drubal; and himself set forwards immediately for Genoa, with the intention of opposing the army which was in Gaul, near the Po, to that of Hannibal.

The latter, after four days march, arrived at a kind of island, formed by the conflux of two rivers, which unite their streams at this place.* Here he was chosen umpire between two brothers, who disputed their right to the kingdom. He to whom Hannibal decreed it, furnished his whole army with provisions, clothes and arms. This was the country of the Allobroges, the people who inhabited the present districts of Geneva, Vienne,t and Grenoble. His march was not much interrupted till he arrived at the Durance, and from thence he reached the foot of the Alps without any opposition.

THE PASSAGE OVER THE ALPS.

THE sight of these mountains, whose tops seemed to touch the skies, and were covered with snow, and where nothing appeared to the eye but a few pitiful cottages, scattered here and there, on the sharp tops of inaccessible rocks; nothing but meagre flocks, almost perishing with cold, and hairy men of a savage and fierce aspect; this spectacle renewed the terror which the distant prospect had raised, and chilled with fear the hearts of the soldiers. When they began to climb up, they perceived the mountaineers, who had seized upon the highest cliffs, and prepared to oppose their passage. They therefore were forced to halt. Had the mountaineers, says Polybius, only lain in ambuscade, and suffered Hannibal's troops to strike into some narrow passage, and then charged them on a sudden, the Carthaginian army would have been irrecoverably lost. Hannibal, being informed that they kept those posts only in the day time, and quitted them in the evening, possessed himself of them by night. The Gauls, returning early in the morning, were very much surprised to find their posts in the enemy's hands; but still they were not disheartened. Being used to climb up those rocks, they attacked the Carthaginians who were upon their march, and harassed them on all sides. The latter were obliged, at the same time, to engage with the enemy, and struggle with the ruggedness of the paths of the mountains, where they could hardly stand. But the greatest disorder was caused by the horses and beasts of burden laden with the baggage, that were frighted by the cries and howling of the Gauls, which echoed dreadfully among the mountains; and being sometimes wounded by the mountaineers, came tumbling on the soldiers, and dragged them headlong with them down the preci pices which skirted the road. Hannibal, being sensible that the loss of his baggage alone was enough to destroy his army, ran to the assistance of his troops who were thus embarrassed, and having put the enemy to flight, continued his march without molestation or danger, and came to a castle, which was the most important fortress in the whole country. He possessed himself of it, and of all the neighbouring villages, in which he found a large quantity of corn, and sufficient cattle to subsist his army for three days.

Although their march was for a short time uninterrupted, the Carthaginians were to encounter a new danger. The Gauls, feigning to take advantage of the misfortunes of their neighbours, who had suffered for opposing the passage of Hannibal's troops, came to pay their respects to that general, brought him provisions, offered to be his guides, and left him hostages, as pledges of their fidelity. Hannibal, however, placed no great confidence in them. The elephants and horses marched in the front, while himself followed with the main body of his foot, keeping a vigilant eye over all. They came at length

* The text of Polybius, as it has been transmitted to us, and that of Livy, place this island at the meeting of the Saone and the Rhone, that is, in that part where the city of Lyons stands. But this is a manifest error. It was Exagas in the Greek, instead of which 6 "Apagos has been substituted. J. Gronovius says, that he had read, in a manuscript of Livy, Bisarar, which shows that we are to read Isara Rhodan esque amnes, instead of Arar Rhodanusque; and that the island in question is formed by the conflux of the Izara and the Rhone. The situation of the Allobroges, here spoken of, proves this evidently. Polyb. I. iii. p. 203-208. Liv. 1. xxi. n. 32-37

† In Dauphiné

to a very steep and narrow pass, which was commanded by an eminence, where the Gauls had placed an ambuscade. These rushing out on a sudden, assailed the Carthaginians on every side, rolling down stones upon them of a prodigious size. The army would have been entirely routed, had not Hannibal exerted himself, in an extraordinary manner, to extricate them out of this difficulty.

At last, on the ninth day, they reached the summit of the Alps. Here the army halted two days, to rest and refresh themselves after their fatigue, after which they continued their march. As it was now autuinn, a great quantity of snow had lately fallen, and covered all the roads, which caused a consternation among the troops, and disheartened them very much. Hannibal perceived it, and halting on a hill, from whence there was a prospect of all Italy, he showed them the fruitful plains of Piedmont, watered by the river Po, which they had nearly reached, adding that they had but one more effort to make, before they arrived at them. He represented to them, that a battle or two would put a glorious period to their toils, and enrich them for ever, by giving them possession of the capital of the Roman empire. This speech, full of such pleasing hopes, and enforced by the sight of Italy, inspired the dejected soldiers with fresh vigour and alacrity. They therefore pursued their march. But still the road was more craggy and troublesome than ever, and as they were now on a descent, the difficulty and danger increased. For the ways were narrow, steep, and slippery, in most places; so that the soldiers could neither keep their feet as they marched, nor recover themselves when they made a false step, but stumbled, and beat down one another.

They were now come to a place worse than any they had yet met with. This was a path naturally very steep and craggy, which being made more so by the late falling in of the earth, terminated in a frightful precipice more than a thousand feet deep. Here the cavalry stopped short. Hannibal, wondering at this sudden halt, ran to the place, and saw that it would really be impossible for the troops to advance. He therefore was for making a circuitous route, but this also was found impracticable. As upon the old snow, which was growing hard by lying, there was some lately fallen that was of no great depth, the feet, at first, by their sinking into it, found a firm support; but this snow being soon dissolved by the treading of the foremost troops and beasts of burden, the soldiers marched on nothing but ice, which was so slippery that they had no firm footing; and where, if they made the least false step, or endea voured to save themselves with their hands or knees, there were no boughs or roots to catch hold of. Besides this difficulty, the horses, striking their feet forcibly into the ice to keep themselves from falling, could not draw them out again, but were caught as in a gin. They therefore were forced to seek some other expedient.

Hannibal resolved to pitch his camp, and to give his troops some days rest, on the summit of this hill, which was of a considerable extent, after they should have cleared the ground, and removed all the old as well as the new fallen snow, which was a work of immense labour. He afterwards ordered a path to be cut into the rock itself, and this was carried on with amazing patience and labour. To open and enlarge this path, all the trees thereabout were cut down, and piled round the rock, and there set on fire. The wind, fortunately blowing hard, a fierce flame soon broke out, so that the rock glowed like the very coals with which it was surrounded. Then Hannibal, if Livy may be credited, for Polybius says nothing of this matter, caused a great quantity of vinegar to be poured on the rock, which piercing into the veins of it, that were now cracked by the intense heat of the fire, calcined and softened it.

Many reject this incident as fictitious. Pliny takes notice of a remarkable quality in vinegar, viz. its being able to break rocks and stones.-Saxa rumpit infusum, quæ non ruperit ignis antecedens, 1. xxiii.c. 1. He therefore calls it, Succus rerum domitor, 1. xxxiii. c. 2. Dion, speaking of the siege of Eleuthra, says, that the walls of it were made to fall by the force of vinegar, 1. xxxvi. p. 8. Probably the circumstance that seems improbable on this occasion, is the difficulty of Hannibal's procuring, in those mountains, a quaer, tity of vinegar sufficient for this purpose,

In this manner, making a large circuit, in order that the descent might be easier, they cut a way along the rock, which opened a free passage to the forces, the baggage, and even to the elephants. Four days were employed in this work, during which the beasts of burden had no provender, there being no food for them on mountains buried under eternal snows. At last they came into cultivated and fruitful spots, which yielded plenty of forage for the borses, and all kinds of food for the soldiers.

HANNIBAL ENTERS ITALY.

WHEN Hannibal marched into Italy, his army was far less numerous than when he left Spain, where we find it amounted to nearly sixty thousand men.* He had sustained great losses during the march, either in the battles he was forced to fight, or in the passage of rivers. At his departure from the Rhone, it consisted of thirty-eight thousand foot, and above eight thousand horse. The march over the Alps destroyed nearly half this number, so that Hannibal had now remaining only twelve thousand Africans, eight thousand Spanish foot, and six thousand horse. This account he himself caused to be engraved on a pillar near the promontory called Licinium. It was five months and a half since his first setting out from New Carthage, including the fortnight he employed in marching over the Alps, when he set up his standard in the plains of the Po, at the entrance of Fiedmont. It might then have been September. His first care was to give his troops some rest, which they very much wanted. When he perceived that they were fit for action, the inhabitants of all the territories of Turint refusing to conclude an alliance with him, he marched and encamped before their chief city, carried it in three days, and put all who had opposed him to the sword. This expedition struck the barbarians with so much dread, that they all came voluntarily and surrendered at discretion. The rest of the Gauls would have done the same, had they not been awed by the terror of the Roman arms, which were now approaching. Hannibal thought, therefore, that he had no time to lose; that it was his interest to march up into the country, and attempt some great exploit, such as might induce those who should have an inclination to join him to rely on his valour. The rapid progress which Hannibal had made greatly alarmed Rome, and caused the utmost consternation throughout the city. Sempronius was ordered to leave Sicily, and hasten to the relief of his country; and P. Scipio, the other consul advanced with the utmost diligence towards the enemy, crossed the Po, and pitched his camp near the Ticinus.‡

BATTLE OF THE CAVALRY NEAR THE TICINUS.

THE armies being now in sight, the generals on each side made a speech to their soldiers, before they engaged in battle. Scipio, after having represented to his forces the glory of their country, and the noble achievements of their ancestors, observed to them, that victory was in their hands, since they were to combat only with Carthaginians, a people who had been so often defeated by them, as well as forced to be their tributaries for twenty years, and long accustomed to be almost their slaves: that the advantage they had gained over the flower of the Carthaginian horse, was a sure omen of their success during the rest of the war: that Hannibal, in marching over the Alps, had just before lost the best part of his army, and that those who survived were exhausted with hunger, cold, and fatigue: that the bare sight of the Romans was sufficient to put to flight a parcel of soldiers, who had the aspect of ghosts rather than of men: in a word, that victory was become necessary, not only to secure Italy, but to save Rome itself, whose fate the present battle would decide, that city having no other army wherewith to oppose the enemy. Hannibal, that his words might make the stronger impression on the rude minds of his soldiers, addressed himself to their eyes, before he addressed

Liv. 1. xxi. n. 39.

*Polyb. l. iii. p. 209 & 212-214. 1 A small river, now called Tesino, in Lombardy.

† Taurini. Polyb. 1. iii. p. 214-213. Liv. 1. xxi. n. 39-47.

their ears; and did not attempt to persuade them by arguments, till he had first moved them by the following spectacle. He armed some of the prisoners he had taken in the mountains, and obliged them to fight, two and two, in sight of his army, promising to reward the conquerors with their liberty and rich presents. The alacrity and vigour wherewith these barbarians engaged upon these motives, gave Hannibal an occasion of exhibiting to his soldiers a lively image of their present condition; which, by depriving them of all means of returning back, put them under an absolute necessity either of conquering or dying, in order to avoid the endless evils prepared for those that should be so base and cowardly as to submit to the Romans. He displayed to them the greatness of their reward, viz. the conquest of all Italy; the plunder of the rich and wealthy city of Rome; an illustrious victory, and immortal glory. He spoke contemptibly of the Roman power, the false lustre of which he observed, ought not to dazzle such warriors as themselves, who had marched from the pillars of Hercules, through the fiercest nations into the very centre of Italy. As for his own part, he scorned to compare himself with Scipio, a general of but six months standing: himself, who was almost born, at least brought up, in the tent of Hamilcar his father; the conqueror of Spain, of Gaul, of the inhabitants of the Alps, and, what was still more remarkable,of the Alps themselves. He roused their indignation against the insolence of the Romans, who had dared to demand that himself, and the rest who had taken Saguntum, should be delivered up to them; and excited their jealousy against the intolerable pride of those imperious masters, who imagined that all things ought to obey them, and that they had a right to give laws to the world.

After these speeches, both sides prepared for battle. Scipio, having thrown a bridge across the Ticinus, marched his troops over it. Two ill omens had filled his army with consternation and dread.** As for the Carthaginians, they were inspired with the boldest courage. Hannibal animated them with fresh promises; and cleaving with a stone the skull of the lamb he was sacrificing, he prayed to Jupiter to dash his head in pieces in like manner, in case he did not give his soldiers the rewards he had promised them.

Scipio posted in the first line, the troops armed with missile weapons, and the Gaulish horse; and forming his second line of the flower of the confederate cavalry, he advanced slowly. Hannibal advanced with his whole cavalry, in the centre of which he had posted the troopers who rode with bridles, and the Numidian horse on the wings, in order to surround the enemy. The officers and cavalry, being eager to engage, the battle commenced. At the first onset, Scipio's light-armed soldiers discharged their darts, but frightened at the Carthaginian cavalry, which came pouring upon them, and fearing lest they should be trampled under the horses' feet, they gave way, and retired through the intervals of the squadrons. The fight continued a long time with equal success. Many troopers on both sides dismounted; so that the battle was carried on between infantry as well as cavalry. In the mean time, the Numidians surrounded the enemy, and charged the rear of the light-armed troops, who at first had escaped the attack of the cavalry, and trod them under their horses' feet. The centre of the Roman forces had hitherto fought with great bravery. Many were killed on both sides, and even more on that of the Carthaginians. But the Roman troops were thrown into disorder by the Numidians, who attacked them in the rear: and especially by a wound the consul received, which disabled him. This general, however, was rescued out of the enemy's hands by the bravery of his son, then but seventeen years old, and who afterwards was honoured with the surname of Africanus, for having put a glorious period to this war.

The consul, though dangerously wounded, retreated in good order, and was conveyed to his camp by a body of horse who covered him with their arms

*These two ill omens were, first, a wolf had stole into the camp of the Romans, and cruelly mangled some of the soldiers, without receiving the least harm from those who endeavoured to kill it i and, secondly, a swarm of bees had pitched upon a tree near the prætorium, or general's tent.-Liv. 1. xxi. c. 46.

The Numidians used to ride without saddle or bridle.

and bodies: the rest of the army followed him thither. He hastened to the Po, which he crossed with his army, and then broke down the bridge, whereby he prevented Hannibal from overtaking him.

It was agreed, that Hannibal owed this first victory to his cavalry; and it was judged from thenceforth, that the main strength of his army consisted in his horse; and therefore, that it would be proper for the Romans to avoid large open plains like those between the Po and the Alps.

Immediately after the battle of the Ticinus, all the neighbouring Gauls seemed to contend who should submit themselves first to Hannibal, furnish him with ammunition, and enlist in his army. And this, as Polybius has observed, was what chiefly induced that wise and skilful general, notwithstanding the small number and weakness of his troops, to hazard a battle; which he indeed was now obliged to venture, from the impossibility of marching back whenever he should desire to do it, because nothing but a battle would oblige the Gauls to declare for him; their assistance being the only refuge he then had left.

BATTLE OF TREBIA.

SEMPRONIUS the consul, upon the orders he had received from the senate, was returned from Sicily to Ariminum.* From thence he marched towards Trebia, a small river of Lombardy, which falls into the Po a little above Placentia, where he joined his forces to those of Scipio. Hannibal advanced towards the camp of the Romans, from which he was separated only by that small river. The armies lying so near one another, gave occasion to frequent skirmishes, in one of which Sempronius, at the head of a body of horse, gained but a very small advantage over a party of Carthaginians, which nevertheless very much increased the good opinion this general naturally entertained of his own merit.

This inconsiderable success seemed to him a complete victory. He boasted his having vanquished the enemy in the same kind of fight in which his colleague had been defeated, and that he thereby had revived the courage of the dejected Romans. Being now resolutely bent to come, as soon as possible, to a decisive battle, he thought it proper, for decency sake, to consult Scipio, whom he found to be of a quite different opinion from himself. Scipio represented, that in case time should be allowed for disciplining the new levies during the winter, they would be much more fit for service in the ensuing campaign; that the Gauls, who were naturally fickle and inconstant, would disengage them selves insensibly from Hannibal; that as soon as his wounds should be healed, his presence might be of some use in an affair of such general concern; in a word, he besought him earnestly not to proceed any farther.

These reasons, though so just, made no impression upon Sempronius. He saw himself at the head of sixteen thousand Romans, and twenty thousand allies, exclusive of cavalry, which number, in those ages, formed a complete army, when both consuls joined their forces. The troops of the enemy amounted to near the same number. He thought the juncture extremely favourable for him. He declared publicly, that all the officers and soldiers were desirous of a battle, except his colleague, whose inind, he observed, being more affected by his wound than his body, could not for that reason bear to hear of an engagement. But still, continued Sempronius, is it just to let the whole army droop and languish with him? What could Scipio expect more? Did he flatter himself with the hopes that a third consul, and a new army, would come to his assistance? Such were the expressions he employed, both among the soldiers, and even about Scipio's tent. The time for the election of new generals drawing near, Sempronius was afraid a successor would be sent before he had put an end to the war; and therefore it was his opinion, that he ought to take advantage of his colleague's illness to secure the whole honour of the victory to himself. As he had no regard, says Polybius, to the time proper for action,

*Polyb. I. xxiii. p. 220-227. Liv. 1. xxi. n. 51-56.