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By no means so great an alacrity prevailed among the Romans, who, in addition to other causes, were also alarmed by recent prodigies; for both a wolf had entered the camp, and having torn those who met him, had escaped unhurt; and a swarm of bees had settled on a tree overhanging the general's tent. After these prodigies were expiated, Scipio having set out with his cavalry and light-armed spearmen towards the camp of the enemy, to observe from a near point their forces, how numerous, and of what description they were, falls in with Hannibal, who had himself also advanced with his cavalry to explore the circumjacent country: neither at first perceived the other, but the dust arising from the trampling of so many men and horses soon gave the signal of approaching enemies. Both armies halted, and were preparing themselves for battle. Scipio places his spearmen and Gallic cavalry in front; the Romans and what force of allies he had with him, in reserve. Hannibal receives the horsemen who rode with the rein in the centre, and strengthens his wings with Numidians. When the shout was scarcely raised, the spearmen fled among the reserve to the second line: there was then a contest of the cavalry, for some time doubtful; but afterwards, on account of the foot soldiers, who were intermingled, causing confusion among the horses, many of the riders falling off from their horses, or leaping down where they saw their friends surrounded and hard pressed, the battle for the most part came to be fought on foot; until the Numidians, who were in the wings, having made a small circuit, showed themselves on the rear. That alarm dismayed the Romans, and the wound of the consul, and the danger to his life, warded off by the interposition of his son, then just arriving at the age of puberty, augmented their fears. This youth will be found to be the same to whom the glory of finishing this war belongs, and to whom the name of Africanus was given, on account of his splendid victory over Hannibal and the Carthaginians. The flight, however, of the spearmen, whom the Numidians attacked first, was the most disorderly. The rest of the cavalry, in a close body, protecting, not only with their arms, but also with their bodies, the consul, whom they had received into the midst of them, brought him back to the camp without any where giving way in disorder or precipitation. Coelius attributes the honour of saving the consul to a slave, by nation a Ligurian. I indeed should rather wish that the account about the son was true, which also most authors have transmitted, and the report of which has generally obtained credit.
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This was the first battle with Hannibal; from which it clearly appeared that the Carthaginian was superior in cavalry; and on that account, that open plains, such as lie between the Po and the Alps, were not suited to the Romans for carrying on the war. On the following night, therefore, the soldiers being ordered to prepare their baggage in silence, the camp broke up from the Ticinus, and they hastened to the Po, in order that the rafts by which the consul had formed a bridge over the river, being not yet loosened, he might lead his forces across without disturbance or pursuit of the enemy. They arrived at Placentia before Hannibal had ascertained that they had set out from the Ticinus. He took, however, six hundred of those who loitered on the farther bank, who were slowly unfastening the raft; but he was not able to pass the bridge, as the whole raft floated down the stream as soon as the ends were unfastened. Coelius relates that Mago, with the cavalry and Spanish infantry, immediately swam the river; and that Hannibal himself led the army across by fords higher up the Po, the elephants being opposed to the stream in a line to break the force of the current. These accounts can scarcely gain credit with those who are acquainted with that river; for it is neither probable that the cavalry could bear up against the great violence of the stream, without losing their arms or horses, even supposing that inflated bags of leather had transported all the Spaniards; and the fords of the Po, by which an army encumbered with baggage could pass, must have been sought by a circuit of many days' march. Those authors are more credited by me, who relate that in the course of two days a place was with difficulty found fit for forming a bridge of rafts across the river, and that by this way the light-armed Spanish cavalry was sent forward with Mago. Whilst Hannibal, delaying beside the river to give audience to the embassies of the Gauls, conveys over the heavy-armed forces of infantry, in the mean time Mago and the cavalry proceed towards the enemy at Placentia one day's journey after crossing the river. Hannibal, a few days after, fortified his camp six miles from Placentia, and on the following day, having drawn up his line of battle in sight of the enemy, gave them an opportunity of fighting.
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On the following night a slaughter was made in the Roman camp by the auxiliary Gauls, which appeared greater from the tumult than it proved in reality. Two thousand infantry and two hundred horse, having killed the guards at the gates, desert to Hannibal; whom the Carthaginians having addressed kindly, and excited by the hope of great rewards, sent each to several states to gain over the minds of their countrymen. Scipio, thinking that that slaughter was a signal for the revolt of all the Gauls, and that, contaminated with the guilt of that affair, they would rush to arms as if a frenzy had been sent among them, though he was still suffering severely from his wound, yet setting out for the river Trebia at the fourth watch of the following night with his army in silence, he removes his camp to higher ground and hills more embarrassing to the cavalry. He escaped observation less than at the Ticinus: and Hannibal, having despatched first the Numidians and then all the cavalry, would have thrown the rear at least into great confusion, had not the Numidians, through anxiety for booty, turned aside into the deserted Roman camp. There whilst, closely examining every part of the camp, they waste time, with no sufficient reward for the delay, the enemy escaped out of their hands; and when they saw the Romans already across the Trebia, and measuring out their camp, they kill a few of the loiterers intercepted on that side of the river. Scipio being unable to endure any longer the irritation of his wound, caused by the roughness of the road, and thinking that he ought to wait for his colleague, (for he had now heard that he was recalled from Sicily,) fortified a space of chosen ground, which, adjoining the river, seemed safest for a stationary camp. When Hannibal had encamped not far from thence, being as much elated with the victory of his cavalry, as anxious on account of the scarcity which every day assailed him more severely, marching as he did through the territory of the enemy, and supplies being no where provided, he sends to the village of Clastidium, where the Romans had collected a great stock of corn. There, whilst they were preparing for an assault, a hope of the town being betrayed to them was held out: Dasius, a Brundusian, the governor of the garrison, having been corrupted for four hundred pieces of gold, (no great bribe truly,) Clastidium is surrendered to Hannibal. It served as a granary for the Carthaginians while they lay at the Trebia. No cruelty was used towards the prisoners of the surrendered garrison, in order that a character for clemency might be acquired at the commencement of his proceedings.
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