When the Romans heard that Hannibal had passed the Pyrenees, they had two
armies on foot, one under Publius Cornelius Scipio, which was to go to Spain,
and the other under Tiberius Sempronius Longus, to attack Africa. They changed
their plan, and kept Sempronius to defend Italy, while Scipio went by sea to
Marsala, a Greek colony in Gaul, to try to stop Hannibal at the Rhone; but he
was too late, and therefore, sending on most of his army to Spain, he came back
himself with his choicest troops. With these he tried to stop the enemy from
crossing the river Ticinus, but he was defeated and so badly wounded that his
life was only saved by the bravery of his son, who led him out of the
battle.
MEETING OF HANNIBAL AND SCIPIO AT ZAMA.
Before he was able to join the army again, Sempronius had fought another
battle with Hannibal on the banks of the Trebia and suffered a terrible defeat.
But winter now came on, and the Carthaginians found it very hard to bear in the
marshes of the Arno. Hannibal himself was so ill that he only owed his life to
the last of his elephants, which carried him safely through when he was almost
blind, and in the end he lost an eye. In the spring he went on ravaging the
country in hopes to make the two new consuls, Flaminius and Servilius, fight
with him, but they were too cautious, until at last Flaminius attacked him in a
heavy fog on the shore of Lake Trasimenus. It is said that an earthquake shook
the ground, and that the eager warriors never perceived it; but again the Romans
lost, Flaminius was killed, and there was a dreadful slaughter, for Hannibal had
sworn to give no quarter to a Roman. The only thing that was hopeful for Rome
was that neither Gauls, Etruscans, nor Italians showed any desire to rise in
favor of Hannibal; and though he was now very near Rome, he durst not besiege it
without the help of the people around to bring him supplies, so he only marched
southwards, hoping to gain the support of the Greek colonies. A dictator was
appointed, Quintus Fabius Maximus, who saw that, by strengthening all the
garrisons in the towns and cutting off all provisions, he should wear the enemy
out at last. As he always put off a battle, he was called Cunctator, or the
Delayer; but at last he had the Carthaginians enclosed as in a trap in the
valley of the river Vulturnus, and hoped to cut them off, posting men in ambush
to fall on them on their morning's march. Hannibal guessed that this must be the
plan; and at night he had the cattle in the camp collected, fastened torches to
their horns, and drove them up the hills. The Romans, fancying themselves
surrounded by the enemy, came out of their hiding-places to fall back on the
camp, and Hannibal and his army safely escaped. This mischance made the Romans
weary of the Delayer's policy, and when the year was out, and two consuls came
in, though one of them, Lucius Æmilius Paulus, would have gone on in the same
cautious plan of starving Hannibal out without a battle, the other, Caius
Terentius Varro, who commanded on alternate days with him, was determined on a
battle. Hannibal so contrived that it was fought on the plain of Cannæ, where
there was plenty of space to use his Moorish horse. It was Varro's day of
command, and he dashed at the centre of the enemy; Hannibal opened a space for
him, then closed in on both sides with his terrible horse, and made a regular
slaughter of the Romans. The last time that the consul Æmilius was seen was by a
tribune named Lentulus, who found him sitting on a stone faint and bleeding, and
would have given him his own horse to escape, but Æmilius answered that he had
no mind to have to accuse his comrade of rashness, and had rather die. A troop
of enemies coming up, Lentulus rode off, and looking back, saw his consul fall,
pierced with darts. So many Romans had been killed, that Hannibal sent to
Carthage a basket containing 10,000 of the gold rings worn by the knights.
ARCHIMEDES.
Hannibal was only five days' march beyond Rome, and his officers wanted him
to turn back and attack it in the first shock of the defeat, but he could not
expect to succeed without more aid from home, and he wanted to win over the
Greek cities of the south; so he wintered in Campania, waiting for the fresh
troops he expected from Africa or from Spain, where his brother Mago was
preparing an army. But the Carthaginians did not care about Hannibal's campaigns
in Italy, and sent no help; and Publius Cornelius Scipio and his brother, with a
Roman army in Spain, were watching Mago and preventing him from marching, until
at last he gave them battle and defeated and killed them both. But he was not
allowed to go to Italy to his brother, who, in the meantime, found his army so
unstrung and ill-disciplined in the delightful but languid Campania, that the
Romans declared the luxuries of Capua were their best allies. He stayed in the
south, however, trying to gain the alliance of the king of Macedon, and stirring
up Syracuse to revolt. Marcellus, who was consul for the third time, was sent to
reduce the city, which made a famous defence, for it contained Archimedes, the
greatest mathematician of his time, who devised wonderful machines for crushing
the besiegers in unexpected ways; but at last Marcellus found a weak part of the
walls and surprised the citizens. He had given orders that Archimedes should be
saved, but a soldier broke into the philosopher's room without knowing him, and
found him so intent on his study that he had never heard the storming of the
city. The man brandished his sword. "Only wait," muttered Archimedes, "till I
have found out my problem;" but the man, not understanding him, killed him.
Hannibal remained in Italy, maintaining himself there with wonderful skill,
though with none of the hopes with which he had set out. His brother Hasdrubal
did succeed in leaving Spain with an army to help him, but was met on the river
Metaurus by Tiberius Claudius Nero, beaten, and slain. His head was cut off by
Nero's order, and thrown into Hannibal's camp to give tidings of his fate.
Young Scipio, meantime, had been sent to Spain, where he gained great
advantages, winning the friendship of the Iberians, and gaining town after town
till Mago had little left but Gades and the extreme south. Scipio was one of the
noblest of the Romans, brave, pious, and what was more unusual, of such sweet
and winning temper, that it was said of him that wherever he went he might have
been a king.
On returning to Rome, he showed the Senate that the best way to get Hannibal
out of Italy was to attack Africa. Cautious old Fabius doubted, but Scipio was
sent to Sicily, where he made an alliance with Massinissa, the Moorish king in
Africa; and, obtaining leave to carry out his plan, he was sent thither, and so
alarmed Carthage, that Hannibal was recalled to defend his own country, where he
had not been since he was a child. A great battle took place at Zama between him
and Hannibal, in which Scipio was the conqueror, and the loss of Carthage was so
terrible that the Romans were ready to have marched in on her and made her their
subject, but Scipio persuaded them to be forbearing. Carthage was to pay an
immense tribute, and swear never to make war on any ally of Rome. And thus ended
the Second Punic War, in the year 201.
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