It was now December. He was moving down the left bank of the Po, above its junction with the Ticinus, on the Piedmontese side of the latter river, when his cavalry came in conflict with the Roman horse, commanded by the consul Scipio himself.
Scipio had returned to Pisa, whence he moved northward to encounter Hannibal on his descent from the Alps. He crossed the Po near Pavia, made a bridge over the Ticinus to secure his retreat, and, crossing the latter river, he began to march up the left bank of the Po, just as Hannibal was coming down it. Both generals were in advance with their cavalry, and came unexpectedly in sight of each other. A smart action followed, in which the Romans had the worst. The consul was severely wounded, his life being saved by the devotion of a Ligurian slave, or, as others said, by his son Publius, afterwards the great Africanus, then a youth only seventeen years old. He fell back upon his main body and recrossed the Ticinus so rapidly that, in breaking up the bridge, he left six hundred men behind, who fell into the hands of Hannibal. This was the skirmish of the Ticinus, which proved Hannibal’s superiority in cavalry. It had the effect of making the Boian Gauls on the south of the Po declare in his favour.
Hannibal, continuing his march down the Po, crossed somewhere below Placentia; and Scipio, not finding his position near that town secure, fell back westward so as to place the Trebia between himself and Hannibal. On the left bank of this river he fortified a strong camp, with the purpose of awaiting the arrival of his colleague Sempronius, whom the senate had ordered to hasten from Sicily into the north of Italy. Hannibal followed the Romans, and encamped in view of them on the right bank of the Trebia. Here he received offers from a Brundusian, who was in charge of the Roman magazine at Clastidium, a town in Scipio’s rear, to betray the place; and it must have been while he was absent in this quarter that Sempronius joined Scipio. Sempronius, not daring to sail direct from Sicily to Pisa at that time of year, had sent his army over the Straits of Messana, with orders to rendezvous at Ariminum; and so expeditious were they that they performed the whole march from Lilybæum to Scipio’s camp in forty days. Scipio endeavoured to dissuade Sempronius from venturing a general action, but in vain; and being still confined by the consequences of his wound, he was obliged to leave the whole army under the direction of his colleague. Hannibal, for his part, was anxious for a battle. The Gauls began to complain of the burden of two armies in their country, and victory was necessary to secure them in his interest.
The Trebia is a mountain stream, which in summer runs babbling over a broad gravelly bed, so shallow that the foot-traveller walks over it unheeding; but in winter, or after heavy rains, it rises to a deep and rapid torrent. It was now nearly the end of December, and Hannibal resolved that he would not cross the water to attack the Romans, but would make them cross it to attack him. He executed his purpose with great skill. On his left there was a sort of gully, thickly grown with reeds and brushwood, in which he concealed his brother Mago with one thousand foot and as many horse. Then, early in the morning, he sent his Numidian riders across the river, and ordered the whole army to prepare for the cold of the day by rubbing themselves with oil and making a hearty meal.
As soon as Sempronius saw the Numidians cross the water, he sent his cavalry, about four thousand strong, to meet them, and then drew out his whole army, amounting to about thirty-six thousand men, to support the attack. The Numidians feigned to be beaten and fled across the river. The Romans pursued, but the water was running breast high and was deadly cold; sleet was falling, which was driven in their faces by the east wind; and when they reached the other side, they were half dead with cold and wet and hunger. Their treacherous foes now opened on both sides and displayed Hannibal’s infantry in battle order with the rest of the cavalry and the elephants on either wing. The Roman cavalry, which was also on the wings, was greatly outnumbered and soon put to flight; but the legions and allies kept their ground bravely under all disadvantages till Mago rose from ambush and attacked them in rear. Then the rout became general. A body of ten thousand men, however, cut their way through the Carthaginian lines to Placentia; the rest were driven back with great slaughter to the Trebia, in which many were drowned, but a large number, with the consul Sempronius himself, recrossed in safety.
The battle of the Trebia ended Hannibal’s first campaign. The two consuls, with the relics of their armies, contrived to throw themselves into Placentia and Cremona, and afterwards made good their retreat to Ariminum. Sempronius had sent home a varnished account of the battle, but the fatal truth soon betrayed itself. Two consular armies had been defeated; Cisalpine Gaul was abandoned to the Carthaginians.
The senate, 217 B.C., made great preparations for the next campaign. Sicily, Sardinia, and Tarentum were garrisoned against the Carthaginian fleets; the new consuls were to keep Hannibal out of Roman Italy. The patrician consul for the year was Cn. Servilius; C. Flaminius was the plebeian. Flaminius, it will be remembered, had held this high office in 223 B.C., and had won a great battle over the Insubrian Gauls, in contempt of the orders of the senate. As censor, he still dwells in memory for having made the Flaminian way, the great high road from Rome through the Sabine country to Ariminum. He had won extraordinary popularity by a sweeping agrarian law to divide the coast lands of Umbria and Picenum among a number of poor citizens. This was the man elected by popular favour to oppose Hannibal—brave and generous, but adventurous and reckless. Fearing that the senate might even yet bar his consulship by an appeal to the omens, he left the city before the ides of March,[51] which was at that time the day for the consuls to enter upon office. But no such attempt was made. Servilius was sent to Ariminum to guard the Flaminian road; Flaminius himself took post at Arretium to watch the passes of the Apennines.
As the spring approached, Hannibal was anxious to leave Cisalpine Gaul. His friends the Insubrians and Boians, however much they wished to be relieved from the Roman yoke, did not relish entertaining a large army. They were proverbially fickle; and so much did Hannibal mistrust them, that, to prevent attempts upon his life, he continually wore disguises, and assumed false hair. Leaving the Roman colonies of Placentia and Cremona unassailed, he passed the Apennines early in the year by an unfrequented route, which brought him down into the neighbourhood of Pistoria and Lucca. From this point eastward he had to march through the Val d’Arno, which was at that time an unwholesome swamp. Here his men and horses suffered much; he himself, being attacked by ophthalmia, lost the sight of one eye, and was obliged to have recourse to the single elephant which survived the cold of the Alps and a winter in the north of Italy. In the neighbourhood of Fæsulæ he rested his army, now much increased by Gallic recruits, and rewarded his men with the plunder of Etruria. Flaminius now found that his dexterous enemy had stolen a march upon him, and Hannibal, on his part, heard with delight the rash and adventurous character of the new consul. Trusting to this, he led his army past Arretium, where Flaminius lay encamped, and leaving Cortona on the left, passed on towards Perusia along the northern side of Lake Trasimene. As soon as Flaminius found that the Carthaginian had passed him in this disdainful way, he immediately marched in pursuit.
As the traveller comes upon the northwestern corner of Lake Trasimene, the road ascends a low ridge, now called Monte Gualandro. The broad lake lies to his right and the road descends into a crescent-shaped plain, skirted on the left by hills of some height, while between the road and the lake the ground undulates considerably. After traversing this open space the road passes the modern village of Passignano, and ascends a hill. This was the ground Hannibal chose for awaiting Flaminius. He placed his Balearians and light troops in ambush along the hills on the left; he himself, with his infantry, lay in front somewhere near Passignano, while his cavalry were ensconced in the uneven ground next the lake, ready to close upon the rear of the Romans so soon as they were fairly in the plain. While the Carthaginians were thus disposed, Flaminius was encamping for the night on the Tuscan side of Monte Gualandro. In the morning a thick mist hung over the lake and low lands, so that, as the consul advanced, he could see nothing. Hannibal suffered the Roman vanguard, consisting of six thousand men, to pass Passignano before he gave the signal for attack. Hearing the cries of battle behind, the vanguard halted anxiously on the hill which they were then ascending, but could see nothing for the mist.
Meantime the consul, with the main army, was assailed on all sides. Charged in front by the Spanish and African infantry, on his right and rear by the Gauls and cavalry, exposed on his left flank to the ceaseless fires of the slingers and javelin-men, Flaminius and his men did all that brave men could. They fought valiantly and died fighting. Not less than fifteen thousand Italians fell on that fatal field. Such was the scene disclosed to the soldiers of the vanguard when the mist cleared off. Hannibal now sent Maharbal to pursue this division, which surrendered at discretion. Such of them as were Romans or Latins were all thrown into chains; the Italian allies were dismissed without ransom. Thus did Hannibal’s plan for the conquest of Rome begin to show itself; he had no hope of subduing Rome and Italy with a handful of Spanish and African veterans. These were to be the core of a great army, to be made up of Italians, who (as he hoped) would join his victorious standard, as the Gauls had already done. He had come, he said, “into Italy, not to fight against the Italians, but to fight for the liberty of the Italians against Rome.”