The History of Rome, Books 09 to 26

by Livy

This is the celebrated battle at the Trasimenus, and recorded among the few disasters of the Roman people. Fifteen thousand Romans were slain in the battle. Ten thousand, who had been scattered in the flight through all Etruria, returned to the city by different roads. One thousand five hundred of the enemy perished in the battle; many on both sides died afterwards of their wounds. The carnage on both sides is related, by some authors, to have been many times greater. I, besides that I would relate nothing drawn from a worthless source, to which the minds of historians generally incline too much, have as my chief authority Fabius, who was contemporary with the events of this war. Such of the captives as belonged to the Latin confederacy being dismissed without ransom, and the Romans thrown into chains, Hannibal ordered the bodies of his own men to be gathered from the heaps of the enemy, and buried: the body of Flaminius too, which was searched for with great diligence for burial, he could not find. On the first intelligence of this defeat at Rome, a concourse of the people, dismayed and terrified, took place in the forum. The matrons, wandering through the streets, ask all they meet, what sudden disaster was reported? what was the fate of the army? And when the multitude, like a full assembly, having directed their course to the comitium and senate-house, were calling upon the magistrates, at length, a little before sunset, Marcus Pomponius, the praetor, declares, "We have been defeated in a great battle;" and though nothing more definite was heard from him, yet, full of the rumours which they had caught one from another, they carry back to their homes intelligence, that the consul, with a great part of his troops, was slain; that a few only survived, and these either widely dispersed in flight through Etruria, or else captured by the enemy. As many as had been the calamities of the vanquished army, into so many anxieties were the minds of those distracted whose relations had served under Flaminius, and who were uninformed of what had been the fate of their friends, nor does any one know certainly what he should either hope or fear. During the next and several successive days, a greater number of women almost than men stood at the gates, waiting either for some one of their friends or for intelligence of them, surrounding and earnestly interrogating those they met: nor could they be torn away from those they knew especially, until they had regularly inquired into every thing. Then as they retired from the informants you might discern their various expressions of countenance according as intelligence, pleasing or sad, was announced to each; and those who congratulated or condoled on their return home. The joy and grief of the women were especially manifested. They report that one, suddenly meeting her son, who had returned safe, expired at the very door before his face--that another, who sat grieving at her house at the falsely reported death of her son, became a corpse, from excessive joy, at the first sight of him on his return. The praetors detained the senators in the house for several days from sunrise to sunset, deliberating under whose conduct and by what forces, the victorious Carthaginians could be opposed.

8

Before their plans were sufficiently determined another unexpected defeat is reported: four thousand horse, sent under the conduct of C. Centenius, propraetor, by Servilius to his colleague, were cut off by Hannibal in Umbria, to which place, on hearing of the battle at Trasimenus, they had turned their course. The report of this event variously affected the people. Some, having their minds preoccupied with heavier grief, considered the recent loss of cavalry trifling, in comparison with their former losses; others did not estimate what had occurred by itself, but considered that, as in a body already labouring under disease, a slight cause would be felt more violently than a more powerful one in a robust constitution, so whatever adverse event befell the state in its then sickly and impaired condition, ought to be estimated, not by the magnitude of the event itself, but with reference to its exhausted strength, which could endure nothing that could oppress it. The state therefore took refuge in a remedy for a long time before neither wanted nor employed, the appointment of a dictator, and because the consul was absent, by whom alone it appeared he could be nominated, and because neither message nor letter could easily be sent to him through the country occupied by Punic troops, and because the people could not appoint a dictator, which had never been done to that day, the people created Quintus Fabius Maximus pro dictator, and Marcus Minucius Rufus master of the horse. To them the senate assigned the task of strengthening the walls and towers of the city, of placing guards in such quarters as seemed good, and breaking down the bridges of the river, considering that they must now fight at home in defence of their city, since they were unable to protect Italy.

9

Hannibal, marching directly through Umbria, arrived at Spoletum, thence, having completely devastated the adjoining country, and commenced an assault upon the city, having been repulsed with great loss and conjecturing from the strength of this one colony, which had been not very successfully attacked, what was the size of the city of Rome, turned aside into the territory of Picenum, which abounded not only with every species of grain, but was stored with booty, which his rapacious and needy troops eagerly seized. There he continued encamped for several days, and his soldiers were refreshed, who had been enfeebled by winter marches and marshy ground, and with a battle more successful in its result than light or easy. When sufficient time for rest had been granted for soldiers delighting more in plunder and devastation than ease and repose, setting out, he lays waste the territories of Pretutia and Hadria, then of the Marsi, the Marrucini, and the Peligni, and the contiguous region of Apulia around Arpi and Luceria. Cneius Servilius, the consul, having fought some slight battles with the Gauls, and taken one inconsiderable town, when he heard of the defeat of his colleague and the army, alarmed now for the walls of the capital, marched towards the city, that he might not be absent at so extreme a crisis. Quintus Fabius Maximus, a second time dictator, assembled the senate the very day he entered on his office; and commencing with what related to the gods, after he had distinctly proved to the fathers, that Caius Flaminius had erred more from neglect of the ceremonies and auspices than from temerity and want of judgment, and that the gods themselves should be consulted as to what were the expiations of their anger, he obtained a resolution that the decemviri should be ordered to inspect the Sibylline books, which is rarely decreed, except when some horrid prodigies were announced. Having inspected the prophetic books, they reported, that the vow which was made to Mars on account of this war, not having been regularly fulfilled, must be performed afresh and more fully; that the great games must be vowed to Jupiter, temples to Venus Erycina and Mens; that a supplication and lectisternium must be made, and a sacred spring vowed, if the war should proceed favourably and the state continue the condition it was in before the war. Since the management of the war would occupy Fabius, the senate orders Marcus Aemilius, the praetor, to see that all these things are done in good time, according to the directions of the college of pontiffs.

10

These decrees of the senate having been passed, Lucius Cornelius Lentulus, pontifex maximus, the college of praetors consulting with him, gives his opinion that, first of all, the people should be consulted respecting a sacred spring: that it could not be without the order of the people. The people having been asked according to this form: Do ye will and order that this thing should be performed in this manner? If the republic of the Roman people, the Quirites, shall be safe and preserved as I wish it may, from these wars for the next five years, (the war which is between the Roman people and the Carthaginian, and the wars which are with the Cisalpine Gauls), the Roman people, the Quirites, shall present whatsoever the spring shall produce from herds of swine, sheep, goats, oxen and which shall not have been consecrated, to be sacrificed to Jupiter, from the day which the senate and people shall appoint. Let him who shall make an offering do it when he please, and in what manner he please; in whatsoever manner he does it, let it be considered duly done. If that which ought to be sacrificed die, let it be unconsecrated, and let no guilt attach; if any one unwittingly wound or kill it, let it be no injury to him; if any one shall steal it, let no guilt attach to the people or to him from whom it was stolen; if any one shall unwittingly offer it on a forbidden day, let it be esteemed duly offered; also whether by night or day, whether slave or free-man perform it. If the senate and people shall order it to be offered sooner than any person shall offer it, let the people being acquitted of it be free. On the same account great games were vowed, at an expense of three hundred and thirty-three thousand three hundred and thirty-three asses and a third; moreover, it was decreed that sacrifice should be done to Jupiter with three hundred oxen, to many other deities with white oxen and the other victims. The vows being duly made, a supplication was proclaimed; and not only the inhabitants of the city went with their wives and children, but such of the rustics also as, possessing any property themselves, were interested in the welfare of the state. Then a lectisternium was celebrated for three days, the decemviri for sacred things superintending. Six couches were seen, for Jupiter and Juno one, for Neptune and Minerva another, for Mars and Venus a third, for Apollo and Diana a fourth, for Vulcan and Vesta a fifth, for Mercury and Ceres a sixth. Then temples were vowed. To Venus Erycina, Quintus Fabius Maximus vowed a temple; for so it was delivered from the prophetic books, that he should vow it who held the highest authority in the state. Titus Otacilius, the praetor vowed a temple to Mens.