Hannibal, that his words might make the stronger impression on the rude minds of his soldiers, speaks to their eyes, before he addresses their ears; and does not attempt to persuade them by arguments, till he has first moved them by the following spectacle. He arms some of the prisoners whom he had taken in the mountains, and obliges them to fight, two and two, in sight of his army; promising to reward the conquerors with their liberty and rich presents. The alacrity wherewith these barbarians engaged upon these motives, gives Hannibal an occasion of exhibiting to his soldiers a lively image of their present condition; which, by depriving them of all means of returning back, puts them under an absolute necessity either of conquering or dying, in order to avoid the endless evils prepared for those that should be so base and cowardly as to submit to the Romans. He displays to them the greatness of their reward, viz. the conquest of all Italy; the plunder of the rich and wealthy city of Rome; an illustrious victory, and immortal glory. He speaks contemptibly of the Roman power, the false lustre of which (he observed) ought not to dazzle such warriors as themselves, who had marched from the pillars of Hercules, through the fiercest nations, into the very centre of Italy. As for his own part, he scorns to compare himself with Scipio, a general of but six months' standing: himself, who was almost born, at least brought up, in the tent of Hamilcar his father; the conqueror of Spain, of Gaul, of the inhabitants of the Alps, and what is still more, conqueror of the Alps themselves. He rouses their indignation against the insolence of the Romans, who had dared to demand that himself, and the rest who had taken Saguntum, should be delivered up to them; and excites their jealousy against the intolerable pride of those imperious masters, who imagined that all things ought to obey them, and that they had a right to give laws to the whole world.
After these speeches, both sides prepare for battle. Scipio, having thrown a bridge across the Ticinus, marched his troops [pg 209] over it. Two ill omens[750] had filled his army with consternation and dread. As for the Carthaginians, they were inspired with the boldest courage. Hannibal animates them with fresh promises; and cleaving with a stone the skull of the lamb he was sacrificing, he prays Jupiter to dash to pieces his head in like manner, in case he did not give his soldiers the rewards he had promised them.
Scipio posts, in the first line, the troops armed with missive weapons, and the Gaulish horse; and forming his second line of the flower of the confederate cavalry, he advances slowly. Hannibal advanced with his whole cavalry, in the centre of which he had posted the troopers who rid with bridles, and the Numidian horsemen on[751] the wings, in order to surround the enemy. The officers and cavalry being eager to engage, a charge ensues. At the first onset, Scipio's light-armed soldiers had scarcely discharged their darts, when, frighted at the Carthaginian cavalry, which came pouring upon them, and fearing lest they should be trampled under the horses' feet, they gave way, and retired through the intervals of the squadrons. The fight continued a long time with equal success. Many troopers on both sides dismounted, so that the battle was carried on between infantry as well as cavalry. In the mean time, the Numidians surround the enemy, and charge the rear of the light-armed troops, who at first had escaped the attack of the cavalry, and tread them under their horses' feet. The centre of the Roman forces had hitherto fought with great bravery. Many were killed on both sides, and even more on that of the Carthaginians. But the Roman troops were put into disorder by the Numidians, who attacked them in the rear; and especially by a wound the consul received, which disabled him from continuing the combat. However, this general was rescued out of the enemy's hands by the bravery of his son, then but seventeen years old; and who afterwards was honoured with the surname of Africanus, for having put a glorious period to this war.
The consul, though dangerously wounded, retreated in good order, and was conveyed to his camp by a body of horse, who covered him with their arms and bodies: the rest of the army followed him thither. He hastened to the Po, which he crossed with his army, and then broke down the bridge, whereby he prevented Hannibal from overtaking him.
It is agreed, that Hannibal owed this first victory to his cavalry; and it was judged from thenceforth that the main strength of his army consisted in his horse; and therefore, that it would be proper for the Romans to avoid large open plains, such as are those between the Po and the Alps.
Immediately after the battle of the Ticinus, all the neighbouring Gauls seemed to contend who should submit themselves first to Hannibal, furnish him with ammunition, and enlist in his army. And this, as Polybius has observed, was what chiefly induced that wise and skilful general, notwithstanding the small number and weakness of his troops, to hazard a battle; which he indeed was now obliged to venture, from the impossibility of marching back whenever he should desire to do it; because nothing but a battle would oblige the Gauls to declare for him, whose assistance was the only refuge he then had left.
Battle of the Trebia.—Sempronius the consul, upon the orders he had received from the senate, was returned from Sicily to Ariminum.[752] From thence he marched towards the Trebia, a small river of Lombardy, which falls into the Po a little above Placentia, where he joined his forces to those of Scipio. Hannibal advanced towards the camp of the Romans, from which he was separated only by that small river. The armies lying so near one another, gave occasion to frequent skirmishes, in one of which Sempronius, at the head of a body of horse, gained some advantage over a party of Carthaginians, very trifling indeed, but which nevertheless very much increased the good opinion this general naturally entertained of his own merit.
This inconsiderable success seemed to him a complete victory. He boasted his having vanquished the enemy in the same kind of fight in which his colleague had been defeated, [pg 211] and that he thereby had revived the courage of the dejected Romans. Being now resolutely bent to come, as soon as possible, to a decisive battle, he thought it proper, for decency's sake, to consult Scipio, whom he found of a quite different opinion from himself. Scipio represented, that in case time should be allowed for disciplining the new levies during the winter, they would be much fitter for service in the ensuing campaign; that the Gauls, who were naturally fickle and inconstant, would disengage themselves insensibly from Hannibal; that as soon as his wounds should be healed, his presence might be of some use in an affair of such general concern: in a word, he besought him earnestly not to proceed any further.
These reasons, though so just, made no impression upon Sempronius. He saw himself at the head of sixteen thousand Romans, and twenty thousand allies, exclusive of cavalry, (a number which, in those ages, formed a complete army,) when both consuls joined their forces. The troops of the enemy amounted to near the same number. He thought the juncture extremely favourable for him. He declared publicly, that all the officers and soldiers were desirous of a battle, except his colleague, whose mind (he observed) being more affected by his wound than his body, could not, for that reason, bear to hear of an engagement. But still, continued Sempronius, is it just to let the whole army droop and languish with him? What could Scipio expect more? Did he flatter himself with the hopes that a third consul, and a new army, would come to his assistance? Such were the expressions he employed both among the soldiers, and even about Scipio's tent. The time for the election of new generals drawing near, Sempronius was afraid a successor would be sent before he had put an end to the war; and therefore it was his opinion, that he ought to take advantage of his colleague's illness, to secure the whole honour of the victory to himself. As he had no regard, says Polybius, to the time proper for action, and only to that which he thought suited his own interest, he could not fail of taking wrong measures. He therefore ordered his army to prepare for battle.
This was the very thing Hannibal desired; as he held it for a maxim, that a general who has entered a foreign country, or [pg 212] one possessed by the enemy, and has formed some great design, has no other refuge left, than continually to raise the expectations of his allies by some fresh exploits. Besides, knowing that he should have to deal only with new-levied and unexperienced troops, he was desirous of taking advantage of the ardour of the Gauls, who were extremely desirous of fighting; and of Scipio's absence, who, by reason of his wound, could not be present in the battle. Mago was therefore ordered to lie in ambush with two thousand men, consisting of horse and foot, on the steep banks of a small rivulet which ran between the two camps, and to conceal himself among the bushes that were very thick there. An ambuscade is often safer in a smooth open country, but full of thickets, as this was, than in woods, because such a spot is less apt to be suspected. He afterwards caused a detachment of Numidian cavalry to cross the Trebia with orders to advance at break of day as far as the very barriers of the enemy's camp, in order to provoke them to fight; and then to retreat and repass the river, in order to draw the Romans after them. What he had foreseen, came directly to pass. The fiery Sempronius immediately detached his whole cavalry against the Numidians, and then six thousand light-armed troops, who were soon followed by all the rest of the army. The Numidians fled designedly; upon which the Romans pursued them with great eagerness, and crossed the Trebia without resistance, but not without great difficulty, being forced to wade up to their very arm-pits through the rivulet, which was swoln with the torrents that had fallen in the night from the neighbouring mountains. It was then about the winter-solstice, that is, in December. It happened to snow that day, and the cold was excessively piercing. The Romans had left their camp fasting, and without having taken the least precaution; whereas the Carthaginians had, by Hannibal's order, eaten and drunk plentifully in their tents; had got their horses in readiness, rubbed themselves with oil, and put on their armour by the fire-side.