Ancient Rome: The Lives of Great Men

by Mary Agnes Hamilton

On the ninth day they reached the crest of the Alps, pushing on over trackless steeps, and sometimes compelled to retrace their steps owing to the treachery of the guides or, where they were not trusted, to the random choice of some route through a valley. For two days they encamped on the top, and the soldiers, exhausted by marching and fighting, were allowed to rest. A number of baggage animals, too, that had slipped on the rocks, reached the camp by following the tracks of the army. Tired as the men were, and wearied by so many hardships, a further dismay was caused by a fall of snow, which the setting of the Pleiades brought with it. They started again at dawn, and the army was slowly advancing through ways blocked with snow, listlessness and despair visible on the faces of all, when Hannibal hurried in front of his men and ordered them to stop on a ridge commanding a wide and distant view, from which he pointed out Italy and the plains of the Po lying at the foot of the Alps. ‘Here’, he exclaimed, ‘you are scaling the walls, not merely of Italy, but of Rome; the rest of the way will be smooth and sloping; one or at most two battles will make you masters of the fortress and capital of Italy.’

Livy, xxi. 35. 4-9.

Just across the river Ticinus a Roman army came to meet him under Cornelius Scipio (218). It was defeated; a month later the other consul, Sempronius, was out-generalled and defeated on the river Trebia. These two victories meant that Italy north of the Po was in Hannibal’s hands. Moreover the Gauls had risen and joined him. Hannibal at once set to work training them, and filling the thinned ranks of his own army with fresh men. His hope was that not only the Gauls—poor allies, for they could never be trusted—but the Italians generally would rise and join him. He counted on their being eager to shake off the yoke of Rome.

GREAT ST. BERNARD PASS

In Rome men were anxious and excited, but not dismayed. There were two main parties among the people and among the soldiers, led by men of very differing type. On one side stood those who believed that the way to treat Hannibal was by a waiting game. If Rome stood fast they could wear him out as they had worn Pyrrhus out. He was far away from his base of supplies. His new troops could not be so good as his old. The Italians would not rise to help him in any great numbers. The centre of Italy was safe, anyhow. So long as he stayed in the north the south would not rise; if he moved south the Gauls would soon tire of fighting. The leader of this party was Quintus Fabius, a member of one of the proudest Roman families, and a man of what was already beginning to be called the old school. That the common people might suffer if the war dragged out for years did not disturb him much.

On the other side stood men like Caius Flaminius and Terentius Varro, younger both in years and in mind, eager, impatient for action.

Caius Flaminius had opposed Fabius before. He had been elected a tribune of the people—one of those magistrates appointed at the time of Coriolanus to speak for them. He was a man of great ability and warm enthusiasm, a man with more imagination than Fabius. He was as truly devoted to his country, but to his mind the greatness of Rome depended not only on conquest and fine laws and honesty and honour in its leading citizens. These were all good things. But there was another question to ask. Were the ordinary common people happy? Fifteen years before Hannibal’s invasion, Flaminius had brought in a Bill intended to help the poorer Romans by making land settlements for small cultivators in the north. Fabius and most of the old patricians were hot against this. Fabius said to give land to the poor people of Rome encouraged men who could find work in the city but did not take the trouble. They would not cultivate the land if they got it: they would sell it and come back for more. Flaminius denied this. There were men in numbers, he said, men who had served in the armies, who wanted to work but could not do it because they could not get land. To put more men on the land would enrich the whole country. His law was finally carried. Another work done by Flaminius stands to this day as a memorial of him. It, too, shows the imagination of the man. This is the Via Flaminia, a magnificent road that ran right across the Apennine Mountains from sea to sea. It took twenty years to build, but when built it stood for centuries, useful in time of war, even more useful in time of peace.

Flaminius, already popular on account of these achievements, dreamed of doing yet more striking things as a soldier. This was his danger. In the year after the battle of the Trebia he was put in command of one of the two new Roman armies. He was all for a bold policy and believed that he could defeat Hannibal and thus add military glory to himself. He did not know Hannibal. Hannibal, however, had made it his business to know his enemies; he did know what Flaminius was like and used that knowledge for his undoing. Flaminius’s views and character are given by Livy.