Streams of History: Ancient Rome (Yesterday's Classics) (5 page)

Let us take the map and follow Hannibal and see the difficulties he met and how he overcame them. Leaving his brother, Hasdrubal, with an army to watch Spain, he started out in the spring of 218 B.C., with an army of ninety thousand foot-soldiers, twelve thousand cavalry and thirty-seven elephants. At first he marched northward and crossed the Pyrenees Mountains. In doing so he had to fight step by step the wild Spaniards who occupied the mountain passes, and so lost many men. Some of his troops were left to hold the conquered lands, while others were sent home because they were not brave enough for Hannibal. This left Hannibal fifty thousand foot-soldiers, nine thousand cavalry, and thirty-seven elephants, or two-thirds as many men as he started out with.

Now let us imagine how this army looked. There were but few Carthaginians in it, for as I told you, Carthage hired most of her troops of other nations. She gathered them in as she did her commerce, from all parts of the earth. There were thousands of Celts, or Gauls, from the mountains of Spain, who were, therefore, quite used to fighting. These wore a white woolen tunic, with red edges, and carried a shield of bull's hide, a spear and a cut-and-thrust sword. There were other Gauls, in kilts, or naked to the thigh, with their huge shields, a spear and a long, broad sword, which they wielded very skillfully. There were also two thousand slingers and some archers from the Balearic Islands just east of Spain. Nowhere else in the world were there slingers like these. They carried two slings, one for throwing long distances and one for short. They threw both stones and metal bullets.

There were also troops from Africa. Being used to the warm country, they wore but little clothing, covering their shoulders with a cloak, or the skin of a goat, leopard or lion, while their legs were bare. Then, there were the Numidian cavalry of Africa, who were the best horsemen in the world. In these lay Hannibal's greatest strength. The Numidian tribes of the desert went almost without clothing, being covered sometimes with a leopard or tiger skin, and sometimes with a mere girdle of skin around the waist. They used no saddle or bridle in riding, but guided their small wiry horses by their voice or with a slender rod, or stick. These horsemen, always plucky and tireless, were very skillful in the use of the spear.

The elephants were used to charge upon the enemy, whom they trampled down. Towers were also fastened to their backs, and these were filled with archers and slingers.

The army carried along with it but little baggage, for Hannibal had so far to go and wished to go so quickly that he took along but little heavy material. The baggage-train consisted of horses and mules. Carts were not employed till after they reached Italy.

Although Hannibal's army was made up of people of different nations and various languages, yet it was perhaps the best-trained army in the world; for since the first day that Hannibal had taken command, his keen eye and wise judgment had been selecting officers and men who would laugh at the hardships of war and stand like a wall before the Roman sword.

Now let us return to the march. Hannibal had no trouble till he reached the Rhone, a swift and dangerous river, fed by Alpine snows. Here were two great dangers: first, it was a great question how to get the army and elephants across the river, when they had no boats; and second, a large army of Gauls were on the opposite side of the river and threatened to destroy his army should he attempt to get across. Some men would have given up under such difficulties, but Hannibal was neither worried nor discouraged. He bought all the boats he could from the natives and made large rafts himself. While he was doing this, he sent Hanno, one of his best generals, with some troops, quietly up the river to a shallow place, where they crossed without difficulty. When Hannibal attempted to cross, the Gauls faced him in full force, but just then Hanno attacked them in the rear. So surprised were the Gauls that they were completely routed, and Hannibal with his army crossed in safety. The elephants became very much frightened at the floating earth-covered rafts on which they were led, and some of them jumped off into the water, drowning their drivers. The water was not so deep but that the elephants could walk on the bottom, with their trunks thrust up out of the water to breathe. Thus not an elephant was lost.

For sixteen days Hannibal now marched through a rich country of half-friendly Gauls, till he came to the foot of the Alps. Here he did deeds so famous that they will not be forgotten so long as Hannibal himself is remembered. There is no one thing, perhaps, that has made Hannibal famous so much as his pluck and bravery in crossing the Alps, and I must now tell you just a little about it.

One time, as the soldiers and the baggage-train were struggling upward along a narrow mountain-path, the natives, from the heights above, hurled javelins, and rolled huge blocks of stone upon them. It looked for a time as if the whole army would be dashed into the gorges below. But Hannibal restored order, took a position of great danger, and when night came on sent a body of troops above the natives, who came upon them by surprise. By desperate fighting and with great loss of beasts and baggage the gorge was cleared, and the worn and weakened army moved on.

After nine days of cold, hunger and climbing, the army reached the small plain at the summit of the Alps, where the discouraged troops were given two days' rest. Hannibal cheered them by pointing their gaze in imagination to the walls of Rome and to the comforts and spoils soon to be theirs in the sunny plains of Italy. After the short rest, amid the storms of snow, they began to descend the southern slope. This being steeper and covered with fresh snows, made it more dangerous for both beasts and men than the ascent of the northern slope had been. Men and horses often lost their footing and plunged to their death in the gorges below. Once they had to stop for three days to cut a road through solid rock large enough for the elephants to pass along. The great beasts suffered severely from hunger and cold, for surrounded by the great snowfields and ice it was very different from their natural surroundings on the sunny plains of northern Africa.

After nine days they reached the foot of the mountains, ragged, weak and worn. Over half of the army, that is, thirty-three thousand men, had been lost. It now numbered but twenty-six thousand. It was this little handful of worn-out men and a few half-starved beasts that were to be thrown against the gigantic power of Rome, with millions of men for the army and the largest cavalry then in the world. But Hannibal was at their head.

Hannibal's army was now among its friends, the Gauls, who dwelt in the sunny valley of the Po, south of the Alps, and it halted there for food. While it rests for a few weeks and the starving beasts are fed till they are strong again, let us look at the Roman army Hannibal has to meet. Its real strength lay not in its splendid cavalry, but in the common foot-soldier, who fought for his home, his little farm, his gods and his nation. Any Roman citizen from his seventeenth to his forty-sixth year might be called upon to serve twenty campaigns in the infantry and ten in the cavalry.

The Roman soldier, as he marched behind the flag with the "eagle of Jove" perched on top of the staff, looked quite different from our soldier-boy in blue. Besides his tunic (a woolen shirt coming to the knees, bound round the waist by a girdle), he had his implements of warfare, consisting first of his armor of defense, and second of offensive armor and weapons. The helmet, shield, breastplate and greave formed his armor of defense. The helmet, shaped like a cap, served as a protection for the head. It was made of bronze and had a plume of three black or scarlet feathers in it to make the soldier look grander and taller as he went on the march or engaged in the battle. The shield was about four feet long by two and a half feet broad, and was slightly curved, so that it would fit snug about the body and not present a flat surface, easily pierced by the enemy's spear. This shield was carried on the left arm. It was made of two boards of the size of the shield, which were glued together. The outer surface was covered, first with a coarse canvas, and then with a calf's hide. An iron rim was put on the upper edge so that the shield could not easily be split or injured by the downward stroke of a sword in the hands of the enemy. The under edges were also protected by an iron rim so that it might not be injured when resting on the ground. This shield was not found strong enough at all times to resist the flying spears and hurled stones of the slingers in the hands of the enemy, so later the outward surface was covered with iron.

The wealthy soldiers wore an armor about their breasts. This was much like a vest and was made of strips of iron running up and down, which were fastened together crosswise by strong strips of leather. This armor protected the upper part of the body from the swords of the enemy. In addition to this, most of the soldiers wore a brass plate, nine inches square, as a protection to the breast. In a combat with the sword the Roman soldier advanced his right foot. As a protection to his leg he wore a legging, called a greave. This was shaped like the half of a boot-leg split up and down, and was made of metal to fit the front and sides of the leg. It was lined with leather or cloth, so as not to rub the soldier's leg. It extended from the ankle to just above the knee. Sometimes the soldier wore greaves on both legs, for he advanced his left foot when he hurled the spear.

His weapons of attack consisted of the sword and two spears. The sword was worn on the right side. It had a strong straight blade and was used for both cutting and thrusting. Besides the sword he carried two spears, which were his chief weapons in battle. They were almost seven feet long, including the handle, and about three inches thick. The shaft was four feet and a half long, and a barbed iron head, of the same length, extended halfway down the shaft to make it firm.

In addition to these implements the soldier, when in marching order, usually carried enough food to last two weeks, three or four oak stakes to help form the fence about the camp, and several tools, such as hammers and augers. Altogether he carried a burden of from sixty to eighty pounds, and was trained to march twenty miles a day. He was taught to swim rivers, to climb mountains, to penetrate forests, to wade swamps, and to meet and overcome every kind of danger that a life of war could lead him into.

The Romans, always on the watch when they stopped for the night, built a strongly fortified camp to guard against surprises. Around the square camp was dug a ditch fifteen feet deep. The dirt was thrown on the inside and formed a wall ten feet high. Then the oak stakes carried by the soldiers were driven firmly into the dirt wall. These stakes had sharp points at the top, so as to make them hard to climb over. The camp was also strongly guarded by sentinels. So you see it must have been almost impossible to surprise the Roman soldier at night.

The great weakness of the Roman army was in the fact that it constantly changed its generals. The consuls were the generals, and these, as you know, were elected every year. Rome at this time had over seven hundred thousand soldiers ready at a moment's call to fight for her; and so closely had Rome bound her people to her, and so proud were they to be called Roman citizens, that every soldier's breast and heart were as good a defense for Rome as the armor which he wore.

But now let us go back to the army at the foot of the Alps. The Roman army, even if large and well-armed, was no match for Hannibal. He utterly defeated them in the very first battle in the Po valley. Many Gauls then joined his army, and he marched southward toward the Arno River, which had recently overflowed from the melting of the mountain snows, forming great marshes which were thought to make the roadways impassable. But Hannibal had never met a road he could not pass, and after putting his most trusty troops in front, he gave the order to move. On they went for four days and three nights, sometimes in water to the armpits, and sleeping on baggage and dead animals. All of the elephants, as you remember, had been brought safely across the mountains, but now all except one had died from the effects of the mountain exposure or in battle. Hannibal himself, a part of the time ill, sometimes joking with his soldiers, and never discouraged, made his way through the sea of marshes on the back of this one faithful animal. The exposure was so severe that the great general lost an eye from an inflammation which he was unable to attend to. Nowise discouraged by these hardships, on he went southward toward Rome, destroying the farms and doing all he could to persuade Rome's allies to desert Rome and join him.

One morning, during a heavy fog, he completely defeated and almost destroyed the Roman army in a second great battle, on the shore of Lake Trasimenus, eighty miles northwest of Rome. After this defeat Hannibal hoped Rome's friends would desert her. But seeing Rome defeated did not make her subjects love the old city on the Tiber any the less, for very few of them showed any desire to rise in favor of Hannibal. Notwithstanding he was now very near Rome, he dared not besiege it without the help of the people in the country near by to bring him supplies; so he hastened southward, hoping to gain the support of the Samnites, whom, you remember, Rome fought with and conquered about a hundred years before this time. He thought, too, surely the Greek cities in southern Italy would leave Rome and help him.

Rome now became very much alarmed, and chose Fabius as dictator. Fabius tried a new plan, which was to hang continually at Hannibal's heels and torment him as much as possible, but avoid an open battle. Thus he expected finally to wear out Hannibal. For more than a year this method was kept up, while Hannibal marched about almost as he pleased from one fine valley to another, getting plenty of food for his army and trying to make friends with Rome's allies. Many of the Roman farms were now falling into a desolate condition because the armies had so badly overrun them. For this reason Rome to a great extent had to depend on Sicily and Egypt for her grain.

Once Fabius thought he had Hannibal penned up in a small valley in southern Italy where he could not get out. But Hannibal ordered some soldiers to climb the hill slopes which hemmed them in and drive before them a number of oxen with lighted fagots on their horns. The Romans, thinking they saw the whole Carthaginian army marching off during the night by torchlight, left the road which they were guarding and made for the steep hill. Hannibal then quietly marched out of his pen by the unguarded road.