Plutarch's Lives, Volume 2 (of 4)

by Plutarch

XXV. When Marcellus's colleague came to Rome from Sicily, he wished to name another person dictator, and, that he might not be forced to act against his inclination, he sailed away by night back to Sicily. Under these circumstances the people nominated Quintus Fulvius dictator, and the Senate wrote to Marcellus bidding him vote for this person. He did so, confirming the choice of the people, and was himself elected proconsul for the following year. After a conference with Fabius Maximus, at which it was arranged that the latter should make an attempt on Tarentum, while Marcellus should constantly engage Hannibal and so prevent his affording the town any assistance, he set out, and came upon Hannibal near Canusium. Hannibal frequently shifted his camp, and tried to avoid a battle, but Marcellus was not to be shaken off, and at length attacked his position, and by skirmishing provoked him to fight. Marcellus sustained his attack, and the battle was put an end to by night. Next morning his troops were again beheld under arms, so that Hannibal in great anxiety called together the Carthaginians and besought them to fight as they had never done before. "You see," said he, "that even after our great victories, we cannot rest in peace, unless we drive away this fellow." The armies met; and Marcellus seems to have lost the day by an unseasonable manœuvre. His right wing was suffering, and he ordered up one of the legions to support it; but this change produced confusion in the ranks, and gave the victory to the enemy, with a loss of two thousand seven hundred men to the Romans. Marcellus, after retiring to his fortified camp, called together his soldiers, and reproached them, saying that he saw before him the arms and bodies of many Romans, but not one true Roman. They begged forgiveness, but he answered that he could not forgive them when defeated, but would forgive them if victorious. On the morrow he said that he would renew the battle, in order that the Romans might hear of their victory before they heard of their defeat. After these words he gave orders that the troops which had given way should be supplied with rations of barley instead of corn; which had such an effect upon them, that although many were suffering from the hurts in the battle, yet, there was not one who did not suffer more from the reproaches of Marcellus than from his wounds.

XXVI. At daybreak the scarlet robe, the well known signal of battle, was displayed from the general's tent. The disgraced troops, at their own request, were placed in the first rank; the rest of the army followed under their officers. Hannibal hearing of this exclaimed: "Hercules! What can one do with a man who knows not how to bear either good or bad fortune. This is the only general who, when victorious allows his foe no rest, and when defeated takes none himself. We shall always, it seems, have to be fighting this man, who is equally excited to attack by his confidence when victor, and his shame when vanquished."

In the battle the men on each side were fighting on equal terms, when Hannibal ordered his elephants to be brought into the front rank and to attack the Roman lines. Great tumult and disturbance was produced by this, but one of the tribunes, by name Flavius, seizing a standard, stood his ground, and struck the first elephant with the spiked end of the staff, till he forced him to turn back. He then attacked the next one, and those that followed. Marcellus, seeing this, ordered his cavalry to ride as fast as they could to the scene of the confusion and complete the rout of the enemy. They charged briskly and pursued the flying Carthaginians, cutting them down up to their very camp. Great havoc was wrought by the wounded elephants among them; and in all, over eight thousand are said to have perished. Of the Roman force three thousand were killed, and almost all the survivors were wounded, which circumstance enabled Hannibal to leave his camp by night unmolested, and remove himself from the neighbourhood of Marcellus; for Marcellus could not pursue, because of the number of wounded, but marched in a leisurely manner towards Campania, and passed the summer at Sinuessa, recruiting the health of his soldiers.

XXVII. Hannibal, after he had thus torn himself free from Marcellus, sent his army to plunder Italy as recklessly as though it were disbanded; and in Rome Marcellus was ill spoken of. His enemies induced Publius Bibulus, a clever and violent partisan, to attack him. This man frequently addressed assemblies of the people and urged them to transfer the command to another general, since "Marcellus," he said, "after a little sparring with the enemy had gone to the hot baths to refresh himself as if after a gymnastic contest." Marcellus, hearing of this, left the army in charge of his legates, and went to Rome to clear his reputation from these slanders; but, in consequence of them he found that he was to undergo a trial. A day was fixed; the people assembled in the Circus Flaminius; Bibulus rose and impeached him. Marcellus spoke shortly and simply in his own defence, but the highest and noblest citizens spoke at great length in his praise, calling on the people not to show themselves by their vote worse judges of war than Hannibal, who was always as eager to avoid fighting with Marcellus, as he was to fight with other generals. After these speeches had been delivered the accuser was proved to be so far wrong in his impeachment, that Marcellus was not only honourably acquitted, but actually elected consul for the fifth time.

XXVIII. On assuming his office, he first put down an insurrectionary movement in Etruria, by visiting the various towns and using conciliatory language; after this, he wished to consecrate a temple, which he had built out of the spoils of Sicily, to Glory and Valour, but being prevented by the priests on the ground that two gods could not be included in one temple, he began to build another one, being very much vexed at the opposition he encountered, but influenced by omens: for he was disturbed at this time by many portentous occurrences, such as several temples being struck by lightning, and the gold in the temple of Jupiter being gnawed by the mice. It was also reported that an ox had spoken with a human voice, and that a child had been born with the head of an elephant—so the priests kept him in Rome to conduct the expiatory rites and atonements for these, though he was fretting and eager to take the field; for no man ever was so passionately desirous of anything as he was to measure himself with Hannibal in battle. His one dream by night, his only talk to his friends and colleagues, his sole prayer to the gods was that he might meet Hannibal in a fair field. I believe that he would most willingly have enclosed both armies within a wall or palisade, and there have fought out the quarrel. Had it not been that he was now loaded with honours, and had given proofs of his superiority in wisdom and conduct to any other general, men would have said that he showed a more boyish ambition than befitted a man of his age; for he was over sixty years old when he entered upon his fifth consulship.

XXIX. However, when he had completed the necessary sacrifices and purifications enjoined by the soothsayers, he took the field with his colleague, and harassed Hannibal much in the country between the towns of Bantia and Venusia. Hannibal declined battle, but, learning that a force was detached from the Roman army to attack the Epizephyrian Lokrians, he laid an ambuscade on the mountain near Petelia, and defeated them with a loss of two thousand five hundred men. This excited Marcellus, and he led his forces nearer to those of Hannibal. There was between the two camps a hill of some strength as a military post, overgrown with wood. Its sloping sides afforded a view of either camp, and upon them appeared the sources of several mountain streams.

The Romans were surprised at Hannibal, that, having had the first choice of so excellent a position as this, he had not occupied it, but left it to the enemy. It seems that he indeed thought it a good place to encamp in, but much better to lay an ambuscade in; and, wishing to use it rather for this purpose, he filled the woods and glens with javelin-men and spearmen, persuaded that the place itself would, from its excellent qualities, attract the Romans into it. Nor was he deceived in this expectation; for at once there was much talk in the Roman army about the necessity of occupying the hill, and men pointed out the advantages which would be gained over the enemy by encamping on it, or if necessary, by fortifying it. Now Marcellus determined to ride forward with a few horsemen and reconnoitre it, so he sent for a soothsayer and offered sacrifice. When the first victim was slain, the soothsayer showed him that the liver had no head. On sacrificing for the second time the head appeared of unusual size, while all the other organs were excellent, and this seemed to set at rest the fear which had been caused by the former. Yet the soothsayers said that they were even more disturbed and alarmed at this; for when after very bad and menacing victims unusually excellent ones appear, the sudden change is itself suspicious. But

"Not fire, not walls of iron can hinder fate,"

as Pindar says. Marcellus rode forth with his colleague Crispinus and his son, who was military tribune, in all two hundred and twenty horsemen. Of these none were Romans; they were Etruscans, with the exception of twenty men from Fregellæ, who had given constant proofs of their courage and devotion to Marcellus. On the overhanging crest of the woody hill, a man, unseen by the Romans, was watching their army. He signalled to the men in ambush what was going on, so that they permitted Marcellus to ride close to them, and then suddenly burst out upon him, and surrounding his little force on all sides, struck and threw their darts, pursued such as ran away, and fought with those who stood their ground. These were the twenty Fregellans. The Etruscans at the outset ran away panic-stricken; but these men forming together defended the consuls until Crispinus, struck by two darts, galloped away, and Marcellus was pierced through the side with a lance. Then even the few survivors of the Fregellans left him lying there, and snatching up his son, who was wounded, made their way back to the camp. The loss amounted to little over forty killed, and five lictors and eighteen horsemen taken. Crispinus, after a few days, died of his wounds. Such a misfortune as this, losing both consuls in one battle, never before befel the Romans.

XXX. Hannibal heard of the fate of all the rest with indifference, but when he was told that Marcellus had fallen he himself hastened to the place, and stood for a long time beside the corpse, admiring its strength and beauty. He made no boastful speech, and showed no joy in his countenance, as a man who had slain a troublesome and dangerous enemy, but, wondering at the strangeness of his ending, he drew the ring from the dead man's finger, and had the corpse decently attired and burned. The relics he gathered into a silver urn, upon which he placed a golden crown, and sent it to Marcellus's son. But on the way some Numidians fell in with the party who were escorting the urn, and while they tried to take it away and the others struggled to retain it, the bones were scattered on the ground. Hannibal, on hearing of this, said, "Nothing can be done against the will of heaven." He ordered the Numidians to be punished, but took no further thought about collecting or sending away the relics of Marcellus, concluding that some god had decreed the strange death and strange lack of burial which had befallen him. This is the story related by Cornelius Nepos and Valerius Maximus, but Livy and Augustus Cæsar declare that the urn was brought to his son, and that it was splendidly buried. Besides his monuments at Rome there was a gymnasium at Katana in Sicily which bore his name, and statues and votive tablets from the plunder of Syracuse were set tip in Samothrace in the temple of the gods called Kabeiri, and in Lindus (in Rhodes) in the temple of Athena.