Crosses the Ebro.
In the spring, B.C. 218, Hannibal set out from New Carthage with an army of ninety thousand infantry and twelve thousand cavalry. He encountered at the Ebro the first serious resistance, but this was from the natives, and not the Romans. It took four months to surmount their resistance, during which he lost one-fourth of his army. As it was his great object to gain time before the Romans could occupy the passes of the Alps, he made this sacrifice of his men. When he readied the Pyrenees, he sent home a part of his army, and crossed those mountains with only fifty thousand infantry and nine thousand cavalry; but these were veteran troops. He took the coast route by Narbonne and Nimes, through the Celtic territory, and encountered no serious resistance till he reached the Rhone, opposite to Avignon, about the end of July. The passage was disputed by Scipio, assisted by friendly Gauls, but Hannibal outflanked his enemies by sending a detachment across the river, on rafts, two days' march higher up, and thus easily forced the passage, and was three days' march beyond the river before Scipio was aware that he had crossed. Scipio then sailed back to Pisa, and aided his colleague to meet the invader in Cisalpine Gaul.
Hannibal crosses the Alps.
Hannibal, now on Celtic territory on the Roman side of the Rhone, could not be prevented from reaching the Alps. Two passes then led from the lower Rhone across the Alps—the one by the Cottian Alps (Mount Geneva); and the other, the higher pass of the Grain Alps (Mount St. Bernard), and this was selected by Hannibal. The task of transporting a large army over even this easier pass [pg 443] was a work of great difficulty, with baggage, cavalry, and elephants, when the autumn snows were falling, resisted by the mountaineers, against whom they had to fight to the very summit of the pass. The descent, though free from enemies, was still more dangerous, and it required, at one place, three days' labor to make the road practicable for the elephants. The army arrived, the middle of September, in the plain of Ivrea, where his exhausted troops were quartered in friendly villages. Had the Romans met him near Turin with only thirty thousand men, and at once forced a battle, the prospects of Hannibal would have been doubtful. But no army appeared; the object was attained, but with the loss of half his troops, and the rest so demoralized by fatigue, that a long rest was required.
Scipio.
The great talents by which Scipio atoned for his previous errors now extricated his army from destruction. He retreated across the Ticinio and the Po, refusing a pitched battle on the plains, and fell back upon a strong position on the hills. The united consular armies, forty thousand men, were so posted as to compel Hannibal to attack in front with inferior force, or go into winter quarters, trusting to the doubtful fidelity of the Gauls.
Battle of the Trasimene Lake.
It has been well said, “that it was the misfortune of Rome's double magistracy when both consuls were present on the field.” Owing to a wound which Scipio had received, the command devolved upon Sempronius, who, eager for distinction, could not resist the provocations of Hannibal to bring on a battle. In one of the skirmishes the Roman cavalry and light infantry were enticed by the flying Numidians across a swollen stream, and suddenly found themselves before the entire Punic army. The whole Roman force hurried across the stream to support the vanguard. A battle took place on the Trasimene Lake, in which the Romans were sorely beaten, but ten thousand infantry cut their way through the masses of the enemy, and reached the fortress of Placentia, where they were joined by other bands. After this success, which gave Hannibal all of [pg 444] Northern Italy, his army, suffering from fatigue and disease, retired into winter quarters. He now had lost all his elephants but one. The remains of the Roman army passed the winter in the fortresses of Placentia and Cremona.
Hannibal in Italy.
The next spring, the Romans, under Flaminius, took the field, with four legions, to command the great northern and eastern roads, and the passes of the Appenines. But Hannibal, knowing that Rome was only vulnerable at the heart, rapidly changed his base, crossed the Appenines at an undefended pass, and advanced, by the lower Arno, into Etruria, while Flaminius was watching by the upper course of that stream. Flaminius was a mere party leader and demagogue, and was not the man for such a crisis, for Hannibal was allowed to pass by him, and reach Fæsulæ unobstructed. The Romans prepared themselves for the worst, broke down the bridges over the Tiber, and nominated Quintus Fabius Maximus dictator.