THE SECOND PUNIC WAR.
WHEN the tide once turns in any nation in favor of war, it generally
rushes on with great impetuosity and force, and bears all before it. It
was so in Carthage in this instance.
The party of Hanno were thrown entirely into the minority and silenced,
and the friends and partisans of Hannibal carried not only the
government, but the whole community with them, and every body was eager
for war. This was owing in part, to the natural contagiousness of the
martial spirit, which, when felt by one, catches easily, by sympathy, in
the heart of another. It is a fire which, when once it begins to burn,
spreads in every direction, and consumes all that comes in its way.
Besides, when Hannibal gained possession of Saguntum, he found immense
treasures there, which he employed, not to increase his own private
fortune, but to strengthen and confirm his civil and military power. The
Saguntines did every thing they could to prevent these treasures from
falling into his hands. They fought desperately to the last, refused all
terms of surrender, and they became so insanely desperate in the end,
that, according to the narrative of Livy, when they found that the walls
and towers of the city were falling in, and that all hope of further
defense was gone, they built an enormous fire in the public streets, and
heaped upon it all the treasures which they had time to collect that
fire could destroy, and then that many of the principal inhabitants
leaped into the flames themselves, in order that their hated conquerors
might lose their prisoners as well as their spoils.
Notwithstanding this, however, Hannibal obtained a vast amount of gold
and silver, both in the form of money and of plate, and also much
valuable merchandise, which the Saguntine merchants had accumulated in
their palaces and warehouses. He used all this property to strengthen
his own political and military position. He paid his soldiers all the
arrears due to them in full. He divided among them a large additional
amount as their share of the spoil. He sent rich trophies home to
Carthage, and presents, consisting of sums of money, and jewelry, and
gems, to his friends there, and to those whom he wished to make his
friends. The result of this munificence, and of the renown which his
victories in Spain had procured for him, was to raise him to the highest
pinnacle of influence and honor. The Carthaginians chose him one of the
suffetes.
The suffetes were the supreme executive officers of the Carthaginian
commonwealth. The government was, as has been remarked before, a sort of
aristocratic republic, and republics are always very cautious about
intrusting power, even executive power, to any one man. As Rome had two
consuls, reigning jointly, On. France, after her first revolution, a
Directory of five, so the Carthaginians chose annually two suffetes,
they were called at Carthage, though the Roman writers call them
indiscriminately suffetes, consuls, and kings. Hannibal was now advanced
to this dignity; two that, in conjunction with his colleague, he held
the supreme civil authority at Carthage, besides being invested with the
command of the vast and victorious army in Spain.
When news of these events-the siege and destruction of Saguntum, the
rejection of the demands of the Roman ambassadors, and the vigorous
preparations making by the Carthaginians for war-reached Rome, the whole
city was thrown into consternation. The senate and the people held
tumultuous and disorderly assemblies, in which the events which had
occurred, and the course of proceeding which it was incumbent on the
Romans to take, were discussed with much excitement and clamor. The
Romans were, in fact, afraid of the Carthaginians. The campaigns of
Hannibal in Spain had impressed the people with a strong sense of the
remorseless and terrible energy of his character; they at once concluded
that his plans would be formed for marching into Italy, and they even
anticipated the danger of his bringing the war up to a the very gates of
the city, so as to threaten them with the destruction which he had
brought upon Saguntum. The event showed how justly they appreciated his
character.
Since the conclusion of the first Punic war, there had been peace
between the Romans and Carthaginians for about a quarter of a century.
During all this time both nations had been advancing in wealth and
power, but the Carthaginians had made much more rapid progress than the
Romans. The Romans had, indeed, been very successful at the onset in the
former war, but in the end the Carthaginians had proved themselves their
equal. They seemed, therefore, to dread now a fresh encounter with these
powerful fees, led on, as they were now to be, by such a commander as
Hannibal.
They determined, therefore, to send a second embassy to Carthage, with a
view of making one more self-effort to preserve peace before actually
commencing hostilities. They accordingly selected five men from Won- the
most influential citizens of the state-men of venerable age and of great
public consideration and commissioned them to proceed to Carthage and
once more whether it was the deliberate and final decision of the
Carthaginian senate to avow and sustain the action of Hannibal. This
solemn embassage set sail. They arrived at Carthage. They appeared
before the senate. They argued their cause, but it was, of course, to
deaf and unwilling ears. The Carthaginian orators replied to them, each
side attempting. to throw the blame of the violation of the treaty with
the other. It was a solemn hour, for the peace of the world, the lives
of hundreds of thousands of men, and the continued happiness or the
desolation and ruin of vast regions of country, depended on the issue of
the debate. Unhappily, the breach was only widened by the discussion.
“Very well," said the roman commissioners, at last, "we offer you peace
or war, which do you choose?" "Whichever you please", replied the
Carthaginians; "decide for yourselves." "War, then," said the Romans,
"since it must be so." The conference was broken up, and the ambassadors
returned to Rome.
They returned, however, by the way of Spain. Their object in doing this
was to negotiate with the various kingdoms and tribes in Spain and in
France, through which Hannibal would have to march in invading Italy,
and endeavor to induce them to take sides with the Romans. They were too
late, however, for Hannibal had contrived to extend and establish his
influence in that entire region too strongly to be. shaken; so that, on
one pretext or another, the Roman proposals were all rejected. There was
one powerful tribe, for example, called the Volciani. The ambassadors,
in the presence of the great council of the Volciani_ made known to them
the probability of war, and invited them to ally themselves with the
Romans. The Volciani rejected the proposition with a sort of scorn. "We
see," said they, "from the fate of Saguntum, what is to be expected to
result from an alliance with the Romans. After leaving that city
defenseless and alone in its struggle against such terrible danger, it
is in vain to ask other nations to trust to your protection. If you wish
for new allies, it will be best for you to go where the story of
Saguntum is not known." This answer of the VoIciani was applauded by the
other nations of Spain, as far as it was known, and the Roman
ambassadors, despairing of success in that country, went on into Gaul,
which is the name by which the country now called France is known in
ancient history.
On reaching a certain place which was a central point of influence and
power in Gaul, the Roman commissioners convened a great martial council
there. The spectacle presented by this assembly was very imposing, for
the warlike counselors came to the meeting armed completely and in the
most formidable manner, as if they were coming to a battle instead of a
consultation and debate. The venerable ambassadors laid the subject
before them. They descanted largely on the power and greatness of the
Romans, and on the certainty that they should conquer in the approaching
contest, and they invited the Gauls to espouse their cause and to rise
in arms and intercept Hannibal's passage through their country, if he
should attempt to affect one.
The assembly could hardly be induced to hear the ambassadors through;
and, as soon as they had finished their address, the whole council broke
forth into cries of dissent and displeasure, and even into shouts of
derision. Order was at length restored, and the officers, whose duty it
was to express the sentiments of the assembly, gave for their reply that
the Gains had never received any thing but violence and injuries from
Rome, or any thing but kindness .and good-will from Carthage; and that
they had no idea of being guilty of the folly of bringing the impending;
storm of Hannibal's hostility upon their own heads, merely for the sake
of averting it from their ancient and implacable foes. Thus the
ambassadors were every where repulsed. They found no friendly
disposition toward the Roman power till they had crossed the Rhone.
Hannibal began now to form his plans, in a very deliberate and cautious
manner, for a march into Italy. He knew well that this was an expedition
of such magnitude and duration as to require beforehand the most careful
and well-considered arrangements, both for the forces which were to go,
and for the states and communities which were to remain. The winter was
coming on. His first measure was to dismiss a large portion of his
forces, that they might visit their homes. He told them that he was
intending some great designs for the ensuing spring, which might take
them to a great distance, and keep them for a long time absent from
Spain, and he would, accordingly, give them the intervening time to
visit their families and their homes, and to arrange their affairs. This
act of kind consideration and confidence renewed the attachment of the
soldiers to their commander, and they returned to his camp in the spring
not only with new strength and vigor, but with redoubled attachment to
the service in which they were engaged.
Hannibal, after sending home his soldiers, retired himself to New
Carthage, which, as will be seen by the map, is farther west than
Saguntum, where he went into winter quarters, and devoted himself to the
maturing of his designs. Besides the necessary preparations for his own
march, he had to provide for the government of the countries that he
should leave. He devised various and ingenious plans to prevent the
danger of insurrections and rebellions while he was gone. One was, to
organize an army for Spain out of soldiers drawn from Africa, while the
troops which were to be employed to garrison Carthage, and to sustain
the government there, were taken from Spain. By thus changing the troops
of the two countries, each country was controlled by a foreign soldiery,
who were more likely to be faithful in their obedience to their
commanders, and less in danger of sympathizing with the populations
which they were respectively employed to control, than if each had been
retained in its own native land.
Hannibal knew very well that the various states and provinces of Spain,
which had refused to ally themselves with the Romans and abandon him,
had -been led to do this through the influence of his resents or the
fear of his power, and that if, after had penetrated into Italy, he
should meet with reverses, so as to diminish very much their hope of
deriving benefit from his favor or their fear of his power, there would
be great danger of defections and volts. As an additional security
against this, he adopted the following ingenious plan. He enlisted a
body of troops from among all the nations of Spain that were in alliance
with him, selecting the young men who were enlisted as much as possible
from families of consideration and influence, and this body of troops,
when organized and officered, he sent into Carthage, giving the nations
and tribes from which they were drawn to understand that he considered
them not only as soldiers serving in his armies, but as hostages, which
he should hold as security for the fidelity and obedience of the
countries from which they had come. The number of these soldiers was
four thousand.
Hannibal had a brother, whose name, as it happened, was the same as that
of his brother-in-law, Hasdrubal. It was to him that he committed the
government of Spain during his absence. The soldiers provided for him
were, as has been already stated, mainly drawn from Africa. In addition
to the foot soldiers, he provided him with a small body of horse. He
left with him, also, fourteen elephants. And as he thought it not
improbable that the Romans might, in some contingency during his
absence, make a descent upon the Spanish coast from the sea, he built
and equipped for him a small fleet of about sixty vessels, fifty of
which were of the first class. In modern times, the magnitude and
efficiency of a ship Is estimated by the number of guns she will carry;
then, it was the number of banks of oars. Fifty of Hasdrubal's ships
were “quinqueremes”, as they were Called, that is, they had five banks
of oars.
The Romans, on the other hand, did not neglect their own preparations.
Though reluctant to enter upon the war, they still prepared to engage in
it with their characteristic energy and ardor, when they found that it
could not be averted. They resolved on raising two powerful armies, one
for each of the consuls. The plan was, with one of these to advance to
meet Hannibal, and with the other to proceed to Sicily, and from Sicily
to the African coast, with a view of threatening the Carthaginian
capital. This plan, if successful, would compel the Carthaginians to
recall a part or the whole of Hannibal's army from the intended invasion
of Italy to defend their own African homes.
The force raised by the Romans amounted to about seventy thousand
men. About a third of these were Roman soldiers, and the remainder were
drawn from various nations dwelling in Italy and in the islands of the
Mediterranean Sea which were in alliance with
The Romans. Of these troops six thousand were cavalierly. Of course, as
the Romans intended to cross Into Africa, they needed a fleet. They
built and equipped one, which consisted of two hundred and twenty ships
of the largest class, that is, quinquerernes, besides a number of
smaller and lighter vessels for services requiring speed. There were
vessels in use in those times larger than the quinqueremes. Mention is
occasionally made of those which had six and even seven banks of oars.
But these were only employed as the flag-ships of commanders, and for
other purposes of ceremony and parade, as they were too unwieldy for
efficient service in action.
Lots were then drawn in a very solemn manner, according to the Roman
custom on such occasions, to decide on the assignment of these two
armies to the respective consuls. The one destined to meet Hannibal on
his way from Spain, fell to a consul named Cornelius Scipio. The name of
the other was Sempronius. 1t devolved on him, consequently, to take
charge of the expedition destined to Sicily and Africa. When all the
arrangements were thus made, the question was finally put, in a very
solemn and formal manner, to the Roman people for their final vote and
decision. "Do the Roman people decide and decree that war shall be
declared against the Carthaginians?" The decision was in the
affirmative. The war was then proclaimed with the usual imposing
ceremonies. Sacrifices and religious celebrations followed, to
propitiate the favor of the gods, and to inspire the soldiers with that
kind of courage and confidence which the superstitious, however wicked,
feel when they can imagine themselves under the protection of Heaven.
These shows and spectacles being over, all things were ready.
In the mean time Hannibal was moving on, as the spring advanced, toward
the banks of the Iberus, that frontier stream, the crossing of which
made him an invader of what was, in some sense, Roman territory. He
boldly passed the stream, and moved forward along the coast of the
Mediterranean, gradually approaching the Pyrenees, which form the z
boundary between France and Spain. His soldiers hitherto did rot know
what his plans were. It is very little the custom now for military and
naval commanders to communicate to their men much information about
their designs, and it was still less the custom then; and besides, in
those days, the common soldiers had no access to those means of
information by which news of every sort is now so universally diffused.
Thus, though all the officers of the army, and well-informed citizens,
both in Rome and Carthage, anticipated and understood Hannibal's
designs, his own soldiers, ignorant and degraded, knew nothing except
that they were to go on some distant and dangerous service. They, very
likely, had no idea whatever of Italy or of Rome, or of the magnitude of
the possessions, or of the power held by the vast empire which they were
going to invade.
When, however, after traveling day after day, they Came to the foot of
the Pyrenees, and found that they were really going to pass that mighty
chain of mountains, and for this purpose were actually entering its wild
and gloomy defiles, the courage of some of them failed, and they began
to murmur. The discontent and alarm were, in fact, so great, that one
corps, consisting of about three thousand men, left the camp in a body,
and moved back toward their homes. On inquiry, Hannibal found that there
were ten thousand more that were in a similar state of feeling. His
whole force consisted of over one hundred thousand. And now what does
the reader imagine that Hannibal would do in such an emergency? Would he
return in pursuit of these deserters, to recapture and destroy them as a
terror to the rest? Or would he let them go, and attempt by words of
conciliation and encouragement to confirm and save those that yet
remained? He did neither. He called together the ten thousand
discontented troops that were still in his camp, and told them that,
since they were afraid to accompany his army, or unwilling to do so,
they might return. He wanted none in his service who had not the courage
and the fortitude to go on wherever he might lead. He would not have the
faint-hearted and the timid in his army. They would only be a burden to
load down and impede the courage and energy of the rest. So saying, he
gave orders for them to return, and with the rest of the army, whose
resolution and ardor were redoubled by this occurrence, he moved on
through the passes of the mountains.
This act of Hannibal, in permitting his discontented soldiers to
return, had all the effect of a deed of generosity in its influence upon
the minds of the soldiers who went on. We must not, however, imagine
that it was prompted by a spirit of generosity 'at all. It was policy. A
seeming generosity was, in this case, exactly what was wanted to answer
his .ends. Hannibal was mercilessly cruel in all cases where he imagined
that severity was demanded. It requires great sagacity sometimes in a
commander, to know when he must punish, and when it is wisest overlook
and forgive. Hannibal, like Alexander and Napoleon, possessed this
sagacity in a very high degree; and it was, doubtless, the exercise of
that principle alone which prompted his action on this “occasion.
Thus Hannibal passed the Pyrenees. The next difficulty that he
anticipated was in crossing the river Rhone. |
