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tion that, when passed by the Romans in their advance after crossing the river, Mago might burst out upon their flank and rear, while Hannibal engaged them in front.

Sempronius fell into the snare; he ordered first his cavalry and then his whole army to follow the flying Numidians across the river. It was mid-winter, bitterly cold, and the stream ran breast high. It is said the Romans had not broken their fast, and thus wet, exhausted, and half-frozen, Sempronius after crossing formed his troops in order of battle with the river in their rear.

Meanwhile Hannibal's men had breakfasted and formed leisurely to meet the enemy's attack.

The Romans as was their custom were formed in three lines, with the cavalry, only 4000 strong, on the flanks, in the order which has been described in the introductory remarks.

Hannibal drew up his army in two lines. In the first were his light troops and Balearic slingers. The second line was composed of his heavy-armed African, Spanish, and Gaulish infantry, amounting to about 20,000 men.

The elephants and the cavalry, 10,000 strong, were divided between the wings.

The battle was opened as usual by the light troops; and the Roman Velites, already exhausted with their morning work, were soon driven through the intervals of the maniples to the rear. The Roman cavalry too, charged by the elephants and by the greatly superior

*See Observation 6.

hostile cavalry, was broken immediately and driven off the field. But when the Roman infantry came to close, their courage and discipline seemed capable of restoring the balance; but at this critical moment Mago's ambush burst on their rear, while the victorious Carthaginian cavalry, which had returned from the pursuit of the Roman horse, charged both their flanks, and Hannibal pressed them in front. No troops could withstand such an onset. The centre legions indeed, commanded by Sempronius, overbearing all opposition, burst through their opponents and marched clear off the field to Placentia *; but the remainder were driven back into the Trebbia with tremendous slaughter.

Only a small remnant reached the opposite bank, and Scipio, after nightfall, leading this remnant once more across the river, passed the enemy in the dark, and joined his colleague within the walls of Placentia. Thus ended Hannibal's first campaign in Italy.

Sec Observations 7 and 8.

OBSERVATIONS ON THE FOREGOING CHAPTER.

1. Hannibal's sagacity is evidenced by his resolution to provoke a war with Rome. He was well aware of the moral force which attaches generally to the initiative in war; and he perceived also that the relative circumstances of the two powers lent a particular value to the initiative in the present instance. In the first Punic war all the success had been on the side of the Romans and the tide of fortune had set in too strongly in their favour to admit of its being turned by the genius of Hamilcar, who was advanced to the command of the Carthaginian armies too late for that purpose. In consequence of their successes in that war, Hannibal calculated that the Romans, reposing in a haughty security, would be very slow to believe that their despised enemies would willingly engage with them in a second struggle. Hence the Roman apathy in permitting Saguntum to fall, without any more active attempt at its relief than the remonstrance of an envoy. Hence also the time that was lost to Rome, and gained by Hannibal for his preparations, in sending ambassadors to Carthage to demand an explanation after the fall of Saguntum, in place of immediately declaring war and accompanying that declaration with an invasion of Africa, for which purpose Sicily would have served as a convenient stepping-stone and base of operations.

Such an energetic proceeding on the part of Rome would have occasioned the recall of all the Carthaginian forces from Spain, and the consequent loss of all the fruits of the Carthaginian conquests in that country; and Carthage would have commenced the war much in the same relative position as that which she occupied at the beginning of the first Punic war.

On the other hand, if the Carthaginians took the initiative, all the advantages would be for them. Hannibal calculated that if he could once cross the Alps with an army, he could so work upon the hatred to Rome which was the universal feeling among the Cisalpine Gauls, as to convert that fickle people into zealous allies, and their territory into a base for his subsequent operations; he hoped also to derive advantage from the constitution of the different states of Italy which were in alliance with and dependent on the Roman Republic. Though called by the name of allies, they were in reality subjects, and although the existing generation in those states had grown up in peace with the Romans, their constrained alliance had not quite extinguished the old feelings of hatred and rivalry.

Hannibal counted on the influence of those feelings, combined with the prestige of the victories he hoped to gain, to aid in detaching the allies from their fidelity, and to isolate the Roman republic proper in the midst of a surrounding hostile population. He saw that all depended on the initiative, and that, if he could once gain a footing in Italy, as it were by surprise, he might

afford to disregard any diversion his enemies might attempt to make by threatening Carthage.

2. It has been related that immediately before he crossed the Pyrenees, Hannibal sent about 11,000 of his Spanish soldiers back to their homes. This measure is an instance of that great knowledge of human nature, which alone could have enabled him for so many years to rule an army composed of such discordant materials, so that, "throughout the chequered series of his campaigns, no mutiny or even attempt at mutiny was ever known in his camp." The explanation is as follows:in the march to the Pyrenees, about 3000 Spaniards, frightened by the perils of the enterprise, deserted. Hannibal, sensible of the impolicy of attempting to prevent further desertion by severe measures which would indicate distrust, and feeling that unwilling troops weaken rather than strengthen an army, gave out that he had himself sent the deserters to their homes as a reward for faithful service; and gave leave to 8000 more on whom he could least depend, to follow their comrades.

He thus took away the great inducement to depart, at the same time that he rid himself of doubtful followers, whose bad spirit might have inoculated the remainder. This proceeding is one instance of the great value set upon moral agents in war, not only by Hannibal, but by every one who has the least pretension to be called a great general.

3. Scipio's apathy in remaining quietly at the mouth of the Rhone, after he had ascertained that Hannibal

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