From the Rhone to Italy.
Hannibal encourages his Soldiers.
Itaque Hannibal, postquam ipsi sententia stetit pergere ire atque Italiam petere, advocata contione varie militum versat animos castigando adhortandoque: mirari se, quinam pectora semper impavida repens terror invaserit. . . . Alpes quidem habitari, coli, 5 gignere atque alere animantes; pervias fauces esse exercitibus. Eos ipsos, quos cernant, legatos non pinnis sublime elatos Alpes transgressos. Ne maiores quidem eorum indigenas, sed advenas Italiae cultores has ipsas Alpes ingentibus saepe agminibus cum 10 liberis ac coniugibus migrantium modo tuto transmisisse. Militi quidem armato nihil secum praeter instrumenta belli portanti quid invium aut inexsuperabile esse? Saguntum ut caperetur, quid per octo menses periculi, quid laboris exhaustum esse! 15 Romam, caput orbis terrarum, petentibus quicquam adeo asperum atque arduum videri, quod inceptum moretur? Cepisse quondam Gallos ea, quae adiri posse Poenus desperet. Proinde aut cederent animo atque virtute genti per eos dies totiens ab se victae, 20 aut itineris finem sperent campum interiacentem Tiberi ac moenibus Romanis.
Livy, xxi. 30.
2-3 varie . . . versat = works on their minds by different methods, i.e. castigando adhortandoque.—Dimsdale.
4-5 repens terror. Livy says that H.’s soldiers dreaded the Romans (victorious in the 1st Punic War), but still more the exaggerated and unknown terrors of the Alps.
7 Eos ipsos legatos, i.e. of the Boii (Insubrian Gauls), long settled in Gallia Cisalpina (round Mediolanum = Milan).
9 advenas Italiae cultores = foreign settlers in Italy. advenas = adj. here.—D.
11 migrantium modo = as immigrants.
16 Romam caput orbis. A rhetorical exaggeration, for Rome was not yet mistress even of all Italy (e.g. the Boii not subdued until 191 B.C.).
18 Cepisse Gallos. The Gauls sacked Rome 390 B.C.