Chapter VI: Over the Alps

For the next three days the advance up the passes was continued in peace. The Gauls came in, offering garlands and branches of trees in token of goodwill, and gave also hostages and cattle. Hannibal wisely pretended to trust them, thus securing a period of cessation from hostilities; but, in reality, he remained ever on the alert, and made all his dispositions accordingly, keeping his cavalry and pack animals in front to prevent their being cut off, and following in rear himself with all the heavy-armed infantry.

He was not in the least surprised when on the fourth day a determined attack was made upon him by large forces of the enemy, as the army was passing through a long, narrow, and precipitous gorge, where the Gauls once more created terrible confusion among his troops, by rolling down stones and boulders from above, and, by their superior position on the slopes above him, actually for a time cutting him off with the infantry from all the cavalry and baggage animals ahead, among whom terrible losses occurred. The maddened animals dashed hither and thither, and fell over the precipices, many an unfortunate warrior going with them in their headlong flight. But Mago and Maharbal, with indomitable courage, pushed ever onward and upwards despite all obstacles, while for a whole night long Hannibal and the infantry had to take shelter beneath a rock, which was so precipitous that the Gallic tribes themselves were unable to climb it or use it as a point of vantage from which to throw down missiles.

Meanwhile Hasdrubal, the pioneer, following in the extreme rear with the elephants, destroyed the road as he went, thus making it impossible for any of the army to fly by the road whence they had come. This rear guard was fortunately not attacked, for the Gauls were so terrified by the awful appearance of the elephants, whom they imagined to be evil spirits or malignant gods, that they dared not even to approach the part of the line where they were. When daybreak came, the army emerged from the pass, and the enemy, too terrified to attack in force on more open ground, retired.

At length, after nine more terrible nights and days, during the whole of which the army was being continually harassed by parties of the foe cutting off stragglers or attacking the baggage, the gallant Chief arrived with his army at the head of the pass. Here, despite the bitter cold, he encamped on the snow for a couple of days, to rest his men and wait for stragglers to come up.

The men were now in a deplorable condition, and their spirits at the lowest possible ebb. Therefore, assembling as many of them as possible around him, and pointing to the panorama of the fair plains of Italy below, Hannibal addressed them as follows:

“My gallant troops, difficulty, danger, and death now lie behind us, but before us lie Italy and Rome. Gaze, therefore, before and below ye as conquerors, for all that fair country shall be ours. The tribes below are our friends, and will welcome us heartily. Therefore keep ye up your courage, for soon the spoils of Rome shall reward ye for all your hardships.”

The courage of the troops was roused by these words; but alas! if the ascent had been difficult, harder by far was the descent of the mountain slopes. For owing to new snow having fallen upon the old, there was no foothold. Thus men and horses in numbers slipped and fell headlong down the slopes and precipices, rolling over and over, and bounding from rock to rock, to finally land, battered into pulp, thousands of feet below. And then they came to a place where, for a great distance, two land slides and avalanches had carried away the whole mountain-side, and the road with it. Never daunted, however, Hannibal, Monomachus, and Hasdrubal, his pioneer captain, built in two days, with the Numidian troops, an entirely new road over the mountain-side, over which first the infantry, then the cavalry and baggage animals, and lastly, even the elephants themselves were passed in safety. But all the survivors, both men and animals alike, were nearly dead from starvation, when at length, after fifteen days in the terrible mountains, the snow was left behind, and the land of the Taurini, bordering that of the friendly Insubrian Gauls, was entered on the plains.

But, whereas Hannibal had started to cross the Alps with nearly double that number, when the muster was taken round the camp fires on the first night after the awful journey over the mountains, only twelve thousand Libyans, eight thousand Iberians, and six thousand cavalry of all kinds, were present to answer the roll-call.

And with this small force of starving and disheartened troops Hannibal now prepared to meet all the might of Rome.

So wretched, indeed, were the troops, that not even the fact of their having at length reached the Italian side of the mountains in Cis-Alpine Gaul could at first put any heart into them. It was now the commencement of the month of November, the oak trees were shedding their leaves, and the grass and herbage losing rapidly the succulent qualities necessary to sustain the animals. All traces of cultivation had long since been removed from the fields, while the wind sighed and moaned sadly through those vast forests of pine, the home of the wolf and the wild boar, the shelter of whose gloomy recesses the half-starved army was glad enough to seek.

Biting showers of rain and sleet added to the discomfort of the troops, and at first the Insubrian Gauls showed but little alacrity in bringing in the much-needed provisions. Altogether, now that this remnant of the Carthaginian army had at length reached, after five and a half months’ marching, this land of promise, it fell far below their expectations. The whole outlook was indeed so gloomy that there was not an officer nor man in the whole army who did not heartily wish himself back again in his own home in the sunny lands and olive groves of Spain or Libya.

To make things even yet worse, one or two Gallic towns in the neighbourhood, among them notably the city of the Taurini, which might have accorded shelter to the half-famished troops, being fearful of Roman retribution, flatly refused to open their gates to the wayworn wanderers. This was scarcely to be wondered at, seeing that the Consul Flaminius had but a short time before defeated the Boii, the Insubres, and other Gallic tribes repeatedly, and treated the survivors with the greatest severity, taking many hostages, who were now entirely at the mercy of the Romans; and founding two Roman colonies, named respectively Placentia and Cremona, one on either bank of the river Padus or Po, right in the midst of Cis-Alpine Gaul.

As Hannibal, accompanied by Silenus and by all his principal officers, marched round and made a thorough inspection of the camp a day or two after arriving in the Italian plains, it must be owned that even he himself felt utterly discouraged. For wherever he looked, whether at man or beast, he saw nothing but misery and starvation. The thirty-seven elephants with which he had started were already considerably diminished in number, many having fallen down the Alpine precipices, and the remainder were now but gaunt mountains of skin and bone. The horses tethered in rows showed distinctly every rib in their carcases, and hung down their heads with fatigue while patient misery was expressed in their lack-lustre eyes. Among the men, not the slightest element of discipline had been relaxed; but, as they stood in their ranks before their tents for the inspection of their Commander-in-chief, looking like phantoms of their former selves, utter dejection could clearly be read in every countenance. Except for the want of a little food they were in hard enough condition, but there was not sufficient food to be obtained by fair means, and the men did not look either strong enough or in good enough spirits to obtain it by force of arms. That, however, was what Hannibal intended that they should do, and he took, therefore, very good care neither to show by his face the disappointment which he felt at their miserable plight, nor the fact that he had received alarming news, which, had it been known publicly, would have made the men more disheartened still.

Instead of doing anything likely to keep the troops in a despondent state, he spoke, as he went along the ranks, words of commendation and encouragement to all. He praised their valour, told them that their names would live in history, informed them that he had received ambassadors with promises of assistance from the Boii, and generally tried to cheer their waning hopes. After this, he held before the army some gladiatorial contests among the young Gallic captives, whose condition was so miserable from the ill-treatment and blows they had received in crossing the Alps, that the army would have pitied the survivors even more than the slain had not their Commander rewarded the conquerors liberally with horses, cloaks, and suits of armour.

After these contests he addressed the army. He pointed out to them that their own condition was similar to that of the captive Gauls whom they had just seen fighting, and that, if they maintained a stout heart, either victory and great rewards would be theirs, or a death nobly won on the field of battle; but that if flight were attempted it must be useless. For how, Hannibal urged, would any attempt at flight be successful back over those terrible mountains and all through the country of Gallia to Spain? Therefore, since any attempt at flight would be useless, a stout heart, a stout arm, and a determination to conquer were all that were needful, and victory and numerous spoils would most assuredly be theirs.

Having cheered all the men with these words, and being ably seconded by the superior officers, who were themselves once more fired with his enthusiasm, the Commander, on the following few days, attacked with fury Turin and the other Gallic towns that had withstood him, and speedily carried them by assault. And after this provisions were plentiful, everything was more cheerful in camp, and thousands of Gauls, both Insubrians and Boii, commenced to come in daily, and attach themselves to the Carthaginian standard.

Before, therefore, Hannibal thought it necessary to inform his officers and the army of the news that he had received, he found himself in an entirely different position in which to meet the Romans from that in which he had been a week previously.

And he was indeed about to meet the Romans, and that very shortly, for his news was that Scipio had rapidly returned by sea from Marseilles to Italy, and was already nigh at hand.

“Hast thou heard the news, Maharbal?” quoth Chœras, early one morning, bursting into the tent that they occupied in common, and flinging down his sword and shield, “hast thou heard the news? It seemeth that Publius Scipio hath returned from Massilia, and landed with a small force at some place in Etruria. Moreover, he hath, while travelling northward, crossed the mountain range called the Apennines, traversed the country of the Boii, and is at this moment at the new Roman city or colony called Placentia, on the other side of the Padus. Scipio is not, in fact, very many stadia from the place where we now are ourselves, since this river Ticinus whereon we are encamped floweth into the Padus, as thou knowest, not very far above Placentia.”

Maharbal was resting where he had been sleeping on a couch of wolf skins on the floor of the tent. As he rose to a sitting posture, he looked a very different man to what he had been at the time of the cavalry fight on the banks of the Rhone--so gaunt was he and drawn, that the muscles of his neck and biceps stood out now like wires of steel, for there was no flesh to conceal them. He had been dreaming a dream of love, with Elissa as its heroine, and was angry at being disturbed. He laughed aloud scornfully.

“Wilt thou never have done with thy foolish jesting, Chœras? But this is indeed a sorry jest of thine. Publius Cornelius Scipio already at Placentia! Why, ’tis not yet a month since I bore off his young cub of a son almost into our lines at the camp upon the Rhodanus. Nay, nay, my merry-hearted lieutenant, I may know more of horses than geography, more of dealing death than determining distances, but this is just a little too much. If this were all the cause thou hadst to disturb me, I would that thou had left me to sleep, for I am in sooth sorely fatigued after pursuing and cutting down the last force of those dogs of Taurini the whole of yesterday.”

The young Colossus sank back upon his couch, and would have slept again if his comrade had but allowed him.

“A sorry jest! I would it were but a sorry jest,” returned Chœras; “but, by the head of Hannibal, it is unfortunately no jest, but true. I had it from Hannibal himself. It seems that the Chief, and Silenus also, hath known the matter for these several days past, but it was purposely kept secret until after we had conquered the Taurini, which conquest hath now raised the hearts of our men, and induced also many of the Gauls to rally around us. It appeareth that Scipio at first followed us, but finding we had crossed the Rhone, after returning to Massilia himself, he sent his brother, Cnœus Scipio, with most of the Roman army on into Spain to fight with Hasdrubal; then he came to Pisa by ship, with very few men, but at Placentia there are, unfortunately for us, a Roman legion or two which were assembled to hold the Gauls in check during the late Gallic rising; there are also a large number of Gallic cavalry in the Roman pay. In addition to all this about Scipio, the General hath imparted to us other weighty news. It appears that the other Roman consul, Tiberius Sempronius, hath been recalled from Sicily, where he was about to make a descent upon Carthage itself, after having defeated a Punic fleet off Lilybæum, and alas! captured Malta. He is now, so Hannibal informs us, at a place on the Adriatic coast called Ariminum, and is encamped there with a very large force. Hannibal is anxious, if possible, to prevent a junction of the two forces.”

“Then this is no place for me!” cried Maharbal, springing to his feet, and hastily buckling on his armour; “there can be no rest for the weary with such tidings as these.” And he picked up his sword and buckler and strode off to the General’s tent, after first directing Chœras to go round to the cavalry lines, and to see that all the horses were instantly properly groomed and fed, and that all the men remained in camp. For he expected more work shortly, though he did not know how soon it might be.

Hannibal was sitting at the door of his tent studying a map which the worthy Sosilus was explaining. He rose as Maharbal approached, and welcomed him warmly. He knew that Maharbal with a portion of his force had only returned very late in the night from the prolonged and bloody pursuit of the Taurini. Chœras, who had been left in camp, had borne him a verbal report sent by Maharbal to that effect and delivered upon Hannibal’s awakening. But he had not seen his well-beloved Numidian leader since his return, and therefore questioned him anxiously.

“And so, Maharbal, my lad, thou hast, it seems, entirely disposed of the last of the Taurini. Hast made many prisoners?”

“Nay, my lord, I made no prisoners. I deemed it wiser, since they were our enemies and evidently the friends of Rome, to kill all whom we should overtake! ’Twill also make the other and friendly Gauls all the more friendly, than had we spared those of a disaffected tribe. But some of them fought hard and ’twould, methinks, have been no easy job to make prisoners of them.”

“Fought, did they? the dogs! And hadst thou any losses, Maharbal?”

“Ay, alas! I had, and far too many for a mere pursuit; they amount, unfortunately, to no less than thirty killed and wounded men, my lord Hannibal, of whom fifteen are dead. Among them was a most gallant young fellow, the ensign Proxenus. He was a Greek by birth, but came over from Libya with the last reinforcement. He will be indeed a serious loss, for he had both brains and bravery in equal proportions.”

“Proxenus! is Proxenus, that likely youth, dead? Alas, I grieve to hear it, and especially that ’twere his lot to fall against such an unworthy foe as the Taurini. ’Tis sad, indeed. But so it wert not thou thyself, Maharbal, my grief is fleeting, for daily do we lose useful men, and young men, too; but they can be replaced. Had it been thou now, ah, that would indeed have been another matter. Therefore see to it, Maharbal,” the Chief continued, with a smile, “that thou let not thyself be killed for many a long day to come. For Carthage could ill dispense with thy services either at present or in the future.”

Maharbal flushed and bowed at the compliment, and then Hannibal called to a slave to bring a stool, and bade him be seated. After this two Gallic chieftains, who had brought in intelligence, were called, and together Hannibal and Maharbal, aided by the learned Sosilus, worked out on the map from their information the respective positions of the various forces now in the field. When this had been accomplished, Hannibal rose, folded up the map, and dismissed Sosilus. Then turning to Maharbal he inquired the state of his men and horses, and if they would be in a fit condition to march again that same afternoon or evening if required absolutely to do so.

“March, ay, they could march, my lord, a short march, and could even fight a little at a pinch; but to fight, and fight well, against fresh troops, especially after themselves making first a long march, they would be quite unfit. It would be but throwing away uselessly the lives of both men and horses.”

“And we can spare neither. Well, we must let it be until to-morrow, when both men and horses have been rested. There are some other advantages about the delay. We shall not have so far to march as will the enemy before we meet them, and therefore our horses will be the fresher. The Gauls said that Scipio is building and hath almost completed a bridge across the Ticinus, by which to cross and attack us. If we with our horse can only catch his cavalry apart from his infantry and drive the attack home well in front and flanks, we will force him right back to the crossing place, and perhaps inflict considerable slaughter ere he can again pass the bridge. Meanwhile, listen to my plan for the strong cavalry reconnaissance which I intend to make to-morrow, in hopes of meeting Scipio while similarly employed. I shall personally, attended by General Monomachus, whom for the future I shall definitely appoint to the cavalry, lead the Iberian horse, which will be in the centre. Thou wilt divide thy Numidian horse into two parties, one to remain on each flank. After that thou thyself knowest what to do, as usual being guided by circumstances, which I must leave to thine own judgment to be met as required. And now, Maharbal, ’twere wise that thou shouldst retire and take the rest that thou must greatly require.”

“Nay, Hannibal, I require no rest. I am quite sufficiently restored from all fatigue by the hopes of so soon meeting the Romans once more, for my heart burns with shame within my breast when I think of how I was compelled to fly before them when last we met.”

“Tush, man! thou didst not fly; thy troops yielded to superior numbers, that was all, and I sent thee out not to fight that day, but to see what the enemy were about. Moreover, thou thyself didst nearly end the war, and at the very first encounter, by carrying off young Scipio. But ’twas not to be--and now, for a space, I would speak of other matters. Come within the tent; ’tis chilly without. We will take a cup of wine.”

Maharbal entered with his Chief, who carefully closed the entrance of his tent, after having first summoned a slave to bring him a flagon and some wine-cups, which were filled.