The fact remains, that from the battle of Cynoscephalæ, of which anon, to the end of ancient history, it was an admitted fact that, unless on a very narrow and perfectly level field, where both its flanks were securely covered, the phalanx could not receive battle from the legions with a chance of success; and that as to delivering battle on wide, open plains, where rapid manœuvring and counter-marching could be resorted to, such an idea was preposterous.
Flamininus was educated to arms from his very boyhood, and that in the terrible Italian campaigns of Hannibal; through which he served with such distinction that he had already attained the post of tribune of the soldiers, equal to the modern rank of lieutenant-colonel, under that daring and distinguished leader Marcus Marcellus, and was on the field when he was slain, rashly periling himself in an affair of outposts near Venusia, in the year of Rome 546, B. C. 208, and in the sixtieth year of his own age.
After the death of his great commander, Flamininus was appointed governor of Tarentum,[[8]] in the capacity of quæstor, on its recapture by Fabius Maximus; and there displayed no less ability in the administration of justice than he had previously evinced skill and courage in warfare. Seven years afterward—at the early age of thirty years—he was elected consul; and, although opposed by the veto[[9]] of the tribunes Fulvius and Manlius Carius on the ground that he lacked twelve years of the legitimate age, and that he had never filled the intermediate grades of ædile and prætor, he was confirmed by the senate, and received Macedonia as his province, by lot.
The fact is, that the wars of Hannibal had by this time taught the Romans that an overstrict adherence to prescriptive formulæ, in times of national peril, is disastrous; and that to meet the ablest adversaries the ablest men must be had, whether all the theoretic requisites to their election had been complied with or not.
Therefore Scipio, the elder Africanus, was sent to Spain with proconsular rank and a consular army, before he was of the just age to fill a prætorship.
Therefore Flamininus was elected consul at thirty, although the constitution expressly declared that no one should hold that dignity until he should have fully attained his forty-second year.
Such laws may be, perhaps, generally wise; but the breach of them is always so. Nor does history show any instances, worth remark, of youthful genius elevated by the popular call to early station, and subsequently found unworthy, from the days of Alexander, Scipio, and Flamininus, to those of Pitt and Napoleon.
Nor do I believe that the appointment of the consuls was really, though it was ostensibly, left to the chance of a lot, at least in times of actual war, and national emergency; since we invariably find the best man sent to the place where he was required, which could not always have occurred fortuitously. Doubtless those who superintended the balloting had some method of determining the result, as had the augurs and haruspices with regard to omens and sacrifices.
So Flamininus was not only elected consul at thirty, but obtained the seat of the great war for his province, and was empowered to pick nine thousand men, horse and foot, out of the Spanish and African veterans, inured to all that was known of warfare in those days by the campaigns of Hannibal and Scipio.
A grand occasion, indeed, and a superb command for an untried commander.