Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 2.djvu/350

Rh 336 HANNIBAL. pied by the enemy and the lake of Thrasyraenns ; and its destruction was almost complete, thousands fell by the sword, among whom was the consul himself; thousands more perished in the lake, and no less than 15,000 prisoners fell into the hands of Hannibal, who on his side is said to have lost only 1500 men. A body of 4000 horse, who had been sent to the support of Flaminius, under C. Centenius, were also intercepted, and the whole of them cut to pieces or made prisoners. (Polyb. iii. 77 — 86; Liv. xxii. 1 — 8 ; Appian, Annih. 9, 10; Zonar. viii. 25.) Hannibal's treatment of the cap- tives on this occasion, as well as after the battle of the Trebia, was marked by the same policy on which he afterwards uniformly acted : the Roman citizens alone were retained as prisoners, while their Italian allies were dismissed witliout ransom to their re- spective homes. By this means he hoped to ex- cite the nations of Italy against their Roman masters, and to place himself in the position of the leader of a national movement rather than that of a foreign invader. It was probably in order to give time for this feeling to display itself, that he did not, after so decisive a victory, push on towards Rome itself; but after an unsuccessful attempt upon the Roman colony of Spoletium, he turned aside through the Apennines into Picenum, and thence into the northern part of Apulia, Here he spent a great part of the summer, and was able effectually to restore his troops, which had suffered much from the hardships of their previous marches. But no symptoms appeared of the insurrections he had looked for among the Italians. The Romans had collected a fresh army; and Fabius, who had been appointed to the command of it, with the title of dictator, while he prudently avoided a general action, was able frequently to harass and annoy the Carthaginian army. Hannibal now, therefore, recrossed the Apennines, descended into the rich plains of Campania, and laid waste, with- out opposition, that fertile territor}'. But he was unable either to make himself master of any of the towns, or to draw the wary Fabius to a battle. The Roman general contented himself with occupy- inw the mountain passes leading from Samnium into Campania, by which Hannibal must of neces- sity retreat, and believed that he had caught him as it were in a trap ; but Hannibal eluded his vigi- lance by an ingenious stratagem, passed the defiles of the Apennines without loss, and established him- self in the plains of Apulia, where he collected sup- plies from all sides, in order to prepare for the winter. During this operation the impatience of the Romans and the rashness of Minucius (who had been raised by the voice of popular clamour to an equality in the command with Fabius) were very near giving Hannibal the opportunity for which he was ever on the watch, to crush the Roman array by a decisive blow ; but Fabius was able to save his colleague from destruction ; and Hannibal, after obtaining only a partial advantage, took up his winter-quarters at the small town of Geronium. (Polyb. iii. 85—94, 100—105 ; Liv. xxii. 7—18, -'3—30, 32; Plut. Fah. 3—13; Ap- pian, Annib. 12 — 16 ; Zonar. viii. 25, 26.) The next spring (b. c. 216) was a period of in- action on both sides : the Romans were engaged in making preparations for bringing an unusually large force into the field ; and Hannibal remained at Geronium until late in the spring, when the want of provisions compelling him to move, he surprised HANNIBAL. the Roman magazines at Cannae, a small town of Apulia, and established his head-quarters there until the harvest could be got in. Meanwhile, the two Roman consuls, L. Aemilius Paullus and C. Terentius Varro, arrived at the head of an army of little less than 90,000 men. To this mighty host Hannibal gave battle in the plains on the right bank of the Aufidus, just below the town of Can- nae.* We have no statement of the numbers of his army, but it is certain that it must have been greatly inferior to that of the enemy; not- withstanding which, the excellence of his cavalry, and the disciplined valour of his African and Spanish infantry, gave him the most decisive vic- tory. The immense army of the Romans was not only defeated, but annihilated ; and between forty and fifty thousand men are said to have fallen in the field, among whom was the consul Aemilius Paullus, both the consuls of the preceding year, the late master of the horse, Minucius, above eighty senators, and a multitude of the wealthy knights who composed the Roman cavalry. The other consul, Varro, escaped with a few horsemen to Venusia, and a small band of resolute men forced their way from the Roman camp to Canusium ; all the rest were killed, dispersed, or taken prisoners. (Polyb. iii. 107—117 ; Liv. xxii. 36, 38—50 ; Plut. Fab. 14 — 16 ; Appian, Aiinib. 17 — 25 ; Zonar. ix. 1.) Hannibal has been generally blamed for not fol- lowing up his advantage at once, after so decisive a victory, by an immediate advance upon Rome itself, — a measure which was strongly urged upon him by Maharbal [Maharbal] ; and we are told that he himself afterwards bitterly repented of his error. Whatever may be the motives that de- terred him from such a step, we cannot but be sur- prised at his apparent inactivity after the battle. He probably expected that so brilliant a success would immediately produce a general rising among the nations of Italy, and remained for a time quietly in Apulia, until they should have had time to declare themselves. Nor were his hopes disappointed : the Hirpinians, all the Samnites (except the Pentrian tribe), and almost all the Apulians, Lucanians, and Bruttians declared in favour of Carthage. But though the whole of the south of Italy was thus apparently lost to the Ro- mans, yet the effect of this insurrection was not so decisive as it would at first appear ; for the Latin colonies, which still without exception remained faithful, gave the Romans a powerful hold upon the revolted provinces ; and the Greek cities on the coast, though mostly disposed to join the Cartha- ginians, were restrained by the presence of Roman garrisons. Hence it became necessary to support the insurrection in the different parts of Italy with a Carthaginian force ; and Hannibal, while he himself moved forward into Samnium, detached his brother Mago into Bruttiura, and Hanno, one of his ablest officers, into Lucania. After securing the to Claudius Quadrigarius (ap. Macrob. i. 16 ; Gell. V. 17. § 2), on the 2nd of August ; but it seems probable that the Roman calendar was at this period considerably in advance of the true time, and that the battle was fought in reality at least as early as the middle of June. (See Arnold's Bomey vol. iii. p. 136; Clinton, F. H. vol. iii. p. 42 ; where the words " behind the true time " are evi- dently an accidental error.)
 * The battle of Cannae was fought, according