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 CHAPTER LVIII

HANNIBAL CROSSES THE ALPS

In the spring of 218 the Carthaginian army set out on its great undertaking, thirty-seven elephants in its train.

Hasdrubal, one of Hannibal's brothers, was left behind to guard the towns that had been taken in Spain.

Meanwhile the Roman Senate, knowing nothing of Hannibal's movements, sent Sempronius, one of the Consuls, into Sicily with an army, while the other, Cornelius Scipio, was ordered to lead an army into Spain to punish Hannibal.

But while Rome was thus hoping to secure the general who had flouted her, he was already marching through Gaul. At the river Rhone he was met by his first difficulty, for some of the tribes that were unfriendly to the Carthaginians had gathered on the opposite bank to oppose his passage.

Hannibal at once sent a body of his troops higher up the river, with orders to cross, and, stealing unnoticed into the camp of the enemy, to set it on fire. When the general thought that there had been time for this to be done, he began to cross the river with the main body of his army, in boats and canoes. On the opposite bank, the barbarians were drawn up in battle array.

Hannibal did not fear them. Already his quick eyes had seen a column of smoke rising from the Gallic camp, and he knew that when the flames burst out, the Gauls would not stay to oppose his passage across the river.

As Hannibal had foreseen, so it happened. The Gauls, to their dismay, soon saw that their camp was on fire, and