Part 6 (2/2)

It was in June 216 BC that Hannibal gained his last great battle in Italy He had remained for many months near the river Ofanto, which runs into the Adriatic, but in the beginning of summer he threw himself into the town of Cannae, used by the Romans as a storehouse for that part of Italy

A Ro swiftly tothe splendid roads, and he had only fifty thousand to cope with the Gauls, and not to be depended on Of the original troops that he had brought from Spain, many were dead, but he was able toof the Numidian horse, and in this respect he was superior to the Roe the fact that the two consuls, Varro and Paulus, hated each other bitterly, and that neither of theh Paulus was a capable soldier and a braveback fro on the san, each should coe that such a very practical nation should have made such a foolish law, but so it was; and on this occasion it once more led, as it was bound to do, to an utter defeat

Hannibal played his usual ga Numidians across the river to insult and tease his eneth Varro exclaimed in wrath that the next day the coinians battle and teach the of the majesty of Rome

In vain the wiser Paulus, who had followed the counsels of Fabius, reasoned and protested Varro would listen to nothing, and orders were given to the army to be ready on the morrow for the attack

The day before the battle Hannibal spent 'in putting the bodies of his troops into a fit state to fight,' as the historian tells us--that is, he made them rest and sleep, and prepare plenty of food for their breakfast Early next an to cross the river, which took several hours, thus leaving their strong camp on the southern bank with only a small force to defend it, and took up their position in the plains, where Hannibal's cavalry had ample room to manoeuvre And, to make matters worse, the consul formed hishampered by each other'seach other in order of battle ions and their allies, a in all to seventy-six thousand men, wore hel-spears In front, the Carthaginian troops looked a mere motley crowd, so various were the dress and weapons of the different nations It is true that the black-skinned Libyans ht have been taken for deserters from the Roman camp, as they, like their enemies, were clad in the same armour and bore the sa littering line, and thought of what it betokened But the Gauls were almost naked, and their swords, unlike those of the Ro, while the Spanish troops were clothed in a uniform of short linen tunics striped with purple In the van, or front of the arent fros and bows

In spite of the faults co his troops, Hannibal's lines were once broken by the heavy-ar by the river were fighting in such deadly earnest that they leaped from their horses and closed man to man But at Cannae, as at Trebia, the honours of the day fell to the Numidians and to the Spanish and Gallic horse coain routed by an army weaker by thirty thousand men than their own; the consul Paulus, and Servilius and Atilius, consuls of the year before, were all dead: only Varro saved his life by a disgraceful flight

Still Hannibal did not h the battle of Cannae decided the waveringto see on which side lay the victory; though the southern half of Italy and many cities of Cah Philip of Macedon promised once more to send shi+ps and men to his support, and thousands of Gauls swarmed into his camp, the are the city with any chance of success He did, indeed, send a of some Roman prisoners, but as before in the case of the Gauls, the envoys were not even given a hearing by the senate

Till he got reinforcee, Hannibal felt he er when she knew that thehad coo to tell the story of his triu that a feeeks would see the tall-prowed shi+ps sailing up the coast of the Tyrrhene sea, where he now had his headquarters He did not reckon on the jealousy of his success which filled the breasts of the rulers of his country, a jealousy which even self-interest was unable to overcome

Fro to the treachery and baseness of his own nation in the end it proved too heavy for his shoulders

Soon Hannibal began to understand that he would get help froe was very bitter The Rohty or ninety thousandtheinian army was the cause of joy and thankfulness in Rome, for, as Livy says, 'not to be conquered by Hannibal then was more difficult than to vanquish his were now changed, and it was Hannibal as on the defensive The Ro at the heels of Hannibal's arenerals, who adopted the policy of Fabius and were careful never to risk a battle

Thus three years passed away, and Carthage, absorbed in the difficult task of keeping Spain, from which she drew so much of her wealth, in her hands, sent thither all the troops she could round in the peninsula

In Italy the as shi+fting to the south, and about 213 BC Hannibal was besieged in the town of Tarentuulf on which the city was situated The alarreat; escape seemed iht across a little spit of land that lay between the gulf and the open sea When darkness fell, the boards were greased, and ox-hides stretched tightly over theed along the boards and launched on the other side, and when all the shi+ps were afloat, they formed in a line and attacked the Roman vessels, which were soon sunk or destroyed

It was deeds such as these which showed the power Hannibal still possessed, and kept alive the Roman dread of him; yet he himself knew that the triudo from her

In Sicily, which had once been hers, and even now containedRoed by Appius Claudius by land and by Marcellus by sea, and its defence is one of the ineer, Archie devices new to the ancient world He made narrow slits in the walls, and behind theh with deadly aiht the s irons, which were shot forth from the ra a lever the vessels were slowly raised till they stood nearly upright, when the grapplers were opened, and the shi+ps fell back with a splash that generally upset the crew into the sea, or were filled ater and sunk to the bottoreat vessels with four h boats, worked by banks of oars, the shortest row being, of course, the lowest, nearest the water

After a while the Roht do next, that they thought every end of loose rope that was lying about hid soineer kept the enemy at bay, but in the end the power of Rome conquered; the beautiful s and statues which had been the glory of Syracuse were carried to Rome

Just at this tiinians The young Scipio, who had saved his father's life nine years before at the battle of the Ticinus, was, at the age of twenty-six, reat soldier, Scipio was a good states men to his side Multitudes of natives flocked to his standard, and many important places fell into his hands; and in his hour of victory he wasas possible In the words of the people the that for the time, at any rate, all was lost in Spain, Hasdrubal set out with an arne, in the centre of Gaul, where he spent the winter, large nu he crossed the Alps by the same pass as Hannibal But the difficulties of nine years earlier were now absent, for the mountaineers understood at last that no evil to theinian ar to hurt them Traces of Hannibal's roads re perhaps of sixty thousandand descended into the plains of the Po But it was all useless; before Hasdrubal could join Hannibal, as still in Apulia, the consul Nero, encamped near by at the head of a considerable force, eneral to his brother

Instantly taking steps to have the roads to the north watched by arht with a picked detachment to meet the consul Livius on the coast of the Adriatic, south of the river Metaurus Night and day his ht theone two hundred ht, so that the Carthaginian generalNero insisted, against the opinion of the other generals, that battle should be given immediately, as he must return and meet Hannibal at once In vain they protested that his troops were too tired to fight; he shut his ears, the signal was sounded, and the army drawn up