Plutarch's Lives, Volume 1 (of 4)

by Plutarch

XI. Minucius thought all this to be merely the expression of the old man's jealousy. He took his allotted troops, and encamped apart from him. Hannibal was not ignorant of what was passing, and watched all their movements narrowly.

There was a hill between the two armies, which it was not difficult to take, which when taken would afford an army a safe position, and one well supplied with necessaries. The plain by which it was surrounded appeared to be perfectly smooth, but was nevertheless intersected with ditches and other hollow depressions. On this account Hannibal would not take the hill, although he could easily have done so, but preferred to leave it untouched, in order to draw the enemy into fighting for its possession. But as soon as he saw Fabius separated from Minucius, he placed during the night some troops in the depressions and hollows which we have mentioned, and at daybreak sent a few men to take the hill, in order to draw Minucius into fighting for it, in which he succeeded. Minucius first sent out his light troops, then his cavalry, and finally, seeing that Hannibal was reinforcing the troops on the hill, he came down with his entire force. He fought stoutly, and held his own against the soldiers on the hill, who shot their missiles at him; when Hannibal, seeing him thoroughly deceived, and offering an unprotected flank to the troops in the ambush, gave them the signal to charge. Upon this they attacked the Romans from all sides, rushing upon them with loud shouts, cutting off the rearmost men, and throwing the whole army into confusion and panic. Minucius himself lost heart and kept glancing first at one and then at another of his officers, none of whom ventured to stand their ground, but betook themselves in a confused mass to running away, a proceeding which brought them no safety, for the Numidian horsemen, as the day was now theirs, scoured the plain, encompassing the fugitives, and cut off all stragglers.

XII. Fabius had carefully watched the Romans, and saw in what danger they were. Conscious, it would seem, of what was going to happen, he had kept his troops under arms, and gained his information of what was going on, not from the reports of scouts, but from his own eyesight, from a convenient height outside of his camp. As soon as he saw the army surrounded and panic-stricken, and heard the cries of the Romans, who no longer fought, but were overcome by terror, and betaking themselves to flight, he smote his thigh and with a deep sigh, said to his friends, "By Hercules, now Minucius has ruined himself, quicker than I expected, and yet slower than his manoeuvres warranted." Having given orders to carry out the standards as quickly as possible, and for the whole army to follow, he said aloud, "My men, hurry on your march: think of Marcus Minucius; he is a brave man and loves his country. If he has made any mistake in his haste to drive out the enemy, we will blame him for that at another time." The appearance of Fabius scared and drove back the Numidians, who were slaughtering the fugitives in the plain; next he bore against those who were attacking the Roman rear, slaying all he met, though most of them, before they were cut off and treated as they had treated the Romans, betook themselves to flight. Hannibal seeing that the fortune of the battle was changed, and how Fabius himself, with a strength beyond his years, was forcing his way through the thickest battle up the hill to reach Minucius, withdrew his troops, and, sounding a retreat, led them back into his entrenched camp, affording a most seasonable relief to the Romans. It is said that Hannibal as he retired, spoke jokingly about Fabius to his friends in the words, "Did I not often warn you that the dark cloud which has so long brooded on the mountain tops, would at last break upon us with blasts of hail and storm?"

XIII. After the battle Fabius collected the spoils of such of the enemy as were slain, and drew off his forces without letting fall a single boastful or offensive expression about his colleague. But Minucius assembled his own troops, and thus addressed them, "My fellow-soldiers, it is beyond human skill to make no mistakes in matters of importance, but it is the part of a man of courage and sense to use his mistakes as warnings for the future. I myself confess that I have little fault to find with Fortune, and great reason to thank her; for in the space of one day I have learned what I never knew in all my previous life: that is, that I am not able to command others, but myself require a commander, and I have no ambition to conquer a man by whom it is more glorious to be defeated. The dictator is your leader in everything except in this, that I will lead you to express your thankfulness to him, by being the first to offer myself to him as an example of obedience and willingness to carry out his orders." After these words he ordered the eagles to be raised aloft and all the soldiers to follow them to the camp of Fabius. On entering it, he proceeded to the General's tent, to the surprise and wonderment of all. When Fabius was come out, he placed his standards in the ground before him, and himself addressed him as father in a loud voice, while his soldiers greeted those of Fabius by the name of their Patrons, which is the name by which freed men address those who have set them free. Silence being enforced, Minucius said: "Dictator, you have won two victories to-day, for you have conquered Hannibal by your bravery, and your colleague by your kindness and your generalship. By the one you have saved our lives, and by the other you have taught us our duty, for we have been disgracefully defeated by Hannibal, but beneficially and honourably by you. I call you my excellent father, having no more honourable appellation to bestow, since I owe a greater debt of gratitude to you than to him who begot me. To him I merely owe my single life, but to you I owe not only that but the lives of all my men." After these words he embraced Fabius, and the soldiers followed his example, embracing and kissing one another, so that the camp was full of joy and of most blessed tears.

XIV. After this, Fabius laid down his office, and consuls were again elected. Those who were first elected followed the defensive policy of Fabius, avoiding pitched battles with Hannibal, but reinforcing the allies and preventing defections. But when Terentius Varro was made consul, a man of low birth, but notorious for his rash temper and his popularity with the people, he made no secret, in his inexperience and self-confidence, of his intention of risking everything on one cast. He was always reiterating in his public speeches that under such generals as Fabius the war made no progress, whereas he would conquer the enemy the first day he saw him. By means of these boastful speeches he enrolled as soldiers such a multitude as the Romans had never before had at their disposal in any war, for there collected for the battle eighty-eight thousand men. This caused great disquietude to Fabius and other sensible Romans, who feared that if so many of the youth of Rome were cut off, the city would never recover from the blow. They addressed themselves therefore to the other consul, Paulus Aemilius, a man of great experience in war, but disagreeable to the people and afraid of them because he had once been fined by them. Fabius encouraged him to attempt to hold the other consul's rashness in check, pointing out that he would have to fight for his country's safety with Terentius Varro no less than with Hannibal. Varro, he said, will hasten to engage because he does not know his own strength, and Hannibal will do so because he knows his own weakness. "I myself, Paulus," said he, "am more to be believed than Varro as to the condition of Hannibal's affairs, and I am sure that if no battle takes place with him for a year, he will either perish in this country or be compelled to quit it; because even now, when he seems to be victorious and carrying all before him, not one of his enemies have come over to his side, while scarcely a third of the force which he brought from home is now surviving." It is said that Paulus answered as follows: "For my own part, Fabius, it is better for me to fall by the spears of the enemy than be again condemned by the votes of my own countrymen; but if public affairs are indeed in this critical situation, I will endeavour rather to approve myself a good general to you than to all those who are urging me to the opposite course." With this determination Paulus began the campaign.

XV. Varro induced his colleague to adopt the system of each consul holding the chief command on alternate days. He proceeded to encamp near Hannibal on the banks of the river Aufidus, close to the village of Cannae. At daybreak he showed the signal of battle (a red tunic displayed over the General's tent), so that the Carthaginians were at first disheartened at the daring of the consul and the great number of his troops, more than twice that of their own army. Hannibal ordered his soldiers to get under arms, and himself rode with a few others to a rising ground, from which he viewed the enemy, who were already forming their ranks. When one Gisco, a man of his own rank, said to him that the numbers of the enemy were wonderful, Hannibal with a serious air replied, "Another circumstance much more wonderful than this has escaped your notice, Gisco." When Gisco asked what it might be, Hannibal answered, "It is, that among all those men before you there is not one named Gisco." At this unexpected answer they all began to laugh, and as they came down the hill they kept telling this joke to all whom they met, so that the laugh became universal, and Hannibal's staff was quite overpowered with merriment. The Carthaginian soldiers seeing this took courage, thinking that their General must be in a position to despise his enemy if he could thus laugh and jest in the presence of danger.

XVI. In the battle Hannibal employed several stratagems: first, in securing the advantage of position, by getting the wind at his back, for it blew a hurricane, raising a harsh dust from the sandy plains, which rose over the Carthaginians and blew in the faces of the Romans, throwing them into confusion. Secondly, in his disposition of his forces he showed great skill. The best troops were placed on the wings, and the centre, which was composed of the worst, was made to project far beyond the rest of the line. The troops on each wing were told that when the Romans had driven in this part of the line and were so become partly enclosed, that each wing must turn inwards, and attack them in the flank and rear and endeavour to surround them. This was the cause of the greatest slaughter; for when the centre gave way, and made room for the pursuing Romans, Hannibal's line assumed a crescent form, and the commanders of the select battalions charging from the right and left of the Romans attacked them in flank, destroying every man except such as escaped being surrounded. It is related that a similar disaster befel the Roman cavalry. The horse of Paulus was wounded, and threw its rider, upon which man after man of his staff dismounted and came to help the consul on foot. The cavalry, seeing this, took it for a general order to dismount, and at once attacked the enemy on foot. Hannibal, seeing this, said, "I am better pleased at this than if he had handed them over to me bound hand and foot." This anecdote is found in those writers who have described the incidents of the battle in detail. Of the consuls, Varro escaped with a few followers to Venusia. Paulus, in the whirling eddies of the rout, covered with darts which still stuck in his wounds, and overwhelmed with sorrow at the defeat, sat down on a stone to await his death at the hands of the enemy. The blood with which his face and head were covered made it hard for any one to recognise him; but even his own friends and servants passed him by, taking no heed of him. Only Cornelius Lentulus, a young patrician, saw and recognised him. Dismounting from his horse and leading it up to him he begged him to take it and preserve his life, at a time when the State especially needed a wise ruler. But he refused, and forced the youth, in spite of his tears, to remount his horse. He then took him by the hand, saying, "Lentulus, tell Fabius Maximus, and bear witness yourself, that Paulus Aemilius followed his instructions to the last, and departed from nothing of what was agreed upon between us; but he was vanquished first by Varro, and secondly by Hannibal." Having given Lentulus these instructions he sent him away, and flinging himself on to the enemy's swords perished. In that battle it is reckoned that fifty thousand Romans fell, and four thousand were taken prisoners, besides not less than ten thousand who were taken after the battle in the camps of the two consuls.

XVII. After this immense success, Hannibal was urged by his friends to follow up his victory and enter Rome with the fugitives, promising that five days thereafter he should sup in the Capitol. It is not easy to say what reasons could have deterred him from doing so, and it seems rather as if some divinity prevented his march, and inspired him with the dilatory and timid policy which he followed. It is said that the Carthaginian, Barca, said to him, "You know how to win a victory, but do not know how to use one." Yet so great a change was effected by this victory that he, who before it had not possessed a single city, market, or harbour in Italy, and had to obtain his provisions with the utmost difficulty by plunder, having no regular base of operations, but merely wandering about with his army as though carrying on brigandage on a large scale, now saw nearly the whole of Italy at his feet. Some of the largest and most powerful States came over to him of their own accord, and he attacked and took Capua, the most important city next to Rome itself.

It would appear that the saying of Euripides, that "adversity tries our friends," applies also to good generals. That which before this battle was called Fabius's cowardice and remissness, was now regarded as more than human sagacity, and a foresight so wonderful as to be beyond belief. Rome at once centred her last hopes upon Fabius, taking refuge in his wisdom as men take sanctuary at an altar, believing his discretion to be the chief cause of her surviving this present crisis, even as in the old Gaulish troubles. For though he had been so cautious and backward at a time when there seemed to be no imminent danger, yet now when every one was giving way to useless grief and lamentation, he alone walked through the streets at a calm pace, with a composed countenance and kindly voice, stopped all womanish wailings and assemblies in public to lament their losses, persuaded the Senate to meet, and gave fresh courage to the magistrates, being really himself the moving spirit and strength of the State, which looked to him alone to command it.

XVIII. He placed guards at the gates to prevent the mob from quitting the city, and regulated the period of mourning, bidding every man mourn for thirty days in his own house, after which all signs of mourning were to be put away. As the feast of Ceres fell during those days, it was thought better to omit both the sacrifices and the processions than to have them marred by the consciousness of their misfortune, which would be painfully evident in the small number of worshippers and their downcast looks. However, everything that the soothsayers commanded to appease the anger of the gods and to expiate prodigies was carried out. Fabius Pictor, a relative of the great Fabius, was sent to Delphi, and of two of the Vestal virgins who were found to have been seduced, one was buried alive, as is the usual custom, while the other died by her own hand. Especially admirable was the spirit and the calm composure of the city when the consul Varro returned after his flight. He came humbled to the dust, as a man would who had been the cause of a terrible disaster, but at the gate the Senate and all the people went out to greet him. The chief men and the magistrates, amongst whom was Fabius, having obtained silence, spoke in praise of him "because he had not despaired of the State after such a calamity, but had come back to undertake the conduct of affairs and do what he could for his countrymen as one who thought they might yet be saved."