REQUIRED READING
FOR THE
Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle for 1883-4.
June.
READINGS FROM ROMAN HISTORY.
SELECTED BY WILLIAM CLEAVER WILKINSON.
Next we will give a picture, a partial picture it must be, of an action occurring a little more than half a century later in Roman history. Dr. Arnold shall be our painter:
HANNIBAL CROSSING THE ALPS.
[219 B. C.]
Hannibal was on the summit of the Alps about the end of October; the first winter snows had already fallen; but two hundred years before the Christian era, when all Germany was one vast forest, the climate of the Alps was far colder than at present, and the snow lay on the passes all through the year. Thus the soldiers were in dreary quarters; they remained two days on the summit, resting from their fatigues, and giving opportunity to many of the stragglers, and of the horses and cattle, to rejoin them by following their track; but they were cold and worn and disheartened; and mountains still rose before them, through which, as they knew too well, even their descent might be perilous and painful.