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nibal had merely sought to occupy the left cavalry wing of the enemy, that he might bring Hasdrubal with the whole regular cavalry to bear against the weaker right and to overthrow it first. After a brave resistance, the Roman horse gave way, and those that were not cut down were chased across the river and scattered in the plain; Paullus, wounded, rode to the centre to avert, or, if not, to share the fate of the legions. These, in order the better to follow up the victory over the advanced infantry of the enemy, had changed their front disposition into a column of attack, which, in the shape of a wedge, penetrated the enemy's centre. In this position they were warmly assailed on both sides by the Libyan infantry wheeling in upon them right and left, and a portion of them were compelled to halt in order to defend themselves against the flank attack; by this means their advance was checked, and the mass of infantry, which was already too closely crowded, now had no longer room to develop itself at all.

Meanwhile Hasdrubal, after having completed the defeat of the wing of Paullus, had collected and arranged his cavalry anew and led them behind the enemy's centre against the wing of Varro. His Italian cavalry, already sufficiently occupied with the Numidians, was rapidly scattered before the double attack, and Hasdrubal, leaving the pursuit of the fugitives to the Numidians, rallied his squadrons for the third time, to lead them against the rear of the Roman infantry. This last charge proved decisive. Flight was impossible, and no quarter was given. Never, perhaps, was an army of such size annihilated on the field of battle so completely, and with so little loss to its antagonist, as was the Roman army at Cannæ. Hannibal had lost not quite 6,000 men, and twothirds of that loss fell upon the Celts, who sustained the first shock of the legions. On the other hand, of the 76,000 Romans who had taken their places in line of battle 70,000 covered the field, amongst whom were the consul Lucius Paullus, the proconsul Gnæus Servilius, two-thirds of the staff-officers, and eighty men of senatorial rank. The consul Marcus Varro was saved solely by his quick resolution and his good steed, reached Venusia, and was not ashamed to sur

vive the disaster. The garrison also of the Roman camp, 10,000 strong, were for the most part made prisoners of war; only a few thousand men, partly of these troops, partly of the line, escaped to Canusium. Nay, as if in this year Rome was to be altogether ruined, before its close the legion sent to Gaul fell into an ambush, and was, with its general, Lucius Postumius, who was nominated as consul for the next year, totally destroyed by the Gauls.

This unexampled success appeared at length to mature the great political combination, for the sake of which Hannibal had come to Italy. He had indeed based his plan primarily upon his army; but with accurate knowledge of the power opposed to him he designed that army to be merely the vanguard, in support of which the powers of the west and east were gradually to unite their forces, so as to prepare destruction for the proud city. That support, however, which seemed the most secure, namely, the sending of reinforcements from Spain, had been frustrated by the boldness and firmness of the Roman general sent thither, Gnæus Scipio.

After Hannibal's passage of the Rhone, Scipio had sailed for Emporiæ, and had made himself master first of the coast between the Pyrenees and the Ebro, and then, after conquering Hanno, of the interior also (536). In the following year (537) he had completely defeated the Carthaginian fleet at the mouth of the Ebro; and after his brother Publius, the brave defender of the valley of the Po, had joined him with a reinforcement of 8,000 men, he had even crossed the Ebro, and advanced as far as Saguntum. Hasdrubal had indeed in the succeeding year (538), after obtaining reinforcements from Africa, made an attempt in accordance with his brother's orders to conduct an army over the Pyrenees; but the Scipios opposed his passage of the Ebro, and totally defeated him, nearly at the same time that Hannibal conquered at Cannæ. The powerful tribe of the Celtiberians and numerous other Spanish tribes had joined the Scipios; they commanded the sea, the passes of the Pyrenees, and, by means of the trusty Massiliots, the Gallic coast also. Now, therefore, support to Hannibal was less than ever to be looked for from Spain.

On the part of Carthage, as much had hitherto been done

in support of her general in Italy as could be expected. Phoenician squadrons threatened the coasts of Italy and of the Roman islands, and guarded Africa from a Roman landing, and there the matter ended. More substantial assistance was prevented, not so much by the uncertainty as to where Hannibal was to be found and the want of a port of disembarkation in Italy, as by the fact that for many years the Spanish army had been accustomed to be self-sustaining, and above all by the murmurs of the peace party. Hannibal severely felt the consequences of this unpardonable inaction; in spite of all his saving of his money and of the soldiers he had brought with him, his chests were gradually emptied, the pay fell into arrear, and the ranks of his veterans began to thin. But now the news of the victory of Cannæ reduced even the factious opposition at home to silence. The Carthaginian senate resolved to place at the disposal of the general considerable assistance in money and men, partly from Africa, partly from Spain, including 4,000 Numidian horse and 40 elephants, and to prosecute the war with energy in Spain as well as in Italy.-T. MOMMSEN.

HANNIBAL AND SCIPIO AFRICANUS.

Fabius Maximus is said to have compared Hannibal to a flame that suddenly blazes and is as suddenly extinguished. It was a truer, though not perhaps intended for a more generous, saying than those other reports which appear to have been current among the Romans concerning the barbarity of their long-dreaded invader. If he had great vices, of which, however, there is little or nothing authentically related, they were such as he could not escape, being a Carthaginian; and that he was a Carthaginian is likewise the cause of his having been neglected, instead of being supplied from home with all his needs. The best point in his character is the magnanimity which recognized the virtues of his foes and bore with the jealousies and slanders of his countrymen; but the qualities for which he was and has been most distinguished are those of the great warrior, who knew how to hate and how to wreak his hatred by blood and devastation. His career and his character are both more readily appreciated by connecting

them with the condition and history of Carthage, in which, as a declining state, he might, with his peculiar genius, have made himself a tyrant, with greater success than it was possible for him to obtain in seeking distant conquests, while factions, scanty, but passionate, were left to quarrel and to rule behind him. We cannot know him as he was once known, but if there be any security in the bare indications of defective history, it is to be believed that he who sought the friendship of Spaniards, Gauls and Italians through something more than the command of a conqueror, at the same time that he clung with something more than the fidelity of a fellow-countryman to his own Carthaginians in the hour of defeat, though they had scarcely heeded him in the hour of victory, was not only a hero, but a man of heart.

The thought of what Hannibal would have been had he belonged to Rome instead of Carthage, is not only allowable, but necessary, in order to conceive aright of the contrast between him and his nominal conqueror, Scipio. The one had everything to prepare by his own exertions for his campaigns, except so far as his brother and his father had secured the control of Spain; the other was obliged not to prepare so much as to profit by what had been prepared for victory through years of constancy and suffering. The difference between the labors of the two generals is the difference between the fortunes of their respective countries. Rome was in the bloom of her existence. The blood in her veins was in all its purity; the vigor in her arms was in all its prime; and she needed only to be directed where and when the blow was to be struck in order to see her enemies brought low. Scipio was the champion of a cause in itself so strong, and to which he but devoted the enterprise and the power it inspired. His confidence in himself, his knowledge and command of men, and his consultations with the gods, were all the characteristics of his nation, though of course developed in him to a much more than common degree; and while Hannibal's greatness depended altogether upon his remoteness from the common stamp of men in Carthage, Scipio's consisted in his adaptation to his country. It is the same congeniality between the Roman people and their great hero

that accounts for their enthusiasm in his behalf when he returned from Africa. Not only was his triumph celebrated with unexampled magnificence, but it was proposed to set his statue in the squares and temples, and even to make him consul or dictator for life. These unwonted honors had no charm for him who was then a true Roman, and all that he accepted, besides his triumph, was the surname of Africanus, in memory of his renowned achievements at Zama and at Carthage.-S. ELIOT.

THE LAKE OF THRASIMENE.

There be more things to greet the heart and eyes
In Arno's dome of Art's most princely shrine,
Where sculpture with her rainbow sister vies;
There be more marvels yet-but not for mine;
For I have been accustom'd to entwine
My thoughts with Nature rather in the fields,
Than Art in galleries: though a work divine
Calls for my spirit's homage, yet it yields

Less than it feels, because the weapon which it wields

Is of another temper, and I roam

By Thrasimene's lake, in the defiles
Fatal to Roman rashness, more at home;

For there the Carthaginian's warlike wiles
Come back before me, as his skill beguiles.
The host between the mountains and the shore,
Where Courage falls in her despairing files,
And torrents, swoll'n to rivers with their gore,
Reek through the sultry plain, with legions scatter'd o'er

Like a forest fell'd by mountain winds;

And such the storm of battle on this day,
And such the frenzy, whose convulsion blinds
To all save carnage, that, beneath the fray,
An earthquake reel'd unheededly away!
None felt stern Nature rocking at his feet,

And yawning forth a grave for those who lay
Upon their bucklers for a winding sheet;

Such is the absorbing hate when warring nations meet!

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