The Comic History of Rome

by Gilbert Abbott À Beckett

CHAPTER THE SEVENTEENTH.

THE SECOND PUNIC WAR.

We have now arrived at the great historical drama of the Second Punic War, which some authorities have divided into five acts; the principal part being undertaken by Hannibal, and the scenery being laid in Italy, Spain, Sicily, and Africa. The first act opens with the passage of Hannibal over the Alps, which forms one of the most remarkable passages in the life of that renowned soldier. In the second act we arrive at the taking of Capua; and in the third, we see Hannibal on the look-out for reinforcements, which never arrive from his brother Hasdrubal. The fourth act brings us to Italy, from which the Carthaginian commander makes a forced exit; and for the last act of all, the scene is changed to Africa, when the curtain and 20,000 Carthaginians fall together.

Hannibal having resolved on the part he was about to play, called together those who were to act with him in the stirring scenes in which he intended to figure. His company consisted of 90,000 foot, 12,000 horse, and an unrivalled stud of 37 elephants. With this troop he crossed the Pyrenees, by means of slopes, which nature had kindly provided, instead of platforms. The first incident of importance which happened on the way, was a mutiny among those, who, when they arrived at the foot of the mountain, protested against being brought to such a pass; and Hannibal wisely sent the discontented back, that the insubordination might go no further. Forty thousand foot retraced their steps, and 3000 horse backed out, on the opportunity being offered them. With the rest of his army, he reached the banks of the "arrowy Rhone," which he found particularly arrowy when he made an effort to cross; for he did so under a shower of darts from the Gauls, who thus pointedly objected to his progress. The hostility manifested towards the invaders was not simply on account of their appetite for conquest, but their appetite for food was productive of a most inconvenient scarcity. To provide every day for 60,000 soldiers was difficult enough, but there was something awful in the idea of the daily dinner-party being increased by 9000 hungry horses, and nearly 40 healthy elephants. The passage of the Rhone was a matter of considerable difficulty; for the horses stood plunging on the banks of the river, instead of plunging boldly into it. The elephants were still less tractable, and were, after much trouble, pushed or persuaded on to a raft, covered with earth and bushes, to make it resemble dry land; but it no sooner began to move, than the unwieldy animals felt themselves and their confidence seriously shaken. This caused them to crowd together to the edge; and, while taking this one-sided view of their position, they turned the matter over so completely, that they all fell in with one another, and most of them came to the same conclusion. Continuing his journey, Hannibal arrived at the bottom of the Alps, and, coming to the foot of St. Bernard, he extracted from the foot all the corn he could lay his hands upon. The weather was, unfortunately, so severe that the cold nearly broke his army up into shivers; while provisions were so scarce that at one time there seemed to be no chance of anything to eat but ice, and though the air was thoroughly gelid, it was impossible to live on it. Tradition tells us, that when Hannibal came to this point of his journey he found two brothers in the middle of a fight for a crown; but what was the country to which the crown belonged, or whether the article was a mere bauble that had been picked up in the road, or whether the crown was a sum of money representing the stake for which the brothers fought, we have no means of determining. The combatants, at all events, agreed that Hannibal should arbitrate between them; when, adopting the principle of "Age before honesty," he adjudged the article in dispute to the elder of the litigants. The decision did not involve any very remarkable acuteness on the part of the umpire, who seems simply to have sided with the big brother against the little one. The successful claimant was so delighted with the judgment delivered in his favour, that he placed a large stock of clothes, for the army, at the disposal of Hannibal. Some fearful misfits arose from this neglect of the wholesome maxim, "Measures, not men," for there was not a man whose measure could have been properly taken.

It was now time to undertake the ascent of the Alps, and to commence operations on a scale so grand, that all former experience in scaling a height, was little better than useless. Many of the soldiers at the sight of the mountains, instead of rising with the occasion, sunk with it into a fainting state; and others objected to venture into the snow, on the ground that they did not understand the drift of it. Hannibal represented the whole affair as a mere nothing; and added, that the passage over the Alps was not such very up-hill work after all, for that men, women, and even children, had often been quite up to the work he now proposed to cut out for his army. "Soldiers!" he exclaimed, "you have no choice, except between certain famine on one side of the Alps, or fertile plains, which you may see plainly enough in your mind's eye, on the other." Hannibal having made this brief speech, was rewarded with loud cheers; the army followed him, and proceeding to the passes, he found them lined with Gauls; but he tore the lining out in the most merciless fashion.

On reaching the Valley of the Tarentaise, Hannibal was offered guides, whom, however, he distrusted; and refusing, therefore, to be led away by specious promises, he sent his baggage by way of experiment; intending, when he heard of the safe arrival of his soldiers' trunks, to despatch by the same route their entire body. When the elephants came within a stone's throw of the Gauls, the latter hurled down rocks in vast masses on the affrighted beasts, and snowballed them with the snow from the loftiest part of the mountains. The assailants, however, completely missed their aim, for Hannibal threw himself upon them, and succeeded in completely crushing them.

Hannibal crossing the Alps.

It was a fine October morning when the Carthaginian general set out to cross the Alps by the road over the Little St. Bernard, and after a nine days' march, which was at that time a nine days' wonder, he reached the top of the mountain. The fatigue endured by Hannibal and his army cannot be described, and the toils of the journey were aggravated by the chance of their falling into the toils and snares of the enemy. Little passed their lips in the shape of food, and very little passed their lips in a contrary direction, for they were afraid to speak, lest their words should disturb the impending avalanche. The way was rugged, save where it was carpeted by the snow; but even where it was trodden hard enough to serve as a sort of track or guide, they could scarcely trust to it, for it gave them the slip every now and then in the most unsatisfactory manner. On the tenth day they began their descent: and they, perhaps, little thought at the moment that in quitting the top of the Alps they were coming down to posterity. The two first days slid away merrily enough over the ice and snow, but on the third they arrived at a point where the ground had slipped out of its place, and left to the enterprising travellers a far from eligible opening.