Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 20.djvu/773

Rh THE PUNIC WARS.] li O M E 749 on by his kinsman Hasdrubal (228-221), was completed by his son Hannibal, who, with all his father's genius, inherited also his father's hatred of Rome, and by 219 the authority of Carthage had been extended as far as the Ebro. Koine had not watched this rapid advance without anxiety, but, probably owing to her troubles with the Celts, she had contented herself with stipulating (226) that Carthage should not carry her arms beyond the Ebro, so as to threaten Rome's ancient ally, the Greek Massilia, and with securing the independence of the two nominally Greek communities, Emporiae and Saguntum, 1 on the east coast. But these precautions were of no avail against the resolute determination of Hannibal, with whom the conquest of Spain was only preliminary to an attack upon Italy, and who could not afford to leave behind him in Spain a state allied to Rome. In 219, therefore, dis- regarding the protests of a Roman embassy, he attacked and took Saguntum, an act which, as he had foreseen, rendered a rupture with Rome inevitable, while it set his own hands free for a further advance. A second war with Carthage was no unlooked-for event at Rome ; but the senate seems to have confidently expected that it would be waged at a distance from Italy in Africa and in Spain, where Saguntum would have given them a convenient point of support ; and to this hope they clung even after Saguntum was lost. In 218, the first year of the war, one consul, P. Cornelius Scipio, was despatched to Spain, and the other, T. Sempronius Gracchus, to Sicily, and thence to Africa. But Hannibal's secrecy and prompt- itude baffled all their calculations. Leaving New Carthage early in 218, in the space of five months he crossed the Pyrenees, reached the Rhone just as Scipio arrived at Massilia on his way to Spain, passed the Alps in spite of endless difficulties and hardships, and startled Italy by de- scending into the plains of Cisalpine Gaul. In two battles on the Ticinus and the Trebia he defeated the forces hastily collected to bar his progress southwards ; the Celtic tribes rallied to his standard ; and at the beginning of the next year he prepared to realize the dream of his life and carry fire and sword into Italy itself. His own force numbered 26,000 men ; the total available strength of Rome and her allies was estimated at over 700,000. 2 But Hannibal's hope lay in the possibility that by the rapidity of his movements he might be able to strike a decisive blow before Rome could mobilize her levies, or get her somewhat cumbrous military machinery into working order. From a first success he expected no less a result than the break up of the Roman confederacy, and the isolation of Rome herself, while it would also increase the readiness of his own government to render him effective support. His trust in himself and his army was not misplaced, for to the last he had the advantage" over the Roman legions wherever he met them in person. Except, however, in South Italy, his brilliant victories and dashing marches brought him no allies, and it was his inability to shake the loyalty of northern and central Italy and of the Latin colonies everywhere, even more than the indomitable perseverance of Rome and the supineness of Carthage, which caused his ultimate failure. In the spring of 217 Hannibal crossed the Apennines and marched southwards through the lowlands of eastern Etruria, the route taken before him by the Celtic hordes. In April he annihilated Flaminius and his army at the Trasimene Lake, 3 and pushed on to Spoletium, only a few 1 Livy, xxi. 2, 5 ; Polyb.,iii. 15, 31. 2 Polybius (ii. 24 sq.) enumerates the forces of Rome and her allies at the time of the Celtic invasion of 225. For a criticism of his account see Mommsen, Jt. Forsch., ii. 398 ; Beloch, Ital. Band, 80. For Hannibal's force, see Polyb., iii. 35, 56. 3 For the date see Ovid, Fust., vi. 765; Weissenborn on Livy, xxii. 5 ; Mommsen, R. O., i. 594. days' march from Rome. But Rome was not yet his goal ; from Spoletium, which had closed its gates against him, he moved rapidly eastward, ravaging the territories of Roman allies as he went, till he reached the Adriatic and the fertile lands of northern Apulia, where supplies and especially remounts for his Numidian cavalry 4 were plentiful, and communication with Carthage easy, and where, moreover, he was well placed for testing the fidelity of the most recent and the least trustworthy of the Italian allies of Rome. A second victory here, on the scale of that at the Trasimene Lake, might be the signal for a general revolt against Roman rule. It was not, however, until the summer of the next year that his opportunity came. The patient tactics of Q. Fabius Cunctator had become unpopular at Rome; and the consuls of 216, L. 538. yEmilius Paulus and M. Terentius Varro, took the field in Apulia, at the head of a larger force than Rome had yet raised, and with orders to fight and crush the daring invader. The result realized for the moment Hannibal's highest hopes. The Roman army was annihilated at Cannas ; and South Italy, with the exception of the Latin colonies and the Greek cities on the coast, came over to his side. Nor did the Roman misfortunes end here. Philip of Macedon concluded an alliance with Hannibal (215), 539. and threatened an invasion of Italy. In the very next year Syracuse, no longer ruled by the faithful Hiero, revolted, and a Carthaginian force landed in Sicily ; lastly, in 212 came the loss of the Greek cities on the south 542. coast. But the truth of Polybius's remark that the Romans are most to be feared when their danger is greatest was never better illustrated than by their conduct in the face of these accumulated disasters. Patiently and undauntedly they set themselves to regain the ground they had lost. Philip of Macedon was first of all forced to retire from the allied city of Apollonia which he had attacked (214), and 540. then effectually diverted from all thoughts of an attack on Italy, by the formation of a coalition against him in Greece itself (211); Syracuse was recaptured in 212, after a 543, 542 lengthy siege, and Roman authority re-established in Sicily. In Italy itself the Roman commanders took advantage of Hannibal's absence in the extreme south to reconquer northern Apulia ; but their main efforts were directed to the recovery of Campania, and above all of Capua. The imminent danger of Capua, which he had named as the successor of Rome in the headship of Italy, recalled Hannibal from the south, where he was besieging a Roman garrison in the citadel of Tarentum. Failing to break through the lines which enclosed it, he resolved, as a last hope of diverting the Roman legions from the devoted city, to advance on Rome itself. But his march, deeply as it impressed the imagination of his contemporaries by its audacity and promptitude, was without result. Silently and rapidly he moved along the course of the Latin Way, through the heart of the territory of Rome, to within 3 miles of the city, and even rode up with his advanced guard to the Colline gate. Yet no ally joined him ; no Roman force was recalled to face him ; no proposals for peace reached his camp,; and, overcome, it is said, by the unmoved confidence of his foe, he withdrew, as silently and rapidly as he had advanced, to his headquarters in the south. The fall of Capua followed inevitably (21 1), 5 and 543. the Roman senate saw with relief the seat of war removed to Lucania and Bruttium, and a prospect opening of some relief from the exhausting exertions of the last five years. Their hopes were quickly dashed to the ground. The 4 Livy, xxiv. 20. ' B Livy, xxvi. 16, 33, gives the sentence passed on Capua: "Ager omnis et tecta publica P. R. facta, habitari tantum tanquam urbem, corpus nullum civitatis esse." For the condition of Capua subse- quently, see Cic., L. Agr., i. 6 ; compare C. I. L., 566 sq.