centre of the camp. 7 Seldom has there been a fiercer battle or one more notable for the losses on both sides than this would have been, had the light permitted it to be prolonged; but darkness put an end to a conflict which had been begun with the greatest ardour. 8 The fury of the combatants was consequently greater than the carnage, and as the battle was practically a drawn one, so were the losses equal when the opposing forces separated. 9 On neither side had more than six hundred of the infantry fallen or half as many of the cavalry; but the loss of the Romans was out of proportion to the number slain, for it included several knights, five tribunes of the soldiers, and three praefects of the allies. 10 After this engagement Hannibal retired into Liguria and Sempronius to Luca. The Ligurians had ambushed and made prisoners of two Roman quaestors, Gaius Fulvius and Lucius Lucretius, with two tribunes of the soldiers and five members of the equestrian order —mostly sons of senators. These men they handed over to Hannibal on his coming among them, as a further earnest of their peaceful and friendly disposition towards him.

60 Whilst these things were going on in Italy, Gnaeus Cornelius Scipio, who had been sent out to Spain with a fleet and an army, 2 had set sail from the mouth of the Rhone and passing the Pyrenees had put into Emporiae. 3 Landing his army there and beginning with the Laeetani, he had brought all that coast, as far as the river Ebro, under Roman sway, partly by renewing old alliances and partly by forming new ones. 4 The reputation which he there acquired for clemency and justice availed not only with the maritime tribes, but also with the more warlike clans inhabiting the interior and the mountainous parts; so that he was able not only to establish peaceful relations but even to conclude a military alliance with them, and several strong cohorts of auxiliaries were raised there.

5 North of the Ebro Hanno was the Carthaginian commander, for Hannibal had left him there to defend that region. Feeling, therefore, that something ought to be done, before everything was lost to Carthage, he pitched his camp in sight of the enemy and offered battle. 6 The Roman general saw no reason to put off the engagement; he knew that he must fight with Hanno and Hasdrubal, and chose rather to deal with them separately than both at once. Neither was the battle very difficult to win. 7 Six thousand of the enemy were killed and two thousand captured, together with the garrison of the camp —for this too was attacked and taken. The general himself and several chieftains were made prisoners, and Cissis, a town which stood near the camp, was carried by assault. 8 The plunder of the town yielded objects of little worth —household belongings of barbarians and slaves of no great price —but the camp made the soldiers rich; 9 for in it they found not only the valuables of the army that they had just defeated, but also those of the army that was now serving under Hannibal in Italy, for the men had left nearly all their treasures behind when they crossed the Pyrenees, so as not to burden themselves with heavy baggage on the march.

61 Hasdrubal had not yet received definite tidings of this disaster when he crossed the Ebro with eight thousand infantry and a thousand cavalry, as though to confront the Romans at their first arrival; but on learning of the catastrophe at Cissis and the loss of the camp, he turned and marched in the direction of the sea. 2 Not far from Tarraco he came upon the soldiers of the fleet and the naval allies, who were dispersed and wandering over the country-side, with the carelessness which usually attends success; and sending out his cavalry in all directions he drove them, with much slaughter and more confusion, to their ships. 3 But not venturing to tarry longer in that region, lest Scipio should be down upon him, he retreated across the Ebro. 4 Scipio, hearing of these new enemies, did indeed march thither with all speed; but after punishing a few of the ships' captains, he left a garrison of moderate size in Tarraco and returned with the fleet to Emporiae. 5 No sooner was he gone than Hasdrubal appeared, and inciting the Ilergetes, who had given Scipio hostages, to revolt, he used the young men of this very tribe to lay waste the fields of the allies who were faithful to the Romans. 6 But this having roused Scipio from his winter quarters, he retreated again and abandoned all the territory north of the Ebro. Scipio invaded the country of the Ilergetes —left thus in the lurch by the instigator of their revolt —with fire and sword, and driving them all into the city of Atanagrus, the capital of that nation, laid siege to them. 7 Within a few days he had exacted more hostages of them than before, and mulcting them also in a sum of money, had received them under his authority and rule. 8 Thence he marched against the Ausetani, near the Ebro, who were likewise allies of the Phoenicians; and besieging their city, laid an ambush for the Lacetani, as they were bringing assistance to their neighbours, and fell upon them in the night, not far from the city, when they would have entered it. 9 The slain amounted to about twelve thousand; almost all the others lost their arms, and scattering over the fields in all directions, fled to their homes. As for the besieged, nothing could have saved them but a winter that was most unfavourable to the besiegers. 10 The blockade lasted thirty days, during which time the snow rarely lay less than four feet deep, and so completely had it covered the mantlets and pent-houses of the Romans that this alone was sufficient to protect them from the firebrands that were several times discharged upon them by the enemy. 11 Finally, when their chief Amusicus had fled and taken refuge with Hasdrubal, they made terms and surrendered, agreeing to pay twenty talents of silver. The Romans returned to Tarraco and went into winter quarters.

62 In Rome or near it many prodigies occurred that winter, or —as often happens when men's thoughts are once turned upon religion —many were reported and too easily credited. Some of these portents were: that a free-born infant of six months had cried “Triumph!” 2 in the provision market; that in the cattle market an ox had climbed, 3 of its own accord, to the third story of a house and then, alarmed by the outcry of the occupants, had thrown itself down; 4 that phantom ships had been seen gleaming in the sky; that the temple of Hope, in the provision market, had been struck by lightning; that in Lanuvium a slain victim had stirred, and a raven had flown down into Juno's temple and alighted on her very couch; that in the district of Amiternum, in many places, apparitions of men in shining raiment had appeared in the distance, but had not drawn near to anyone; 5 that in the Picentian country there had been a shower of pebbles; that at Caere the lots had shrunk; that in Gaul a wolf had snatched a sentry's sword from its scabbard and run off with it. 6 For the other prodigies the decemviri were commanded to consult the Books, but for the shower of pebbles in the Picentian country a nine days' sacrifice was proclaimed. They then set about the expiation of the other portents, and in this virtually all the citizens bore a part. 7 First of all, the city was purified, and major victims were offered up to the designated gods; 8 a gift of gold weighing forty pounds was carried to Lanuvium for Juno, and a bronze statue was dedicated to Juno, by the matrons, on the Aventine; a lectisternium was ordered at Caere, where the lots had shrunk; and a supplication was ordered to be made to Fortune on Mount Algidus; 9 in Rome, too, a lectisternium was specially appointed for Juventas, and a supplication at the temple of Hercules, and later the entire people was commanded to observe this rite at all the pulvinaria; 10 also five major victims were slain in honour of the Genius of the Roman People; and Gaius Atilius Serranus the praetor was ordered to make a vow, “if the commonwealth should abide for ten years in its present state.” 11 The making of these vows and expiations, as prescribed by the Sibylline Books, went far to alleviate men's anxiety concerning their relations with the gods.

63 Of the consuls designate, Flaminius, to whom the legions wintering at Placentia had been assigned by lot, dispatched an edict and a letter to the consul, commanding that these troops should be ready in the camp at Ariminum on the Ides of March. 2 It was here, in his province, that he designed to enter on the consulship, for he remembered his former controversies with the senators, which he had waged when a tribune of the plebs, and later as consul —in the first place about his consulship, which they tried to annul, and again concerning his triumph. 3 He was also hated by the senators on account of an unprecedented law which Quintus Claudius the tribune of the plebs had introduced, despite the opposition of the senate, with the backing of Gaius Flaminius alone of all that body, providing that no senator or senator's son should own a sea-going ship of more than three hundred amphoras burden—this was reckoned to be sufficient to transport the crops from one's fields, and all money-making was held unseemly in a senator. 4 The measure, which was vehemently opposed, had been productive of great resentment on the part of the nobles against Flaminius, who had advocated its enactment; but had procured for him the favour of the plebs and afterwards a second consulship. 5 Believing, therefore, that his enemies would falsify the auspices and make use of the Latin Festival and other means of hindering a consul, to detain him in the City, he pretended that he had to take a journey, and departing, as a private citizen, slipped away secretly to his province. 6 This behaviour, when the truth came out, aroused fresh indignation in the breasts of the already hostile senators: Gaius Flaminius, they said, was waging war not only with the senate, but this time with 7 the immortal gods. He had formerly been made consul without the confirmation of the auspices, and, though both gods and men had sought to recall him from the very battle-line, he had not obeyed; now, conscious of having spurned them, he had fled the Capitol and the vows that were regularly undertaken, that he might not, on the day of entering upon his office, approach the temple of 8 Jupiter Optimus Maximus; that he might not see and consult the senate, which hated him and which he alone of all men hated; that he might not proclaim the Latin Festival and offer the accustomed sacrifice to Jupiter Latiaris on 9 the Alban Mount; that he might not, after receiving auspices, go up to the Capitol to make his vows, and thence proceed, in the general's cloak and accompanied by lictors, to his province; like some camp-follower, without insignia and without lictors, he had set out in secret and by stealth, precisely as though 10 going into exile; he thought, forsooth, that it was more in keeping with the dignity of his high command to begin his magistracy in Ariminum than in Rome —to assume the purple-bordered toga in an inn than in the presence of 11 his household gods! With one accord they voted to recall him and drag him back and compel him to discharge in person all his obligations to gods and men, before he went to his army 12 and his province. On this commission —for commissioners they resolved to dispatch —Quintus Terentius and Marcus Antistius set forth, but moved Flaminius no more than the letter sent him by the senate had moved him in 13 his former consulship. A few days later he entered on his magistracy, and as he was offering up a calf, it escaped —after being struck —out of the hands of those who would have sacrificed it, and spattered many of the bystanders 14 with its blood. The dismay and confusion were even greater among those who stood farther off and knew not what was occasioning the panic. By most people it was regarded as an omen 15 of great terror. After this the army comprising the two legions received from Sempronius, the consul of the year before, and the two taken over from Gaius Atilius the praetor, began its march into Etruria through the passes of the Apennines.