Ancient Rome: An Introductory History (23 page)

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Battle at the Trebia

The Romans lost a minor engagement to Hannibal in 218
B.C.
at the Ticinus River, where the consul Scipio, wounded and surrounded by enemy cavalry, was saved by his seventeen-year-old son. Seeing his father in danger, the young Scipio ran away from the soldiers who had been assigned to protect him, and rescued his father. This boy, P. Cornelius Scipio, later earned the honorary title Africanus for his conquests.

Later that year the Romans faced Hannibal at the river Trebia. Here the weakness of the Roman system of consuls showed itself, for one consul, Scipio, was still wounded and did not wish to have a battle, but the other consul, Sempronius, urged him to go ahead and engage with the Carthaginian forces, which had been augmented by Gauls. Hannibal, knowing of the Romans' divided command and of the proud and passionate personality of Sempronius, worked to lay a trap for the Romans.

A stream separated the two armies. The night before the battle, Hannibal hid his brother Mago, with a thousand cavalry and another thousand of his toughest foot soldiers, behind the bushes and shrubs of the stream. At dawn he ordered his Numidian cavalry to lure the Romans to battle with an attack, but then to quickly withdraw. At dawn the Numidian cavalry attacked the Roman camp and quickly retreated. The Romans, without eating breakfast, surprised by the attack, hurried out into the December cold to pursue the attackers. In their pursuit they crossed the frigid, swollen waters of the stream, so deep it reached their necks. Hannibal's soldiers, meanwhile, sat in front of their campfires, leisurely eating a hot breakfast and rubbing themselves down with warm oil.

The two sidesone cold, hungry, wet, and tired, and the other warm, rested, and ready to fightmet for battle. Hannibal's elephants immediately scared off the Roman cavalry; when the Romans found a way to defend themselves from the elephants, Hannibal had the elephants attack Rome's Gallic auxiliaries, who fled at the elephants' attack. The Romans, already suffering from cold, hunger, and exhaustion, and worn down by the tough Carthaginian troops, then were attacked in the rear by Mago and

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the troops that had been hiding behind the bushes; the Romans were surrounded.

Part of the Roman army fought its way through the Carthaginian center, only to find itself trapped by the river and unable to return to camp. Those who hesitated to jump in and swim to the camp were cut down by the Numidian cavalry, while those who braved the river risked death by drowning or exposure. Hannibal's victory was complete and devastating. The Romans lost approximately thirty thousand men.

Trasimene: "Pugna Magna Victi Sumus"

In the next year Hannibal did not relax after his stunning victory. He learned that the Roman consul Flaminius had arrived at Arretium, in Etruria; instead of taking a long but easy path to Arretium, Hannibal chose to travel through swamps. For four days he and his men struggled through the swamps, able to snatch only a few moments of sleep on the heaps of dead pack animals. Hannibal himself, riding his last surviving elephant, came down with an eye infection and lost sight in that eye. Nonetheless his sudden arrival surprised the Romans, and he was able to seize more strategic ground. After a few days' rest, his troops then ravaged the countryside, in full view of the Romans, to anger Flaminius and his troops. Despite his officers' advice that he should wait for the other consul and his army, Flaminius ordered his troops to prepare for a battle with Hannibal. All the omens for battle were bad: When Flaminius jumped onto his horse, it threw him from the saddle, and the standards could not be pulled from the groundthey would not budge.

Hannibal then marched into an area by Lake Trasimene. On one side was the lake, and on the other side were the mountains, with only a small path for an exit. Along that small path the Romans followed Hannibal, not knowing that the night before he had hidden some troops in the mountains north of the lake, and that he had stationed his cavalry to block the path once the Romans had come into the trap. The Romans blindly followed him.

The Carthaginians suddenly swarmed down from the hills, catching the Romans unprepared for battle. The Roman army,

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which was not able even to see where the enemy was coming from, because of the mist rising from the lake, disintegrated into chaos. More than fifteen thousand Romansnot counting allieswere killed in the battle, including the consul Flaminius. Again, Hannibal had won a smashing victory. Nor was this the last of his exploits: The worst was still to come.

Q. Fabius Maximus Cunctator: "Unus Homo Nobis Cunctando Restituit Rem"

"In Rome, at the first news of the disaster [at Trasimene], the people in terror and panic rushed into the Forum. Mothers wandering through the streets asked those passing by what unexpected disaster had been visited upon Rome, or what the fate of the army was. When a mob, like a packed assembly, summoned the magistrates, the praetor M. Pomponius, just a little before sunset, said only this: 'We have been conquered in a great battle'" ("'Pugna magna victi sumus'"; Livy XXII.7.6-8).

The situation in Rome was clearly desperate enough to warrant appointing a dictator. After some difficultiesonly a consul could do so, but one consul was dead and the other was away from Romethe Senate appointed as dictator Q. Fabius Maximus (later called Cunctator, from the verb
cunctor
, "to delay").

Seeing that Hannibal had defeated the Romans in two set battles, Fabius realized that the wiser approach would be not to engage Hannibal in a battle; instead, the Romans would follow him, harassing his troops with guerrilla-type warfare, working to keep the Italian allies loyal, and trying to isolate Hannibal from supplies and reinforcements. This policy of attrition was successful, for Hannibal could inflict no more losses upon the Romans, while the Romans simply attacked Hannibal's men as they sought water, firewood, and food for their horses (with four thousand cavalry, Hannibal needed a lot of fodder for the horses). Hannibal quickly understood Fabius' intention, and tried to lure him into a trap, but Fabius was too wary and cautious. His characteristic caution gave rise to an adjective in English,
Fabian
, meaning "cautious, dilatory."

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At one point, Hannibal was penned in a valley by the Romans, who controlled the surrounding mountain passes. Hannibal could not get provisions for his army and cavalry, while the Roman armies had easy access to food and water. Nor could Hannibal fight his way out of the predicament, for the Romans had the superior position. So the wily Hannibal devised still another brilliant plan to extricate himself:

Pieces of dry wood, collected from the fields all around, and bundles of dry twigs and brushwood were tied onto the horns of the many cattle that he had among the loot taken from the countryside. After that had been done to nearly two thousand cattle, Hasdrubal [one of Hannibal's officers] was assigned the task of setting the cattle's horns on fire that night and driving them toward the mountains and most of all (if he could) above the passes held by the enemy.

They broke camp in silence after nightfall. The cattle were driven some distance in front of the standards. When they arrived at the foot of the mountains and narrow passes, the signal was immediately given to light the cattle's horns and to drive them toward the mountains. The beasts' fear of the flames burning on their own heads, and the heat, by now reaching the skin and nerves, drove the cattle on in a frenzy, as if they had been whipped.

Their sudden scattering made the forest and mountains appear as if they had been set on fire, and the brushwood all around was blazing. The desperate shaking of their heads fanned the flames, giving forth the appearance of men scattering everywhere. When the men who had been stationed to block the passes saw the fires in the peaks of the mountains and above themselves, they concluded that they were surrounded, and left their posts. (Livy XXII.16.7-XXII.17.4)

In the confusion, Hannibal and his men managed to escape from the valley.

Fabius, despite the wisdom of his policy, was becoming unpopular among his countrymen. His master of the horse, Minucius, urged him to fight a battle with Hannibal and maligned Fabius' strategy in public and in private. When Fabius had to return to Rome briefly, to attend to a religious matter, Minucius won a minor engagement with Hannibal and became even more self-

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