Page:The World's Famous Orations Volume 2.pdf/14

 for your leader against Hannibal and the Carthaginians, have offered myself voluntarily for this contest, few words are required to be addressed from a new commander to soldiers unacquainted with him. That you may not be ignorant of the nature of the war nor of the enemy, you have to fight, soldiers, with those whom in the former war you conquered both by land and sea; from whom you have exacted tribute for twenty years; from whom you hold Sicily andSardinia, taken as the prizes of victory.

In the present contest, you and they will have those feelings which are wont to belong to the victors and the vanquished. Nor are they now about to fight because they are daring, but because it is unavoidable; except you can believe that they who declined the engagement when their forces were entire should have now gained more confidence when two-thirds of their infantry and cavalry have been lost in the passage of the Alps, and when almost greater numbers have perished than survive. Yes, they are few indeed (some may say), but they are vigorous in mind and body, men whose strength and power scarce any force may withstand. On the contrary, they are but the resemblances—nay, are rather the shadows—of men, being worn out with hunger, cold, dirt, and filth, and bruised and enfeebled among stones and rocks. Besides all this, their joints are frost-bitten, their sinews stiffened with the snow, their limbs withered up by the frost, their armor battered and shivered,