Part 5 (2/2)

It ell indeed for the Carthaginians that Scipio was not awaiting the his way northwards fro fortress of Placentia on the Po

A the friendly Gallic tribe of the Insubres, to whom Hannibal was united by the bond of hate of Rome, the troops rested and slept, and the horses and elephants grew fat oncethose terrible weeks, and their health had suffered from the bitter cold and the wet clothes, which were often frozen on them To add to this, their food had been as scanty as their labour had been hard, for most of their stores lay buried under the snows of the Alps But in the rich, atered plains of Italy, 'the country and the inhabitants being now less rugged,' as the historian Livy tells us, they soon recovered their strength, and besieged and took by assault the city of Turin, capital of the territory of the Taurini, ere always at ith the Gallic allies of Hannibal

With two Roman armies so near at hand the Gauls did not dare to join hiladly have flocked to his standard Rome itself was filled with consternation at the news that Hannibal, whoht in Spain, was really in Italy, and hastily recalled the troops intended for Carthage, which were still at the Sicilian town of Lilybaeueneral Tiberius instantly sailed with part of the ions to proceed to Ri each man swear that he would reach the city by bedtime on a certain day

If you look at the o, you will be amazed that they kept their oaths, and arrived at Ri daily sixteen miles

Meanwhile Scipio was encamped in Placentia, and Hannibal, who had no ti his best to tempt his enemy into the plain, where his own cavalry could have roo in Placentia, and allowing Hannibal to wear hieneral left the town, crossed the Po, and advanced towards the river Ticino, where he ordered his engineers to build a bridge

It was quite clear that with the two ar delayed, and both coht necessary

The hich Hannibal took to 'encourage' his army, as the Greek historian Polybius calls it, was rather a curious one, and reht in so the Alps he had captured a nu rocks on the head of his ar after, would have put theinians, was never unnecessarily cruel, though he put his prisoners in chains and took care they should not escape He now ordered these young ht before him and placed in the centre of his troops, which were drawn up all round On the ground near him lay some suits of armour, once worn by Gallic chiefs, and a pile of swords, while horses were tethered close by

Making a short speech, he then offered the youngan honourable death at each other's hands Would they take it, or would they rather remain prisoners?

A shout of joy answered him

'Well, then,' said Hannibal, 'you will each of you draw lots which shall fight with the other, and the victor of every pair shall be given armour, a horse, and a sword, and be one of erly forward towards the urns which held the lots, the captives stopped to hold up their hands, as was their custo to their Gods for victory After the lots were all drawn, they took their places, and under the eyes of the aran And when it was finished, and half the fighters lay dead on the field, it was they, and not the victors, ere envied by the soldiers, for having gloriously ended the misery of their lives For in the old world death elcomed as a friend, and seldom was a race

[Illustration: Under the eyes of the arle between the captives,' said Hannibal to his are and Rome The prize of the victors will be the city of Ro the crown of a painless death while fighting for their country Let every man come to the battlefield resolved, if he can, to conquer, and if not to die'

It was in this spirit that Hannibal trained his troops and led theht of the difficulties that lay before hie of the Romans, who rose up from every defeat with a fresh detere they had over Hannibal, and it could hardly be valued too highly Though the councils of the senate who sent forth the troops ht be jealous of each other, yet the great ether had fought for years under the eagles of Rome

Hannibal, on the other hand, had to deal with soldiers of a number of different races, and his latest recruits, the Gauls, though eager and courageous, could not be depended upon in battle When to this is added the fact that Hannibal was in a country which he did not know, a a people who feared Rome even while they hated her, and would desert hin of defeat; that he had to provide daily for the wants of both men and animals, and that for sixteen years he re terror into the hearts of the bravest of the Romans, you may have some little idea of the sort of man he was

Well le of a great reat nation Take away Hannibal, and the Carthaginian forces were at the mercy of Rome

We have no space to describe the various battles in the valley of the Po, in which Hannibal was always the victor At the river Trebia he defeated Scipio in Decey which never failed, till he taught his eneainst hi to chance, and whether his generals were trusted to draw the ene position into the open field, or to decoy it into an a was foreseen, and as far as possible provided against He took care that his troops and his anio into action fresh, well-fed, and well-armed, and more than once had the wounds of both horses and men washed with old wine after a battle That tired soldiers cannot fight was a truth he never forgot or neglected

During the winterthe victory of Trebia, Hannibal pitched his camp in the territories of his Gallic allies, and busied hi friendly advances to the Italian cities which had been forced to acknowledge the headshi+p of Roainst Rome, on their behalf' So the Italian prisoners were set free without ransom, while the Roman captives were kept in close confinement He also sent out spies to collect all the inforh which he had to travel He was anxious, for other reasons, to break up his cans that the Gauls eary and rather afraid of having hi of 217 BC hethe Spaniards and Libyans in front, with the baggage and stores behind them, the Gauls, whoht horse and cavalry in the rear, under his brother Mago There were no elephants to be thought of now, for they had all died of cold after the battle of Trebia North of the Arno was a wide tract of marshland, which had to be crossed before the Apennineall his ca In e of the Alps, for once in thesnows, it was hardly possible to snatch a moment of sleep Many of the oxen fell and died, and when this happened the wearied men stretched themselves on their still warm bodies, and closed their eyes for a short space

At length, after three nights and four days of incessant round was reached, and for a while they rested in peace on the hill of Fiesole, above the Arno